When Muhanad Habib, a 22-year-old Iraqi from the Sadr City district of Baghdad, posted on Facebook in late September, he probably didn’t imagine that his demands for a better life and basic rights would be met with bullets.

Anger on the streets: protesters in al-Tayaran square in central Baghdad on October 4. Murtaja Lateef/EPA
 

It will be a huge and angry public revolution in Baghdad … We will take to the streets protesting … Enough silence about what’s going on in Iraq. We cannot just watch Iraq being destroyed when we have armies of jobless and poor.

This was how it all started. Angry youth from Baghdad took to the streets. Unaffiliated with any political party or with well-known activists, the protesters – the majority of whom were born in the late 1990s or early 2000s – despaired about any prospect for change in Iraq.

The crackdown by security forces that followed left more than 100 people dead and thousands more injured. Iraqi president Barham Salih condemned the crackdown in a televised speech on October 7, claiming that orders to shoot at the protesters weren’t made by the state or its apparatus. The interior ministry ordered an investigation into the deaths.

Yet, Salih’s statement raised questions about who is actually running the Iraqi state. And despite his and international condemnation, the crackdown continues on the ground.

Calls for a homeland

Endemic corruption, unemployment, flawed institutions and poor public services linger in Iraq and have prompted protests since 2011, including notably in Basra in 2018. The recapture of Iraqi lands from the grip of Islamic State (IS) gave many Iraqis hope that lessons would be learnt about the repeated failures which gave rise to IS, and that those in power would take sincere steps to reform. But that hope has been diminishing every day.

The most recent protests came in the wake of multiple smaller demonstrations by different groups, including PhD graduates, doctors and engineers in September 2019.

They followed government actions that caused widespread anger. Impoverished people were outraged at a recent state campaign to destroy unlicensed properties and market stalls across Iraq, leaving many homeless and jobless.

It also followed the removal of a key general, Abdul Wahab Al Saadi, from his position as commander of the Counter-Terrorism Service, followed by his demotion to a lower post at the Ministry of Defence. The marginalisation of a figure admired for his role in the military campaign against IS enraged many Iraqis.

The new generation want a homeland. “We want a respected homeland,” and “I am taking to the streets to get my right,” were among the slogans on display during the protests. “The issue is not about water or electricity, but about a homeland,” shouted another protester.

Violent crackdown

The immediate crackdown of the protests has surprised, shocked, and shaken Iraqis. The suppression turned a protest about anti-corruption and unemployment into an uprising against the status quo and what participants see as foreign interference, particularly from Iran.

Tear gas, live ammunition, and snipers were used to quell the protesters. As one protestor put it: “They did things to us they never did to IS. They beat and insulted us. They used live fire and grenades. What have we done? All what we are asking for are our rights and all people’s rights.” The protestor’s words were used as the opening of a new rap song titled “Iran’s tails” released in the wake of the crackdown by an Iraqi expat in solidarity with the demonstrators.

The funeral in Baghdad of a protester allegedly killed by Iraq soldiers. Murtaja Lateef/EPA

The violent oppression and state’s authoritarian measures to cover up the carnage are reminiscent of the days of Baathist rule and former president Saddam Hussein’s oppression of a 1991 uprising. In 2019, such measures included an internet blackout across Iraq except in the Kurdistan region, curfews in Baghdad and other provinces in the south, and blocked roads leading to Tahrir square in Baghdad where demonstrators gathered. Comparisons were also made with IS, who also cut off the internet in Mosul when Iraqi troops were advancing to retake the city in 2016.

Offices of media agencies covering the protests were attacked and reports emerged of protesters, activists and journalists being threatened and arrested.

By disconnecting Iraqis from the outside world, the authorities in Iraq tried to control the circulation of videos that showed civilians killed in broad daylight. But they also pushed the narrative of Iran-backed political parties and officials: that “intruders” – an implicit reference to Baathists or actors backed by an external agenda – were responsible for riots. A similar narrative was echoed by Iranian media outlets to undermine the legitimacy of the protests, accusing foreign powers of being behind them, an indirect reference to the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Despite the internet blackout, which remains partially in place, footage of the live shooting at the protestors and ambulances carrying the wounded were shared on social media as some Iraqi protesters resorted to innovative methods with the help of Iraqi expats to reveal the scale of the violence.

The heartbreaking scenes caused uproar among the Iraqi diaspora who protested in several countries around the world in solidarity. But for people inside Iraq, many still don’t know the scale of the atrocities as they haven’t been able to access social media sites.
 

The fallacy of democracy

Since the fall of Hussein’s regime in 2003, successive governments have failed to put an end to Iraqis’ grievances. Time and again, only empty promises were made, and superficial measures taken. The electoral system has helped to produce and perpetuate a hybrid form of kleptocracy, authoritarianism and kakistocracy – a government run by the worst, or most unscrupulous people. Armed groups, tribes, foreign powers and religious clergy have all maintained this system.

The latest protests may have been suppressed but they revealed that democracy in Iraq is nothing but a facade. What sort of democratic government kills its own people, taking away their hopes and dreams? And can it still be called legitimate? Reacting indifferently to the deadly crackdown of innocent people in Iraq, the world needs to at least recognise that the root causes of Iraq’s ills are in the post-2003 system itself.

Courtesy: The Conversation

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Members of the Saraya al-Khorasani militia on Baghdad streets

By Mustafa Habib in Baghdad (reposted from niqash.org)

In Baghdad, Jafar al-Aboudi’s son recently got into a fight with his neighbour at a local café. Al-Aboudi’s son ended up breaking the arm of the boy next door. After the incident the injured boy’s father appeared to be on the brink of going to settle the matter using tribal law. This would have meant that tribal elders in the area were approached and they would decide how much reparation – known as diyeh in Arabic – was needed to see justice done. Often this involves the perpetrator of the crime paying money to the victim.

To avoid this al-Aboudi decided to go instead to one of the militias that controlled their neighbourhood. The individual who manages the offices of the Shiite Muslim militia in their area managed to solve the problem. The two young men were brought together to shake hands and hug. The offender apologized and his father promised to pay for the victim’s medical expenses. In the end though, the victim and his father refused any money out of respect for the offices of the militia, who have played a crucial but sometimes controversial role in the fight against the extremist group known as the Islamic State.

There was no thought of going to the local police.

“The police are corrupt and they take bribes,” al-Aboudi explained his reasons for seeking justice elsewhere. “I am sure if I went to them my son would have ended up in prison for days while they tried to resolve the issue. They all want to make money out of every case rather than enforcing the law.”

"We care more about the safety of the people than the bureaucracy enacted by corrupt police officers"

The militia’s man in this area, Abbas al-Saadi, says that he and his group do not willingly interfere in police business. “But people often come to us and ask us to solve their problems; they don’t want to go to the police because they think they are corrupt,” al-Saadi told Niqash. “Every week we get locals coming to us with these issues and some of their problems are even with the local police.”  

A few days ago, his office was approached by a restaurant owner whose business is in Baghdad’s bustling Karrada area. “He told us a police officer was charging him protection money and forcing him to give him free food,” al-Saadi says. “We stopped this officer from blackmailing the restaurant owner. Even though the police cannot protect anyone or maintain security, they still extort the businesses. The government is aware of how corrupt the police are,” he maintains.

Most neighbourhoods in Baghdad now have a base – usually an office – belonging to whichever militia is present in that part of the city. This is also true for other southern provinces in Iraq. The militias sometimes work security and directly help local police, or they do other, more undercover work, where they and their informants roam streets, markets and residential areas in civilian clothing, watching out for terrorist activity.

The fact that the militias have played such an essential part in the fight against the extremist Islamic State, or IS, group over the past two years has made the groups very popular, especially among young local men. It is hard to join the army or the police and often requires that candidates bribe their way in to the regular wages. So it’s become more popular for young, unemployed men to join a militia instead.  

Additionally, it is also clear that often official security forces – and the local police forces in particular – have not been capable of protecting the cities in which they work from terrorist bomb attacks. Hundreds of Iraqis were killed in a series of suicide attacks targeting residential and commercial areas, just since the beginning of this year.  

Since 2006 security in Baghdad has been in the hands of the so-called Baghdad Operations Command. This body is tasked with keeping Baghdad secure and is composed of around 70,000 members drawn from the regular Iraqi army, military police and regular police as well as intelligence services.

However not many locals appear to think they are up to the job. Last week Mohamed al-Bayyat, a senior member of the Badr organization which is responsible for one of the larger militias, said that Baghdad’s official security forces had been infiltrated by “enemies” – by this he means extremists and terrorists. “The Baghdad Operations Command is unconstitutional,” al-Bayyat said in an official statement, that called upon the Iraqi government to rethink the capital’s security and “to involve the Shiite Muslim volunteer militias more in protecting Baghdad”.

This is not the first of these kinds of criticisms and doubtless it will not be the last time the two forces clash. In September 2016, there was even a physical clash. Shiite Muslim militias fought a battle against the local police in the Zafaraniyah area. The militias’ aim was to arrest police who were supposedly helping the Islamic State group, even though the local police denied this.

In November 2016, the Iraqi Parliament passed a law regarding the volunteer militias that had formed after the beginning of the security crisis in mid-2014. The militias were formed by volunteers who offered to fight the IS group and to protect their homes, in the face of the Iraqi army’s weakness. The new law has made the volunteer militias an official body – that is, no longer “volunteer” – but it has not specified what role the militias should play in the future. Would they be like the Iraqi army, called in to fight battles? Or would they be able to operate more like a local police force inside Iraqi cities? As yet, the answers are unclear.

"The police commander can't do his work if he doesn't cooperate with the local militias"

On the other side of the situation, the militias are making it increasingly difficult for local policemen to do their jobs properly. Senior police officers are forced to cooperate with the senior members of the militias that work in their areas, if those areas are under the police’ control at all.

