From A Corner on the Arab
Street
Let us take a
few stars from the night sky and light a fire to warm
ourselves; because
everything around us is so cold, so deathly cold: gathering around
the fire are weavers,
gardeners, thinkers, dreamers, dreamcatchers storytellers;
storywriters, storyweavers old people,
young people, women and men people from little
corners of the Arab street. the Arab street
in privileged and civilized parlance is a street
of violence, of extremism peopled by killers, by terrorists, by savages, by barbarians
the barbarian
of course, is the evil one, the uncivilized: and its civilized
range is full spectrum dominance from communist
to terrorist the word barbarian
and the crackling fire invites us to remember a story: Once upon a long
time ago, in another place, another time women and men
turned away from the Empire they withdrew
from the civic life of their times and gathered their strengths to withstand the
coming hordes of barbarians a story much like today: with one very
important difference. this time we are
not warned that the barbarians are
coming, that they are
waiting at the borders, knocking at the gate because they
have already been there for sometime in Washington, inside the White
House, inside our lives. destroying our
heritage, re-writing our history killing our collective memory: overtaking our dreams On May 24, Bush
announced that the Abu Ghraib prison would be destroyed: It was a symbol
of Saddam’s brutality under the old
regime prisons like Abu Ghraib were symbols of death and torture, he said Abu Ghraib was
an Iraqi Torture Centre and had to be demolished We listened
carefully: Nothing of the
US torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib: nothing of the
stacking of naked prisoners, the sexual assault and rape of women prisoners, the
police dogs attacking the prisoners; of being hooded, tortured, raped, killed;
of the smiling, smirking US police guards photographed over abused prisoners,
dead prisoners. Silence: It is even being
said that American torture is not as bad
as Saddam’s: that there is a
difference between torture in a dictatorship and torture in a democracy! after all, it
was only a few rogue military police guards a few brutal
misled military marines and they will be
charged and tried in open military tribunals so that all the
world can see how transparent and fair, even just, is US democracy: For all their
crimes and the dishonor that they brought to America. (never mind the
Iraqis): they will spend a year in jail and get a bad character certificate! Abu Ghraib became a symbol of disgraceful conduct of a few
American troops who dishonored their
country and disregarded their values. Bush speaking from one side of his mouth: From the other
side of his mouth he recently assured Pope John Paul II that he will continue to
work for human dignity and human liberty. in order to
spread peace and compassion. his mouth never tires of doublespeak:
A woman from
Rusafa prison refused to speak. she spends her
days fasting and praying she cries and in
a few words says that if her family knew what has
happened to her, they would slaughter her. She is in her sixties. The woman said I
just want to disappear, I just want to die. A mother of
four, arrested in December killed herself
after being raped by US guards in front of her
husband at Abu Ghraib : The women who
have been raped and sexually abused believe that
nothing can return their dignity. We must gather
and keep alive our collective memories so that they
will live; so that they will not die again. A key witness
Sergeant Provance in the military investigation into prisoner abuse told ABC
News that there was a great coverup by the
military. And after he
said that he was stripped of his security clearance and told that he may face
prosecution because his comments were not in the national
interest he spoke to ABC
News despite orders from his commanders not to he spoke of the silence of all who know. a great and
enveloping silence so that America can
still be the Dream the land of the
Brave, the Brightest, the Best the land of the
Free God bless America! Abu Ghraib will
be demolished Brigadier
General Kimmit, the chief military spokesman for the US led Coalition forces in
Iraq assures the world that the Iraqis
will forgive the Americans. As all the other
peoples of the world have forgotten their
counter-insurgency wars, their coups, their assassination, their schools of
torture, their wars of
terror copy righted by the CIA, patended by the USA And the
multilayers of abuse, torture and killings that point to a systematic
and systemic humiliation and degradation
of the Iraqis will be forgotten. But these are
crimes against the Iraqi people; these are brutal
crimes of war: As we gather
closer around the fire, there are more story weavers one speaks of
more Abu Ghraibs, this time in America: where the abuse
and torture of prisoners is grotesque men and women
brutalized by the System and who will
almost never be compensated for the abuse because of a
1996 law passed by the US Congress America has the
largest prison population of any nation on earth It has deathrows
of more than 2, 600 persons waiting to be executed. The message in
the US regarding the treatment of prisoners is clear: Treat them anyway you would like: they are just animals Abu Ghraib in
Baghdad then was no aberration: other prisons in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay are all part
of the American System: Copper Green, the Special Access Program’s chain of command ran
straight from the Pentagon to Abu Ghraib; the American who
directed the re-opening of Abu Ghraib last year and trained the guards was
Director of the Utah Department of Correction (USA) and resigned under pressure
in 1997 after a prisoner died strapped to a restraining chair for sixteen hours. tThe prisoner who suffered from schizophrenia was kept naked all the
time. the same Utah
official Lane Mc Cotter later became an executive of a private prison company:
one of whose jails was under investigation by the Justice Department when he was
sent to Iraq: He was part of a
team of prison officials, judges, prosecutors, police chiefs picked by John
Ashcroft, the US Attorney General, to re-build Iraq’s criminal justice system. God help Iraq! Seymour
