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[casi] Seeing the Iraqi People




http://www.counterpunch.com/kysia10092003.html

October 9, 2003

Hope Takes Action
Seeing the Iraqi People
By RAMZI KYSIA

It would be impossible for me to overstate or
exaggerate the devastation that has been imposed on
Iraq, and the most troubling, consistent, and
unacceptable reason for this devastation has been the
failure of the international community, over long
decades, to see the Iraqi people. International policy
toward Iraq has never been made with the desires and
interests of the Iraqi people at heart, and our
advocacy today is just as blind.

Opposition slogans such as "End the Occupation Now!,"
or "Bring Our Troops Home," may be emotionally
satisfying, but--like our governments' policies--our
protests at home reflect little on the reality of
daily life in Iraq.

For 30 years, Iraqis suffered under one of the worst
dictatorships this world has witnessed. Hundreds of
thousands of human beings were arrested, tortured,
disappeared, and often murdered. For 20 of those 30
years, despite this tyranny, Saddam Hussein was the
world's friend. Governments all across the world
loaned him money, sold him weapons, and ignored how he
used them. America, Russia, Europe and the Middle-East
all enthusiastically supported his war with
Iran--which resulted in the deaths of over 1 million
people.

It was only when Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990, and
threatened oil supplies, that the world "discovered"
how terrible he was. How did we respond? By dropping
88,000 tons of explosives, in six-short weeks, on
Iraq. Military targets were bombed--but so were
schools and hospitals, roads, bridges, and electrical
plants. Iraq was devastated by the war. At least
150,000 human beings--most of them civilians--were
killed. And, according to Marti Ahtisaari--the
ex-Finnish president who led a UN mission to Iraq
after the war--Desert Storm "wrought near-apocalyptic
results," and set the country back to "a
pre-industrial age."

When Iraqis rose up to overthrow Saddam Hussein, in
the weeks after the 1991 war, we stood by--US troops
were short kilometers away--and allowed Saddam to
slaughter them by the tens-of-thousands. During the
Uprising, helicopters were exempted from the so-called
"no-fly-zones" which had been imposed supposedly to
protect the Iraqi people, and the world quietly
watched as Saddam used those helicopters to quell the
rebellion and kill 30,000 human beings.

For 13 long years, the world imposed devastating
economic sanctions on Iraq that prevented the country
from being rebuilt, created critical shortages in food
and medicines, and impoverished all Iraqis. Families
sold everything they owned just to be able to buy
food. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children were
killed as a direct result of the embargo. This was an
act of genocide. I don't use the world lightly.

After this most recent war, we saw US troops quickly
move to protect oil fields and oil ministries, and
stand by while looters tore down everything else.
Hospitals were looted, schools were looted, UN
buildings and the Red Cross were stripped of all their
supplies. Under the 4th Geneva Convention, the US had
a responsibility to provide law and order in Iraq
after they overthrew the government. Instead they told
the police not to come back to work, their tanks
knocked down the gates of government buildings,
encouraged the looting to begin, and stood by--for
months--while organized mafias developed that today
terrorize everyone in Baghdad.

It's hard to explain to outsiders how fundamentally
humiliating the looting of Iraq has been to the Iraqi
people. Everywhere you go, Iraqis compare these days
to the time of Halaka Khan--when the Mongols looted
Baghdad and burned it to the ground. But today,
despite the fact that the looters are a vanishingly
small fraction of the population, the image the world
has of Iraqis is of an out-of-control and rabid people
destroying themselves. After 30 years of Saddam, to
finally be free of his tyranny and humiliation, only
to be drown in further humiliation, is almost
unbearable. Grown men have cried in front of me, to
see what's become of their country.

During the power blackouts in the US this summer,
President Bush told us that 6 hours without
electricity were a "national emergency," but 6 months
without electricity in Iraq only elicits a shrug.
While Paul Bremer and his staff hide behind the walls
of Saddam's palaces, US soldiers--frightened by the
attacks against them--fire randomly in all directions
every time they get spooked. Innocent Iraqis are being
killed every day. You cannot visit one neighborhood in
all of Baghdad without local residents telling you of
some shooting incident that "accidentally" killed one
of their neighbors. And, while we learn the names of
every American soldier who gets killed in this
conflict, what their dreams were, how their families
are suffering--the Iraqis killed are nameless,
faceless, storyless. No one is paying attention to
their families' suffering. No one is thinking about
what their dreams might have been.