“With any security-related issues, the police station has to coordinate with the militia offices in its area,” says Asaad al-Taei, a police officer working in the Karkh neighbourhood in western Baghdad. “The police commander cannot work if he doesn’t do this. And there are many other reasons why we cannot do our work properly.”

For instance, in some neighbourhoods there is more than one militia present and the police have to try and work with several different groups, al-Taei said. “We cannot hold them accountable for any violations they may commit either,” he told Niqash. “They move around in cars with tinted windows and without license plates. They carry personal IDs that may well be fake and the police at the checkpoints cannot just stop them.”

Civilians in Baghdad complain about the increasing security chaos and the fact that there is theft and kidnapping in broad daylight. They can’t understand why these culprits are not caught or how they manage to pass through so many official checkpoints on their way to and from the scene of the crime. But often the identification carried by the culprits is counterfeit. For instance, on 2 January this year an Iraqi woman was sentenced to five years in prison for impersonating a senior officer in the militias; she had 14 other fake ID cards with her when she was caught.

Sometimes the militias in one neighbourhood even fight one another and the police have to remain neutral – meaning they don’t stop the fighting. This is yet another sign of the waning power and prestige of local police and the waxing of the militia clout. The imbalance is such that some of the militia fighters appear to believe themselves above the law.  

Among the militias themselves the leaders say they respect the rule of law but that it is difficult to monitor their men, who are deployed all around Baghdad, let alone the men from other militias.

Late last year, the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who heads the Sadrist movement, of which the Saraya al-Salam militia is part, declared that everyone should respect the local security forces. “Nobody has the right to attack them, even under the banner of the militias,” he stated.

Nor is this problem limited to Iraq’s southern provinces, populated mainly by Shiite Muslim Iraqis. The Sunni-majority provinces are also experiencing difficulties with militias, as armed tribal groups take charge of security in provinces like Anbar and Salahaddin.

Majid al-Thayabi is a member of one these Sunni Muslim militias working in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province. He acknowledges that the tribal militias are becoming stronger – but, he argues, this is because the police and the army are weak and there are not enough of them.

“People complain about the police being corrupt and they say the police refuse to arrest citizens who may be involved with terrorism,” al-Thayabi told Niqash. “We simply arrest them and we don’t worry too much about the rules. We care more about the safety of the people than the bureaucracy enacted by corrupt police officers.”  

Courtesy: al-bab.com

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Barely three hours after the first cruise missiles slammed into Baghdad, a wave of demonstrations started in Asia and Australia and rolled swiftly across Europe and the Middle East toward the United States, where anti-war activists planned hundreds of protests later on Thursday.

In the Arab world, thousands of protesters vented their fury at the start of the war to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, with demonstrators in Egypt and Syria demanding the expulsion of US ambassadors.

In Cairo, the Arab world’s biggest city, riot police used water cannon and batons against hundreds of rock-throwing protesters who tried to storm toward the US embassy.

"This war is a sin," said 43-year-old Cairo taxi driver Youssef, as religious music blared from his car radio. "It’s a sin because ordinary Iraqis will suffer. It’s not a sin because of Saddam, who was too stubborn. He’s got a head of stone."

In Italy, where Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is one of Washington’s staunchest allies on Iraq, the three biggest trade unions staged a two-hour strike.

Italian cities were thrown into chaos as tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets, in many cases blocking train stations and highways. The biggest demonstration was a march on the U.S. embassy in Rome.

In Germany, more than 80,000 schoolchildren, many with faces painted with "No War" or peace signs, protested in the capital Berlin and the cities of Stuttgart, Cologne, Munich and Hanover.

"Let’s bomb Texas, they’ve got oil too," read one banner.

In Berlin, people lay in pools of red paint outside the heavily guarded US embassy to symbolise civilian casualties.

Swiss police clashed with hundreds of protesters, mainly students, who marched on the US diplomatic mission in Geneva, firing tear gas into the air to disperse them.

Spanish police in riot gear fired rubber bullets at anti-war demonstrators, including well-known actors and celebrities, who gathered in central Madrid in protest at Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar’s support for the US-led attacks on Iraq.

Earlier they beat some demonstrators with batons in an attempt to move them on.

Violence also erupted in Calcutta, eastern India, when about 1,000 protesters waving banners reading "US warmongers go to hell" tried to storm a US cultural centre. At least 12 policemen and six demonstrators were injured when cane-wielding police drove them back, a senior police official told Reuters.

Thousands of British anti-war campaigners, enraged by the involvement of British troops in a war they see as an illegitimate grab for oil by Washington, blocked roads and scuffled with police as protests spread across Britain.

At the biggest rallying point in London’s Parliament Square, police hauled away demonstrators, including many schoolchildren, who were sitting in roads and blocking access points.

"We’re here for peace," said schoolgirl Tallulah Belly, 14, at Parliament Square. "We’ve walked out of school — we are the future generation and they should be listening to us."

The only reported clash outside a British embassy was in the Lebanese capital Beirut, where around 1,000 protesters were sprayed with water from a fire truck when they crossed barriers outside the mission. Witnesses said police beat several of them.

