|
Dear Dear Friends, This is Michael.
This is a turning point in our world and our lives. We are feeling the
severity of the situation in Iraq with very heavy hearts. After listening
to our president last night, we feel the corner has been turned. Seeing
no other option available, our community is going to be joining the
Iraq Pledge of Resistance and engaging in non-violent civil disobedience
in order to stop this war. We feel that it is necessary to stand in
solidarity with all those in Iraq at this time. We are praying hard
for a miracle (As Rich Mullins said though, "Miracles are hard to come
by these days"). Over the past few days, we talked to Shane and the
team's spirits are high. He wanted me to pass along this e-journal he
wrote in his hotel. We will try to be in contact with you all in the
event of an arrest here in Philadelphia. Thank you for calling and e-mailing
and telling us that you love us. This is great to hear at a time when
we are hearing nothing but hate from our world leaders. If you are following
the news, I would encourage you to balance that out with reports from
independant media sources. www.indymedia.org
| www.michaelmoore.com
| www.commondreams.org
Peace to you all. Here's the latest from Shane:
Shane’s
News from Baghdad
Nomadic
Solidarity by Shaner
This
is a historic moment. I have never felt so much hope... and so much
uncertainty. We stand on the eve of perhaps one of the most horrifying
violent acts ever committed in human history (US war plans call for
the "Shock and Awe" launching of 3000 cruise missiles for
Baghdad in the first 48 hours, and Pentagon officials have said civilian
casualties are inevitable, comparing it to Hiroshima). And yet I wish
you could see what I see on the streets of Baghdad. There are banners
crying out against the war hanging from the buildings and bridges. There
are marriages and babies being born. Two nights ago we attended an
Iraq folk festival! Tonight we will go to a huge soccer game (and perhaps
have an Iraq Peace Team vs. journalists vs. neighbors game!) Hundreds
of people have gathered here in Baghdad as a global presence of peace.
I have personally met people from all over the world - Spain, Brazil,
France, Canada, Australia, Belgium, Ireland, England, all over the US,
Korea, Japan, China, Philippines, Algeria, all over. Hundreds. And
dozens more are trying to get in every day, including two of our dear
friends from Eastern University. As you can imagine, the people remaining
here are not just your everyday goofballs. But what's crazy is they
are not simply radical protestors. There are veterans, students, grandparents,
Orthodox priests, Parliamentarians, Franciscan monks, evangelical Christian
missionaries, lawyers, authors, professors, doctors, revolutionaries
and moderates... together proclaiming that another world is possible.
It is clear that the global groaning for peace has reached a new scale.
This global community, Dr.King's beloved dream, which the European press
has begun calling the Other Superpower, is literally standing in the
way of a war on global democracy. The Iraqi government has had (well-founded)
reservations about letting hundreds of foreigners flood their streets
during a war (many of us being from the aggressor nation, imagine the
US letting in Iraqis if we were being attacked), but they have been
courageous to let so many of us in accompany their people during this
terrifying time. Hopefully this will set a precedent for the future
as the movement's momentum builds. What if anytime human rights are
violated in our world - as in the past by the Iraqi government and in
the present by the US government - there is an international presence
(both in Spirit and in physicality) of solidarity with those being marginalized
or attacked throughout the world (isn't that what the Church is?). Perhaps
this is the new face of global missions within the Church, in an age
of omnipresent war. Our movement must become mobile, fluid, nomadic.
Our movement must MOVE. And it must also have permanence in the credibility
of our lives, not only in crisis but in our daily rhythms. We must
not be reactionary, but proactive, working peacefully against tyranny
and war, inequality and marginality. Just as the body's cells confine
bacteria, we must confine and smother tyranny, greed, and militarism.
These are indeed diseases haunting our world. They are unnatural, and
foreign to what we have been created for - to love and to be loved.
They can only be smothered by love... not by force. Our alternative
must be more attractive, and perhaps more effective than the counterfeit
freedom and imposed peace of Pax Americana.
A
few glimpses of life in Baghdad...
- We went out to
a street called "Booksellers Row" where Iraqi intellectuals
and scholars, desperately trying to survive, have brought their books
onto the sidewalk to sell as desperate attempt to survive amidst US
sanctions and impending war. It was a tremendous privilege to meet them,
learn from them, mourn with them. If you enjoy reading at all, you can
imagine how discouraging it was to see this... Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky,
Marcuse… prostituted on the streets of Baghdad. Most books you could
buy for a dollar. I couldn't decide what to do - hating to buy someone's
treasures, but hating even more to see such desperate poverty... I went
to buy one. As I got out my money, I was swarmed by beggars. How could
I buy a book?
- The Iraqi economy
has been devastated by last 12 years of economic sanctions and US military
aggression. Prior to 1991, Iraq was not a "third world" country;
it was a developed country. In 1991, the Iraqi dollar (a 250 dinar bill)
was worth about $75. Now that same bill is worth less than 10 cents.
