Six days in Iraq and not one Humvee, tank, fighter jet, military escort, or intelligence report. Not one minute inside the Green Zone or between the miles-long walls of American military bases. Hosted by my friend and colleague, Sami Rasouli, I live in Najaf, a city two hours south of Baghdad. At the invitation of Sami, I came here to live and work with the Muslim Peacemaker Teams (MPT), a group of Iraqi peacemakers.
Sami and I know each other through our jobs at partner non-profit organizations -- Sami at MPT and I at the Iraqi and American Reconciliation Project (IARP). The two organizations are based in the Sister Cities of Minneapolis, USA and Najaf, Iraq. They work together to rebuild peaceful relationships between Americans and Iraqis and support nonviolence in both countries.
Since its founding in 2004, MPT has accomplished a lot. It has provided clean water to more than 27,000 Iraqi students and promoted national unity through friendly soccer matches across Iraq. It held community roundtable meetings to discuss the new constitution in 2005 and helped stem the spread of cholera in 2007 through hygiene education. Recently, MPT began hosting Americans to live and work in Iraq as an alternative model of peaceful coexistence. This project is small compared to the scope of the American war on Iraq, but it is dissent against the hegemonic discourse of war. It is an affirmation that we are still brothers and sisters and that war does not have the final say.
My visit to Iraq is very different from the "visit" of most Americans. I came to Iraq motivated by the principles of MPT and IARP, an unarmed guest seeking to build respectful relationships between people. My American counterparts in military uniforms, while perhaps motivated by misinformed ideals of protecting their country, came to Iraq armed to the teeth, seeking to storm the country into submission.
On my first day in Iraq, I met no sergeants or lieutenants. I met a nuclear physicist, a director of tourism development, a professor of geography, an Internet cafe owner, 25 English-language students (among them engineers, a geologist, teachers and college students) and my host family -- Sami, his wife, Suaad, and their two sons, Redha and Omar. All welcomed me with big smiles. None were like the Iraqis on American TV.
On my third day, Sami and I walked along the busy streets of the old city. We visited the alleys where Sami grew up and met a number of his cousins still living in the area. We wandered near the home of Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, the highest-ranking Shiite leader in Iraq, then visited the nearby Shrine of Imam Ali. We met with the son of Sheikh Abbas, an open-minded religious leader interested in interfaith dialogue with counterparts in Minneapolis. Later we ate on crowded benches at Abu Hayder, a small restaurant with five options for lunch. We carried no weapons and felt no danger.
Though I have never been inside an American military base, I imagine a day in the life of a soldier stationed there to be quite different. Between walls of Humvees and military equipment, with all kinds of power and armament, I imagine American soldiers feel less secure than I did walking around the streets of Najaf. I imagine a big screen TV streaming CNN, a basketball court, a cafeteria, a solitary room and imported items to remind the soldier of home. He is isolated from the people of Iraq, an occupier.
Sami has introduced me to many new friends during my first week in Iraq. The 25 English-language students that I help teach are eager to host Sami and me at their homes. Some of the students are similar to my friends in Minneapolis. Both Hayder in Najaf and my roommate in Minneapolis are pharmacists who complain about their customers. Sami's family is also becoming good friends. Sami's wife, Suaad, and niece Nahla laughed when I said I was going to ask my girlfriend in Minneapolis to make the Iraqi dish they made. Three-year-old Omar started using me as a jungle gym after I gave him a Clif Bar.
Friendship breaks down stereotypes and borders. But rather than making friends, my counterparts in the American military have made enemies. Rather than eating freshly prepared meals in Iraqi homes and getting to know Iraqis, they eat frozen, imported Kuwaiti food in cafeterias behind high walls. They remain imprisoned by stereotypes and misinformation.
Peacemaking is a sacred activity. By hosting me, an American, MPT members and friends affirm that we are brothers and sisters. Both MPT and IARP believe that we share a common humanity that goes beyond war and politics. Our activities are rooted in salaam, or peace, just as the word Islam shares a root with the word salaam. After the death and destruction in Iraq caused by Americans -- Americans still here, hiding behind walls -- Sami and MPT welcomed me here in peace. That is reconciliation that cannot be found with any amount of high-tech military equipment.