In France, more than 10,000 people, mostly students, surged through Paris chanting anti-war slogans, reflecting their government’s rigid anti-war stance which has infuriated Washington and split the international community into two camps.

Huge protests also took place in Greece, Spain and Austria.

In the Gaza Strip, about 1,000 Palestinian women and children marched in the Rafah refugee camp, holding Iraqi flags and posters of Saddam and setting fire to Israeli and US flags. About 150 people marched in Bethlehem in the West Bank.

On the other side of the planet, protesters brought Australia’s second largest city, Melbourne, to a standstill. Organisers put the crowd at 40,000, police said it numbered "tens of thousands." Australia is a staunch ally of the US and a supporter of the use of force to disarm Saddam.

Anti-US sentiment was also strong in Muslim Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan, where many saw the attack as the start of a US campaign to subjugate the Islamic world and seize oil.

In Pakistan there were scattered but peaceful rallies across the country against what some called "American terrorism," while in Indonesia some 2,000 people from a conservative Muslim party sang and chanted anti-American slogans outside the US embassy. 

(Courtesy: Reuters).

Archived from Communalism Combat, March 2003 Year 9  No. 85, Cover Story 1

The post Listen to the world appeared first on SabrangIndia.

BAGHDAD, March 12: If the invasion that the Pentagon has dubbed "Operation Shock and Awe" commences, Charlie Liteky is unlikely to feel either.He expects the United States to bomb Iraq. He expects noise and destruction more powerful and frightening than he has ever known. He expects the earth to shake and houses to go dark and children to scream themselves hoarse.

But Liteky sounds more determined than frightened.

Like 20 other members of the Chicago-based Iraq Peace Team who remain in Baghdad even as hostilities appear certain, Liteky abhors cluster bombs, cruise missiles and the civil unrest that combat causes. As a decorated Vietnam veteran, he knows firsthand the chaos and carnage of war.

That’s precisely why he sounded elated Tuesday morning when he told his wife that the Iraqi government had extended his tourist visa 10 days and is likely to extend it again, long enough for him to help Iraqi children through the difficult time.

Most of the peace activists who descended by the hundreds on Baghdad this fall and winter have fled. Those who remain have no intentions of leaving. They are anchored to the bull’s-eye despite the fact – or maybe because of it – that the World Health Organization predicts 1,00,000 Iraqis could die.

"I’m here because I hear the children cry," Liteky said. "In my mind … I imagine the bombing and the noise and the windows shattering and something coming down from the ceiling and children looking up and parents grabbing them and fear being transferred from parents to children."

Save yourselves

Washington has warned the activists to clear out. The Pentagon has said its assault will leave no place in Baghdad to hide. So the rundown hotels that enjoyed full houses as recently as February are shuttering their windows.

At the Hotel Al-Fanar on the Tigris river, the Iraq Peace Team is moving to the lower floors because the eight-storey building is old and seems unsteady. Its bomb shelter is a musty basement that stores the hotel’s chemical cleaning supplies.

Members of the peace team have signed an ominous-sounding contract: "In the event of your death, you agree to your body not being returned to your own country but being disposed of in the most convenient way."

They have had awkward discussions about what to do with the corpses that might collect around them. Wrap the dead in hotel drapes, they decided. Pray for help.

Iraq Peace Team founder Kathy Kelly had a photo enlarged that shows her with some of her dearest friends — the family of an Iraqi widow and her nine children. The photo is being mailed to Kelly’s mother in Chicago.

"She can see by that photo that I am very, very happy," Kelly said, sounding serenely calm despite the gathering storm.

On Monday, Kelly helped an Iraqi friend pack to leave. Teacher and artist Amal Alwan rushed her three young children into a taxi and paid $300 for the 10-hour drive from Baghdad to Damascus, Syria. Alwan doesn’t have relatives in Syria and couldn’t tell the cabbie exactly where to go.

"She doesn’t have a clue where she will stay, but she can’t possibly stay in Baghdad, not with children," Kelly said. "Her house is next to a communications centre."

As Kelly spoke it was almost 1.30 a.m. on Tuesday in Baghdad and she was awake reading "A Fine Balance," a novel about civil war in India. She planned to rise six hours later for a daily prayer meeting, then go with the peace team to the United Nations offices in Baghdad. They would hold aloft several enlarged photos of Iraqi families.

Each photo would carry a single question: "Doomed?"

"I don’t have the slightest sense of not belonging exactly where I am right now," said Kelly, 50, a three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee. "The thought of leaving has not even crossed my mind."

The Pentagon says the presence of US pacifists will not deter the course of war. Although there are no plans to arrest them for violating sanctions on Iraq by travelling to Baghdad, officials throughout the US government, from the White House to the State Department to the Pentagon, sound confused about how to best to deal with them.

"There’s not a whole lot of precedence," said Pentagon spokesman Lt. Dan Hetlage. "It’s not like you had human shields protecting the Taliban."

Armed for war

Members of the Iraq Peace Team say they are as prepared for war as they will ever be. They have "crash kits" packed neatly and set by their hotel doors. Liteky’s is the size of carry-on luggage. It bulges with bandages, antibiotics, water-purification tablets, three litres of water, dried fruit, canned tuna, biscuits, power bars and a short-wave radio.

