Isn’t it strange how clear one’s memories are during iconic moments? For instance, everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when President Kennedy was assassinated, or when the World Trade Center went down on September 11th 2001.
In my case, when JFK met his end, I wasn’t even a twinkle in my mother’s eye, born as I was in 1965. Yet on September 11th, 2001, I was here in Malaysia, working in a local private college, and I was coming into the office at the start of the day. It goes to show how we can find ourselves doing very ordinary, mundane things while the whole world changes forever...
One of the many aftershocks of that day in 2001 was that Iraq became after 2003 a no-fly zone for airliners, presumably because there were too many military planes flying around firing very unpleasant ordinance which might go astray. During the American-led ‘liberation’ of the downtrodden people of that country, and the resulting bloodletting, all commercial flights were diverted to the North and East on their way from my part of the world to Europe.
I thought they still were, to be honest, so you can imagine my shock and awe (!) when I looked on the little moving map on the seat in front of me on the way to London three weeks ago and saw that the little aeroplane symbol was heading right over the iconically news-worthy and dangerous Iraqi cities of Mosul, Najjaf, and Basra! Luckily, I couldn’t see if there were any guided missiles heading for my plane outside, because it was dark.
So, then, I can definitely remember where I was and what I was doing at this important moment in my life when I flew over Iraq for the first time since the war, on 28th June 2008. I was squeezed into the aircraft’s aft toilet, doing what comes naturally in such high places. Fairly appropriate given where I was flying!!
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