Amman

Peace Pirates

Jeff Leys — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 11:26:02 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Cathy Breen writes from Amman, Jordan

Excerpt

Amman, Jordan
August 24, 2008

Dear Friends,

Yesterday afternoon as I got into a public taxi, or “service” as they are called here, a friendly driver greeted me in English, something very rare. This type of taxi carries four passengers, and it seems that people are reluctant to be heard speaking English. I had ridden in this driver’s taxi before, and the other time he felt free as well to address me in English. His words yesterday however took me completely by surprise. “Did you hear about the boats arriving in Gaza!” he said excitedly. He was referring to the Free Gaza campaign which I too have been following with great interest. We have friends among the 45 or so human rights activists on the two boats which, despite multiple threats, set sail from Cyprus to break the siege and end the blockade of Gaza and its 1.5 million occupants.

Body

Amman, Jordan
August 24, 2008

Dear Friends,

With 42% of the Palestinian population living in Jordan, this event received extensive news coverage on Jordan TV last night and today. Sadly I was unable to understand much of the Arabic, but the joyful faces of the Palestinians and the “peace pirates” alike were worth a million words. The mission of these humble vessels and their international crew was clear, “We are not delivering humanitarian aid. This is about the right of the Palestinians to live freely,” said one of their spokespersons. What a sign of hope to all of us in these desperate and dark times!

School began last week here in Jordan, and this is always a painful time for Iraqis who have no income or legal status. So many Iraqi children are either not in school or have been out of school for some years. Many are teenagers now with little hope of ever catching up with their peers. What is the saying “Idle hands, a devil’s workshop?” But with staggering rent, fuel, electricity, water and food prices,. school enrollment has become a source of distress for the majority of the Jordanian population. The cost of milk has risen 35%, and lentils has increased fourfold in price over the last months.

Over 30,000 Jordanian children have been transferred from private to public schools this year. Some classes are already overcrowded with 60 students, and now there is the need in many areas for the school to “double-shift.” Under the two-shift system the morning classes begin at 6:45am until 11:45am, the second shift from noon to 5:00pm. Teachers on fixed salaries are bearing the burden. “As teachers how can we live with this system? I chose this profession so I could go home and take care of my family!” (The Jordan Times, Aug.22-23,08) Tragically the resentment felt by teachers, parents and students alike is often transferred to Iraqi children. The overcrowding has led to “waiting lists” for new students, and it falls to the school administration to decide if spots will go to Iraqi or Jordanian children.

I want to close with another sign of hope. A mother in the states wrote the following message and sent a gift of money which will go to several mothers of Iraqi children for shoes, uniforms or other school related needs. Each of the mother’s receiving a small sum of money will hear her words.

“Dear Friend, First, I want you to know that there are many, many people in this country who care about you, and would like to help you. We feel almost as helpless as you. This money seems like a small gesture. Here is a picture of my son, Andy. He’s 8 years old. It is so painful for me to think of other children, just like him, caught in the middle of such a terrible situation. I cannot tell you that it’s all going to be OK. But I can tell you there are many people who care about you and are trying to improve your situation. I wish our children could be playing together while we talk and laugh. But this is the best we can do right now. Inshallah [God willing], someday we will meet in peace.”

There are so many “peace pirates” doing what they can to bring healing and hope. Let us take heart.

Cathy Breen

VCNV Author

Cathy Breen

Letter from Cathy Breen: "How can the walls ever come down?"

Cathy Breen — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:40:45 -0500

Short Information Teaser

An Iraqi friend told me recently that the lack of electricity and jobs continue to fan the fires of anger and resistance. "Violence would decrease 50%" he said "if there were electricity."

Excerpt

Amman, Jordan
Aug 10, 2008

Dear Friends,

“How can the walls ever come down?” was the question I put to three Iraqi friends. Late yesterday afternoon I went next door to ask a neighbor if we could watch Iraqi TV news together. Would he mind translating for me? This young friend often helps me with Arabic, and I had brought my notebook along. We were joined by his brother and another Iraqi friend who will be returning to Baghdad soon. Moslem and Christians, we sat together. The walls I was referring to are the concrete barricades which have been constructed by the coalition forces throughout all of Baghdad. These walls seal off and separate entire communities.

Body

Amman, Jordan
Aug 10, 2008

Dear Friends,

One evening last week, I met with two journalist friends from the U.S. who had just returned from a month-long trip to Iraq. As I listened to them, I was heartened and sickened at the same time. I was amazed at the freedom of movement they described, not only for themselves as foreigners, but for Iraqis. Of course they are seasoned reporters with long-time experience and contacts; they know how to proceed with caution and prudence. While the atmosphere remains tense and explosions continue, they reported, people have begun to feel safer in the last couple of months. They are venturing out more. The economy is a mess with high inflation, but crime is down.

Nevertheless, I was sick at heart to hear that almost all of the neighborhoods in Baghdad have been walled off, each with a single entrance and exit point. In order to enter one must negotiate with the particular militia/entity protecting that neighborhood. The Iraqi army is out in strength and better equipped and trained than they were three years ago. They now have, for example, some armed humvees.

An Iraqi friend told me recently that the lack of electricity and jobs continue to fan the fires of anger and resistance. “Violence would decrease 50%” he said “if there were electricity.”

