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TechnoratiI imagine I am not alone in despairing at the end of the year. While others look forward, I am haunted by what we did not accomplish in 2007. Particularly devastating is the ongoing war and occupation in Iraq, and the toll it continues to take on all of us, but particularly on the civilian population in Iraq, most especially on children.
I was humbled to receive a holiday greeting from Dr. Salma in Baghdad with her wish for peace in 2008. How do these Iraqis continue to hold onto hope! Then came an appeal and photographs from southern Iraq, asking me to support a non-violence training project. Children and youth in Al-Samawa are being asked to turn in their toy guns for balls and other toys. The photographs showed two men and a long line of children holding their toy guns. Next to them you see the balls and the pile of already cashed-in guns. Again, I am moved. What resilience in this gesture, given the depth of the problem facing parents in Iraq and in other war zones around the world.
I spent Christmas 2003 working on an art exchange project and taking photographs of children on Dr. Salma's cancer ward in a pediatric hospital in Baghdad. One day I was confronted by a small child wielding a toy gun, and gesturing for a photograph. I stopped and stared at the child in horror, a sinking feeling sweeping over me as he struck his pose and waited for the click of my shutter. I realized immediately that this would be a photograph with a "message": this is what happens to children growing up surrounded by war and violence.
But what message would I give the child by taking this photograph? I would be affirming his pride in the toy gun, giving my unspoken support, my consent. I would legitimize his war game, which, like all children's games, is practice in preparation for a future in an adult world. I didn't want to immortalize an Iraqi child in this horrifying posture. I turned and walked away, leaving him standing in obvious disappointment.
A year later a friend handed me the January 22, 2007 Newsweek Magazine with "my photograph" on the cover. A small, serious looking Iraqi boy poses with a toy gun and stares from a white background. Above his head, in bold letters the caption: The Next Jihadists.
Inside, on page 24, is a fold- out photo of 13-year-old Ammar with his --real--Kalashnikov assault rifle. In letters that take up nearly half the facing page the title reads: Iraq's Young Blood. It was another sickening moment for me. There was "my" photograph, but the gun is real. And the message not so much a sad lament about the tragedy of what is happening to Iraq's children, as a warning against them.
Iraq's children need to be rescued, not feared. They are the best hope and most important resource of any country, yet they continue to suffer and die out of sight and out of mind of most of us. SAVE the Children's report: State of the World's Mothers 2007, Saving the Lives of Children Under 5 shows Iraq continues to have the highest Under 5 mortality (U5MR) of any country in the world. Since the first Gulf War, the U5MR has increased a staggering 150%. It is estimated that one out of every eight children in Iraq dies before their fifth birthday: 122,000 children died in 2005.
According to UNICEF, some two million children "...continued to face threats including poor nutrition, disease and interrupted education" in 2007. Only 20% of Iraqi children outside of Baghdad have access to safe drinking water or proper sewage treatment facilities. Seventeen percent of Iraqi children are permanently out of primary school and an estimated 220,000 more are missing school because they and their families have been displaced. These are in-country figures and don't include the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children and youth whose education is interrupted or ended because their families have fled to other countries.
Children are developing, each stage of their growth and development is a critical building block that enables them to reach the next stage. In order to achieve their potential--physically, emotionally, intellectually--their needs must be met at each stage. The lack of food, clean water, shelter, education and access to health care adds up to--at best-- a compromised future.
Somehow, this ongoing crisis for Iraqi children continues to escape the mainstream media. Iraq is a never ending sporting event, with sides developing strategies, making gains and suffering set backs. The real losses suffered by Iraqi children, day after day and year after year are rarely added up and taken into account and almost never reported on.
"Children are both our reason to struggle to eliminate the worst aspects of warfare, and our best hope for succeeding at it." wrote Graca Machel, the author of a seminal assessment and call to action on their behalf. The UN accepted The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children in a unanimous resolution in 1996. The report affirms the right to special protection and care for children caught in war and conflict zones and reaffirms their rights under international treaties. Iraqi children--and all children in war zones--need the international community to stand by its commitments, and deliver the protection and care that is guaranteed them under international law. Maybe, 2008 will see some much needed action on their behalf.
