Who cries for Iraq?

The big new Q&A question of the coming week will be about the outrage to be expected after Pauline Hanson's re-election. Will this exceed the attention paid to thetrending Van Badham Steve Price feud of last week?

Meanwhile…..

No one seems to notice the meaning behind the question, of Iraqi man Michael Youssef on ABC's Q&A.

His quiet plea for the recognition of Iraqi suffering, fell like a stone silently on water. There was no shock and awe. What a contrast this made to the next questioner who raised issues of violence against women in our community.

No one on the panel joined the dots to the potential magnitude of Youssef's suffering. His grief was rendered invisible and inaudible.

I am a psychologist and of course I would say that. I am also the daughter of traumatized holocaust refugees, who were expected to forget their past, learn English and assimilate.

At the mention of war and refugees I see death, anguish and trauma.

On live television the pain of Iraqi people, was ignored.

Psychology has a name for this. It is called disenfranchised grief. The sorrow of minority groups is rendered invisible. The displacement and genocide of our first people and their transgenerationally transmitted trauma is largely denied. Refugees who suffer unseen, in offshore prisons are portrayed as undeserving of our compassion.

Gay couples that are being denied marriage in Australia are thereby deemed as of lesser

worth. The suffering that this may cause is ignored.

It has been noted by many that we respond intensely to a few deaths of people like us, or with whom we identify; yet ignore the plight of many considered unlike us.

'Je suis Charlie' became a global crie de couer after the Charlie Hebdo killings; yet there was barely any noting of the grief of Muslims in Iraq after therecent bombings in Baghdad. We gave a collective sigh about how these sectarian quarrels are so beyond resolution. We had tried to bring them freedom after all.

In the wake of the Chilcot Inquiry and subsequent report, the lack of remorse of our body politic has been stunning. We still don't seem to comprehend the invasion of Iraq; it should be more correctly referred to, as the war on the Iraqi people. Chilcot found that the intelligence, upon which the invasion was based, was flawed. There was no adequate plan for post invasion. The ongoing chaos and disaster can be attributed to having no plan.

It found that Saddam Hussein did not pose an urgent threat to Britain or by implication, to Australia. Intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction was given unwarranted certainty. Peaceful alternatives had not been exhausted. The Allies had undermined the authority of The United Nations Security Council, and that war in 2003 was unnecessary and its legal basis far from satisfactory.

Our blindness to Australia's culpability was made clear as I watched the panel react to the grief of Mr Terang Challah: a questioner who followed immediately after Youssef. The second questioner was an ambassador for the prevention of violence towards women. He spoke of the brutal murder of his 23-year-old sister. The panellists, led by journalist Van Badham, acknowledged his loss, directly addressing Mr Challah. Steve Price claimed that the now infamous commentary by Eddie McGuire was not acceptable but it was just blokes joking. The audience gasped. There is still much further to go but at least it got a direct response 'You're hysterical' Price accused Badham. The next day this was on social media and in the Guardian.

Fairfaxdeclared:

Terang Chowla asked a genuinely important and heart breaking question.

The Iraqi's question was not a news item.

The gender war and its violence captured the news.

The terrible violence of the war on Iraq and its people was invisible.

The response of the panel to the bereaved brother showed that they had the language and capacity to express sorrow for the grief of one man before them; but not to another.

Youssef had not made his personal grief clear. He had a less sophisticated grasp of English.

Michael Youssef asked,

'What should British, American and Australian Governments do - apart from apologise –for all the death, suffering and trauma, caused in Iraq and spread to the entire Middle East?'

No one said sorry or expressed empathy.

Deaths alone, due to the Iraq invasion have been estimated from hundreds of thousands to over a million. Add to this, displacement, of three million, physical and psychological injury and trauma, destruction of whole precincts, ground contamination with depleted uranium and the loss and suffering is incalculable.

On the eve of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I was at a public swimming pool. I noticed a small dark girl aged about four. I looked at her and felt a wave of anguish. I thought. "Tomorrow some little girl like you will be killed, or see her family blown apart by the bombardment in the night."

Shock and Awe, the initial bombardment was christened; but ordinary citizens had no-where to flee. There were no air raid shelters. Could they have imagined what was to come?

Over three thousand missiles were released in and around Baghdad. The spectacle was broadcast live on CNN and Sky News. Operation Iraqi Freedom, was gloriously documented on NBC.

In 2016 John Howard appearing on Lateline, stood by his 'decision' to go to war, despite the findings of the Chilcot seven-year investigation and 2.6 million-word report.

No sorry and no remorse.

Had we done any soul searching regarding the war on Iraq, would we have refrained from bombing Syria on questionable legal grounds in September 2015?

The panel discussion centred on arguments about flawed intelligence and disposing of Saddam, when Tony Jones seemed to recognise a relevant circumstance.

He paused the disputants saying, 'our questioner is an Iraqi as it happens, who has asked a rhetorical question'. He addressed Youssef. 'What do you think should happen?'

I have sat in the dust with imprisoned refugees atWoomera Detention centre. It was difficult for them to articulate their trauma. Youssef explained they had needed help to get rid of Saddam. There was a 'but' that he was unable to utter. No one was hearing him.

We need a slogan declaring 'Muslim lives matter'

Perhaps our politically opportunistic condemnation of refugees for disorderly flight from bombs, makes it impossible for us to empathise with the victims of war.

Youssef half raised his hand for the right of reply, but Jones seemed not to notice that his question had remained unanswered.