Just recently I got to see the son of a family from Baghdad, a family whom we’ve known for years. When I lived in Baghdad their twelve year old daughter used to teach me Arabic. She is now seventeen. What a joy it was to meet with him and get an update on each member of the family. As we visited I couldn’t help remembering him as a lanky 18 year old with a lopsided smile going off to fight in Saddam’s army. This was right before the invasion, and he had no choice. Five years later he is working as a bodyguard in Baghdad. He was able to come to Amman because he is accompanying an Iraqi minister here for meetings. He told me that the only work available in Baghdad is as a bodyguard, a soldier or a policeman. His younger brother works as a soldier in the Iraq army. Their dear mother is unwell; no wonder given the worry she must face at the safety of her sons. This son told us of a recent bomb attack against the minister he is paid to protect. Three of his fellow bodyguards were killed. He has survived, so far. He was able to take a handwritten letter from me back to his family, along with a picture I took of us together.

The above mentioned journalist friends said “Everyone is waiting to see how the elections will turn out.” They patiently tried to walk me through the complex myriad of sectarian groupings, parties, militias, army and police. Yet despite their attempts at clarification, I was left feeling confused and overwhelmed. I liken it to a chess game where there are too many players and no rules. Elite Shi’a groups like the Dowa party and the Supreme Islam Council, Moqtada Al Sadr with his Mehdi army, The Awakening or SaHwa, primarily Sunni, the list seems endless. “Everyone at the ground level wants the Americans out,” they said. An uneasy balance of power, it is clear there will be no winners even after the elections in Iraq take place.

And so we sat together yesterday, Moslem and Christian Iraqis. Both from Baghdad, they met here in Amman. No one can deny that the experience of Christian Iraqis is different from that of Moslem Iraqis. The Christians in Iraq have been targeted not only as “infidels” by radical Islamic extremists, but they have been caught in the middle of sectarian violence, a fact born out by our Moslem friend. But they both share in common the unspeakable suffering unleashed by this war. They have both lost family and friends in the killing and violence. Both have lost homes and homeland. Families are separated, and their futures uncertain. As I sat and listened to their heated discussion in Arabic, I was struck by the respectful tone. How can the walls come down? I asked again.

One of the young men responded thoughtfully “It will take time….everything takes time.” Another said smiling “We thought the same of Saddam Hussein’s pictures. They were everywhere, even in the bathrooms!” These men give me hope that maybe some day the walls, like Saddam’s pictures, will come down.

Cathy Breen

VCNV Author

Cathy Breen

Letter from Cathy Breen

voices — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 21:01:39 -0500

Short Information Teaser

"Despite the Iraqi government’s current campaign to get Iraqis to return to their country, no Iraqi here that I’ve spoken with is willing to return."

Excerpt

Amman, Jordan
July 30, 2008

Dear Friends,

Yesterday I received the following message from friends in Baghdad.

“Our Prime Minister visited the pope a few days ago and invited him to visit Iraq and persuade Christian Iraqis to return back to Iraq…. though Iraq is still a hotbed of crime and conspiracy. Many Iraqis in Syria and Jordan have returned either because their savings were depleted or they were not lucky enough to be picked by the UNHCR. Until now I cannot understand the criteria they are using to select the refugees. The conditions here are still bad, with no services at all. We even boil the drinking water to make sure it is safe while we heard that in the Green zone they import distilled water from Kuwait to use for washing and showers.”

Body

Amman, Jordan
July 30, 2008

Dear Friends,

Yesterday I received the following message from friends in Baghdad.

Stating that the security situation has improved inside of Iraq, there is a push on the part of the Iraqi government for the return of Iraqi refugees. Monthly financial incentives are being offered to returning Iraqis as well as to people inside of Iraq who have taken up residence, for instance, in other peoples’ homes. On a recent trip to Europe, Prime Minister Nouri Malaki asked Germany to review its position on refugees as Berlin has led a campaign to allow several thousand Iraqi refugees to resettle in the European Union. German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the press “I think we should back plans to see the greatest number return home, with necessary encouragements.” (The Jordan Times 7.24.08) The pope himself, distressed at the mass exodus of Iraqi Christians from the region, is encouraging them to return. But is he, or anyone else for that matter, asking Iraqis what they want?

Despite the Iraqi government’s current campaign to get Iraqis to return to their country, no Iraqi here that I’ve spoken with is willing to return. Moreover, the UNHCR is not promoting or encouraging Iraqis to return until they can do so safely and with dignity. As part of an internal study the UNHCR asked Iraqis in Jordan if they would return to Iraq: 90% said not at all, 5% said at some point, and 5% were undecided. The results were similar in Syria.

Beginning in mid-February of this year the Jordan government announced its own three-month campaign to encourage Iraqis to return home. This was in the form of a “waiver of fines” for Iraqi nationalists who had overstayed their visas, while those who wished to stay would have their fines cut in half and then receive a three-month visa. Jordan’s Minister of Interior described the number of Iraqis who benefited from the exemption as disappointing, compared with the total number of Iraqis in the country which stands at half a million. “Only 3,000 Iraqis have left the country while 12,000 stayed and benefited from the exemption decision.” (The Jordan Times, July 20,2008)

The other night I made myself look at the gruesome pictures on the TV news, pictures of bodies ripped apart by explosions in Turkey. Two consecutive suicide bombings were carried out in a crowded shopping area, the second as rescue attempts were going on. Seventeen innocent people dead. In Baghdad and Kirkuk at least 58 people died in suicide bombings the same day.

About 5 months ago an Iraqi couple and their two year old son were allowed to enter Jordan for medical reasons. Their little boy was near death and in need of an emergency operation. The operation was successful, thank God, and the parents will be returning to Iraq soon. This precious child has captured my heart, as well as his mother who is expecting their fourth child. The father shared with me how he saw a mother, beside herself with grief, frantically racing with part of her son to a hospital after such an explosion. Holding only his legs in her arms, she was screaming “Sew him together, sew my son back together! While no one disputes that the number of deaths and attacks have declined since the “surge,” the ongoing violence and carnage continue in alarming proportions compared to other parts of the region. It seems somehow obscene to even think in terms of numbers, doesn’t it? But I fear we have simply become immune to the numbers….and the images are tragically withheld from us.