Claudia Lefko is an educator and longtime activist who is involved in local, national and international efforts that seek to put the well-being of children and their education at the top of the public agenda. She is the founder (2000) and director of the Iraqi Children's Art Exchange, a project that uses art to connect Iraqi children —across language, culture and politics—to children in the US. Her current work involves arts/education programming for Iraqi refugee children in Amman Jordan.
24 Comments so far
Show AllThank you Claudia Lefko
for this article about my project ( Ball replacement Gun toy project ) in my city Samawa In Iraq .
Ali H. Sahib
alarfan org.
Iraq
Xtians is a term that originally referred to Christian fundamentalists and extremists (Christian Fundies), but it has become a loosely used term to refer to all Christians that blindly support the US war on terror, the war in the Middle East, the war against what has been described as the "threat of Islamic Extremism", and more to the point, any or all Christians that have an ignorance and prejudice towards Muslims and other religions, and consider them "inferior".
Xtians are Christians that support the US Empire, its imperial wars, the US as world police, the NWO, etc... the American Xtians generally believe that the US is a Christian nation that ultimately has the mission of spreading Christianity to all corners of the world, along with its version of "democracy" (at the point of a gun, if necessary).
The point of my original post was to point out how such Christian extremists have no problem with killing Muslims and adopting their orphaned children after the fact, with the idea that they are "saving" the kid's souls from damnation under a "false god".
The Nazis of Hitler's Germany were much the same way. They killed the parents of kids and took the kids for themselves, whenever possible, with the idea that they could give the kids a better life than their parents. This is typical of conquering armies. The Christians that dominate the US military are no different.
I never meant to imply that Iraqis or Muslims don't care for their own kids. That is something that "twoblueday" impled, not me.
Indijo, MEA CULPA
I did misread your post! I did not properly understand who the Xtians are - and I still do not. If I ignore all sentences about Xtians, you are right.
Please clarify for me the term Xtians. I assumed them to be something else than they obviously (to others) are.
Again, Indijo, I stand corrected.
@twoblueday :
You really missed the point of my post.
@curmudgeon99
Please don't continue to misread me just because somebody else does.
Let me spell it out more to the point:
HOW THE HELL CAN IRAQIS CARE FOR THEIR CHILDREN IF THEY ARE ALL DEAD?
Obviously, they can't. So what happens when the parents are dead and the kids have no one to care for them?
Presto! Here come the wonderful Xtians to the rescue (the same damn people that did nothing to prevent the war and killing of the parents to begin with). There, there, that makes it all better!
No doubt, many of them will be like Mama Bush after Katrina and say, "This thing will work out for them real well!"
twoblueday and curmudgeon99 both misunderstood my post.
@curmudgeon99
Please reread my post, I don't understand how you can say I'm blaming the victims. twoblueday may be doing so, but I am not. Please do not mistake me for someone I am not. I really HATE people who tell lies about me.
I AM NOT BLAMING THE VICTIMS!
How you can read that into my post is beyond me.
Perhaps what you misunderstood was my wording.
What I am suggesting is NOT that the Iraqis don't care for their kids, but that XTIANS and CONQUERORS ALWAYS think they can make up for all the war, killing, and destruction they cause by making a big deal out of rescuing the poor kids that they made into orphans.
It bothers the hell out of me that the Xtians will turn so many of these kids into pets and slaves and think they're doing such a wonderful thing, even though they were the cause of the war to begin with.
I am not suggesting the Iraqis won't don't care for their kids, I'm suggesting that so many can't care for the kids that the Xtians will steal away with them.
Check this out:
"Iraqis Resort to Selling Children"
"http://www.truthnews.us/?p=1553"
Jebus, all I did was suggest that Xtians will be consoling their evil ways by stealing Iraqi kids and some idiot automatically equates that with Iraqis don't care for their kids?!