You can fill your car with gasoline for less than one US dollar (for
25 gallons). But how many Iraqi's can afford a car?! I just heard the
most startling statement by Air Force Brigadier General William Looney,
head of the US Central Commands Airborne Expeditionary Force: "They
know we own their country. We own their air space... We dictate the
way they live and talk. And that's what's great about America right
now. It's a good thing especially when there's a lot of oil out there
we need." I got to go to the hospital today. A banner hung from
the entrance: "To bomb this facility is a war crime." The
nurse told us there are nine new children... the others all died. None
of these children will live. Because of the US sponsored sanctions they
cannot have basic medications. 5000 children die each month here from
the sanctions, and have been for 12 years. What are they dying of?
Nearly all of them are dying of cancer from exposure to depleted uranium
that was dropped on them in the Gulf War. Today the statistics became
a face. We laughed and we wept. We blew up the medical gloves and made
balloon animals. We juggled, and colored. One 13 year-old child named
Yassir drew us a picture - it was a snake with huge fangs eating something
that looked like an egg. When we asked what he had drawn he said, "The
snake is the United States and the egg is our world." Nearly every
day we are invited to a worship services by Iraqi Christians, Catholic,
Protestant, evangelical... they feed me so much hope. One pastor has
duel citizenship (in Iraq and Egypt), and he said he could take his
family and go safely into Egypt, but that would betray the Gospel. He
committed to his congregation to stay with them through this scary time.
What must it feel like to be bombed by fellow Christians who claim to
have God’s blessing?
- We heard the news
that now 100 US cities have passed resolutions opposing a US led attack
on Iraq that lacks official UN support. As NYC passed their resolution,
one councilmember said: "Is 30 million still a 'focus group'?"
- One of my IPT members
has hundreds of heart-shaped letters written by kids in the US, which
are now being delivered to children in Iraq. One of them reads: "Not
all Americans are bad. Please accept my apologies for what my leaders
are doing."
- I would rather
not die, but when I do die I would like my death to have integrity.
And if I die here I will be in good company when we get to the Gate.
Moreover, if I die that means all the children around me have likely
been killed too - the shoeshine boys in the alley, the children in the
orphanage around the corner... and I figure they've got VIP passes
into heaven... I'll just say, "I'm with them."
- Yesterday we had
a picnic at one of the water treatment facilities (which provides water
access to Baghdad, but is likely to be bombed in an attack). We invited
the workers and other friends in the neighborhood to join us for lunch.
I taught one of the kids to juggle and he taught me to sing, "We
Shall Overcome" - in Arabic.
A
Theological Reflection... "Remembering Rizpah"
The
other day I went to a Christian worship service led by Iraqi women (yes
a Christian service led by women in Iraq!). These women led about 100
of us in singing "What a Friend We Have In Jesus" in Arabic
(only about 3 of us spoke English). Then they preached from the Scriptures
about heroic women in the Bible. They led us in prayer as they prayed
for peace, and for their children not to die in war... again. They prayed
for God to heal our world and for the Church to be one Body. And they
wept, and wept. I remembered Rizpah.
Before
coming to Baghdad, many of us studied, over and over, the hidden story
of a heroic woman named Rizpah (2 Samuel 21). Now it has completely
new meaning as I live amongst the women of Iraq who have seen their
loved ones killed in war, and face the reality of yet another attack.
Rizpah lived in a time like ours. Kings were making treaties and breaking
them (v.2). The land was stained with the blood of war. In order to
try to "make amends" and heal the famine that cursed them,
David makes a deal with the Gibeonites. The currency he uses are human
lives, as with our present war - 100,000 body bags just arrived in Baghdad.
He hands human being over to be massacred... of course, they are not
his own children, but children of the poor. He takes the sons of a concubine
named Rizpah, and the children are "killed and exposed before the
Lord." Not only were they killed, but they were left on the hill
without proper burial, left to be devoured by wild animals. And yet,
despite David’s best efforts, it is interesting that God does not heal
the land... yet.
With
the reckless love only a grieving mother has, Rizpah takes sackcloth
and spreads it out on a rock beside the bodies. She sets up camp. The
text says she stays from the "beginning of the harvest till the
rains poured", implying she was there for the season. Day after
day, week after week, she protects the bodies from the animals. And
word of her encampment spreads across the land... making it all the
way to King David. When he hears of her courage, he remembers Saul,
and his friend Jonathan. An incredible thing happens next: he is moved
to gather up the bones of all the dead. Human suffering has the power
to move even Kings to FEEL again. Rizpah pricks the humanity of a King
who had become so dehumanized he could exchange children like currency
and kill them without remorse. Then, as Desmond Tutu says, "The
oppressed are freed from being oppressed and the oppressors are freed
from being oppressors." And this is when God heals the land (v.14).
I pray that if lives are lost on this hill in Baghdad, mothers would
set up camp beside the bodies of their dead, and wail so loudly that
word of the travesty spreads throughout the earth. Maybe people from
around the world will hear, and come out with them on the rock beside
the bodies. And we will groan together so loudly that even the Kings
will hear. Perhaps the Kings will be moved to be human again... and
then God will heal our land.
|
|
|
