When we first learned of the violence in N.Y. and D.C., some of us had no words. We felt it was an unspeakable horror, unspeakable that defenseless and innocent people should be brutally attacked and killed. And it was. Let us call it what it is: murder...largescale...a massacre...
This is a time for coming together, for unity, without which we are lost, good times or bad. Unity depends upon respect, tolerance, caring. Surely this is the really positive aspect of all the flags flying around towns in Mendocino CountyÑthat Americans are united: united in our stand for freedom, respect, tolerance. These flags are a statement that we care about the well-being of our neighbors; that we grieve along with the individuals and families who were most painfully touched by the violence; that we are angry because violence is a threat to our freedom, it creates fear and hatred, it violates the code of respect that freedom rests on.
In the midst of this, a question arisesÑa question we might like to duck or dodge, but which won't go unanswered. How far does our respect reach? Clearly it reaches from one side of this nation to the other, from sea to shining sea. The question is: Does it reach to Afghanistan? Right now, in Afghanistan, tens of thousands of people are leaving or trying to leave the country. Those who have no hope of leaving, especially the women who aren't even allowed to leave their homes, are trembling, waiting for the bombs to fall. In Washington, our leaders are moving forcefully to use death to answer the problems of life. Is anyone talking seriously about how we will wage a long-term military campaign without killing many more civilians, without destroying the infrastructure that society depends on? Are our leaders doing anything to reassure these Afghan citizens that their lives, their children's lives, their homes, businesses, crops, livestock...are not threatened? How far does the compassion of our leaders extend? Does it extend beyond NYC? In calling for retaliation, our leaders are appealing to what is worst in us: the violence that lurks in our own hearts and in the heart of our nation.
Two years ago, I traveled with seven other Americans on a fact-finding mission to Iraq, a country, sadly, which is a prime example of the devastation that a long-term military campaign will wreak. The day we landed in the Middle East, three bombs from a U.S. fighter jet landed near the grounds of a grain silo in Najaf, in remote south-central Iraq. One of the missiles landed right on the main road, killing 14 civilians and hospitalizing 18. Three days later we visited the town. Ten minutes after we arrived, 150 people had gathered around us. One after the other, they were trying to tell us what had happened that day. And they were bringing us shrapnel and bomb parts from the attack. A whole pile of it built up. And they were definitely angry. Some of them were outraged, for this wasn't the first time Najaf had been similarly bombed by U.S. jets. They kept asking: "Why, why is your government doing this? Why is it attacking civilians?" And I thought to myself: What are we seeding in the hearts of Iraqi people by these bombings?
In the hospital there, we visited injured survivors of the attack, including a taxi driver who had lesions all over his body. All three of his passengers were killed. He talked about trying to pull them out of the taxi when another missile hit nearby. And a badly injured auto repair worker whose two shopmates had been killed. And worst of all, an 8-year old boy whose right arm was severed by shrapnel. I looked at that boy lying in bed with a stump of an arm, his mother sitting silently next to him, his eyes looking right into mine, and all I could think of was Rachael, my own 7-year old daughter. What would it mean if she lost her arm in an act of violence? How would she make sense of it? Would it leave her bitter? Would it leave me bitter? Again in the hospital we heard, "Why? Why is your country doing this?"
That day in Najaf was the most frightening day of my life. With bomb parts collecting, with the stories of the missile attack ringing in my ears, with the injured lying before me, I felt like a small animal in the shadow of a beast. I wanted to run and hide. This was a glimpse of what it must be like to be under military threat or attack: I knew I could be crushed as easily as we swat an insect.
The people in Najaf could have killed me that day, or worse. It would have been the easiest thing. Before I left for Iraq, concerned people said they were worried about my safety, but during my two weeks there, I never once felt threatened by an Iraqi person. I met Iraqi people in all kinds of situations: in their homes, in formal meetings, in hotels, restaurants, stores, and markets, in taxis, in hospitals, and on the streets. People were unfailingly hospitable and friendly to us. I drank more tea in two weeks than I had in the previous 40 years. The Iraqi people, I have come to realize, were true to what is best in their culture. In the desert, you are gracious and hospitable to strangers and visitors. That is the custom. And with good reason. Today, after the horrific bombings of the Gulf War and eleven years of U.S.-sponsored economic sanctions which have killed well over a million innocent Iraqi civilians, the Iraqis are still hospitable and friendly to Americans who visit. They have broken the cycle of violence. They are worthy of their cultural inheritance.
Right now in America, the very soul of our nation is threatened. I don't mean this in some quasi-mystical sense, but literally. Our leaders are appealing to what is worst in people and society. We must look inside ourselves and draw on what is best in us. If we are going to hold this flag, if we are going to reclaim it as a symbol of freedom rather than a symbol of militarism, if we are going to stand under it, then we have to be worthy of it. Let our respect reach to everyone in our community, and let our community be one without borders.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2001
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited