By Peg Bartel, Delivered to MVUC on August 8, 2004
Iraq… it's on the front pages—sometimes mysteriously disappearing to the back page when it is more politically correct during this election time—only to be brought forward again when the news can no longer be ignored. Iraq is a place where, America—a country of a short and mostly forgotten history, meets a people with a long and ever present history. America—a country where families willingly scatter themselves across a continent. Iraq—a country where children come home to marry, often with their cousins. America—a country where relationships rarely last a generation. Iraq—a country where relationships span generations. How are we to be together? For together we are.
Let me begin with a little of my own history. For the last fifteen years I have traveled through many countries on most of the continents of the world, working in international development. I’ve gone from a dung hut in the Masai plains of Africa to my front door in Alexandria Virginia in just over 24 hours. I often wondered how people could adjust to the tidal wave of modernization that was pouring over them. When would these cultural shock-waves come home. For me, they came home September 11, 2001.
Mystics and philosophers had long recognized the essential oneness of humanity. A oneness that our geography and our power protected us from. Now with a shrinking world and an increased capacity for destruction in the hands of individuals, the world is at our doorsteps. No longer will surrogates fight our wars—no longer will Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, Angolans, Afghanis and yes Iraqis and Iranians be the only ones to die. I am not justifying the violence, only saying that more and more the consequences of our actions in the world will come home to our shores.
September 2001 was also the month in which I started working for the Iraqi National Congress, never dreaming that the assignment of helping them implement federal financial management regulations would lead to a deserted parking lot in Kuwait, where I waited alone in the pre-dawn hours, my bags strewn around me, hoping that I was in the right place, that the currently non-existent military convoy would appear and take me overland to Baghdad. That was May 3, 2003. Since then, except for short visits home, I have lived in Baghdad, in the red zone, with my Iraqi friends. My contacts with Americans have been few.
I would like to spend the next few minutes talking with you not so much about the politics of Iraq or particular events—there is simply too much and I hope you will join me later for a more extended conversation on those issues after the service. I want instead to focus on what I believe are some of the spiritual questions that come out of our experience in Iraq, of how we are called, as Unitarian Universalists, to be in this world of one, this world of many, this world of conflict.
One of the tenets of my faith is that there is one fundamental question each of us must answer with our lives, that question that wells up from that deep eternal mystery I call God. That question is “Who are you?” Not in the sense of what you do or who your spouse is but what is the character with which you lead your life, what do you love and what do you choose. I believe that question is asked of us as individuals, as a people and as a world. We answer the question in our every day lives, with little decisions that prepare us for the times when our lives break open through crisis or great joy and we sense a moment of decision. I believe that in Iraq, far beyond the control of the Americans, history is breaking open for the Iraqi people and they have come to a point in their country’s history where they will decide for generations.
I suppose it is natural, but we see this war from such an American perspective. Sometimes I feels as if I am in a Ptolemaic Universe where the United States is at the center and all facts are made to fit that primary assumption. While I was in Baghdad, I read regularly a friend’s blog—Just a Bump in the Beltway. One commenter referred to how the Iraqi’s were bribed not to fight. I got angry. To be sure, the CIA thought that $5,000 and a satellite phone would buy an Iraqi sheik—in a country where you don’t even start talking money until you have established a relationship. But I remembered the bitterness of one Iraqi commander I spoke with who wondered why the Americans dismissed the army after they had risked their lives to liberate Iraq by refusing to fight. Very different points of view.
Americans have forgotten that one in six Iraqis was forced into exile, that hundreds of thousands died in Saddam’s prisons and in mass executions, that millions died in thirty years of war. Iraqis have not forgotten. I will never forget what when one of my accountants said in response to the upcoming trial of Saddam—“We will never forget”. These were words that clearly came straight from her heart. She startled me, because she is a shy woman, who had never spoken about Saddam’s regime.
Most everyone that I talked to had someone who had died, lost their job for being politically suspect or been jailed because they were tainted. Last week I had lunch with Kanan Makiya, founder of the Iraq Memory Foundation who wants to document the Iraqi holocaust. He told me about the registry of school children he has in his library of documents—a registry that documents in incredible detail the “history” of each child and whether or not they were a risk to the regime.
Every life is sacred, but I can’t help but wonder what Iraqis feel when we anguish over the televised deaths of a few foreigners while Iraqis die in the hundreds, sometimes thousands. Over a thousand young Iraqis had died in Najaf when a delegation from the Iraq Governing Council went to negotiate a truce with Moqtada. Paul Bremer’s National Security Advisor, Mofaq Al-Rubaie, was too scared to go. Abu-Hatem the hero of the Marsh Arab Resistance, Ahmad Chalabi and Salama Al-Khafaji went. She lost her son in an ambush on the way back. When I called the CPA to relay a message from the team who were trying to make contact with the US General in Najaf, a CPA official told me they had decided not to negotiate with Moqtada. Later I learned that the USG had already printed up pamphlets explaining in Arabic why Moqtada was killed. He was still alive. While a truce was eventually negotiated despite the opposition of the CPA, the difference in treatment between Fallujah and Najaf has not been lost on the Shia.