He hopes to ride out Operation Shock and Awe in Baghdad’s Orphanage of the Sisters of Mother Teresa. Or at least to rush there as soon as the bombing subsides. He’s compelled to at least try to quell the inevitable trembling of the children.

"I’d rather die doing something," he told his wife, Judy, "then die … in some old folks home."

Liteky, 72, is a former Roman Catholic priest and Vietnam war hero awarded the congressional Medal of Honor for crawling under volleys of gunfire in 1967 to rescue 23 injured US soldiers.

According to army reports, during the firefight near Phuoc-Lac the wounded became too heavy to carry so Liteky turned onto his back in the mud, pulled the men on top of him and crawled backward under gunfire, using only his heels and elbows.

He’s plenty scared of war, he said, but his fear is for the children.

When the attack comes, he said, "the most beautiful thing that can happen for me is if I am permitted to be at the orphanage. At least I could pick the children up, hold them, and try to let my calm and love transfer to them."

Liteky speaks every morning to his wife, 11 time zones away, in San Francisco. Since arriving in Baghdad three weeks ago, it has become increasingly difficult to hang up the phone. On Tuesday they spoke for 40 minutes, said goodbye twice, and kept talking.

"I don’t have a death wish," he said in an interview Monday. "I have everything to live for. I have a wonderful wife and a wonderful life back home."

Liteky and his wife have thought for a week that the invasion of Iraq would begin sometime between March 10 and 17. So when Judy Liteky, a math teacher at a community college, left for work on Monday, she put a bumper sticker on her car.

"Attack Iraq? No!," it read.

"The bumper sticker made me feel just a little bit better," she said

Kelly heard late Monday that the United Nations would evacuate most of its remaining office staff on Tuesday. Still, she sounded steadfast in her decision to stay in Baghdad, even if it meant dying.

"A lot of people are concerned for the foreigners who remain here; you wonder if anyone is concerned for these very ordinary Iraqi people who are going to die here," she said.

When photographer Thorne Anderson chose to travel to Baghdad with Kelly in January to document the people and the war, he informed his family of the trip in an e-mail.

Anderson, who has freelanced for Gannett News Service, Newsweek, The New York Times and other publications, said he expected a little preaching, lots of concern, and some pleas to reconsider.

Instead, his father, the Rev. Eade Anderson of Montreat, N.C., was succinct in his reply.

"I’ve always said life shouldn’t be wasted on the small things," he wrote in an e-mail. "Love, Dad."

( March 12, 2003, Gannett News Service, http://www.commondreams.org/

Archived from Communalism Combat, March 2003 Year 9  No. 85, Cover Story 3

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"The present moment is the only moment available to us, and it is the door to all moments." – Thich Nhat Hanh

I am in Baghdad with the Iraq Peace Team, and we
will stay here throughout any war. We will share the risks of the millions who live here, and do our best to be a voice for them to the world. Our risks are uncertain. Thousands here will surely die. But most Iraqis will survive, and so too, I hope, will I.

A banner the government put up a few blocks from where we stay reads simply, "Baghdad: Where the World Comes for Peace."

It’s meant as propaganda, I’m sure, flattering Saddam Hussein. But without knowing it, it states a simple truth: that the world must be present for peace. We must be present in Baghdad as in America – in Kashmir or Chechnya, the Great Lakes, Palestine and Colombia – where there is war, and rumours of war, we must be present to build peace.

We are present. My country may arrest me as a traitor, or kill me during saturation bombing, or shoot me during an invasion. The Iraqis may arrest me as a spy, or cause or use my death for propaganda. Civil unrest and mob violence may claim me. I may be maimed. I may be killed.

I am nervous. I am scared. I am hopeful. I am joyous, and I joyously delight in the wonder that is my life. I love being alive. I love the splendor of our world, the beauty of our bodies, and the miracle of our minds. I bless the world for making me, and I bless the world for taking me. I feed myself on the fellowship we inspirit, in standing one with another in this, this present moment, each moment unfolding to its own best time.

Different things move different members of our team, but all of us are here out of deep concern for the suffering of our brothers and sisters in Iraq. Twenty years of almost constant war, and 12 years of brutal sanctions, have killed hundreds of thousands of innocents in Iraq. We are here, today, because most of the world refused to be present, then. What more right do I as an American have to leave than all the people I’ve come to love in Iraq? An accident of birth that gives me a free pass throughout the world?

All of us are here out of a deep commitment to nonviolence. Peace is not an abstract value that we should just quietly express a hope for. It takes work. It takes courage. It takes joy.

Peace takes risks.

War is catastrophe. It is terrorism on a truly, massive scale. It is the physical, political and spiritual devastation of entire peoples. War is the imposition of such massive, deadly violence so as to force the political solutions of one nation upon another. War is the antithesis of democracy and freedom. War is the most bloody, undemocratic, and violently repressive of all human institutions.

War is catastrophe. Why choose catastrophe?

