You get what you pay for in life. What are you willing to pay for peace?
With George Bush as president, it doesn't seem to be a problem any of us
will ever have to face again, but you can't be a pacifist only in
peacetime. You can't be a pacifist by yelling at your tv set, or
forwarding a million emails to everyone you know. Pacifism isn't that
passive, it isn't that easy. It is, and always has been, by definition, a
radical challenge to every element of worldly power and violence.
I'm in Iraq with a handful of other Americans: Eric Edgin, an Indiana
college student; Nathan Mauger, a recent journalism graduate from
Washington State; Farah Mokhtareizadeh, a Pennsylvania college student;
Jon Rice, a history teacher from Chicago; Henry Williamson, a paramedic
from South Carolina; and Joe Quandt, a writer from New York. More are
joining us. By the end of October, we'll have over 30 people on our team.
By December, our numbers will be over 100. We're here to tell the stories
of the Iraqi people; to put our lives on the line to stop this war.
Living in Baghdad, you wouldn't know there was a war. The streets bustle
with people on their way to work or school. In the evenings the parks are
full of kids playing soccer, people visiting with family and friends.
There are no tanks in the streets, no soldiers marching, no civil defense
drills, and -- other than foreigners like us -- no one here seems to be
stocking up on food or water. Is it denial? Disbelief? Some inner
despair?
I honestly don't know.
It's painful that Baghdad is so beautiful. There's a unique and striking
blend of traditional and modern architecture. I love the city's parks,
its
wide, tree-lined boulevards -- each avenue sprouting date palms and
poplars. This is truly a green city. I told a cab driver that Baghdad was
a
beautiful city. He just looked hard at me. "No," he said, "Baghdad is not
beautiful. Baghdad is tired."
We hear it over and over again -- just below the surface -- a melody of
melancholy, resignation, and fear. People quietly complain, "What more
can
America do to us?" We visit a high school, and the kids want to make
absolutely sure we really understand that they're not natural-born
killers
or terrorists. A teacher lets us know that his 8-year-old asks him every
day if today's the day he's going to die.
Ask an Iraqi about "liberation," and they'll laugh at you. It's bitter
mirth. If the U.S. doesn't bomb the civilian infrastructure again, and if
the government falls fast, and if the army doesn't break-up along ethnic
and religious lines -- then only a few thousand innocent people will be
killed when George Bush starts his war. But if Bush bombs the water and
power systems as his dad did in '91 -- tens of thousands will die from
the
resulting epidemics. If the army falls apart, there could be a civil war
that makes past conflicts in Lebanon or Bosnia look like schoolyard
brawls. And if food aid distributed by the Iraqi government under the
Oil-for-Food program is disrupted for more than a few weeks, UNICEF is
warning there will be country-wide famine.
When will Americans wake up to the fact that we are not the only real
people on this planet; that our security cannot depend on the insecurity
of everyone else?
George Bush seems to be living out some comicbook fantasy, never sure of
whether he's really the President, or just Alfred E. Neumann doing a poor
impersonation. Donald Rumsfeld angrily denounces Iraq for having an
"insatiable appetite" for weapons. This from a man whose budget for war
is
over 50 times the size of Iraq's entire economy. And Colin Powell
criticizes the UN for forging an agreement to return weapons
inspectors --
four days after Bush demanded that the UN do it or become "irrelevant."
Have we failed to notice that the inmates are now running the asylum?
Some accuse us of being "fools" or "apologists" for the Iraqi government.
We don't often have the opportunity to speak with officials here, but
when
we do we always raise concerns about prisons, extrajudicial killings, and
state-directed violence.
That isn't to toot our own horn. Our status as Americans gives us this
luxury, in a way that Iraqis do not have for themselves. That's
uncomfortable and troubling, and if it strikes some as hypocritical for
us
to be here as pacifists, I can understand that. But it strikes me as much
more hypocritical to speak out against a foreign government for killing
innocents -- while facilitating the killing of countless more by our own
government through our silence and our tax dollars. We apologize for no
one
but ourselves.
According to Human Rights Watch, Iraq has roughly 3,000 extrajudicial
killings a year. According to UNICEF, U.S. policy kills over 50,000 Iraqi
children every year. Both are terrible. They aren't equivalent.
My government may not care, they may be intent on war no matter what --
but I refuse to be "irrelevant." I'm here. I choose to believe that if
Americans knew what was being done in our names, we wouldn't allow it.
The
alternative is madness.
It's disgusting that millions of people being threatened with massive
destruction isn't "news," and Americans joining them is. But if the only
way to get anyone to pay attention is to be in Baghdad when the bombs
fall,
so be it. We're here.
Our hotel isn't fancy, but at least it isn't close to anything
"strategic." Our risks are the same as the other 5 million people in
Baghdad, the other 24 million people in Iraq. As our team's numbers grow,
we'll turn the hotel into our own hostel - living 5 or 6 to a room.
We're volunteering with NGOs already working in Iraq, and we're doing
regular writing and journaling. Some of that writing will be carried in
alternate media and small-town papers, and, even after the U.S. destroys
the electricity and phone lines, we'll get reports out through the local
press center on a satellite phone. We won't let folks back home forget
the
human consequences of what they do here. Milan Kundera once wrote, "The
struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against
forgetting." We're here to be part of that struggle.
Mohammed Ghani Hekmat is perhaps the most prominent artist in Iraq, and
one of the kindest men I've ever met. His sculptures decorate the country.
He's proud to be the first Muslim artist ever commissioned by the
Vatican.
In 1991, he was working on a series of life-size reliefs of the Stations
of the Cross, when the Gulf War happened. The windows in his studio were
blown out by the explosions. We asked him what he thought of the American
people, and his voice filled with anger: "They're innocent," he accused,
"Innocent! Like children."
We're here because we know we're not innocent. Being here is our part in
the war against terrorism: humanizing Iraqis in the eyes of Americans,
humanizing Americans in the eyes of Iraqis -- taking direct responsibility
for what's done in our names.
Our government, our country -- our people -- have killed hundreds of
thousands of human beings in Iraq since 1990. We're about to compound
that
atrocity with another war that, if it goes badly, will likely kill
hundreds of thousands more.
In 1945, when the Allies liberated the death camps, the entire Western
world was absolutely shocked. We asked, "how could this have happened?
How
could the German people have allowed this? Where were the 'good'
Germans?"
We get what we pay for in this life. I don't want to die. I am scared for
my life. But this storm is fast upon on us. This is the moment when we
all
must ask - what are we willing to risk for peace?
Ramzi Kysia is a Muslim-American peace activist, working with the
Education for Peace in Iraq Center (
www.epic-usa.org). He is
co-coordinator
of the Voices in the Wilderness' (
www.vitw.org) Iraq Peace Team (
www.iraqpeaceteam.org), a group of American peaceworkers pledged to stay
in Iraq before, during, and after any future U.S. attack. The Iraq Peace
Team can be reached at
info@vitw.org.