Gandhi once said that "poverty is the worst form of
violence," and the poverty and isolation deliberately
created in Iraq by 20 years of war and sanctions has
not ended. Unemployment is still over 60%, and Iraqis
today are just as poor and just as cut off from the
world as they were before the war. They remain, living
in disaster.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed by
Saddam's regime. Hundreds of thousands were killed
during the war with Iran. Hundreds of thousands were
killed during the war with the US in 1991. Hundreds of
thousands more died under sanctions.

Where was the world when this happened? Where is the
world today?

I can't tell you what the political solution to this
crisis should be. I doubt most Iraqis yet know for
themselves. If US troops were to quickly leave, the
power vacuum could result in civil war. If the Bush
Administration is forced to hand over military or
political control to the UN, while economic power
remains in the hands of the US, I do believe that the
resistance and insecurity would continue. A political
solution in Iraq is not yet clear.

But I'm not a politician. And what I do know is that I
have never seen a people as strong or as resourceful
as Iraqis. There is hope. People are organizing on the
ground, such as in the Union of the Unemployed or the
Organization for Women's Freedom, in order to struggle
for their rights. Others are beginning to build Iraq's
civil society, forming groups to take care of orphans
and the elderly, or start schools, or rebuild the
country themselves.

There is hope. But hope takes action. We live in a
pregnant time, and each of us in this world--through
our action or our inaction--will have a say in what is
born from the crisis of Iraq.

Some international activists have come together with
Iraqis to help start an organization called
"Occupation Watch," keeping track of the violence of
the Occupation, and putting pressure on governments to
stop violating human rights in Iraq. We should support
them.

For the last 5 months I've helped a group of young
Iraqis to start a newspaper and independent media
center called "Al-Muajaha: The Iraqi Witness." These
kids are amazing, and they need our continued support.

We've also helped a group of Iraqi artists and
teachers start their own art school for children,
teaching theater and music and painting to children
suffering from years of poverty and violence. We can
work wonders when we work together.

Iraq is unsafe. The UN has all but pulled out of the
country, and many NGOs have left entirely. Those that
remain have massively scaled back their operations. We
cannot let this trend continue. We must not forget
these people yet again. Iraq is unsafe--for the 25
million people who call it home.

If nothing else, Sept. 11th should have dramatically
demonstrated the reality that for as long as any of us
are unsafe in this world, all of us are unsafe. We
have to realize, deeply realize, that our security
cannot depend on the insecurity of everyone else.

After decades of violence, of humiliation piled upon
humiliation, we must begin to work for peace and
reconciliation. After long years of isolation, we must
engage.

We cannot trust our governments. None of them have
ever demonstrated a willingness to see the Iraqi
people. We cannot trust George Bush. The man is a
violent fool, and US policy toward Iraq has never been
governed by anything other than contempt for Iraqis.

If we would believe in democracy, if we believe in
peace, then we have to demonstrate it. These are not
abstract ideals we can simply argue about, or protest
for, and then go home to quietly forget.

Peace and freedom--true freedom--are tangible
realities that we can only build if we decide to stand
up and be present. They take struggle. They take
risks. It starts with the connections we make, today,
right now, with each other and with all our sisters
and brothers around the world. It never ends.

It is dangerous to oppose our governments. It is
dangerous to acknowledge our deep responsibility to
people living in disaster. It is dangerous to risk our
liberty and our lives in opposition to violence. It's
also dangerous not to, and if it weren't so dangerous
it wouldn't be so necessary.

Ramzi Kysia is an Arab-American peace activist and
writer. He is currently doing public speaking in
Europe after having lived a year in Iraq with Voices
in the Wilderness. Voices in the Wilderness is being
fined $20,000 by the US government for illegally
taking medicines to Iraq.


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