Hersh’s article The Gray Zone reveals how the Bush Administration set up Torture
Mills after September 11, 2001, violating every piece of international law and
international humanitarian law. The captives of
this terror war have been described by the US as unlawful
combatants, the military prisons they are held in, outside the jurisdiction
of the Geneva Conventions. the private
contractors who interrogate and torture are outside the jurisdiction of the
army; no military law
or Iraqi law can apply we are now in an
area of complete lawlessness Welcome to the new American Imperium ! Other voices on
the Arab street whisper what of the complicity
of the United Nations It first
sanctioned the illegal economic sanctions then the illegal
war then it closed
its eyes to all the war crimes of the Invasion
and the Occupation now it is at
work again legalizing a multinational US led force in Iraq. The torture
at Abu Ghraib are war crimes the United
Nations tried to investigate war crimes in Jenin. And failed. Israel would not
let them: So, the UN does
not even try in Iraq. In another
moment of time, the truth will be told of how through
silence, the UN helped to write war crimes into history The images of
busloads of Iraqi prisoners now leaving Abu Ghraib having been
imprisoned, in some cases, for over a year with no charges,
no sentences tortured,
traumatized Broken. each image worth more than a thousand words Who will ask the
questions that must be asked? will the US
troops ever be prosecuted for war crimes? will they ever
be brought before the International Criminal Court? or is it one
more time when justice will only be for the victors? will the UN
continue to extend and grant immunity
to the US for its war crimes around the
world? In another
moment in time, will the world hold the UN complicit
in these war crimes? or will more speak form both sides of their mouths? Because it is
not knowledge that is lacking: People know what
outrages are being committed in the name of
Justice and Human Rights. And Freedom. Enduring
Freedom. Everywhere in
the world where knowledge is being suppressed knowledge that
if it were made known, would shatter our image of the world there the heart
of darkness is being enacted. And the heart of
darkness is not only Abu Ghraib: but the many war
crimes committed by the US and its Coalition that caused the
systematic ruination of a country, its civilization and its people from the
genocidal economic sanctions, the continuous bombing of Iraq from 1991 the violation of
all international law and laws of armed conflict to the use of
smart bombs, super bombs, a variety of sophisticated US weapons the use of depleted
uranium: that will kill for
generations. And we must
count the over one hundred thousand gulf war veterans that suffer from
mysterious medical problems and radiation illnesses simply called
the Gulf War Syndrome. The horror stories of Iraq are just beginning to be told: what must be
told too are the war crimes against the civilian population: the bombing, the
carpet bombing of Iraq’s infrastructure and support systems, the damages to
homes, to hospitals, to markets, to people’s
lives, livelihoods, lifeworlds. Bush calls the
murder of innocent women and children despicable acts of terrorists that need the worst punishment And he is
correct: Will he stand
trial for all the innocent women and children killed in his
war of aggression and occupation in Iraq? which are indeed despicable acts of terrorism: more than 12,000
civilians killed Mr. Bush And we are still
counting : Is terrorism
acceptable when terror wears
the mask of the state? Perhaps, it is
time for another story: a story of
ordinary people, of ordinary everyday things of families, of
celebrations, of weddings the wedding in
Mugrldeeb listen to the
many voices speaking listen to the
many more, unspoken. The hospital
Director of Al Qaim speaks to Eman, who tells us the story to us around the
fire: Early in the morning of May 19, we received large
numbers of injured people from Mugrldeeb village, the majority of them were
children and women. Those who brought them were terrified and hysterical; they
were so confused that they were asking us what happened, as if an earthquake had
hit the village. Forty two victims were already dead: we sent the
bodies to Ramadi Forensic Centre. Fourteen were children smaller than twelve years. There were
eleven women of different ages among the dead. Many of the dead were shot by
bullets in the head, chest and abdomen. We managed to
save an eight month old baby. There is a boy
of ten in the hospital now; he suffers from severe injuries in his chest and
abdomen; you can see him but you have to be careful when you talk with him. He does not know that all his family is dead Do you know
these people? Yes they are
from Albo Fahad tribe; the Rekaad Naif family. It is a very sad
story; whole families were killed. One of the women
was found holding her baby by her teeth after both her hands were injured. They all went to
attend a wedding in the desert; there is nothing
around, just sand, small rocks, thousand of
sheep, a few scattered houses. And the wedding
was celebrated here, because this is where they live. All these houses, a guide tells Eman, are for
people who breed, sell and buy sheep; they have their houses here because this
is where they spend four or five months every year. It was the wedding of Azhad Rikaad Naif. The party
began in the afternoon as usual. The music and dancing continued until ten. We
were having dinner when we heard the noise of the airplane. It went around for a
long time. We did not feel comfortable. The men decided to end the party after dinner. At eleven all the guests left, only those who came
from far away remained. Rikaad said it was no longer safe to stay but it
seems that the women were too tired to move with the sleeping children. Eman continues to tell the story : I (Hamid) was sleeping in my house when I heard
the shooting. It was around 2:30 – 3.00 a.m. Two helicopters were firing on Rikaad’s houses,
for over an hour. Then around 5 a.m. we saw many soldiers, more than
thirty, going around the houses, torchlights in their hands. We heard them
shooting at the injured people who were lying on the ground with light weapons.