Cathy Breen

VCNV Author

Cathy Breen

Letter from Cathy Breen

Cathy Breen — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:02:30 -0500

Short Information Teaser

What would you do if your child was kidnapped?

Excerpt

July 27,2008
Amman, Jordan

Dear Friends,

“Think about it for a second. What would you do if your child was kidnapped? If you were in a war-torn country where the police couldn’t help you? To many, if not most parents, the answer of course would be—anything, anything. Including paying ransom to those who were holding their child even if the kidnappers were terrorists. Over the past five years for many Iraqis, that choice has been a very grim reality.” (Dan Rather Reports on ‘The High Price of Ransom,” HDNet TV, July 1, 2008)

Last week in a meeting at the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Amman, I was asked if I had seen the above program. I had not, but was later able to get a printout of the text. I have it before me as I write you. Why is it that I am not surprised to read that one in every four Iraqis seeking help from the UNHCR has had a family member kidnapped? And yet seeing this number in print creates a knot in my stomach, and a feeling of nausea. One in four, imagine. One in four.

Body

July 27,2008
Amman, Jordan

Dear Friends,

A day or so after the meeting at the UNHCR—I had gone to get an update on their activities over the last 7 months and to learn of their current position—I was sitting with a Jordanian woman in a public square not far from where I am living. An Iraqi man I know quite well saw us and approached asking if I could meet with a father whose little daughter is ill. What could I say? How could I refuse? The timing was providential as the Jordanian woman agreed to translate for us.

About 1/2 hour later, the father arrived and showed me a medical report of his 4 year old daughter. She has suffered from seizures since birth, and Caritas is no longer able to provide the needed medications. His own savings have run out. They had four children, but a year ago one of their daughters died of cancer. She was just seven.

This family fled to Jordan about two years ago, after their then seven year old boy was kidnapped in Baghdad. The child was held for three weeks. The father explained that the family paid $8,000 of a $10,000 ransom for their son’s release. They sought help with the UNHCR in Amman and, after arduous and lengthy processing, were granted refugee status and qualified for resettlement. Last October they had the one deciding interview with someone from the U.S. Homeland Security team. The officer asked this father “Why did you pay a ransom and support the terrorists?” The father showed me the form letter of rejection with the box “credibility” checked. The letter did not even have a date on it.

As the time drew near to take leave of one another, I remembered that I had an envelope in my bag from friends in the U.S. for just such a family in need. Together with the money was a handwritten message from them, and I am sorry now that I didn’t think to copy it. Just two sentences as I recall, but words that conveyed the deep longing and desire that one day we would live in peace together. The simple words seemed to encircle and embrace us, and it was enough to just sit silently together for some moments.

Cathy Breen

VCNV Author

Cathy Breen

Cold Shoulders

Kathy Kelly — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:48:31 -0500

Short Information Teaser

In Amman, Jordan, Kathy regularly visited the family of Umm Hamdi

Excerpt

July 5, 2008

Over the past two years, here in Amman, Jordan, I’ve regularly visited the family of Umm Hamdi, an Iraqi woman forced out of her native Iraq four years ago by terrifying death threats after her husband, very likely prey to that same threatened violence, disappeared. Although often met with the proverbial “cold shoulder” when trying to improve conditions for her family, she persists,—in the daytime she does child care for another family and, in the evening, she knits, sews, and makes handicrafts to sell in a local market. Umm Hamdi is tough, strong and fiercely determined to provide for her children. Nevertheless, she’s wretchedly insecure as a single mother and one more refugee among thousands in a country where resources to cope with her anxious needs are very slim. And she is worried for her son who is still in Iraq.

Two nights ago, I turned up to her small bare apartment during an evening when her young daughters were out in the care of a local charity and she was home alone. I saw how worn out she was from working to support them - but more telling on her is the frustration and remorse she feels for Hamdi, her teenage son, who is barred from entering Jordan because he is a young man over 15 years of age, and whether for fear of spillover violence or from a wish to concentrate its taxed charitable resources among women and children, Jordan’s policy strictly bars him entry. In Iraq, Hamdi lives with a family that resents him for his unemployed status, (there are no jobs), and can barely spare the little support they offer him.

Body

July 5, 2008

Umm Hamdi is stricken with remorse over separation from her son. In regular phone calls, he learns that his sisters are going to school, that one has completed a vocational training program, and that when the oldest daughter was recently married the family did everything they could to give her a traditional wedding. The anguish overwhelms her as she recounts their latest conversation: “You do everything for your daughters,” he had shouted, over the phone: “everything for them, but what about me? What about me? I am your son!” She clutches her hands over her eyes. Between sobs, she repeats, “My son, my son.”

Her son is one of many thousands in Iraq who are out of luck, out of work, undereducated, and lonely for parents and siblings lucky enough to escape to neighboring countries.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says that poverty is driving Iraq’s boys and young men, out of desperation, into the militias. A 2007 IOM report noted that “militant fighters sometimes buy the loyalty of displaced persons by providing them some of the things they need, such as food and shelter. More and more children are joining these armed groups, the militias and the insurgents,” said IOM officer Dana Graber Ladeck. “Sometimes they do it for money and sometimes for revenge, but we’re finding more and more child soldiers, so to speak.” (January 30, Voice of America interview)

Some youngsters agree to carry guns and to man checkpoints for the strongest and most heavily armed militia in their country, the U.S. military. Reporting for Reuters, Adrian Croft recently wrote about a “ragtag band of men toting AK-47s at a checkpoint in Baghdad’s Sadr City,” some of 500 youngsters the US had recruited as part of a new plan to “strengthen the Iraqi army’s hold” in the backyard of U.S. rival Moqtada Sadr. (Jordan Times, June 27). New recruits risk their lives to earn $300 a month, guarding these checkpoints. It’s undoubtedly one of the best jobs in town. Will this option, will one like it, attract Umm Hamdi’s son?