Even the threat of war is devastating. On March 11, when we visited a maternity hospital run by the Dominican sisters here in Baghdad, we found that eight new mothers that day had demanded to have their babies by Caesarian section — they didn’t want to give birth during the war. Six others spontaneously aborted the same day. Is this spirit of liberation?

Don’t ask me where I find the courage to be present in Iraq on the eve of war. Five million people call Baghdad home. Twenty-four million human beings live in Iraq. Instead, ask the politicians — on every side — where they find the nerve to put so many human beings at such terrible risk.

We’re here for these people, as we’re here for the American people. The violence George Bush starts in Iraq will not stop in Iraq. The senseless brutality of this war signals future crimes of still greater inhumanity. If we risk nothing to prevent this, it will happen. If we would have peace, we must work as hard, and risk as much, as the warmakers do for destruction.

Pacifism isn’t passive. It’s a radical challenge to all aspects of worldly power. Non-violence can prevent catastrophe. Nonviolence multiplies opportunities a thousand-fold, until seemingly insignificant events converge to tumble the tyranny of fears that violence plants within our hearts. Where violence denies freedom, destroys community, restricts choices — we must be present: cultivating our love, our active love, for our entire family of humanity.

We are daily visiting with families here in Iraq. We are daily visiting hospitals here in Iraq, and doing arts and crafts with the children. We are visiting elementary schools and high schools. We are fostering community. We are furthering connections. We are creating space for peace.

We are not "human shields." We are not here simply in opposition to war. We are a dynamic, living presence — our own small affirmation of the joy of being alive. Slowly stumbling, joyous and triumphant, full of all the doubts and failings all people hold in common – our presence here is a thundering, gentle call, to Americans as to Iraqis, of the affirmation of life.

We must not concede war to the killers. War is not liberation. It is not peace. War is devastation and death.

Thuraya, a brilliant, young girl whom I’ve come to love, recently wrote in her diary:

"We don’t know what is going to happen. We might die, and maybe we are living our last days in life. I hope that everyone who reads my diary remembers me and knows that there was an Iraqi girl who had many dreams in her life…"

Dream with us of a world where we do not let violence rule our lives. Work with us for a world where violence does not rule our lives. Peace is not an abstract concept. We are a concrete, tangible reality. We the peoples of our common world, through the relationships we build with each other, and the risks we take for one another — we are peace.

Our team here doesn’t know what is going to happen any more than does Thuraya. We too may die. But in her name, in this moment, at the intersection of all our lives, we send you this simple message: We are peace, and we are present. n

(Ramzi Kysia is an Arab American peace activist and writer. He is currently in Iraq with the Iraq Peace Team (www.iraqpeaceteam.org), a project to keep international peaceworkers to Iraq prior to, during, and after any future US attack, in order to be a voice for the Iraqi people. The Iraq Peace Team can be reached through info@vitw.org)

Archived from Communalism Combat, March 2003 Year 9  No. 85, Cover Story 4

The post This present moment appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The signers of this statement call on the people of the US to resist the policies and overall political direction that have emerged since September 11, 2001, and which pose grave dangers to the people of the world.

We believe that peoples and nations have the right to determine their own destiny, free from military coercion by great powers. We believe that all persons detained or prosecuted by the United States government should have the same rights of due process. We believe that questioning, criticism, and dissent must be valued and protected. We understand that such rights and values are always contested and must be fought for.

We believe that people of conscience must take responsibility for what their own governments do — we must first of all oppose the injustice that is done in our own name. Thus we call on all Americans to RESIST the war and repression that has been loosed on the world by the Bush administration. It is unjust, immoral, and illegitimate. We choose to make common cause with the people of the world.

We too watched with shock the horrific events of September 11, 2001. We too mourned the thousands of innocent dead and shook our heads at the terrible scenes of carnage — even as we recalled similar scenes in Baghdad, Panama City, and, a generation ago, Vietnam. We too joined the anguished questioning of millions of Americans who asked why such a thing could happen.

But the mourning had barely begun, when the highest leaders of the land unleashed a spirit of revenge. They put out a simplistic script of "good vs. evil" that was taken up by a pliant and intimidated media. They told us that asking why these terrible events had happened verged on treason. There was to be no debate. There were by definition no valid political or moral questions. The only possible answer was to be war abroad and repression at home.

In our name, the Bush administration, with near unanimity from Congress, not only attacked Afghanistan but arrogated to itself and its allies the right to rain down military force anywhere and any time. The brutal repercussions have been felt from the Philippines to Palestine, where Israeli tanks and bulldozers have left a terrible trail of death and destruction. The government now openly prepares to wage all-out war on Iraq – a country which has no connection to the horror of September 11. What kind of world will this become if the US government has a blank check to drop commandos, assassins and bombs wherever it wants?

In our name, within the US, the government has created two classes of people: those to whom the basic rights of the US legal system are at least promised, and those who now seem to have no rights at all. The government rounded up over 1,000 immigrants and detained them in secret and indefinitely. Hundreds have been deported and hundreds of others still languish today in prison. This smacks of the infamous concentration camps for Japanese-Americans in World War II. For the first time in decades, immigration procedures single out certain nationalities for unequal treatment.