Give me a break, dammit.
twoblueday was the one that suggested the Iraqis don't care for their kids, NOT ME!
Goddam it, give me a friggin break!
twoblueday and indigo are blaming the victims!!!
It's about families displaced by circumstances beyond their control. The unmitigated ongoing strife and chaos caused these people to flee with almost nothing except their lives. An imperialist illegal invasion removed a stable, albeit unfavorable government without providing adequate security and required infrastructure to protect the civilian population. The decision to disband the armty and the civilian government with no plan in place to provide necessary civil authority was a criminal decision that set the stage for all ensuing violence. You two(and many others) are trying to avoid responsibilty for the incredible human suffering that has resulted from illegal actions carried out and approved by officials you elected. All the sorrow is a direct result of actions carried out in our name.
If your logic was applied to the Hurricane Katrina refugees, you would be accusing them of doing rain dances during and after the storm.
These are human beings - not zombies, aliens, or bad guys. Just people like you and me trying to cope with unbelievable misery - humans like us.
The only thing necessary for the plight of Iraqi children to improve is for the adults in Iraq to decide they love their children more than anything else, including Allah.
Is it any wonder the US is so hated around the world?
I don't know what bothers me more; the awful situation Bush's USA has caused for these kids, or the fact that a majority of them will probly be saved by Xtians and raised by the same Xtian fanatics that supported killing their parents.
Or, at the least, Xtians seeking some kind of consolation for the terrible war and suffering that they did nothing to prevent.
Any way it goes, it sickens me to think that many of these kids will probly be raised by Xtians that teach them the same ignorance and hatred of their ME heritage as Xtians know so well.
Try this one on for size -
I just returned from Damascus, Syria where I observed the following:
A group of young people while distributing donated clothes and food to a fraction of the 2 million Iraqi refugees there, were handing out candy to children with the assistance of Arab-speaking contacts. Everything was fine while the only ones speaking were the Arab speakers. The minute someone spoke 'American' two sisters stated screaming and crying. the older one grabbed her younger sibling and they threw down the candy and ran away. The fear and horror in their eyes as they realized the small group of candy givers were American was mind-wrenching. The young people handing out the candy were shocked. I wish one of us had captured this incident on video and thrust it in the face of all those who are either supportive of our actions or those others who 'don't want to know'. I start to cry every time the scenario comes to mind.
That's what the U.S. wants, more terrorists, preferably young and not battle-hardened, so they'll be easy to kill off.
And aren't the Iraqi children, the 5 million orphans, better off now that the U.S. has liberted them than they were under Saddam's rule?
I'd laugh if it weren't so tragic. :(
There are children in Iraq?????? Did kfed take Brittany's kids there? You just can't keep up if you miss the network news.
If your so concerned about the children, then how about American Indian children. A quiet genocide continues against them too. American continued subjugation has robbed them of any hope of a future and suicide rates and drug use is skyrocketing. Not one treaty has been honored by America. Land, resources, and money are still being stolen openly but quietly, from them. Their traditional sacred beliefs are under constant attack by Christians. It would not be very difficult to write an email on their behalf to your Congressman, but how may have? One cannot be selective about which genocide one recognizes. Christian heal thyself.
Thank the Demoks in the US Congress, including Hillary/Obama, for the humanitarian crisis in Iraq. They vote year after year to unconditionally fund the war. The United States as occupier is 100% responsible for the humanitarian crisis in Iraq making Hillary/Obama and the rest of the US Congress INTERNATIONAL LAWBREAKERS.
I am a 70-year-old man. I have raised four sons. Recently, my second wife and I have produced a daughter. If someone or some country or group were to kill her, I would not hesitate to sacrifice the rest of my life to gain retribution. There is nothing special about me. I am not better. I do not place greater value on my life than others do on theirs and their childrens'. I am a human being, the same as the parents of the children we're murdering in Iraq and Afganistan. What can I say? Our foreign policy is doomed to failure for everyone except those who are making short-term profits off it.