Other Iraqi youngsters have been swept up by the U.S. military and sent to prisons, without charge, as a measure to prevent them from joining an Iraqi militia. On May 19, 2008, Fox News reported that the U.S. military is holding about 500 juveniles suspected of being “unlawful enemy combatants” in detention centers in Iraq. In August of 2007, in anticipation of the “troop surge,” CNN reported that the US had imprisoned, without charge, 800 Iraqi youngsters (or “security risks”) between the ages of 11 and 17, in a “prison school,” to prevent them from lending their bodies to militias as decoys or snipers. The CNN reporter said that, within the school, textbooks and classrooms were another “weapon” against terror. Commanding officer Lt. Glenn expressed his goal: “We ensure that when they are released that they don’t – they pick up a book instead of an AK-47 or laying an IED. And that’s what this really gets back to.” And when it gets back to young men like Hamdi, the message is perfectly clear: the U.S. will supply plenty of guns and explosives as long as the attacks are done in the name of protecting U.S. “security.”

Umm Hamdi doesn’t want her son to pick up a gun or lay an explosive device, for Iraq or for anyone. She would rather see him pick up a book. She cries herself to sleep at night wishing she could just see him. But she can’t bring her daughters back to the maelstrom of violence her native country has become with the U.S. invasion. And with Jordan straining to contain the refugees it has absorbed, she can’t bring her son out of Iraq.

Would it reassure her to think that Hamdi might find more secure shelter and achieve some educational goals if U.S. military jailers could imprison him for a year or so? Would it help if I told her that millions of impoverished parents in the U.S. worry that their sons might land in jail, and that many see the military as a better option?

I talked with her for a while longer. Her daughters returned from the event the charity had hosted for them, their faces sparkling with glitter and their arms colorful with painted designs. Umm Hamdi wiped away tears from a suddenly, forcedly, cheerful expression. She fetched a small ball of yarn - royal blue - and started rapid work to knit me a sweater, a parting gift I will take with me when I leave here. “It’s cold in Chicago, very cold!” she said, laying down the needles and yarn. She grabbed her shoulders to help me understand that she didn’t want me to have cold shoulders. “No, we don’t want you to be cold.”

Kathy Kelly () co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence

VCNV Author

Kathy Kelly

Istiklal

Jeff Leys — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:54:24 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Kathy Kelly writes from Amman, Jordan about Independence Day

Excerpt

July 3, 2008

The city of Amman, Jordan, is awash with numerous colorful signs that proclaim independence, “Istiklal.” The word is found on posters and placards in store windows. It names a major thoroughfare, a hospital, and a shopping center. Appreciation for independence is palpable, and this could be said for numerous cities and towns throughout the region, including Iraq, where past struggles for independence are commemorated by naming buildings and streets “Istiklal.” It reflects the love of independence and the longing for it.

But independence is elusive in a region suffering multiple wars and occupations. Particularly in Iraq, it’s hard to imagine an independent society growing up amid the violent wreckage of economic sanctions, U.S. bombardment and staggering corruption.

Body

July 3, 2008

A struggle to seek independence from war and violence, in Iraq, using nonviolent means, may seem even less viable, but that’s the mission of a sturdy network, called “La Onf,” (the Arabic translation for the word nonviolence). The group now has chapters at work in all but two of Iraq’s thirteen governorates. Each chapter chooses its own focus, and then explores how they might develop nonviolent problem solving. Last month, I had a chance to be part of a meeting between workers in the Amman office of the organization and representatives of Peaceful Tomorrows, a network of family members of 9/11 victims, determined by their horror and loss to pursue alternatives everywhere to the violence that claimed the lives of their loved ones. At the end of our meetings, the La Onf organization celebrated a modest yet solid accomplishment: one of the chapters, working in the south of Iraq, convinced governing authorities in the Muthanna province to issue a law banning the import and sale of war toys and fireworks throughout the governorate.

Proponents of the ruling believe young Iraqis have seen enough guns. But more than this; the La Onf workers believe their children are themselves seen by too many American soldiers for it to be safe for them to have toy guns - children have been shot often enough, in Iraq, for looking too dangerous to soldiers - and the La Onf workers can tell you the stories of festive family gatherings turned to scenes of bloody havoc when U.S. military personnel have mistaken celebratory fireworks for threatening attacks. The real guns, the real explosives, of the invaders - our guns and explosives – have proven to Iraqis that war is no game.

“We are too often self-censoring,” says my friend Ciaron O’Reilly, reflecting on our responsibility to ban weapons. “We think we can’t do much, so we do nothing at all.” Ciaron was speaking at a May 13th , 2008 celebration following the acquittal of 9 Irish activists who entered a Raytheon weapon manufacturing plant in Derry, Ireland, and damaged the corporation’s computers. Ciaron and four companions had set a precedent for this kind of action when, in 2003, shortly before the then-imminent US attack against Iraq, they entered a hangar in Shannon airport and, using mallets, did 2.5 million dollars worth of damage to a US Navy warplane. A Dublin jury, in 2006, acquitted him and his fellow “Pitstop Ploughshares” because, as they noted, they were taking steps to prevent a crime and save lives.

Like the Pitstop Ploughshares, The Raytheon defendants, in Derry, insisted, throughout their trial, that they had acted to prevent the commission of war crimes. They knew that the Israeli Defense Forces had used Raytheon’s bunker buster bomb to attack civilians living in the village of Qana, Lebanon, during the summer of 2006.

