How Do You See the World? (on writing from a distance)

I never really know if people read my stories. I am often consumed in the process: researching, reporting, crafting, writing, drafting and redrafting. Within minutes of filing my final copy, I am jumping on my next story—or three.

As foreign correspondents, we are oddly isolated. Located thousands of miles from the office, neither fully here nor fully there, we are disconnected, disjointed, floating on remote professional islands with excellent Wi-Fi but little-to-no opportunities for real-life interactions with colleagues or anyone who has read our work.

Often, we work obsessively on a subject, write frantically, and then send it off into the ether, the journalistic equivalent of firing off a Hail Mary pass with your eyes closed and never knowing the end of the play.

Sometimes it feels like my work has no impact at all.   

But I have heard that a great introduction to the work of The Christian Science Monitor is the How Do You See the World Exhibition? currently running adjacent to The Mapparium at The Christian Science Publishing Society and The Christian Science Monitor headquarters in Boston.

The exhibit, located at the beautiful Christian Science Plaza in central Boston, is a sight to see.

The Mapparium takes visitors into an encompassing, perfect stain-glass sphere replica of the world from the 1930s, complete with odd borders of colonial occupations and military conquests that we no longer recognize. Walking through a world so divided, fragmented and unjust instils an empowering sense of how far we have actually come in less than a century.

The tour then takes visitors to a Welcome Hall pavilion showcasing six stories by The Chrisitan Science Monitor from around the globe, each chosen to show how humankind sees the world around them. The world around us.  

Placed on five-foot tall, interactive monitors, each panel takes visitors on a virtual journey into a country, culture, value and worldview.

On a rare visit to The Monitor’s office in Boston in July, I was lucky enough to take a tour of the Mapparium and the exhibit with a group of visitors unaware that a Christian Science Monitor reporter was in their midst.

The stained-glass Mapparium was both solemn and peaceful, radiating a sense that the world is smaller and more intimate than as we actual know it. In hushed voices, the visitors peered at the different continents with strange names and not-right borders. Even the most cynical came away with the prevailing sense that progress, no matter how arduous and threatened, may actually prevail.  

After we exited out from the blue sphere of the Mapparium, we entered the How Do You See the World? exhibit. And then it was my turned to be stunned.

Out of the hundreds of stories from across the globe; out of all the groundbreaking work by talented and fearless reporters and photographers across five continents, they chose a story from Maan, Jordan.

A story about Generosity.

It was a 2019 feature I wrote about As-Sabeel Maan, the volunteer campaign by Maan residents to stop and feed anyone and everyone who passes through Maan during Ramadan near sunset. In giant industrial vats, sweat-drenched volunteers prepare chicken, lamb and rice for 300 underprivileged families and 600 travellers per day.

So what? You may ask. It sounds like just another feel-good piece about generosity, karam, in Ramadan.

Ramadan, with its explicit focus on charity and solidarity with the less fortunate during the long fasting days, naturally lends itself to generosity. With countless charitable associations and individuals across the Muslim world pooling their resources to help the disadvantaged, orphans, widows and refugees, the holy month generates hundreds of stories on generosity each year. There is a reason why we say Ramadan Kareem.

But the significance of this story lies not in the subject, but in its location and that location’s history, both ancient and recent.

Maan has been a historic hub for generosity, providing for travelers and the less fortunate for 1,000 years. It was a critical stop on the Hajj route for pilgrims West of the Arbian Peninsula heading East to Mecca; this was the last town and watering spot before days of the unforgiving Nafud desert, a dangerous, desolate stretch where pilgrims could face scorching temperatures, sandstorms and bandits.

The people of Maan rotated their lives around the Hajj season, each family taking in several or dozens of pilgrims, housing them and feeding them for weeks as they rested before that final, gruelling stretch into the northern Arabian Peninsula.

Maanis even invented a special confectionary for pilgrims to take with them on the final leg of their journey—Kaak al-Maan--ghee-and-aniseed flavored cakes that taste like rich molasses, are packed with energy, and can last for weeks.

When the Hijaz Railway was built by the Ottomans in the early 20th century, Maan became a hub and the last stop where pilgrims could send telegrams and write postcards home to loved ones.  

While Maan was famous for generosity at the turn of the 20th century, at the turn of the 21st, Maan was often associated with unrest.

In 2002, political violence and clashes erupted in Maan over what some residents saw as an over-handed police approach—resentment that nefarious actors took advantage of—leading the state to place the town on a military lockdown. In the 2011 Arab Spring, Maan emerged as a pivotal pillar of the hirak protest movement calling for tackling corruption, ending neoliberal policies and reforming the government. In 2014, when ISIS erupted, it emboldened jihadist sympathisers to hold rallies in the town’s streets. Then the police killing of a local resident, a police manhunt that included home demolitions, and a vendetta the town under curfew and lockdown in 2015.

Over the past two decades, officials in private would try to paint Maan as lawless, unruly, as a reason why Jordan needed ongoing international aid. Western embassies issued travel warnings to its staff and citizens, urging them not to go.

Local media and, sadly, foreign media, sometimes perpetuated this stereotype of Maan being lawless, extreme, harsh and unfriendly. They couldn’t be further from the truth.

The Maan I know is a city of poets and painters, writers and historians, artists and archaeologists, Bedouin shop-keepers who can quote Shakespeare by verse. It is a town where the bonds of friendship are stronger than brotherhood. Most of all, Maanis are kind.

Maan is a town of a proud, empathetic people who are always happy to help and welcome a visitor.

It is a side of Maan I always try to share. Over the past decade, certain officials did not like me sharing this side. My visits to Maan have aroused suspicion and, at times, prompted questioning.

Now, at the How Do You See the World? exhibit, thousands of tourists and visitors to Boston are visiting Maan—virtually—and learning about it.

“Well, will you look at that,” a visitor said to his two young children in front of me, swiping through the screen to a photo of a Maan resident stopping a bus on the Desert Highway while his colleagues pass meal cartons through passengers’ windows. “This town will feed anyone who comes. This is generosity in Islam.”

Another visitor, a man and his daughter, read through the story on the interactive screen: “Everyone wants to help others and be kind. Here they do it in different ways”

Generosity. Kindness. Understanding. These are a universal language. They don’t need me there as an interpreter. The values speak for themselves.

Now, when thousands of people first hear the name “Maan”, it will be for its original reputation, the value at the core of its community: generosity. Those who have never been to Jordan or the Arab world will recognize something humane in that town. Some may even learn something about Islam along the way.

I will never meet the vast majority of the people who visit the How Do You See the World? exhibit, just as I will never meet 99.9% of my readers. But the words will be read. And for some, those words—those lessons—will stay with them.

This is a legacy that will outlive me. It will stay in memories long after my name is forgotten. This will last way past the faded ink on my final printed words.

And that is good.