In our name, the government has brought down a pall of repression over society. The President’s spokesperson warns people to "watch what they say." Dissident artists, intellectuals, and professors find their views distorted, attacked, and suppressed. The so-called USA PATRIOT Act – along with a host of similar measures on the state level – gives police sweeping new powers of search and seizure, supervised if at all by secret proceedings before secret courts.

In our name, the executive has steadily usurped the roles and functions of the other branches of government. Military tribunals with lax rules of evidence and no right to appeal to the regular courts are put in place by executive order. Groups are declared "terrorist" at the stroke of a presidential pen.

We must take the highest officers of the land seriously when they talk of a war that will last a generation and when they speak of a new domestic order. We are confronting a new openly imperial policy towards the world and a domestic policy that manufactures and manipulates fear to curtail rights.

There is a deadly trajectory to the events of the past months that must be seen for what it is and resisted. Too many times in history people have waited until it was too late to resist. President Bush has declared: "you’re either with us or against us." Here is our answer: We refuse to allow you to speak for all the American people. We will not give up our right to question. We will not hand over our consciences in return for a hollow promise of safety. We say NOT IN OUR NAME. We refuse to be party to these wars and we repudiate any inference that they are being waged in our name or for our welfare. We extend a hand to those around the world suffering from these policies; we will show our solidarity in word and deed.

We who sign this statement call on all Americans to join together to rise to this challenge. We applaud and support the questioning and protest now going on, even as we recognise the need for much, much more to actually stop this juggernaut. We draw inspiration from the Israeli reservists who, at great personal risk, declare, "there IS a limit" and refuse to serve in the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

We also draw on the many examples of resistance and conscience from the past of the United States: from those who fought slavery with rebellions and the underground railroad, to those who defied the Vietnam war by refusing orders, resisting the draft, and standing in solidarity with resisters.

Let us not allow the watching world today to despair of our silence and our failure to act. Instead, let the world hear our pledge: we will resist the machinery of war and repression and rally others to do everything possible to stop it.

From:

James Abourezk Michael Albert Mike Alewitz, Labor Art & Mural Project, Aris Anagnos Laurie Anderson Edward Asner, actor Russell Banks, writer Rosalyn Baxandall, historian Medea Benjamin, Global Exchange Jessica Blank, actor/playwright William Blum, author Theresa & Blase Bonpane, Office of the Americas Fr. Bob Bossie, SCJ Leslie Cagan Kisha Imani Cameron, producer Henry Chalfant, author/filmmaker Bell Chevigny, writer Paul Chevigny, professor of law, NYU Noam Chomsky Ramsey Clark David Cole, professor of law, Georgetown University Robbie Conal Stephanie Coontz, historian, Evergreen State College Kia Corthron, playwright Kimberly Crenshaw, professor of law, Columbia and UCLA Culture Clash Kevin Danaher, Global Exchange Barbara Dane Ossie Davis Mos Def Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, professor, California State University, Hayward Bill Dyson, state representative, Connecticut Steve Earle, singer/songwriter Eve Ensler Leo Estrada, UCLA professor, Urban Planning Laura Flanders, radio host and journalist Elizabeth Frank Richard Foreman Terry Gilliam, film director Charles Glass, journalist Jeremy Matthew Glick, editor of Another World Is Possible Danny Glover Leon Golub, artist Juan Gómez Quiñones, historian, UCLA Jessica Hagedorn Sondra Hale, professor, anthropology and women’s studies, UCLA Suheir Hammad, writer Nathalie Handal, poet and playwright Christine B. Harrington, Director of the Institute for Law & Society, New York University David Harvey, distinguished professor of anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center Tom Hayden Edward S. Herman, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania Susannah Heschel, professor, Dartmouth College Fred Hirsch, vice president, Plumbers and Fitters Local 393 bell hooks Rakaa Iriscience, hip hop artist Abdeen Jabara, attorney, past president, American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Fredric Jameson, chair, literature program, Duke University Harold B. Jamison, major (ret.), USAF Erik Jensen, actor/playwright Chalmers Johnson, author of "Blowback" Casey Kasem Robin D.G. Kelly Martin Luther King III, president, Southern Christian Leadership Conference Barbara Kingsolver Arthur Kinoy, board co-chair, Center for Constitutional Rights Sally Kirkland C. Clark Kissinger, Refuse & Resist! Yuri Kochiyama, activist Annisette & Thomas Koppel, singers/composers David Korten, author Barbara Kruger Tony Kushner James Lafferty, executive director, National Lawyers Guild/L.A. Ray Laforest, Haiti Support Network Jesse Lemisch, professor of history emeritus, John Jay College of Justice, CUNY Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor, TIKKUN magazine Barbara Lubin, Middle East Childrens Alliance Staughton Lynd Dave Marsh Anuradha Mittal, co-director, Institute for Food and Development Policy/Food First Malaquias Montoya, visual artist Tom Morello Robert Nichols, writer Kate Noonan Rev. E. Randall Osburn, exec. v.p., Southern Christian Leadership Conference Ozomatli Grace Paley Michael Parenti Jeremy Pikser, screenwriter Jerry Quickley, poet Margaret Randall Michael Ratner, president, Center for Constitutional Rights Adrienne Rich David Riker, filmmaker Boots Riley, hip hop artist, The Coup Matthew Rothschild Edward Said Susan Sarandon Saskia Sassen, professor, University of Chicago Jonathan Schell, author and fellow of the Nation Institute Carolee Schneeman, artist Ralph Schoenman & Mya Shone, Council on Human Needs Mark Selden, historian Alex Shoumatoff John J. Simon, writer, editor Michael Steven Smith, National Lawyers Guild/NY Norman Solomon, syndicated columnist and author Scott Spenser Nancy Spero, artist Starhawk Bob Stein, publisher Gloria Steinem Oliver Stone Peter Syben, major, US Army, retired Marcia Tucker, founding director emerita, New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY Gore Vidal Anton Vodvarka, Lt., FDNY (ret.) Kurt Vonnegut Alice Walker Rebecca Walker Naomi Wallace, playwright Immanuel Wallerstein, sociologist, Yale University Rev. George Webber, president emeritus, NY Theological Seminary Leonard Weinglass, attorney Haskell Wexler John Edgar Wideman Saul Williams, spoken word artist S. Brian Willson , activist/writer Jeffrey Wright, actor Howard Zinn, historian. Organisations for identification only – representative list as of July 17, 2002. n