Bush & Co., you are fooling with pro-creation, our perpetuation. You are fucking with the wrong man. At some point before too long, we're going to be coming for you. Hello, NSA, by all means pay me a visit...
Greenerthanthou: that is a sad fact as I read daily the abuses that your administration commit against "that goddamn piece of paper" (a la Bush) that is your constitution. I feel it encroaching on Canada's border with our own neo-con Harper's administration (apparently, however, the opposition parties are going to give his gov't a vote of non-confidence and we will go back to the polls this spring to reject him and his and pull out of Afghanistan).
I think that every time a civilian is killed in either Iraq, or in Afghanistan, both Canada and the US should offer the rest of the family members refuge in our countries should they wish it, fully paid and supported by us. Maybe this will jolt people into stopping to support aggressive wars that are merciless and traumatizing to those who are suffering from them.
A Voice Apart- I don't have to imagine that they are American children to be broken-hearted about the damage that the American ruling class and their thugs are doing to the people of Iraq, both children and adults. And to the environment.
I feel helpless to stop it. I have been to 2 demonstrations in Wash, DC, which were ignored. I've written letters, I go to local demos, I speak to everyone I know to try to get them to show some compassion and empathy for the people of Iraq. Please know that we in America have no power! This is not a democracy and our rulers do not care what we think!
Why should the Christianist Reichwing care about them? They see the right to life, which IS the issue here, as being a right that begins at conception and ends at birth
The reason that this is allowed to continue is because of the lack of imagination of greedy, bloodthirsty American bureaucrats the likes of your Madeleine (It is worth it) Albright, et al. Imagine your own children or the children in your neighbourhood sick with malnutrition, cholera, lack of medicines for two decades and constant bombing and war. Imagine American children dying and being psychologically damaged, then maybe you can finally start truly empathizing with Afghanis, Iraqis, as well as all others around the world and the horrendous consequence of your imperial campaigns over the decades.
Shame on us...shame on me.
Where is any mercy for these children? What needless suffering our proud violence and ethnocentric symptoms generate across the globe...So sad, so sobering.Thanks for an enlightening essay.
An Exit Strategy for Iraq- originally and independently devised in September 2004.
By Howard Roberts
A Seven-point plan for an Exit Strategy in Iraq
1) A timetable for the complete withdrawal of American and British forces
must be announced.
I envision the following procedure, but suitable fine-tuning can be
applied by all the people involved.
A) A ceasefire should be offered by the Occupying side to
representatives of the Sunni insurgency and the Shiite and Kurdish communities. These
representatives would be guaranteed safe passage, to any meetings. The
individual insurgency and community groups would designate who would attend.
At this meeting a written document declaring a one-month ceasefire,
witnessed by a United Nations authority, will be fashioned and eventually
signed. This document will be released in full, to all Iraqi newspapers, the
foreign press, and the Internet.
( The inclusion of Kurdish communities in this sub-section was added in early September 2006-
as an attempt to define the goals of parity and fairness and to avoid any sectarian splitting
of Iraq.)
B) US and British command will make public its withdrawal, within
sixth-months of 80 % of their troops.
C) Every month, a team of United Nations observers will verify the
effectiveness of the ceasefire.
All incidences on both sides will be reported.
D) Combined representative armed forces of both the Occupying
nations and the insurgency organizations and major community factions, that agreed to the cease fire will
protect the Iraqi people from actions by terrorist cells.
E) Combined representative armed forces from both the Occupying
nations and the insurgency organizations/community factions will begin creating a new military
and police force. Those who served, without extenuating circumstances, in
the previous Iraqi military or police, will be given the first option to
serve.