As part of preparation for their trial, they traveled to Lebanon and met with the families whose loved ones were killed by Raytheon’s bunker buster.

In a statement following the trial, they dedicated their victory to the Shaloub and Hasheem families of Qana, who lost 28 of their closest relatives on the 30th of July, 2006, all sheltering in a building they knew normal bombardment wouldn’t bring down.

It happened that I and several Voices members were in Qana two weeks after the attack, once a ceasefire had, with agonizing delay, been signed. We had heard of the massacre in Qana, and we felt it was essential to document. And so we went, and we sat with those Shaloub and Hasheem families during their funeral commemorations for their lost children. From my notes for that day:

Umm Zaynab asked a child to bring the stack of newspapers and magazines. “Here,” she said, carefully sorting through the pile, “This is Zaynab.” Zaynab is a little girl. Photo after photo shows Zaynab held aloft, lifeless, by a strong, helmeted relief worker who is seen shouting to heaven his shock and terrible awe.

Next to her, in the shelter, was her friend, Zahara. The girls show few outward signs of injury or mutilation: the force of the explosion seems to have destroyed their internal organs, with little outward trauma, as they slept in each other’s arms. They never woke up.

Next she placed in our hands a framed picture of Zaynab, a curly headed little girl with huge dark eyes posing seriously for the camera. One can only imagine what her smile would look like. “Who are the terrorists?” whispered Umm Zayneb to me, showing me the photographs of her daughter. Her eyes held mine as she answered her own question. I heard her say, “Bush,” before Farah translated, “She is saying that Zayneb and the children aren’t the terrorists. She says the real terrorists are the ones who kill children.”

The Derry defendants, along with the jury which acquitted them, seem to have agreed, as one reports:

“The jury has accepted that we were reasonable in our belief that the Israel Defense Forces were guilty of war crimes in Lebanon in the summer of 2006; that the Raytheon company, including its facility in Derry, was aiding and abetting the commission of these crimes; and that the action we took was intended to have, and did have, the effect of hampering or delaying the commission of war crimes. We have been vindicated.…We believe that one day the world will look back on the arms trade as we look back today on the slave trade, and wonder how it came about that such evil could abound in respectable society. If we have advanced, by a mere moment, the day when the arms trade is put beyond the law, what we have done will have been worthwhile.” (www.indymedia.ie)

The arms trade is, as the slave trade was, a crime against independence: the weapons are used to coerce, to enslave, to terrorize. Terror and death, death of innocents, death of children, are the obvious staple of both trades for this very reason. And Americans pride themselves as defenders of freedom, and opponents of slavery.

On July 4th, in cities and towns across the U.S., people will gather to watch fireworks and remember “The rockets’ red glare” and celebrate Independence Day with pantomime explosions, and the deafening, mounting concussions of the like that in Amman and in Iraq and, in a myriad places around our globe, people need no help remembering. And a friend reminds me that 150 years ago, 150 years exactly to the day come this coming September 11th, President Lincoln publicly asked, “What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence?”

and answered:

“… It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land: all of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms: our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, every where. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.”

Of course our weapons destroy this spirit. If we think about it, if we think of how they are used time and time again, we realize that’s simply what they’re for. Imagine if, on this Independence Day, we could celebrate the spirit of independence, that love of liberty which becomes its opposite if we only love our own: we must celebrate and yearn for everyone’s independence: We must call for it: call for Istiklal. We may do so quietly, privately to ourselves if among those who would not understand, or publicly and insistently if we wish, in doing so, to stand for independence and our own right not to kill.

In independence’ name we must ask, when is that day “the world will look back on the arms trade as we look back today on the slave trade,” the day when the arms trade is put beyond the law. When is the day when we and the leaders who act in our name will allow Istiklal and independence in every other language of this world to flourish? When is the day when “they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks, and nation shall not rise up against nation, neither shall they study war any more?”

This July 4th ,we must all ask: when, at long last, is Independence Day?

VCNV Author

Kathy Kelly

Traveling Light

Kathy Kelly — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 11:39:12 -0600

Short Information Teaser

Kathy Kelly writes from Jordan

Excerpt

December 6, 2007

Traveling with as light a load as possible is something I long for during long stretches away from home. I routinely discard paperwork and periodicals, “recycle” gifts and give away clothing. But, here in Amman, Jordan, when a ten year-old Iraqi girl named Nauras gave me a camera, I quickly put it in the envelope where I keep my money, confident it would survive my next purge.

The camera consists of two pieces of drawing paper, cleverly folded so that the parts slide past each other, opening up a tiny square “shutter.” I think of Nauras peering through the shutter and pretending to snap my picture, then gleefully posing for imaginary snapshots as I take my turn as photographer. I remember her fetching her only other toy, a bedraggled baby doll with long white hair and eyes of aqua blue, and placing it in my arms.

Body

December 6, 2007

Photo by Emily Crawford

Fortunately, Nauras is playful and inventive; for the time being, she seems somewhat oblivious to the desperate insecurity she and her family face. But Nauras, though she seems to register it but little, is no stranger to tragedy. Growing up she daily saw her father’s fingerless right hand, a brutal message from Saddam Hussein’s government which left Nauras’ mother the family’s sole breadwinner, and for which, following the U.S. invasion, Nauras’ parents had hoped to obtain overseas medical care, traveling here to Jordan seeking a German visa. But a series of catastrophes have ensured that, barring a miracle, they will never complete this journey.

