All these years later

I knew very little about the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan before I arrived in Baku; only that there had been a war in the 90's and that Armenia now controlled land which had once been under Azerbaijan control. The war resulted in thousands of Azerbaijani internally displaced people. Apartment blocks in Baku are still occupied with refugees who once lived on the border of Armenia.

Today, some experts describe the dispute as a "frozen conflict." For the most part the physical battle over the land is over (although every week there are skirmishes on the front) but there is no settled peace. Within my first week in the country I realized there was nothing "frozen" about the conflict at all. Animosity, grief and anger still run deep throughout the country. One colleague told me, in all seriousness, that there is a psychological disease named after Armenians for "people who steal other people's things because they think it is theirs."

Several weeks ago Azerbaijan marked the anniversary of the Khojali massacres. Someone in the office forwarded an email around with truly gruesome pictures from the war. Each image showed a civilian victim: a man whose entire body was blown away from the waist down; a baby without a head; random pieces of human body scattered in a field. It was horrifying. And it is the kind of material that keeps the conflict absolutely fresh in the minds of Azerbaijanis. No one is moving on.

At conversation club today, we started talking about the Armenian occupied territories. One young lawyer was born in a part of the country that is now under Armenian control. She worked for two years with landmine victims and recounted her experiences with men missing legs, women missing hands, children who had been burned, scared.

Her father once turned to her and asked to be buried in his home, something she can't promise because in her lifetime, she may never be able to return.

A quiet sadness enveloped the room.

I started to think about how sheltered we are, as Americans, to the atrocities of war. Even in the midst of two overseas wars, our territory has been largely saved from violent attacks since the civil war. Yet we are not as sheltered as we once were. Although I have never experienced anything as horrifying as being physically run out of my home under fire, the closest analogue is most certainly 9/11.

I began to tell the group about my experiences on that day and the weeks following. On the 11th, I worked in a building about two blocks from the White House. There was so little reliable information, cell phones didn't work, and after CNN reported that a bomb exploded at the State Department I spent a good two hours freaking out that Liam had been killed. When he finally reached me on my cell phone we just both started crying. We said "I love you" for that first time that day.

About a week after the twin towers were hit, I traveled to NYC. I so vividly remember approaching the Lincoln Tunnel as lower Manhattan came into view. Big lights shone on the still smoldering ashes of the tower. Our car was silent.

The next day we walked through the financial district. What I remember most is the dust. It blanketed everything. I particularly remember passing one empty shoe store. Expensive heels and boots sat on display in the window but were covered in the thick, charcoal gray ashes from the burning buildings. Each shoe somehow reminded me of a tombstone.

As I was sharing these memories with the women at conversation club, I felt the sadness of those 8 years ago well up in me again. All these years later those feelings of fear and uncertainty still can cause me to lose my balance.

The events of 9/11 and the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan share little in common. But today I was reminded that even after the buildings are repaired, the land reclaimed, the outward signs of conflict gone, it is nearly impossible to patch up the emotional scars.