Where are you Cindy Sheehan? On May 12th 2006 you wrote of: 'A Perfect
Mother's Day Gift'. You invoked the horror of
Julia Ward Howe, who penned the verses of the Battle Hymn of the Republic :
'... so horrified at the carnage of the Civil War that she began advocating
for a Mothers Day of Peace' , a Proclamation published in 1870. You are
engaged by this writing : 'By 1873 , eighteen cities celebrated (the day) '
... still, today, we have the enduring legacy of Mothers' Day.'
We also have the enduring legacy of the United Nations International Women's
Day, 8th March. This was embraced in Iraq in 1958, under the government of
Abdul Karim Kassim, who then appointed the first female cabinet Minister,
Nazima Dulaimi. Even during the embargo years, women would address the few
westerners and others, on this day that westerners tend to forget. The
poorest would pull a single sweet from a pocket and offer to celebrate it
with a stranger. The mother of a dying child in a hospital, denied medicine
by the United Nations, which would likely save that little life, would still
do the same - this is what conciliation and peace really means. Those
sweets still haunt those who traveled to Iraq during the embargo years.
They should.
Now there is a new meaning to International Women's Day (with the flacid,
impotent UN, silent, as ever.) Three women are to be hanged without trial,
legal representation, in Iraq around this time. (Democracy, US/UK style.)
Wassam Talib is 31 and has her 3 year old with her in prison.
Zainab Fadhil is 35 and Liqa Mohammed (25 or 26,
but around the age of your son, reports differ) is still breast feeding the
baby she gave birth to in prison. Reports say they may be executed today -
for allegedly aiding the resistance. Since there has been no meaningful
trial, who knows? But resisting an illegal invasion, the 'supreme crime'
under the Nuremberg rulings, is entirely legitimate.
You constantly write and talk of the loss of your son, Casey, whose
seemingly abandoned website still stands at 1,581 US troops killed, as
the death count heads, inexorably, towards 4,000. Those who die in transit or on home
soil, or bases, of course, do not count in Pentagon speak.
Your son's anniversary is coming up, just a month away. He had a choice: 'I
would beg my son not to go to Iraq, before he left, because we both knew it
was wrong'. (My Son Casey (May 29th 1979 - April 4th 2004, Palestine
Chronicle, 3rd April 2006.) How many Iraqis did he kill in a deployment he
'knew was wrong' before he died? You can do something to correct the wrong.
In his name.
You were in Seattle for a fundraiser for Rep. Jim McDermott (Daily Kos, 10th
May 2006.) You are pictured with your head on his shoulder, both beaming
with delight. You are reported in the same article as: '..working with John
Kerry's office ... to start bringing the troops home ... with Senator
McGovern .. and on the national board of Progressive Democrats ('and that
that should be an oxymoron, they should be progressive', you are quoted as
saying. They should and must. You have their ears, Ms Sheehan.You have lost
your 'baby.' Will you stand by whilst a baby at the breast is deprived of a
mother?
You speak and write endlessly, of the important people internationally you
have met on your crusade for peace. You trilled about Iraq's 'democratic'
Prime Minister Maliki, whom you met in Jordan just month's ago.
In 'Iraqis are People too', this week, you wrote: "A majority of Americans do find the casualties on both sides unacceptable,
but now it's time to go from thinking 'unacceptable' to action. We need to
get out of our comfy homes .... to demonstrate to the people of the world
that citizens in democracies do not sanction killing innocent people. We
need to do it for our soldiers, but more importantly for the innocent
citizens of Iraq (and) to restore our reputation in the world."
Indeed. Pull in the favors, burn out the phone lines, the emails, the faxes. Be a
proper Ambassador for peace and save another lynching - in the name of
International Women's Day. It is, after all, your Casey's forgotten website,
which quotes Ghandhi. 'To save one, is to save all.' This is an Islamic belief.
Go for it.
Felicity Arbuthnot is a journalist and activist who has visited the Arab and Muslim world on numerous occasions. She has written and broadcast on Iraq, her coverage of which was nominated for several awards. She was also senior researcher for John Pilger's award-winning documentary "Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq"
and author, with Nikki van der Gaag, of “Baghdad” in the “Great Cities” series, for World Almanac Books (2006.)
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