Hussain and his Fulbright fellows from all around the world visit a high school in Phoenix, Arizona, in February.

Hussain, like many of his compatriots, uses only his first name because he fears violence directed at himself or his family. For the same reason, he decided to stay at his university campus in Arkansas last January when the State Department invited him to meet President George W. Bush in Washington D.C. to mark Iraq’s first democratic election. “I don’t want to submit myself to death,” he says. “I am very recognizable in photos.” Hussain has heard enough about terrorists simply opening fire at people whom they identify as having gone to the United States or the United Kingdom.

Compared with the first group of Iraqis who were granted Fulbright scholarships in 2004 to study in the U.S. after 14 years of interruption — all met President Bush and Colin Powell at a White House reception their first year — only a handful of people in the second group showed up to the latest meeting with the president last January. Hussain said most of them come from southern and northern Iraq, where it is safer.  

The State Department blamed limited attendance on short notice and said that not all current Iraqi Fulbright recipients — 34 of them — were invited to the informal event.  However, according to some of the Iraqi intellectuals, many stayed home either in fear for their lives or to avoid the tormenting questions about the conflict taking place in their motherland.

The Fulbright scholarship is a cornerstone of U.S. public diplomacy, credited with forming a network of leaders around the world that are knowledgeable about, and sympathetic to, the U.S. government. But for many current Iraqi students — men and women ranging in age from their mid-20s to their late-40s — studying subjects such as public health, journalism, international affairs, and English at top American universities, the award is also a bit of a curse. Years of embargo make studying in an American university a lifetime opportunity for ambitious young Iraqis looking to obtain the education they need to help rebuild their country (Fulbright requires grantees to leave the U.S. after studying). But an association with the U.S. could also mean death for them and members of their family.

Although all of them seem uniformly happy that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power, they are painfully watching the news from home for signs of civil war. And many blame unfair, insensitive, and poorly designed American policies for the clashes among Sunnis and Shiites and the way post-dictatorship democracy in Iraq seems to be going awry.

Worry and wait

It was hard for Dr. Ali Fadhil, a 29-year-old medical doctor turned filmmaker who is studying journalism at New York University, to shake his mind of the image of American soldiers after he arrived in New York City in January. His three-year-old daughter runs to grab him in fear whenever a garbage truck stops outside their apartment in Brooklyn. The sound from the truck is similar to that of the explosives that U.S. troops used to shatter the door to his Baghdad house in January. Soldiers mistakenly suspected the award-winning filmmaker was involved in the abduction of the American journalist Jill Carroll. “I know that people on the streets here are different from the U.S. army in Baghdad,” he says. But it seems he has to keep reminding himself of that fact.

Tucked away in America’s most elite campuses, Iraqi scholars remain safe for now. But with grim thoughts and the shadow of omnipresent danger looming larger in their lives, the biggest group of Iraqi Fulbright students still call each other to share feelings of warmth and worry. They place phone calls from New York to Philadelphia, Kansas to Ohio, anytime they hear about a bombing at home to make sure their families are safe. Last year, a brother of a Fulbrighter was killed by insurgents.

Mohamed, a Fulbright scholar from Baghdad who is studying in Kansas, is worried because his elder brother wants to continue working as a policeman, even though he was shot and seriously wounded by insurgents last November. “He wants to show them that he is not afraid. But I don’t want him to do that. The situation is too dangerous now.”

With three of his children in Baghdad, another student, Hussain, feels sad when he imagines them seeing corpses on the sidewalks on their way to school. He observes that many Iraqi women now wear a veil because of threats made by fanatical groups, a precaution that they never had to take during Saddam’s regime. Friends at home tell him that the number of flies and sandstorms have increased rapidly in Baghdad due to the deteriorating environment.

However, Hussain doesn’t have any hatred toward the U.S. “I feel sad, the same way when I hear either Iraqi people or American[s] die,” says the 46-year-old with a salt-and-pepper beard. His sunburnt face has a look of calmness and wisdom. “I hate violence. I hate war. I love all people to live, not to die. I understand the American army as a tool to manipulate the policies designed by politicians here in the White House.”

