{"id":108638,"date":"2018-04-02T12:00:34","date_gmt":"2018-04-02T11:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=108638"},"modified":"2018-04-01T15:05:31","modified_gmt":"2018-04-01T14:05:31","slug":"who-calls-anyone-civilized","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/04\/who-calls-anyone-civilized\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Calls Anyone Civilized?"},"content":{"rendered":"

31 Mar 2018 – <\/em>Naomi Shihab Nye is a poet and professor of Creative Writing at Texas State.\u00a0 Her father was Palestinian and a refugee journalist. In one of her poems after 9\/11, entitled \u201cBlood,\u201d she writes:<\/p>\n

I call my father, we talk around the news.
\nIt is too much for him,
\nneither of his two languages can reach it.
\nI drive into the country to find sheep, cows,
\nto plead with the air:
\nWho calls anyone civilized?
\nWhere can the crying heart graze?
\nWhat does a true Arab do now?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I myself tried to write something for the 15 year \u201ccommemoration\u201d of the US war against Iraq, but wasn\u2019t able to complete it.\u00a0 It was too much for me. A couple of months ago I was invited to go to the Northwest to speak about \u201cFifteen Years after the War.\u201d\u00a0 It was too much for me emotionally, and somewhat shamefully I had to decline.<\/p>\n

As I write, I have the phone next to me.\u00a0 I am texting a young Iraqi boy who is alone in Turkey. \u00a0About ten months ago he was kidnapped in Iraq.\u00a0 \u00a0Through a chain of events, he ended up in Syria.\u00a0 About two months ago his father was contacted and was able to get his son smuggled across the border into Turkey.\u00a0 Last month his son turned 18 years of age and was eligible to register as a refugee with UNHCR.\u00a0 But he will not get an interview for many months to come.<\/p>\n

Traumatized, missing family and without friends, he tells his family he wants to come home.\u00a0 But it is much too dangerous for him to return.\u00a0 Trying to draw him out of his boredom, I ask him to tell me how his day was.\u00a0 What did he eat?\u00a0 Did he get outside? What is the weather like?\u00a0 I ask him what words he has learned in Turkish.\u00a0 I tell him what I ate, about the soup I cooked or the rainy weather. By the length of time between our messages, I suspect that he is looking up some of the English words.\u00a0 Sometimes we speak by phone and get to see each other.<\/p>\n

For some reason I find our simple conversation today so tender.\u00a0 His family in Baghdad is grateful that we are in contact.\u00a0 They have another son who was also kidnapped.\u00a0 They do not know whether he is alive or not.\u00a0 The boys were separated after the kidnapping.\u00a0 The grief of this family seems to have no end.\u00a0 And this is just one family.<\/p>\n

I was in Iraq for the month of October last year.\u00a0 One of the hardest things for me on that trip was the feeling I heard expressed that the country has become invisible.\u00a0 A doctor friend in Baghdad, his hurt palpable, told me he felt as though Iraq has been completely forgotten by the global community.<\/p>\n

A friend from Baghdad sent me photos a couple of weeks ago, photos that he took from a bus window of the destruction in Mosel, and it was the side of the city that had suffered only \u201cminimally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Building in Mosul decimated by bombing, March 2018.
Photo: Abu Mohammed<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Shop remains open in area of Mosul decimated by bombing, March, 2018. Photo: Abu Mohammed.<\/p><\/div>\n

That same week Hunar Ahmed, writing for Kurdish media network \u201cRudaw News,\u201d reported (\u201cBodies of Mosul Civilians Contaminate Water and Threaten Epidemic<\/a>,\u201d 3\/17\/18): \u201cHeaps of bodies are being uncovered amongst the rubble of Mosul and in its river, threatening contamination and a public health emergency.\u00a0 Human remains are almost indistinguishable from the debris of ruined buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 2 million Iraqis have been displaced by the war against the Islamic State.\u00a0 According to a February, 2018 Reuters<\/a> report about interviews with refugee aid groups, \u201cIraqi authorities are forcing thousands of displaced people to return to their home areas too soon despite the risks\u2026.In two of the five camps the aid groups collectively oversee, 84 percent of displaced Iraqis said they felt safer in the camp than in their area of origin.\u00a0 More than half said their houses were damaged or totally destroyed and only 1 percent said they knew for sure their houses were available for return.\u201d<\/p>\n

War rages on in Iraq.\u00a0 Naomi Shihab Nye\u2019s words should help bring us back to ourselves, fifteen years after the onset of the 2003 US-led war against Iraq.\u00a0 \u201cWho calls anyone civilized<\/em>?\u201d
\n____________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Cathy Breen (<\/em>newsfromcathy@gmail.com<\/em><\/a>) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence (<\/em>www.vcnv.org<\/em><\/a>). She lived in Iraq throughout the 2003 \u201cShock and Awe\u201d bombing. For the past 15 years she has regularly visited with and advocated for Iraqis who\u2019ve been displaced within Iraq or seek refuge beyond Iraq.<\/em><\/p>\n

Submitted by TRANSCEND Member Kathy Kelly<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

31 Mar 2018 – I was in Iraq for the month of October last year. One of the hardest things for me on that trip was the feeling I heard expressed that the country has become invisible. A doctor friend in Baghdad, his hurt palpable, told me he felt as though Iraq has been completely forgotten by the global community. War rages on in Iraq. Young boy Naomi Shihab Nye\u2019s words should help bring us back to ourselves, fifteen years after the onset of the 2003 US-led war against Iraq. \u201cWho calls anyone civilized?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":108641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-north-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}