Sami Rasouli is the Founder and Director of the Muslim Peacemaker Teams in Iraq. He has also hosted Liz Wieling, an American professor of mental health at the University of Minnesota; Rose Aslan, a Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina; and many others. He lives in Najaf with his wife, Suaad, and two children.
Luke Wilcox is the Development and Communications Director of the Iraqi and American Reconciliation Project in Minneapolis, MN. He is writing a blog about his visit to Iraq at http://embeddedwithpeacemakers.com.
Muslim Peacemaker Teams - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
7: And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.
8: And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.
Or this:
2:190-193 "Fight in the cause of God those who fight you ... And slay them wherever ye catch them ... And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression and there prevail justice and faith in God ..."
4:101 "... For the Unbelievers are unto you open enemies."
Friendship does not always beget friendship, but at least the seeds can be sown.
"...Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people..."
These words are disturbing bur are they lies?. One thing we must learn is a lesson the British (the last empire) learned centuries ago. Once you cross a country's borders, regardless of the reason or intentions, you become and occupying force! The people there will resent you, and seek any means to drive you out.
If the Chinese crossed our borders and occupied our cities, would we act any differently?
The conservatives love to speak of " American Exceptionalism " If you read Rudyard Kipling , the British thought they were exceptional too.
Thank you for your work in reconciliation and the cause of religious pluralism. I am currently reading Eboo Patel's book Acts of Faith and consider your work vital for an enduring peace.
I look forward to the day when Iraqis visit the US and American's visit Iraq as just tourists, students, business people, and for other peaceful pursuits. This is how we win the peace.
I learned in the military, our job is to break things and kill people. You have to isolate the soldiers from the people so it is easier to break things and kill people where you are. Sane people don't like to kill people, so you have to condition them to pull the trigger.
Again thank you for conditioning people for peace, it is a much easier job with better results.
IARP grew out of The Iraqi Art Project, so we usually have an ongoing art exhibit (almost always with Iraqi art, and often with American art), usually in the Twin Cities, but sometimes out of town or out of state.
See reconciliationproject.org for more details on all this. We're expecting a group of Iraqi dignitaries late this summer, though their visit has already been delayed more than once, mainly because of the protests that were likely inspired by recent events elsewhere in the Arab world.
I wish you would have written more about what the conditions are like in iraq since we invaded that nation. our media does not tell americans what is going on in iraq; like nam the information is filtered to show america in the best of light.
one wonders how long it will take for americans to give up their imperialism and quit thinking they are the saviors of the world with their 720 military bases around the world.
no nation has ever been able to see their imperialism as it is ocurring. only total bankruptcy will stop this nation's imperialism around the world sold to americans as peace keeping.
"They work together to rebuild peaceful relationships between Americans and Iraqis and support nonviolence in both countries."
Dont ask.
Please remember while you enjoy your newfound connection with the Iraqi people, that those soldiers are not living behind those barricades watching streaming CNN and eating reheated frozen food by choice. They are there because the good citizens of the United States lacked the backbone to prevent them from being sent there in the first place. I assure you, the members of your armed services would much rather not be there at all.
I wonder, where were the voices of the current IARP members during the runup to the war? If they and you were not vehemently protesting and doing everything within your power to prevent the invasion from happening in the first place, then I suggest dialing back the smugness just a tad.
It's time to bury this ignorant rumor once and for all.
By the way, I was spat at at a sports event by someone who didn't take kindly to me sitting as the National Anthem was being played . . . and I wasn't wearing a uniform.
I agree that cross cultural exchange is desireable and beneficial however, implying that the soldiers are doing their job the "wrong way" is ridiculous. The job of an Army is to destroy and conquer. What is wrong is that they have been asked to do something that is so outlandishly outside of their job description in the first place. That the U.S. government tasked the military with any kind of peacekeeping and statebuilding function in Iraq is a testiment to how far detached they were from reality they were. The situation has since become generally accepted, but it can and should not be.