Letter from Iraq
Elias Amidon - 20.02.2003 17:35
Report from Baghdad the day after the massive worldwide peace demonstrations of F15
LETTER FROM THE ROAD, 13, IRAQ
ELIAS AMIDON
16 FEBRUARY, BAGHDAD
The People Yes!
It is Sunday, the day after the massive international peace demonstrations.
We here in Baghdad are so heartened by this historic event. Thank you world!
It felt like a great prayer, a shout, an uprising sweeping across the land,
a call for sanity against the insane accumulation of weapons and the
war-making heritage of our species. The great historian Will Durant once
calculated that in all of recorded history there have been only 29 years
without war. And now, at last, the people are finding their power and
linking arms across all that divides them and calling out to the politicians
and the generals and the arms-dealers, "Stop this madness!"
Even here in Baghdad you should have seen it the first international
peace march! We of the Iraq Peace Team began by hosting a large press
conference, inviting all the other international delegations we knew of:
"Bridges to Baghdad," "Human Shields," plus a large group of Okinawan
musicians calling themselves "Weapons into Musical Instruments!" The hall
was filled with TV and newspaper reporters, the Okinawans dressed in bright
yellow and red, the Italians with their multi-colored flags, and Germans,
Swedes, Spaniards, French, Slovaks, Poles, English, Irish, Americans,
Canadians, Australians.
I began the briefing: "As we gather here this morning President George Bush,
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Secretary of State Colin Powell
are still asleep in their beds in Washington, D.C. We have come here to
trouble their sleep, to trouble their sleep with dreams of people around the
world coming out of their homes and workplaces this day to say no to war and
yes to peace. By the time these men wake up, people all over the Middle
East, Russia, and Europe will be on the streets. In a few hours they will be
joined by millions of people across the United States and Canada, and
beyond. We few hundred internationals here are their representatives in
Baghdad. Together we are millions! May our voices be heard!"
After the leaders of each group gave a statement and answered questions we
poured out onto the street and took up our banners. We couldn't believe how
big our procession had become it stretched back several blocks and soon
was joined by Iraqi children and mothers, an Iraqi Benedictine monk and
Islamic clerics. The police blocked off the main street and let us march
down the middle. Iraqis came out of their homes and shops, looking surprised
to see all these smiling foreigners marching with their huge banners in
Arabic, English, Italian, and Japanese calling for peace. By the time we had
gone a mile crowds had gathered on the sidewalks to see us. The Okinawans
were a great hit, chanting and singing with their huge red drums, spinning
their drumsticks up into the air and leaping to catch them.
Then suddenly an Iraqi woman on the sidewalk started ululating in a
high-pitched call. Another woman brought out a basket and began throwing
bunches of candies up into the air over us. Another pulled blossoms from a
basket of flowers and tossed them in front of us, and then embraced several
of the women marchers. Further on, as we turned a corner, a larger crowd of
men had gathered. Suddenly one of them started clapping, and another and
another, until the whole crowd of Iraqis was applauding. It sounded like
rain on a dry land, like something that would outlive all the distrust of
the world.
We called out to them, "Asalaam aleikum!" (Peace be with you!) and several
called back, "Wa Aleikum salaam, Iraqi!" (And to you peace, Iraqi!)
We proceeded up onto the Al Rasheed Bridge spanning the Tigris River. The
bridge is a simple arc with low railings about a quarter of a mile in
length. It commands a majestic view up and down the river. When we were all
on the bridge our procession stopped and we spaced ourselves and our banners
along one side. There we stood for a few moments in silence. The sun was
shining and a light breeze billowed through the banners and peace flags.
Then the TV and newspaper teams caught up with us and the march ended with
individual interviews with them and much good feeling. We joked, "Have you
heard? They called the war off! If there can be a peace march in Baghdad
there will be thousands of them around the world!"
Of course, they haven't called it off, at least not yet. We heard today the
Americans have moved troops closer to the border. The Pentagon claims it
will take Baghdad in a day, though the U.N. people here estimate they won't
be able to come back to Baghdad for three to six months because of unstable
conditions.
If war does come, will this great movement for peace by the people of the
world have been in vain? Will we have lost? No, as the marchers chant in
dozens of languages, "The people, united, will never be defeated." We are
building new neural pathways for the human mind and the entire human
project. It may take a little time, but once these landscapes of imagination
have been opened they will not be closed again. We are using the threat of
yet another war to collectively take a leap in human evolution. As a
Carthusian monk once wrote, "The darkness of the future is the necessary
space for the exercise of our liberty and our faith."
 E-Mail: info@vitw.org  Website: http://www.iraqpeaceteam.org.
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