This is the 100th year anniversary of the Christmas Truce that occurred between British, French, and German troops in the trenches along the Western Front on 24 December 1914. The story has been told and retold many times, and I don’t intend to retell it here–rather, I’d like to spend a moment to talk of my own experience in Afghanistan in December 2007.
I had gotten out to the Afghanistan theater just a few weeks before and had found myself in charge of coordinating intelligence sharing between Afghan, Pakistani, and ISAF forces. In addition to US and NATO personnel, my colleagues included six Afghan and six Pakistani senior officers.
In 2007, the celebration of Christmas and Eid al-Adha coincided within a few days. So we celebrated the holidays together.
Eid al-Ada, or the Feast of the Sacrifice, celebrates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael (for those that don’t remember, it is Isaac in the Judeo-Christian tradition).
The Pakistanis had a tradition of beginning our morning intelligence briefings with a passage from the Quran–something regulations would not allow us to reciprocate with readings from the Bible. Since Eid was near our Christmas, the senior Pakistani officer read the passages about Mary (the only woman mentioned by name in the Quran) and the virgin birth of the prophet Isa (our Jesus). Both Mary and Isa are important in the Quran, but in very different ways than in the Christian Bible. We discussed the differences and similarities between the stories and the traditions.
That afternoon we shared sweets from Pakistan, almonds and dried fruits from Afghanistan, and oatmeal cookies and Christmas cakes from our families in the US. We shared stories of our homes and families.
It seems like a little thing–but it was time out from the conflicts and disagreements of an uneasy alliance. It was, as was the truce on the Western Front a century ago, a time to appreciate what we had in common.
Merry Christmas Eve.