Questions for the president

Hussain doesn’t hate Bush. “Bush is good [for his country]. He attracts terrorists from all over the world to Iraq in order to make them forget about attacking America. Iraq becomes a battlefield for terrorists.” The master’s degree candidate in comparative literature at the University of Arkansas says Iraq is a laboratory for the Americans to study terrorism. He expects the war to end in six to eight years. “The U.S. opens Iraq’s borders intentionally. All extremists in the world can go to Iraq to join terrorist cells without any papers.” He said the American army is well shielded, so few of them have been killed. But the Iraqi people are not shielded and Iraq is bleeding. “About 15 Iraqis die every day. Why should war exist in Iraq?”

Dr. Fadhil says he would love to meet the president. “I would thank Mr. Bush for removing Saddam; at the end this is the only major achievement that all Iraqis agree on,” said the filmmaker, who became a journalist by chance when a Guardian reporter asked him to work as a translator in 2003. “But it is not worth it for hundred[s of] thousands of Iraqis to die. We got nothing after Saddam — no jobs, no security, and no better life.”

Fadhil was chosen the U.K. Foreign Press Association’s Young Journalist of the Year in 2005 for his coverage of the Fallujah aftermath on Channel 4 news, which the association said “was the first independent witness account of the battle and questioned the U.S. military’s claim that the city was getting back to normal by confirming that no aid agencies were operating inside the city. His footage shows images of bodies rotting in the streets, open sewers, and refugees living in tents.” He would like to ask President Bush ten questions from “ordinary Iraqis who had their homes destroyed by the U.S. troops, and people who lost their beloved ones for the sake of the so-called democracy that is not there in Iraq now.” He would like to ask what President Bush thinks about the fact that human lives in the “shredded” Iraq are so cheap, except those of Americans and top officials.

Another Fulbrighter from Baghdad, who declines to be named, says, “I hate when the Americans say that they are shifting the anti-terrorism battlefield to Iraq. It really pisses me off. This is the city where I live. Why is there terrorism in my city? They didn’t think about me or about my people when they declared that. Who gave them this authority?” He laments, “Don’t they think of [the] 25 millions people living there, who are killed and being killed everyday? Nobody cares for Iraqi civilians.”  

Open borders

Hussain and Mohamed believe that fanatic Islamism has come through the borders, brought in by foreign fighters. They say that border security is miserable and that people can easily transport money and weapons to support terrorists into or out of Iraq.

Hussain said that Iraqis would not plan suicide bombings or kill their neighbors, and cites the fact that terrorism was brought to Iraq after the war, not under Saddam Hussein. More proof is that three months after the war, Iraq was stable, apart from theft, robbery, and kidnapping “which have nothing to do with terrorism,” before the terrorists infiltrated Iraq.  

He said that some Iraqi people — most of them former Baath and intelligence members who lost the benefits they had under Saddam — are helping the foreign fighters. Hussain blames it on the American decision to dissolve the former Iraqi army. “This is one of the biggest mistakes made by the U.S. in Iraq,” he says, “These people are well-trained to protect Iraq and guard the borders. They lost their job[s] but need to feed their families. Foreign terrorists are clever enough to pay them good salaries and make use of them.”

Sectarian division strategy

Most Fulbrighters interviewed tend to think that the Americans trust people according to how much they endured under Saddam’s regime and that this creates further divisions between ethnic groups and sectarians.

“When the Americans first came to Iraq in 2003, most translators, subcontractors, or anyone closest to the Americans was Kurdish. They took the people who Saddam tortured most as their best allies. They did not trust all people. They did not know enough about Iraq,” said an Iraqi Fulbrighter from Baghdad who declined to be named.

“The U.S. is creating enemies day by day, not friends,” says Hussain. He and Ali believe that the malicious divisions in Iraq now are the result of the Americans’ sectarian division strategy. Ali describes the sight of many Sunnis waiting along the international highway to welcome American troops. But according to him, their attitude toward the U.S. cooled down after the Americans gave their support to the Shiites who held government power. “The Sunnis were close to the U.S., but now they are enemies because the U.S. supports the Shiites and the Kurds at the expense of the Sunnis. They consider Sunnis as supporters of Saddam,” says Hussain, “The Americans don’t know our country enough. They treated the sects of Iraq unfairly and wrongly.”