First their travel money, kept in their Amman apartment, was stolen in a burglary. Then they discovered their desperate need of it, as word arrived from Baghdad that their oldest daughter, staying behind like Naurus with relatives there, was to be abducted and slain by a group of the kidnappers so horribly active then and now in the city, if they didn’t quickly produce as ransom the money they had just lost. When Nauras’ father rushed back to Baghdad to rescue his daughter and his other children, he never arrived. His family has heard nothing; he has disappeared. An uncle brought two of Nauras’ sisters here to Jordan, and then Nauras and a third. She hasn’t seen her father, or her only brother whom she left behind in Baghdad, since she was seven, a third of her life ago.

Since 2004, Nauras’s mother has tried to manage in Jordan, living in a humble dwelling with no furniture apart from a few cushions that line the walls and four beds shared by her and her four daughters. Her only son, age 18, is still in Baghdad, living with relatives. She hasn’t seen him for three years. He called the night before I visited her, distressed because he has no money and no job and no one to whom he can turn. Jordanian authorities won’t allow him to cross the border and join his family.

Here in Jordan, a judge recently decreed that Nauras’s mother is now divorced, since she hasn’t seen her husband for three years and doesn’t know if he is alive or dead. Her new legal status as a single mother may entitle her to some assistance, but so far the support that charities can provide has dramatically lessened. More cutbacks are predicted at the beginning of next year, and prices for food and fuel are rising steadily.

Already in debt to someone who is charging 15% interest, she wondered how she could manage to procure a heater and fuel for the cold months ahead. She showed me the inside of her empty refrigerator, shut off to save costly power and infested with large bugs. The smell of sewage fills the second of their two rented rooms as paint peels from the drab and dismally bare walls.

When I said goodbye to Nauras’s mother, I urged her to try to stay strong. With her face turned from little Nauras, her eyes filled with tears. She must somehow hide her misery and fear from Nauras, who still delights in make believe snapshots of friendly faces.

Nauras’s camera is a keeper. It will join three other items so important to me I try to carry them with me wherever I go. The first is a picture of an old Russian man, beggared and homeless, stooped in a street in Moscow, covered with a layer of frost. It reminds me of the awful misery even the preparation for war brings – in this case to the poor that the U.S. and Soviet Union failed to support in favor of a mad and wasteful race to best each other at acquiring the means for global destruction. The second item is a photo, quite famous, of a starving child standing in desert sands, alongside an expectant vulture.

The third item is a printed speech by Muriel Lester, delivered at one of the many nonviolence trainings she pioneered in her decades of tireless activism at the start of the twentieth century. Though I’m keeping these items to travel with, along with Nauras’ camera, I’d nevertheless like to “re-gift” Ms. Lester’s words to you here; a paper gift like Nauras’, but maybe one which offers an imaginary picture of ourselves “traveling light:”

“Remember that the possession of a healthy, free and unoppressed mind can be ours if we are willing to observe the necessary discipline… The golden rule to keep unswervingly, unflinchingly, is to never grow slack. Whatever the form of discipline you adopt as your own, let it be as beautifully balanced, as poised, as the supple body of a ballerina…

To disarm — not only our bodies by refusing to kill, or make killing instruments in munitions factories — but also to disarm our minds of anger, pride, envy, hate and malice…

Sometime in the cold light before dawn, in an unexpected moment of solitude, we suddenly find ourselves facing stark reality — our future, the world’s future, war, pain, hunger.

We feel almost intimidated as we consider the condition of men and things. ‘One half the world is sick, fat with excess. The other half, like that poor beggar past us even now, who thanked us for a crust with tears.’ The issue becomes clear and urgent:

Are we going to spend our lives struggling and fighting for a place in the fat half? Or shall we tilt against the old spectres of war and inequality, unmasking them, stripping them of their glamour, revealing them as old fashioned imposters and tyrants we can no longer tolerate in a world that might be full of common sense, plenty and goodwill?”

Just up the street from where I’m staying in Amman, Jordan, several dozen Iraqis traveled from all parts of their country to participate in a week of nonviolence training carried out in the spirit of Muriel Lester. The sessions were organized by an Iraqi human rights group, Al Massalla in collaboration with Un Ponte Per, an Italian Non Governmental Organization based in Amman. The group concluded the first part of their training with a resolve to organize, in 2008, a weeklong action next year throughout Iraq, a public demonstration of nonviolent determination in a country where political action can be horribly dangerous. They laughed and applauded as they exchanged certificates for the training and then posed for photos, already a remarkably courageous act for what are planning soon to do, and for where they’re planning to do it. Over the next several days, representatives from this, the third gathering in their untiring campaign, will strategize with representatives of similar networks developing all around the region.

Do they with their certificates have as little chance of producing a happy picture in Iraq as Nauras with her paper camera? This is a harsh, harsh world to journey in – and if we travel at all we’re going to have to travel light. We can each choose small things to strengthen us in the journey – here in Jordan endangered Naurus is surviving on imagination, a small item which nevertheless gives her a better world to look at than the one she’s stranded in. And for their journey my friends from the training have chosen hope, and their determination born of hope, to be themselves a “make-believe picture” of the justice and kindness which, if and only if we join them, may yet come to be the world we walk through.

Kathy Kelly, , co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence, www.vcnv.org

VCNV Author

Kathy Kelly

Cathy Breen: "It's always too soon to go home."

Cathy Breen — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 04:06:30 -0600

Short Information Teaser

Cathy Breen writes from Amman, Jordan

Excerpt

Amman, Jordan
November 25, 2007

Recent media reports depict large numbers of Iraqis returning to their country. “Thousands of Iraqis living in Syria have headed back home in the past weeks.” (Jordan Times, Feb. 23,2007) Some reports attribute this to improved security in Iraq. While the death rate and incidence of suicide bombs has decreased in recent weeks and months—most welcomed news—it seems that necessity is what is driving Iraqis home. As has long been the case in Jordan, visas for Iraqis in Syria are not being renewed and their money has run out. Returning Iraqis have also said they would prefer to die with dignity in their own country, rather than face the contempt and humiliation they feel in Jordan and Syria.