In Iraq, all is not what it seems to be. It's hard to find the truth. Mostly the truth is mottled. The story of Moqtada Al-Sadr is only one example. Clearly a firebrand, Moqtada’s appeal has grown as the occupation drags on. You read that Moqtada is wanted for the murder of Majed Al Khoei, a prominent cleric in April 2003. That arrest warrant is issued by a judge controlled by the CPA. The same one that has accused me of obstructing justice. It suddenly became a priority to enforce this spring when the US was trying to sweep the rug clean of political opposition to its plan for the transitional government.
The story of the murder I hear on the ground is different. Al-Khoei was
persuaded by the CIA to return to Najaf. He was asked to accompany the former
keeper of the mosque. Apparently the CIA didn’t know that this keeper had
cooperated with Saddam Hussein and had lots of Shia blood on his hands. The
people who surrounded the group at the mosque told the cleric to leave—that they
wanted the keeper, not him. But he drew his pistol, fired twice in the air and
said the keeper was under his protection. Both were killed.
The symbolism of the CPA and now the US Embassy’s physical location is acute.
Plopped down in the middle of downtown Baghdad, our headquarters is the former
headquarters of Saddam Hussein. They finally removed his throne from the throne
room, but not before Paul Bremer got his photo taken sitting in it. Of course
you can imagine the difficulty in Washington if suddenly Memorial Bridge were
closed to traffic along with all of the roads between Constitution and
Independence. Commutes in Baghdad that once took 20 minutes now take over an
hour. A small thing perhaps in war, but a daily reminder to Baghdadis of
occupation.
Who are we? At first I thought that question was being asked only of Iraqis. Would they stay together as a nation, would they honor the rights of minorities, would a longing for security and peace cause them to choose Saddam-lite as a way to stability. Or would a people so long oppressed, breathe free and establish a democratic vision for their children. No one can answer those questions except the Iraqi people themselves. It is their right. To be sure, we are trying to interfere. The current disinformation campaign against the Iraqi National Congress is part of that, the favoritism of the Sunni minority over the long-oppressed Shia another and we should not forget the rush to spend most of Iraq’s money in the last days of Bremer’s regime in order to extend US control of Iraq’s resources. In the end, however, I believe that despite the US effort to control Iraq, eventually the Iraqis themselves will be able to shape their future.
I realize now that the question of who we are was not only being asked of Iraqis, but also of the United States and of each one of us. It is easy to denigrate the US—say how terrible we are. Or its twin—how great we are. I don’t see much difference between the two. It's harder to face the truth. We come with our beauty marks and our warts. Our can-do attitude ended a regime of gross human rights abuses, a regime we helped build. It also is the seed of our arrogance that shut out Iraqis from their own liberation and ended up in an occupation replete with instances of abuse of power. Our soldiers worked side-by-side with local Iraqis to improve communities. Some also broke into their homes and stole what little money they had. Many well-intentioned people devoted enormous hours at the CPA to rebuild Iraq, but rotating every three or six months, isolated behind the walls of the compound, most of their efforts did not bear fruit. Sadly, the travesty and the enormity of corruption at the highest levels of the CPA is slowly coming to light. Of course, it was no secret in Iraq.
So who are we and how are we to be, what are we to do as Unitarian
Universalists where we are one with the world whether we like it or not and
where we are engaged with a country that will surely change us just as we will
change it.
First, it is incredibly important that we own our commitment to diversity.
Especially in this divisive time we need to honor other perspectives, to listen
to each other, to know that no one has a stranglehold on truth. There is no one
Iraq, there is no one US. It is out of this incredible mix of experiences and
viewpoints that at least a shadow of truth emerges.
Second, we need to act. I don’t know what the answer to Iraq is. We are each called in a different way. I believe that the world needs monks and it needs warriors. We must sacrifice our sacred cows and step into the agony of acting without certainty of rightness. Our faith calls us not to the certainty of dogma but to the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. A search that upholds the inherent worth and dignity of every person. As we individually work through who we are and who we want our country to be in this conflict in Iraq, we need to honor this foundation of the free church even more.
Finally in closing, Iraq will always be for me the faces of those that I have had the honor to share time together. It will be Nizerine, who raised her child alone because her husband was in prison. I won’t forget her trust when she told me her anger at Saddam for bringing the Americans, for once again bringing war to the Iraqi people. Nor will I forget her wonder at American soldiers who “didn’t hurt you unless you hurt them”. I will also remember the haggard face of Ali, who had just buried his brother, killed by Baathists for working with the Americans. His brother’s family moved into his already small apartment because the killers had also targeted his nephew. Nor do I forget the Defense Intelligence agent that I talked to about Ali’s case-arguing with him that they couldn’t just slough it off as another murder to be investigated by the ineffective Iraqi police.
I will also remember the young face of Omar—when he first went to the US as part of an INC student program—a program the State Department had tried to block. But also when he came to me last June on the day I was leaving for the US to get my advice on what to do about the death threat he had received for working with Americans. Based on Ali’s experience, I told him to stop—it wasn’t worth it. He didn’t.
I won’t forget Aras Kareem, the head of INC’s intelligence program that worked so hard to help save Americans lives and now has been pushed back into exile by the US. I remember when he looked up from his desk at this impatient American who had become his friend and simply said—“You know we are camels.” I am still trying to be more camel like.
May God bless us all, Iraqi and American. Amen.