Dr. Fadhil suggests another reason for the chaotic situation in Iraq: 30 years of powerlessness and isolation from the outside world. “Iraqi people live[d] inside Saddam’s prison for many years and the Americans freed them, like opening a cage for the criminals,” said Fadhil. “Everyone wants to be on top of each other. Everyone is Saddam now.”

There is no consensus among Iraqi Fulbrighters on the subject of American troop withdrawal. Mohamed believes that American troops should stay. “If the U.S. troops pull out, the country will be controlled by fanatics and extremists. There is already a small-scale ‘civil war’ carried on by some armed groups against civilians from both sects,” he said.  

But Dr. Fadhil thinks things will only improve after U.S. troops are gone. He sees the deadly drift of Iraq into a civil war as having already begun. “But yet it will cure Iraq afterward,” says Fadhil. With a Sunni father and a Shiite mother, Fadhil doesn’t believe that people from the two sects can continue to hate each other because they have been living with each other for thousands of years. “The civil war will upscale when the troops pull out. But the American cannot solve this malicious legacy. The only way to solve it is to let the Iraqi find [his] own way to get out of the manipulation.”  

Understanding Iraq’s “own way” — its culture and history — is a problem for the American troops in Iraq, some of the Fulbrighters contend. Hussain says that Iraqis find it offensive when U.S. soldiers say “hey” to them, a greeting that in Iraq is used only to call animals. “More seriously is the way the U.S. army seems to have little regard for the life of Iraqi civilians. They kill civilians on the street,” he asserts, as a result of overreaction and fear of insurgency. “[America’s] tanks sometimes tread on civilian cars in traffic jams and the like,” says Hussain.

“Do you think Iraq is a primitive country?”

The sadness and tension in Hussain’s face temporarily disappears as he sips a glass of California red wine at a reception in Phoenix, organized by the U.S. State Department to introduce Iraqi scholars to America last February. The sky is clear, lighted by a full moon. The desert air is warm and comfortable, although the area hasn’t had a drop of rain for four months.

“What do you think of America?” asks his host, an American woman who is a member of Phoenix’s City Council. “I should not say anything because my judgments may be wrong now. I cannot judge other culture from my own cultural background. I should live more with American people before I can say anything,” Hussain replies. His face has a look of experience. “Do you think Iraq is a primitive country?” he asks. “No, no,” the woman responds in a hesitant, almost nervous, voice.

Hussain’s wide eyes present an expression of pain. “We are a civilized country. We have 500 registered scientists. One of them is working for NASA. We can build two-storey bridges, construct refineries and chemical plants, and the like.”

Hussain is angry about how the Western media portrays Iraq. “They do that to show the world that Iraq desperately needs the American help. But Iraq is full of energy. It can restructure the country on its own in a secure atmosphere.”

The feeling that American people are ignorant about Iraq motivates him to study translation. “Translation is a problem between cultures. I would like to learn how to convey meaning in all senses, helping [to] remove all cultural problems that stand between countries. I am happy to understand people from the other side and make my people understand them, too.”  

After going home in 2007, he plans to work as an interpreter to help reduce misunderstandings between the Iraqis and Americans.  

Hussain becomes sad when he thinks about his five-year-old son, Baqir. Every day, the boy with big brown eyes waits behind the wooden door to receive a banana from his father as usual. He waits for hours and hours until the sunlight dies over the window, the streets, and the Baghdad International Airport nearby. His mother is cooking in the kitchen. But Baqir wants to wait and eat with Hussain. Whenever his father calls, Baqir asks why he hasn’t come home for a long time even though he still talks to him on the phone like he is in his office. Hussain has not told his son where he is.

“If he knew, he would tell everybody that I am in America,” Hussain says with a sad voice, horrified to remember how his children were often asked in kindergarten if their parents ever said anything bad about Saddam Hussein. “The terrorists consider anyone who goes to America a traitor or a secret agent. They cannot wait for me to come home. They will kidnap my child and kill him.”  

Although he misses his family very much, Hussain has a single entry visa, and cannot leave the U.S. until he finishes the two-year program. He was stunned when he found out that all Fulbrighters could bring family with them to the U.S. except Iraqis. Like most Iraqi Fulbrighters, Hussain prays at home and avoids Muslim mosques in America or events where he may be recognized by other Iraqis.