Body

Amman, Jordan
November 25, 2007

I spoke with an Iraqi family last night on the phone. If they were agreeable, I wanted to take a Jesuit priest, from Detroit but living in Nicaragua for many years, to visit them. The father could not mask his despair over the phone, nor his reluctance to see us. “Will your visit have any result on our situation?” he asked me. “Cathy” he said “You are like our sister. Our door is always open to you. But what good does it do to tell our story to people from the states? I feel, I feel”…he struggled for the words in English…. “Like we are….in the circus [on show].” He explained that just a half hour before I telephoned he was speaking with his wife about returning to Baghdad to find work. “Our money has run out” he said “and I cannot beg. I just cannot beg.”

Kathy Kelly had gone earlier in the evening to the airport to meet this friend, the Jesuit. As it happened, they missed one another. Returning to the city bus, she sat next to an Iraqi businessman who had just come from Baghdad. He related to her that his wife and children had gone to Syria but returned to Baghdad because life there was too expensive. He told her how in Baghdad there are at least five different groups ready to kill you if you step out of your house. “Everything shuts down at 2pm.”

You might have read the article I shared recently about the famous pet market (Al Ghazi) in Baghdad; how people flock to the market on Fridays to purchase a bird or pet to keep them company as they are home-bound and lonely. Just four days after sending out the letter, a bomb hidden in a box of pigeons exploded in the same market killing 15 people. A local store owner about 150 yards from the blast sight said “Today the view of many young men coming with pets, colorful fish in aquariums and dogs was very encouraging and cheerful. There were teenagers selling sandwiches and tea in wheeled carts giving the impression that life is back to normal again.” The shopkeeper described the scene as one “of chaos with birds flying through smoke as the bodies of young men who had been killed and wounded lay on the ground.” (ASP, Bushra Juhi, Feb. 23,07) How unspeakably sad it was to see those same images here on TV.

In about a week I will be returning to the states. “It’s always too soon to go home.” These words are in a little book called “Hope in the Dark” by Rebecca Solnit that Kathy Kelly passed on to me the other day. Today I hope to visit the family I had wanted to take our Jesuit friend to. I will go alone. I will take the last of the money given to me by so many friends in the states. It will perhaps pay the family’s rent, but I know they will feel the humiliation of receiving “charity.” There are so many families and groups in the states who would be eager to assist Iraqis on an ongoing basis so they would not have to return to Baghdad. But how to connect them? I try to tell myself that we do what we can. But somehow our efforts seem so insignificant in light of the needs.

Rebecca Solnit writes that tragedy is seductive. She speaks of the nature of adversarial activism where “the only story many radicals know how to tell is the one that is the underside of the dominant culture’s story…They [the radicals] conceive of the truth as pure bad news, appoint themselves deliverers of it, and keep telling it over and over.” This can lead, she points out, to obsession with the enemy. How well I know this. But she also writes that “doors demand passage,” and that “hopefulness is risky, since it is after all a form of trust, trust in the unknown and the possible.”

If you don’t hear from me again before my return to the states, I want to thank you for reading my letters, the stories I have told over and over. I want to thank you for making this trip possible. I have passed through many doors this time around; you have all gone through them with me. I am very grateful.

Cathy Breen

VCNV Author

Cathy Breen

Cathy Breen: Political Cartoonist, Emad Hajjaj

Cathy Breen — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 04:20:44 -0600

Short Information Teaser

Cathy Breen writes from Amman, Jordan about Political Cartoonist, Emad Hajjaj

Excerpt

Amman, Jordan
November 21, 2007

Kathy Kelly will be joining me for the last stretch of my stay in Jordan, and I have been puttering around trying to ready the apartment for her coming. This morning, in an attempt to straighten up the piles of papers and files which have accumulated over the last three months, I’ve been going through newspaper clippings. I am also awaiting a telephone call today to give an interview, so the task serves as a helpful review of events deemed newsworthy here in the Middle East. What are the recurring themes and opinions coming out in their news? What messages and words from the region would we do well to heed in the U.S.?

Body

Amman, Jordan
November 21, 2007

In a few minutes I will head out to meet with a gifted political cartoonist, Emad Hajjaj. He crafts a cartoon a day for one of Amman’s Arabic newspapers, and I am eager to see his recent artwork. I wonder if his depictions will reinforce some of the issues on the newsprint before me. Here now are a couple pieces of his extraordinary art. I will let you judge for yourselves what message they convey.

“Solutions for the region can be found without the West’s intervention. As long as the Iranians keep to themselves, do not meddle with Arab issues or interfere in internal affairs of the neighbors, the region does not have a problem with them. The unmistakable conclusion is that the U.S. was and is directly and indirectly responsible for the emergence of Iran as a strong force seeking regional domination. Therefore it is ironic to hear the U.S. president talk about the need for U.S. military to stay on in Iraq if only to check the Iranians.” (The Jordan Times,Sept.7,2007, M.Keilani)

“The neoconservative camp in Washington is clamoring for military action against Iran….The region should be alert since any uncalculated adventure would trigger a chain reaction of repercussions in Iraq, Lebanon, the Gulf and throughout the rest of the region.” (Jordan Times, Sept.30,2007, M. Keilani)

“New U.S. sanctions have upped the stakes in a standoff with Iran.”(Jordan Times,Oct. 28,2007)

George Bush says Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear bomb would mean a 3rd world war.” (The Editors, Jordan Times, Oct. 29, 2007)

Pres. Bush appeared on Al Jazeera English TV news this morning, sending out invitations for the Arab-Israel peace talks to be held in Annapolis, Maryland next week. Above is one of Emad’s pieces depicting this event.

