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"The lowest point and greatest confusion of ethics came when a father told the story of his son on Iraqi television. The married son lived with his own family on the second floor of his father’s house. The father and mother lived on the first floor. This arrangement was not uncommon in the Middle East. The son had been wounded in battle several times. Instead of showing the slightest concern toward his son’s health, the father was proud of his son’s scars because, as he put it, they decorated his son like medals. Each time the son was wounded, his wounds were quickly patched up and he was sent back to the front lines. The incident that the father was explaining on TV occurred when the son refused to return to the front lines. This time, he knew he would surely die. Having a son who is a deserter would destroy the father’s hopes of climbing the ranks of the Ba’ath Party. But a martyred son (those killed in battle were called martyrs) would boost his promotion rate. When the son refused to return to his unit, the father was upset. He told his son to go back to the front lines and bring honor to the family with his martyrdom. The son refused to change his mind. The father brought his gun from downstairs and went back to the second floor. He gave his son an ultimatum: Either he would go to the front lines and fight and die like a hero or die like a coward right there and then. The son sat on the bedroom floor and called his father’s bluff. The father shot and killed his son in the presence of his pleading wife, crying children, and elderly mother. The father was on Iraqi TV because of a special ceremony where he was awarded a medal of bravery pinned to his chest by the devil incarnate himself, Saddam Hussein. Needless to say, none of the other family members attended the ceremony."

"A family was born,” said Salifou, who is now staying in Harlem with an interpreter who is himself an African refugee. “It’s true what I was taught, what the philosopher said: Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed. I thought I lost a family, but it was transformed."