Although the Fulbright is often considered one of the most competitive and prestigious scholarships in many countries, only the Iraqi Minister where Hussain worked knows Hussain received it. He told his neighbors and colleagues that he would be studying in Canada “because Canada doesn’t send army to Iraq.” His friend, Mohamed, has told people he studies in Germany.  

Now, as the situation at home deteriorates, Hussain tells family members to build a big steel gate to protect the house. He intends to cut short his studies to return to Iraq early, even though it may be dangerous if his status as a Fulbrighter is revealed.

The first five Iraqi Fulbrighters went home recently. “There is lots of reluctance to leave,” Hussain says, “Half of the Iraqi Fulbrighters may face death when they go home. Nobody likes to die. But we have to go back to change our country.”

For Dr. Fadhil, who plans to return to Iraq to continue filming after finishing his studies, death is not beyond his everyday expectation. He says he can imagine dying in the street in Iraq, because “holding a camera there is like holding a gun.”

At a Fulbright event in February in New York, two Iraqi scholars seemed happy to meet each other. But after a passionate conversation, one woman in traditional black dress, who is studying at Columbia University, left without giving her contact information to the other Iraqi woman from Baghdad. The fear is so deep that some Iraqis have kept strict anonymity, even among fellow scholars.

Hussain, for his part, cannot stop thinking about terrorism. “Terrorism could not be fought by arms, but by mind. We should convince the mind of people about love, peace, respect for all sects, religions through culture and education,” he said, “Iraqi people should be treated with love, not hostility.”

In The Fray Contributor

Iraqi artist Esam Pasha at his studio in New London, Connecticut.

On a warm afternoon in early March, I went to New London, Connecticut to visit Esam Pasha, a 30-year-old Iraqi artist. At the time, Esam lived in an apartment at the Sapphire House, a renovated mansion, owned by the Griffis Art Center, where he was an artist-in-residence. I had met Esam in January at a gallery in New York’s SoHo district, which had opened an exhibit featuring Esam and five others, billed as the first opportunity for Americans to view works by leading contemporary Iraqi artists.

Only six months prior to the exhibit opening, Esam was still living in Iraq. The juxtaposition raised several questions. How did Esam become an artist in the first place? How did he end up in the United States? I also wondered how Esam’s experiences could serve as a window to view and understand Iraq’s past and present.

Sitting in the living room of the Sapphire House, over coffee and countless cigarettes, we began talking. A former national judo champion and discus thrower, Esam has an imposing presence that is offset by a calm demeanor. Flecks of grey in his beard make him look older than he is. Born in Baghdad in 1976, he is one of seven children. His parents divorced in the 1980s. His grandfather, Nuri al-Said, was prime minister until he was assassinated in 1958 as part of the coup that toppled the Iraqi monarchy.

Growing up, Esam studied English at school, which he perfected by watching American movies, and then taught himself three other languages. On weekends, he prowled a book market on Mutanabi Street. It was there that he caught his first glimpses of Western art. He devoured a wide range of art books, but was particularly drawn to Klimt, Miro, Rembrandt, and Durer.

Esam lived through the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, the 1991 Gulf War, and the ensuing sanctions. He worked odd jobs as a teenager in construction, carpentry, and commercial painting before becoming a full-time artist in 1999.

During this period, Iraq suffered years of economic hardship and isolation, and as such, only two art galleries in Baghdad remained open. The only patrons were United Nations and NGO workers who typically requested works depicting scenes of “exotic Arabia.” Even these pieces fetched prices so low it was hardly worth the time and expense of artistry, Esam said. “You would get more money if you just broke a bronze sculpture down and instead sold the bronze.”

The intelligence service, or mukhabarat, kept a watchful eye on Iraqi artists for any sign of dissent. Being seen with foreigners raised suspicions. When Esam got a commission from the U.N’s Baghdad office for a panorama, the mukhabarat made it clear that he should not paint anything political. Stick to landscapes or abstracts, they said.

A sense of paranoia became widespread. Some friends warned Esam about a painting he had lying around his apartment of an eagle soaring down. Government censors could interpret the eagle as symbol of the regime’s demise, they said.