F) After the second month of the ceasefire, and thereafter, in
increments of 10-20% ,a total of 80% will be withdrawn, to enclaves in Qatar
and Bahrain. The governments of these countries will work out a temporary
land-lease housing arrangement for these troops. During the time the troops
will be in these countries they will not stand down, and can be re-activated
in the theater, if the chain of the command still in Iraq, the newly
formed Iraqi military, the leaders of the insurgency/community factions, and two international
ombudsman (one from the Arab League, one from the United Nations), as a
majority, deem it necessary.
G) One-half of those troops in enclaves will leave three-months after they
arrive, for the United States or other locations, not including Iraq.
H) The other half of the troops in enclaves will leave after
six-months.
I) The remaining 20 % of the Occupying troops will, during this six
month interval, be used as peace-keepers, and will work with all the
designated organizations, to aid in reconstruction and nation-building.
J) After four months they will be moved to enclaves in the above
mentioned countries.
They will remain, still active, for two month, until their return to
the States, Britain and the other involved nations.
2) At the beginning of this period the United States will file a letter with
the Secretary General of the Security Council of the United Nations, making
null and void all written and proscribed orders by the CPA, under R. Paul
Bremer. This will be announced and duly noted.
3) At the beginning of this period all contracts signed by foreign countries
will be considered in abeyance until a system of fair bidding, by both
Iraqi and foreign countries, will be implemented ,by an interim Productivity
and Investment Board, chosen from pertinent sectors of the Iraqi economy.
Local representatives of the 18 provinces of Iraq will put this board
together, in local elections.
4) At the beginning of this period, the United Nations will declare that
Iraq is a sovereign state again, and will be forming a Union of 18
autonomous regions. Each region will, with the help of international
experts, and local bureaucrats, do a census as a first step toward the
creation of a municipal government for all 18 provinces. After the census, a
voting roll will be completed. Any group that gets a list of 15% of the
names on this census will be able to nominate a slate of representatives.
When all the parties have chosen their slates, a period of one-month will be
allowed for campaigning.
Then in a popular election the group with the most votes will represent that
province.
When the voters choose a slate, they will also be asked to choose five
individual members of any of the slates.
The individuals who have the five highest vote counts will represent a
National government.
This whole process, in every province, will be watched by international
observers as well as the local bureaucrats.
During this process of local elections, a central governing board, made up
of United Nations, election governing experts, insurgency organizations, US
and British peacekeepers, and Arab league representatives, will assume the
temporary duties of administering Baghdad, and the central duties of
governing.
When the ninety representatives are elected they will assume the legislative
duties of Iraq for two years.
Within three months the parties that have at least 15% of the
representatives will nominate candidates for President and Prime Minister.
A national wide election for these offices will be held within three months
from their nomination.
The President and the Vice President and the Prime Minister will choose
their cabinet, after the election.
5) All debts accrued by Iraq will be rescheduled to begin payment, on the
principal after one year, and on the interest after two years. If Iraq is
able to handle another loan during this period she should be given a grace
period of two years, from the taking of the loan, to comply with any
structural adjustments.
6) The United States and the United Kingdom shall pay Iraq reparations for
its invasion in the total of 120 billion dollars over a period of twenty
years for damages to its infrastructure. This money can be defrayed as
investment, if the return does not exceed 6.5 %.
7) During the interim period all those accused of crimes against the Iraqi people,
or against international law will be given access to a fair trial.
The extent of the implications of the international nature of the crime, and the
security standards which exist in Iraq will dictate the place of the trial, and it's subsequent procedures.
All defendants will have the right to present any evidence they want, and to
choose freely their own lawyers.
If they are found guilty they will be given all necessary appeals provided for by the jurisdiction
of their trials, and will be sentenced in Iraq, after all these appeals are exhausted.
If they are found not guilty they will be released and given protection under international law,
with the strict adherence to these laws by the judicial organs of a sovereign Iraq.
poster george w. bush , i wish you were president.
Bring the humanitarian crisis home. I wonder if Americans would go on with business as usual if the genocide perpetrated by the mercenaries of their empire was causing the death of one out of eight American kids before they reached the age of five.