Reading The Pictures: The Forgotten Iraqi Exiles

"The war in Iraq has killed hundreds of thousands, and caused the one of the greatest flights of people in the history of the Middle East. Sixty thousand people flee their homes each month.

But when they are reported on at all, they are seldom individualized. Rather than photographing hundreds of Iraqi refugees to illustrate the epic size of the exodus, I want to follow, for an extended period and in an intimate way, just a few - I want to take the journey with them, to live the aftermath of war with them, and to relate their experiences as if it were happening to me, to understand the experiences that drove them into exile, where they are often viewed with suspicion and even as the enemy."

--Photojournalist Lori Grinker

In response to an inattentive domestic media and the lack of visual documentation, Lori Grinker has been pursuing the story of Iraqi civilians fleeing the war.

In April, and again in September 2007, she traveled to Amman to photograph Iraqis forced to leave their families, homes and livelihoods for a life of cramped, substandard living conditions, inactivity, and waiting for the time when it will be safe to return to Iraq, or hear that they have found sanctuary in another country. And those are the "lucky" ones. Many of her subjects are in Amman to repair their bodies, only to be to be repatriated to a war zone after they are "healed."

In the case above, the young man (call him Amer) was burned in an explosion while walking past a fuel truck in Baghdad. We see the 16-year old coming out of the recovery room after having surgery to fix the contracted fingers on his right hand. He faced the same surgery on his left hand a couple of month later.

For the past two years Amer's father has taken him to Egypt to treat his burns, then to Iran and he is currently in Jordan where he is having surgery on his hands with MSF (Medecins Sans Frontieres) at the Red Crescent Hospital in Amman.

In collaboration with Lori, well known for her documentation of the effects of war, the goal of this post is to bring this situation to a larger, concerned audience. Moreover, it is an opportunity to throw more light on the moral failure of the United States in failing to humanely and adequate assist the exiles, especially those who have worked directly for the U.S. occupation.

Since fiscal year 2007, only 1,608 of a promised 7,000 refugees were admitted into the U.S. The government has now set a goal of bringing in 12,000 Iraqi refugees in fiscal year 2008, with an additional 5,000 visas to be granted among the more than 100,000 Iraqis employed by the U.S. or U.S. Government contractors. Although the plan passed Congress, however, it has yet to be signed into law.

Over the coming months, Lori plans to visually pursue this subject, as well as to personally follow the odyssey of specific refugees in the process of creating a new life. Hopefully, we can keep you update here at the Huffington Post, as well.

In the meantime, when asked how he is treated by friends and acquaintances in Iraq, Amer said that everyone is nice to him...there are so many wounded people in the streets, it's normal now.

It is fitting, given the invisibility of this issue, that Amer trains his camera on us.

For more of the visual, visit BAGnewsNotes.com.

Lori Grinker website
Afterwar: Veterans From A World In Conflict. Photographs and Interviews: Lori Grinker

(images: © Lori Grinker. Amman, Jordan. 2007. Used by permission)

Follow Michael Shaw on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bagnewsnotes

Comments

[RuthieE]

Many thanks to Michael Shaw for highlighting Lori’s work documenting through photos some of the millions of Iraqis who have fled their homes. However the U.S. moves forward in conducting the war or withdrawing from Iraq, it’s clear that our nation has a moral obligation to lead the international community in a response to the humanitarian crisis that’s been unleashed in the region – including helping the tens of thousands of Iraqis who put their lives on the line to work for the U.S. military, NGOs, contractors, and journalists. (Full disclosure: I work for an organization called Human Rights First that is working, along with several other advocacy groups and many U.S. vets, to press the government to resettle these refugees and contribute substantially to humanitarian aid efforts in the region. We’ve also been collaborating with Lori in public education efforts. For more info, you can check out http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/asylum/lifeline/index.asp.)

[GnitenGoodLk]

The end started 7 years ago, when we placed an incompetent sociopath in the White House.

When I read 70% (I assume this is a radically low number) of children in Iraq are psychologically traumatized and walk to school seeing bodies littering their areas, I cried. This DID NOT MAKE OUR PRESS. I had to read this at the BBC. We let this happen, not Saddam Hussein.

The MSM ignoring this for Britney's latest escapades and local nonsense was the signal to me our country is terribly broken.

[YankeeCanuck]

Lori Grinker is doing work that must be done-- the mainstream media are surely not going to do it. Some of the media are aligned with corporate interests that profit greatly from war. Why, we might ask, is it forbidden for the flag-draped coffins to be photographed as they are returned to US soil?
Why are we not allowed to see the magnitude of suffering we have caused to the people in Iraq, not "insurgents", not "collateral damage", just people like us.
I'm still naive enough to believe that most Americans are capable of taking the imaginative leap when they see these photos and think "Something terrible and undeserved has happened to thousands of ordinary people--like me. This is a tragedy out of proportion with the everyday I know. It's wrong for our government to perpetrate it."
Something like that.
Disturbingly, the discussions around our elections has now turned inward upon our own economy. If we don't make the connection, if we are without imagination,if we don't choose compassion, it's the beginning of the end for us as a a people.

[mouselion]

Two years ago, I was working on graph charts and illustrations for a graphic design course. I searched the internet for photos of Iraqi children so that I might create some accurate illustrations. I was not prepared emotionally for the photos that I found online of children with mutilated limbs from missile strikes and terrorist bombings. Then came the wake-up, at 3 am, finding myself wailing and sobbing like I never have in my life. The American psyche has been protected from what is going on in Iraq, and elsewhere in the world. The media, including 'non-mainstream', alternative news sources is sanitized of the suffering and anguish. War is not just hell, it is insanity. Nothing can come from it but more war, more hell and more insanity. What can we do to bring the reality of Bhagdad to the forefront of American consciousness (and conscience). If folks want to have a New Year's resolution, let it be to inform the American public of the suffering of the Iraqis we have 'liberated'.

[GnitenGoodLk]

This is exactly what we need to know. Thank you & Lori. Please post her updates as often as you can.