Any remnants of an authoritarian state quickly dissolved as the American military moved into Baghdad. In its place emerged a bonanza of opportunity, particularly for an English-speaker, like Esam.

Esam remembers the early days after the U.S. invasion. After the fall of Baghdad, the Americans set up a base near his home. Officials began recruiting local Iraqis for hire. Esam waited in a separate queue for English-speakers. “I thought I’d have to fill out a lot of paperwork and would hear back from them in a few days or weeks,” he recalls. In less than an hour, though, he was shaking hands with an army captain who hired him on the spot.

After the war, people’s spirits were lifted, Esam said. His fellow Iraqis could express opinions, go to cafés, talk politics, and publish newspapers and magazines. In September, Esam landed a commission to paint the first public mural in post-Saddam Iraq.  

But before he could paint anything, he had to rip down a portrait of the former leader. “I kept peeling back layers,” Esam said, shaking his head. “But each time I did, I discovered another portrait. It took me days before I got to the bottom.”

His thirteen-foot tall mural, described by one critic as “yellow, orange, and purple paint swirling around images of doves, traditional Baghdadi architecture, and the sun rising over a sky-blue mosque,” came to symbolize a crystalline break between past and present, despair and hope. He purposely avoided black paint in this piece because “we needed color, after all those years of suffering.” He named the mural “Resilience.”

However, as security deteriorated by early 2004, Esam was getting nervous. Unlike some translators, he chose not to wear a mask. “My face was well-known,” Esam says. At that point, he began thinking of coming to America.

A Connecticut art dealer, Peter Hastings Falk, read about Esam’s mural and took notice. “I had to find out who this guy was,” Falk recalls now. Hebegan emailing Esam about organizing an exhibit of Iraqi artists.

Esam applied for and was selected as an artist-in-residence at the Griffis Art Center, which he had learned about from Falk. In June 2005, Esam flew to JFK. He initially stayed with Steve Mumford, a New York artist who had worked in Iraq. Falk recalls first meeting Esam, who was carrying a traditional rug he had brought from Iraq as a gift for a friend. “Steve has a walk-up apartment, and we had to lug that rug up those flights of stairs. It weighed a ton.”

When asked if he had experienced any culture shock, Esam said no, but then apologized, sensing his answer was disappointing. “I knew all about Dunkin’ Donuts and Waffle House. I even had Starbucks,” he says, alluding to the time he spent on U.S. army bases in Iraq.    

Since coming to the U.S., he has visited many of the soldiers he worked with at their homes around the country. “We are real friends,” Esam says. “We’re not just polite to each other. When we call each other, it’s not a courtesy call. It’s to discuss real things.”

In his studio behind the Sapphire House, Esam discusses the practical difficulties of being an artist in Iraq. “During the embargo, I had to paint with whatever materials were available, mostly industrial oil paint. It wasn’t the best quality,” he says matter-of-factly. “Paint knives were hard to find, so I just started making my own, but even then, I used them sparingly.”

During the war, Esam was unable to buy oils or acrylics. After scouring his apartment for supplies, he noticed a box of crayons. So he heated a few and began applying the hot wax to a canvas. Pleasantly surprised by the results, he continued working until he produced a triptych, “Tears of Wax.” Falk later told Esam that the technique he employed, using molten wax, has a long history. Known as “encaustic painting” — the ancient technique was actually used by artists in what is present-day Iraq, among other places.

What stands out in Esam’s works is the swirling of color, conveying a sense of unease that runs through his repertoire. The images he employs form a discomfiting tableau: waiting vultures, floating coffins, faceless women, thrashing whales.

The dark mood is a stark reminder that the young artist’s lifetime spans the rule of Saddam Hussein. While Esam is adamant that he does not infuse politics into his art, he does not shy away from contemporary themes either. In one painting, he includes references to Iraq’s three distinct regions—marshes and reed homes for the south; minarets for the center; and mountains for the north. It is an attempt to stress that while differences exist, a national identity binds everyone.

Esam says the question he gets asked most often is whether conditions in Iraq are better or worse than portrayed by the media. Skirting the question, he prefers to talk about Iraqi culture—a topic he says is unfamiliar to most Americans. “It’s not surprising. For thirty years, we were pretty much cut off from everyone. And they were cut off from us. We didn’t have magazines, or satellite dishes, or Internet.”