One of the injured women Iqbal had bullets of a light American gun in her body. the soldiers searched the houses. They took all the money and gold from the dead women They took the camera and the films. Rikaad’s
wife was killed. The killings
were brutal after a few minutes a black fighter came; it hit two houses with
missiles and brought the houses to the ground. Around 6 a.m. two double fan (chinook)
helicopters came and took all the soldiers. Rikaad is a man in his mid-sixties; he looked
tired and ill; He put a white kofiya
without the black Arabic igal,
probably as a symbol of extreme sadness. He was receiving condolences, silently. Rikaad says to Eman ‘I am a poor old man. I put
all my sons, daughters, grandchildren under the ground. They killed everyone
in my family. I am very sad. But what makes me sadder, are all their lies All I did was have a wedding party for my son What the world saw of the wedding at Mugrlaleeb
was the footage of flesh, hair and musical instruments filmed by a video crew
that reached the location of what local people say was a wedding party attacked
without warning by the Americans killing women and children. The instruments
belonged to the band of Hussein Ali, one of Iraqi’s most famous wedding
singers whose relatives buried him in Baghdad last week. Despite the evidence, the eye-witness accounts,
American commanders continue to insist that their strike on a remote village in
the desert close the Syrian border, was against
foreign fighters crossing into Iraq. The US
commanders call it a legitimate target. They say the
slaying was justified based on the information
available. More lies: More
deception More civilians
killed; Indiscriminately.
Deliberately. And from the US
Generals, one Major General James Mattis said I don’t have to apologize for the conduct of my men After all we are
told, gods never apologize. His words
reminds us of Bush Sr. speaking as the then Vice President on the shooting
down of an Iranian passenger plane by an American ship killing 290 people: I will never apologize for the United States of America I don’t care what the facts are Hiroshima, Cuba,
Vietnam, Sudan, Iraq. the list is
endless The same General Mattis demanded ‘How many
people go to the middle of the desert ten miles from the Syrian border to hold a
wedding? The answer very
simply is many, Major General. Many If you
come from a clan of livestock herders and that is where you have lived all your
life. The clan
straddles the Syrian border; even distant relatives would be expected to turn up
there, as well as from the far corners in Iraq It’s a
wedding, remember Do you still
wonder why there is so much anger, even hatred? As Bush asks
why, especially when we are so good especially when we are so democratic perhaps its is
our Wealth: perhaps it is our Freedom echo the
Washington Clique Perhaps if they
listened carefully to the Arab street they would hear
other stories; stories of why people burn the American flag, stories that
point to the US unilateral support to the Israeli Occupation of Palestine. stories of its
support to corrupt leaders, brutal regimes in the region, in order to
secure its own strategic interests controlling oil
reserves, preserving its own economic
interests It is a story of
the last forty years of US foreign policy in the Arab region its petro-military
complex more vicious now with its ambitions
of global hegemony the new world order and the new American Century: a world order
that legitimizes the pre-emptive strike, collateral damage, enemy
combatants, embedded journalists, military tribunals, all new words words soaked in
blood words soaked in our blood But there are other voices from the American
street, voices of
conscience, voices of compassion: here is the
voice of a poet, that reaches across to our little corner on the Arab street the poem was
written in another moment of time: tremors of your network cause kings to disappear your open mouth in anger makes nations bow in fear your bombs can change the season obliterate the spring what more do you long for? why are you suffering? you control human lives in Rome and Timbuktu lonely nomads wandering owe Telstar to you seas shift at your bidding your mushrooms fill the sky why are you unhappy? why do your children cry? they kneel alone in terror with dread in every glance their nights are threatened daily by a grim inheritance you dwell in whitened castles with deep and poisoned moats and cannot hear the curses which fill your children’s throats we are still gathered around the
dancing fire listening to the poem from across
seas understanding the story of the
barbarians across time knowing the wisdoms
written on our skins, in our memories. Corinne Kumar El Taller International Tunis, June 6, 2004
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