Since then, 30,000 others have added their names.
To add your name, and for additional information:
(http://www.notinourname.net/all_to_Conscience.html)

Archived from Communalism Combat, March 2003 Year 9  No. 85, Editorial 2

The post Not in our name appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The world needs a miracle. The Iraqi people need a miracle. There is a new plan to bring about this miracle and we need everyone’s help! We need to ask some very high profile people to go to Baghdad and stay there until the threat of war is withdrawn (meaning the troops leave the Persian Gulf).

Please e-mail, fax, or call Pope John Paul II (even if you’re not Catholic!) and ask him to go to Baghdad on behalf of the innocent Iraqi people who will suffer from a US military attack. Below is a letter from Dr. Helen Caldicott explaining this new anti-war campaign and some sample letters.

Thank you,

Sue Gray
webmaster@rfpeace.org.

An appeal from Dr. Helen Caldicott

I write this appeal for your help as a paediatri
cian, a mother and a grandmother — and I am writing about the lives of tens of thousands of children. Although the current administration has demonstrated it has no reservations about slaughtering up to 500,000 innocents in Iraq, there is one person whose life they absolutely will not risk.

That person is Pope John Paul II. While the Pope has already formally denounced the proposed war, calling it a defeat for humanity, as well as sent his top spokesperson to meet with Saddam Hussein, he now must take a historically unprecedented action of his own and travel to Baghdad.

The Pope’s physical presence in Iraq will act as the ultimate human shield, during which time leaders of the world’s nations can commit themselves to identifying and implementing a peaceful solution to this war that the world’s majority clearly does not support.

To persuade the Holy Father to take this unusual but potent action, he must hear from you and millions of others around the world who have already been inspired to stand up and speak out for peace. A mountain of e-mail, faxes and phone calls are our devices to inspire him. Please understand that your taking just a few minutes right now to communicate with him may ultimately spare the lives of thousands of innocent people who at this moment live in complete terror from the threat of an imminent U.S.-lead military strike on their homeland. So here is what you can do to be a part of this powerful final action to stop the march to war in Iraq.

At the close of the letter, type in your name, city and state—no need to include your address.

Suggested draft of letter:

Your Holiness,

It is out of a sense of great urgency that we are writing this letter. At this very moment the United States of America is on the verge of launching what may be the most cataclysmic war in history, using weapons of mass destruction upon the Iraqi people. Conservative estimates are that such a war will result in the death of 500,000 Iraqis; fifty per cent of their population are less than 15 years of age. It seems clear that, at this time, you are the only person on Earth who can stop this war.

Indeed, your physical presence in Baghdad, will prevent the impending slaughter of hundreds of thousands of human beings, and force the international community to find and implement a peaceful way to prevent this unprecedented, pre–emptive aggression.

We implore your Holiness to travel to Baghdad and to remain there until a peaceful solution to this crisis has been reached. The lives of the people of Iraq rest in your hands as does the fate of the world.

Signed.

(Email of Pope John Paul II:
accreditamenti@pressva.va)

Note: Please pass this original e-mail on to as many people you can so as to assure a critical mass is reached in this action.

Note that as you and others begin sending your letters, faxes and e-mails, there will be a simultaneous effort to alert the media of this action, so as to be sure it is publicly known throughout the world.

Thank you for participating in this formal request of the Pope. We just may stop this war in Iraq – and save these childrens’ lives.

Archived from Communalism Combat, March 2003 Year 9  No. 85, Cover Story 7

The post Plea to the Pope appeared first on SabrangIndia.