The government no longer censors its artists, but limited exposure and security concerns make conditions tough, Esam says. The Internet has provided some relief. After the U.S. invasion, for instance, Esam sold several pieces to foreign clients on artvitae.com, a website for artists.

While Esam wants to return to Iraq, he has decided to stay in the U.S. as long as possible because he feels it is best for his career. At the same time, his decision to remain in the U.S. comes at a steep personal price. Esam says he greatly misses his family, all of whom remain in Iraq. Thinking about home, Esam sounds a bit homesick. “I miss just walking down the Tigris,” he says.

Esam has started building a new life. He has a girlfriend and travels to New York frequently to visit friends and museums. He likes New London and the people there, whom he says are “very friendly, kind of like Iraqis.” In July, Esam emailed me to let me know about an upcoming solo exhibition and talk he was giving at the University of Connecticut. He is also working on a memoir, which he hopes to get published.  

In an essay written when he was still in Iraq, Esam summarized his defiant spirit. “I have come to accept the daily electrical blackouts in Baghdad. On a good day, we would have one hour of electricity on and seven or more hours off. I have even come to accept the ever-present dangers of simply getting around Baghdad.” Concluding, he writes: “But I could not accept running out of pigments to create my art.”

Esam’s future, much like his country’s, is uncertain. If he has to return to Iraq, there will be much danger waiting and difficult conditions in which to work. But Iraqis, Esam says, are resilient. He has, after all, been through it before.

In The Fray Contributor

ABC No Rio lets FNB use their kitchen on Fridays and Sundays.

Observing a Food Not Bombs event makes it easier to shop for produce. The moment I touched slime when sorting through old broccoli, deciding which vegetables were safe to feed to the homeless, I realized the silliness of fretting over a dented pepper at the corner bodega.

On a Friday in April shortly before 1 p.m., there was no way inside ABC No Rio, the art and activism hangout on New York’s Lower East Side that lends its kitchen to Food Not Bombs. The doors, marked up with graffiti, were locked, but they also didn’t have handles or knobs. There was a set of four buzzers, but punching them accomplished nothing. A placard next to the stoop read “Culture of Opposition Since 1980.”

Someone spoke up from behind. “Are you here for Food Not Bombs?” A kid with long brown hair hanging across his left eye poked his head around the outside hallway that enclosed the stoop.

He introduced himself as Pat, a high school senior who, instead of going to class, had arranged to spend most of his school days working at the John Heuss House, a homeless drop-in center on Beaver street. For the last few Fridays, though, he’d also been helping out with Food Not Bombs.

Food Not Bombs exists in 46 of the United States and on six continents. Every branch operates independently, but shares the same guidelines: get local grocers to donate ugly produce and other unwanted food, cook up a vegetarian meal (the NYC group is vegan) and serve it to the needy, no questions asked. The ABC No Rio branch gets its food mostly from Perelandra Natural Foods in Brooklyn.

The local Food Not Bombs website says that it was founded on anarchist principles, without leaders or hierarchies. Every Friday and Sunday, anyone who wants to help out with Food Not Bombs can show up in front of ABC No Rio. “There was no walk-in tutorial,” Pat said of his first visit. “It was just, ‘pick up a knife and start cooking.’” When the food is ready, the group brings it over to Tompkins Square Park in the East Village and offers it to anyone who is hungry.

These tomatoes and onions didn’t make the cut due to the puffy white mold near the bottom of the box.

“Usually we talk while we’re making the food, so if you’re willing to cut a tomato they’ll probably tell you what you want to hear,” Pat suggested.

Pat kicked the door a few times and eventually sat down on the steps. He talked about his desire to start carrying rope so he could scale walls, about the origins of his Mao Zedong tee-shirt, which he bought as a novelty item in China, about what he called the self-righteousness of leftists and about Critical Mass, the monthly rally where bicyclists flood the streets of Manhattan to raise awareness for non-pollutant transportation. Pat would be in attendance with his bike that evening.

A college-age girl with the keys to ABC No Rio arrived a few minutes after 1 p.m., gave a brief hello and let us inside.