“Israel kills 12 Palestinians in less than 24 hours.” (Jordan Times, Sept.28-29, 2007)

“It seems clear that Israel bombed a target in Syria. As such where is the international censure? Has international law become obsolete?” (Jordan Times, Sept. 30,2007)

“Syrian President Bashar Assad all but ruled out participating in the U.S. sponsored Middle East peace conference. Top allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia have not said whether they will attend.” (Jordan Times, Oct. 12-13,2007)

“Israel declares Gaza Strip as hostile enemy.” (Jordan Times, Oct. 24, 2007)

“Israel begins cuts in fuel supplies to Gaza strip.” (Jordan Times, Oct. 29,2007)

“The conference will likely be a media spectacle in which participants will reaffirm their commitment to peace, Israel’s security, condemnation of Palestinian terrorism and so forth. Truly dangerous is the fact that a peace conference which delivers nothing but empty promises is likely to actually precipitate violence. Palestinians, humiliated and besieged might exhibit their anger in a myriad of ways for which they will only receive further condemnation.” (Jordan Times, R. Baroud, Nov. 14,2007)

“US military said it has brought a new weapon into the fight in Iraq, announcing Army’s first ever use of a drone aircraft to kill enemy fighters in the country.” (Jordan Times, Sept. 9, 2007)

“U.N. recent Human Rights report: at least 88 civilians killed in U.S. air strikes from April 1st to June 30th.” (Jordan Times, Oct. 24,2007)

“Eight million Iraqis are in absolute poverty and in need of emergency assistance…. According to U.N.69% of displaced since Feb. 2006 are from Baghdad.” (Jordan Times, Oct. 2007)

“Wars had specific beginnings and specific ends. This catastrophe had a beginning indeed, but there are no signs of its end. It set in motion a chain of events which continue to spread turmoil, instability and violence worldwide, with more innocent victims falling every day.” (Jordan Times, H. Abu Nimah, Sept. 12,2007)

With more innocent victims falling every day….

Cathy Breen

VCNV Author

Cathy Breen

Cathy Breen: "I must tell you of the beautiful things that fill my days here"

Cathy Breen — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 00:41:48 -0600

Short Information Teaser

Cathy Breen writes from Amman, Jordan

Excerpt

Amman, Jordan
November 19, 2008

Iraqis teach me many things. One is to laugh in spite of myself. I chuckled the other day as I sent a newspaper clipping off to my dear friend Cynthia in Vernon, N.Y. I knew she would enjoy the story “Lonely in Baghdad? Chat up a Bird.” The article speaks of dozens of Baghdadis ignoring the threat to their lives as they flock on Fridays to the animal market Al Ghari. “I don’t go out of my home because of the danger” says one customer. “I decided to buy a parrot who can entertain me.” The son of a prominent seller of exotic animals at the market said “Our situation at the time of Saddam was much better.” He explained that during the former regime pet lovers from Iran and Russia used to regularly visit Al Ghari. “Today we have local customers who like to have birds in their homes, as these people do not step out. But times have changed” he says. As he points a finger to a group of animals, suddenly an African Grey parrot—a new arrival—shouts out: “Down with Bush!” (The Jordan Times, Nov. 15, 2007)

Body

Amman, Jordan
November 19, 2008

I know how doom and gloom my letters often sound, but I must tell you of the beautiful things that fill my days here. First and foremost of course are the people who welcome me into their lives and how my encounters with them lift me up. But then there is the ceramic cup I hold each morning in my hand and admire as I savor the taste of that first cup of coffee. It was a purchase I allowed myself a couple of months back, and it has given me much pleasure. I often wondered who crafted it, and yesterday to my delight I met the artist, a young woman a couple of blocks away who together with her sister creates such beautiful pottery.

And recently I was able to realize a special wish I’d been harboring. We know a dear woman who has an olive grove on the outskirts of Amman. This friend takes great pleasure in sharing the fruit of her family’s orchard harvest with others. I have been the recipient of a bottle of virgin olive oil made from their olives last Spring. This friend did not forget me when this year’s harvest began! So it was that I got to pick olives for the first time in my life, albeit for only a half hour! Although the visit was much too short, I still carry the beauty of the landscape and the feel of the fleshy black olives between my fingers. I will include a photo I took that day of the rich Jordan valley. If you look closely you can see the Dead Sea hovering between mountains and sky like a white rising sun.

Some beauty however remains beyond my reach, like a distant dream. The Arabic language to be more specific. Only rarely do I experience a moment of recognition and understanding. A source of constant frustration, I sometimes ask myself why I keep plugging along. Twice a week I take classes up the hill at a language center which offers classes in spoken (colloquial) Arabic. We are learning verbs, but I seem completely incapable of remembering even the most simple ones. After spending an hour or so early this morning trying to drill one or two verbs into my head, I picked up the book I am reading called “The Desert Queen.” It is a biography about Gertrude Bell. Able to converse comfortably in French, Italian, German, Persian and even Turkish, Ms. Bell confesses of Arabic “I find it awfully difficult…The worst I think is a very much aspirated H. I can only say it by holding down my tongue with one finger, but then one can’t carry on a conversation with your finger down your throat can you?” I find a measure of comfort in her words, as I feel exactly the same! Iraqi friends have all but given up trying to teach me to pronounce this correctly.

As my time draws to a close here in the Middle East—only a couple of weeks remain until I travel back to the states—I find myself in the “cross over” phase between the reality here and the reality in my own country. Perhaps the struggle to reconcile the two, of wanting to embrace them equally, need not be so cumbersome. In the end it is like having family here and having family there. Where one leaves off, the other begins. We are all one family.

Cathy Breen

VCNV Author

Cathy Breen