The house rules certainly didn’t ban writing on the walls; every vertical surface was covered with graffiti, and a blacklight in the hallway gave an intimidating glow to the cryptic art. The girl led us to the second floor kitchen, where someone had neatly written in marker on the door, “Food Not Bombs Mash the Potatos Smash the State.” (A superscript “E” was wedged into “Potatos” to fix the typo.) We finally introduced ourselves — her name was Rudi.

Diane helps prepare a tomato and tofu salad.

We went back downstairs to grab the groceries. Rudi pulled out the food from a sliding-door fridge: an extra-long milk crate full of red, orange, yellow and green peppers, a damp cardboard box of lettuce, broccoli and indiscernible foliage, a crate of cucumbers and squash and an industrial-size trash bag full of bread.

The menu is dictated by what they receive from the stores, and Rudi decided to make stuffed peppers because there were so many. Potatoes, she said, are a popular donation in the winter. A lot of the donations are bread and produce so there’s usually a need to buy extra ingredients. Today, rice would be needed to stuff the peppers.

Before cooking, the inedible vegetables had to be discarded. Most of the greens were too slimy to be used, and those that passed the loose standards still had some rotting at the tips, or were covered in brown juice, which had left a stench on everything in the box.

During the sorting, another girl, Rosie, arrived. She had brown-red hair in dreadlocks tied back in a ponytail, and wore eyeglasses and one of those belts with spiky metal studs. When a question arose about a pepper with a brown spot near the stem, Rosie shrugged and said, “It’s Food Not Bombs,” as if to suggest that anything that wasn’t bombs was passable for consumption.

A song by Oingo Boingo played on a boom box while everyone chopped peppers in the dining room and discussed their plans for the next few days — a party here and there, a benefit for May Day Books, the Livewire music and activist festival, the anti-war rally on Saturday and the May Day rally on Monday.

Gaylen strains some potatoes to be mashed.

Meanwhile, Rudi gave money to Rosie to go out and buy rice. “Leader” is too strong of a term for the group’s anarchist principles, but someone has to make sure everything goes as planned. Rudi, an American Studies major at Brooklyn College, has been “bottom-lining” since two Januarys ago. She started visiting ABC No Rio for their weekly punk shows. When her friend, who was in a punk band at the time, went on tour and passed the Food not Bombs job to Rudi’s roommates, they bailed at the last minute and asked Rudi to fill in. Since then, she’s only missed a handful of Fridays, which she blames on oversleeping.

Food Not Bombs will make a temporary move to St. Mark’s Church soon, Rudi said, while renovations are being done on ABC No Rio. After years of legal battles, the administrators at ABC No Rio purchased the building from the city last year, and work is needed to bring it up to code; Rudi pointed out a shoe-sized hole through to the ground floor next to the kitchen sink as a noteworthy issue, and other holes, dents and dilapidations could be seen throughout the building.

A new round of chopping began as another girl, Diane, arrived. Of the group, she had the most radical hairdo — chunks of it were variously shaded, and some of it was randomly clipped to the side of her head. She had been taking time off from The Gallatin School at NYU, and she wore a white shirt with ripped sleeves that said “I (heart) my adjunct professor” on the front. At a later event, she wore a hat that advertised “Balzac,” the balloon ball toy from the mid-90s. She grabbed a knife and chopped onions while Pat chopped garlic, two more items that had to be purchased, since Rudi said it was impossible to cook without them. In the kitchen, Rudi added the vegetables to a pot of tomato sauce. This stew would be added to the rice to create the stuffing for the peppers, which were soon to be placed in the oven.

An older guy with wavy blonde and gray hair named Roger arrived to drop off split pea soup. For the last three or four years, he’s been donating extra food from a local Catholic Worker community. He waxed nostalgic about anarchy in the old days, when the movement was small enough that everyone knew each other. Once the dining room table was clear of stems and stalks, Rudi asked Pat to carry the day’s trash down to the corner, warning him not to get busted for unauthorized dumping. Pat asked me to keep an eye out, but then rushed ahead to the west street corner. He only took a few steps before spotting an officer, and quickly turned around, muttering an expletive, and heading to the opposite end of the block, where he placed the bag down next to a city trash can — it would not fit inside.

The food was almost ready to go, so Pat stepped out behind the building to select a shopping cart from ABC No Rio’s courtyard, which was at least 25 feet wide and 50 feet long with graffiti on every wall. A city parks sign that once belonged to ABC Playground — “No Rio” was painted in between the two words — was wedged between two rusty window bars, but so much of the sign was suspended in air that it seemed a minor gust might dislodge it.

The group hauls the food to Tompkins Square Park. The sturdy undercarriage of the red cart is great for carrying bulky pantry items, like bread and crackers.

There were three shopping carts outside, but Pat had instructions to pick from the two larger ones: a silver cart from Waldbaums and a red cart of unknown origin. He selected the red cart for its sturdier undercarriage and brought it out to the street to load up. The group left ABC No Rio at around 4:15 p.m., pushing the cart packed with a tray of stuffed peppers, a bucket of leftover stuffing, a tub of split pea soup, some plastic bowls, plates and forks and an industrial size trash bag full of bread.

“We’re not really pro or con anything outwardly,” Rudi said on the way to the park. Some Food Not Bombs groups give out activist literature along with the meals, but the New York City group only focuses on food. “I guess what’s radical about Food Not Bombs is that we get everything for free, we cook it for free and we serve it for free. But the most radical thing is that we don’t ask anything of the people we serve it to.”

Legally, a permit is required to do this kind of work, and Rudi said that Food Not Bombs never bothered to get one, because doing so costs money. Besides, legit soup kitchens like the nearby Trinity’s Service and Food for the Homeless have to buy produce locally. Carolyn Williams, who runs the kitchen and pantry there (and who has sampled Food Not Bombs cuisine), said that she relies on monetary donations and an annual stipend from the state. Food Not Bombs, on the other hand, relies on what would otherwise have been thrown away.

Rudi admitted that the lack of permit and paperwork, the stolen shopping cart, the street dumping and the state of the kitchen means that almost every aspect of Food Not Bombs is illegal. They’ve gotten in trouble with police before, Rudi said, and on Sundays, which are busier than Fridays, food is served outside of the park.

Rudi gets the impression that the police don’t really want to come down hard on them, which isn’t always the case at other branches. Food Not Bombs’ website says that co-founder Keith McHenry has been arrested over 100 times for serving food. On a more extreme level, the Los Angeles Times reported in March that the FBI’s Denver office listed Food Not Bombs as an anarchist group that may be associated with terrorism.

The cart was wheeled up to the southeast side of the park near the chess tables — the usual spot, Rudi said. People were hanging around, and a tall man wearing a woolen newsboy hat, patchwork pants and one of those cowboy jackets with two-way curving arrows on the breasts walked over. “The apple of my eye!” he exclaimed, and gave Rudi a hug. She greeted him by name — Manny — as he examined the food.

While they were talking, an older woman with thick blonde and gray hair walked over to the cart, inspected the contents, grabbed a bowl and served herself. Rudi, Rosie and Diane started serving as people lined up by the shopping cart. Once the initial crowd was fed, Pat, Diane and Rosie took portions for themselves.

It was a beautiful, cloudless day, temperature in the mid-60s. Rudi said that Food Not Bombs serves all year, rain or shine. In the winter, not as many people volunteer, but not as many people are in the parks either.

A man with a duffle bag slung over his shoulder and a boom box in his hand walked over. He acted as if it was his duty to provide music, and as soon as Rudi acknowledged his presence, he punched the play button and heavy metal music blared. The man nodded slightly and stared off into the distance. I tried to talk to him, but he just looked back, confused. “I can’t hear you, man,” he said, pointing to the speakers, “It’s right in my face.”

As AC-DC screamed through the stereo, another man who called himself “Black Jaximus” complimented the music and growled a few comical poems about himself, his sexual exploits and his warrior prowess. Amused by the ramblings, the man with the boom box told Jaximus that he had two questions for him, “What are you on, and can I have some of it?” Jaximus explained that he was about to run to the liquor store, and that he was willing to share.

Rudi realizes that some of the people she feeds have drug and alcohol problems, but said that it wasn’t her place to judge them. “The people that we serve in the park don’t eat healthy food like that otherwise, they don’t eat vegetables or stuff that’s good for them. The best service I can give to them is to give them healthy food once a week, and then let them sort their own shit out.”

Some diners help themselves.

In The Fray Contributor