This is an edited version of an article published on the Assyrian Christians website on 26 March 2003.
This story will probably upset everybody
- those with whom I have fought for peace
all my life and those for whom the decision
for war comes a bit too fast.
I am an Assyrian. I was born and raised
in Japan where I am the second generation
in Christian ministry after my Father
came to Japan in answer to General Douglas
Macarthur's call for 10,000 young people
to help rebuild Japan following the war.
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As a minister and due to my personal
convictions I have always been against
war for any and all reasons. It was precisely
this moral conviction that led me to do
all I could to stop the current war in
Iraq.
As an Assyrian I was told the story
of our people from a young age. How my
grandparents had escaped the great Assyrian
Holocaust in 1917 settling finally in
Chicago.
Currently there are about six million
Assyrians - approximately 1.2 million
in Iraq and the rest scattered in the
Assyrian Diaspora across the world.
Without a country or rights even in
our native land it has been the prayer
of generations that the Assyrian Nation
would one day be restored and the people
of the once-great Assyrian Empire would
once again have a home.
With that feeling, together with supplies
for our Church and family, I went to Iraq
to do all I could to help make a difference.
The feeling as I crossed the border
was exhilarating. "Home at last,"
I thought, as I would for the first time
visit the land of my forefathers.
The kindness of the border guards when
they learned I was Assyrian, the taxi,
the people on the street it was like being
back 'home' after a long absence.
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Now I finally know myself! The laid-back,
relaxed atmosphere, the kindness to strangers,
the food, the smells, the language all
seemed to trigger a long-lost memory somewhere
in my deepest DNA.
The first order of business was to attend
Church. It was here that I was first forced
to examine my morals in the harsh light
of reality. Following a beautiful service
to welcome the Peace Activists, we moved
to the next room to have a simple meal.
Sitting next to me was an older man
who carefully began to sound me out. Apparently
feeling the freedom to talk in the midst
of the mingling crowd he suddenly turned
to me and said: "There is something
you should know."
"We didn't want to be here tonight,"
he continued. "When the Priest asked
us to gather for a Peace Service we said
we didn't want to come"
"What do you mean?" I inquired,
confused.
"We didn't want to come because
we don't want peace," he replied.
"We want the war to come."
A strange oddessy begins
Beginning that night and continuing
on in the private homes of relatives with
whom I stayed, little by little the scales
began to come off my eyes.
All foreigners in Iraq are subject to
24-hour surveillance by government minders,
who arrange all interviews, visits and
contact with ordinary Iraqis. But by some
fluke, either of my invitation as a religious
person or my family connection, I was
not subject to any government minders
at any time throughout my stay in Iraq.
As far as I can tell I was the only
person including the media, Human Shields
and others in Iraq without a government
minder.
What emerged was something so awful
that it is difficult even now to write
about it. Discussing with the head of
our tribe what I should do, as I wanted
to stay in Baghdad with our people during
their time of trial, I was told that I
could most help the Assyrian cause by
going out and telling the story to the
outside world.
Simply put, those living in Iraq are
in a living nightmare. From the terror
that would come across the faces of my
family at the arrival of an unknown visitor,
a telephone call, a knock at the door,
I began to realise the horror they lived
with every day.
Over and over I asked them: "Why
could you want war? Why could any human
being desire war?"
Their answer was quiet and measured:
"Look at our lives! We are living
like animals. No food, no car, no telephone,
no job and most of all no hope."
I would marvel as my family went about
their daily routine as normal as could
be. Baghdad was completely serene without
even a hint of war. Father would get up,
have his breakfast and go off to work.
The children to school, the old people
- ten in the household - to their daily
chores.
"You can not imagine what it is
to live with war for 20, 30 years. We
have to keep up our routine or we would
lose our minds."
Then I began to see around me those who
had lost their minds. It seemed in every
household there was one or more who in
any other society would be in a Mental
Hospital and the ever-present picture
of a family member killed in one of the
many wars.
Having been born and raised in Japan,
which in spite of 50 years of democracy
still retains vestiges of the 400-year-old
police state, I quickly began to catch
the subtle nuances of a full-blown, modern
police state.
The terrible price paid in down-to-earth
ways: the family member with a son who
screams all the time; the family member
who's wife left, unable to cope anymore;
the family member going to a daily job
with nothing to do; the family member
with a son lost to the war, a husband
lost to alcoholism. The daily, hard-to-perceive
slow death of people for whom all hope
is lost.
The pictures of Saddam Hussein, whom
people hailed in the beginning with great
hope everywhere. Saddam Hussein with his
hand outstretched. Saddam Hussein firing
his rifle. Saddam Hussein in his Arab
Headdress. Saddam Hussein in his classic
30-year-old picture. One or more of these
four pictures seemed to be everywhere
on walls, in the middle of the road, in
homes, as statues. He was all-seeing,
all-knowing, all-encompassing.
"Life is hell. We have no hope.
But everything will be ok once the war
is over."
"Look at it this way. No matter
how bad it is, we will not all die. We
have hoped for some other way but nothing
has worked. Twelve years ago it went almost
all the way but failed. We cannot wait
anymore. We want the war and we want it
now."
Coming back to family members and telling
them of progress in the talks at the United
Nations on working some sort of compromise
with Iraq I was welcomed not with joy
but anger. "No, there is no other
way! We want the war! It is the only way
he will get out of our lives."
I began to recall the stories I had
heard from older Japanese of how in a
strange way they had welcomed the sight
of the bombers in the skies over Japan.
Of course, nobody wanted to be bombed
but the first sight of the American B29
Bombers signalled that the war was coming
to an end. There would be terrible destruction.
They might very well die but in a tragic
way there was finally hope.
Then I began to feel so terrible. I
had been demonstrating against the war,
thinking I had been doing it for the very
people I was here now with and yet I had
not ever bothered to ask them what they
wanted. What they wanted me to do.
With tears streaming down my face in
my bed in a tiny house in Baghdad crowded
in with 10 other of my own flesh and blood,
all exhausted after another day of not
living but existing without hope, exhausted
in daily struggle simply to not die I
had to say to myself "I was wrong".
How dare I claim to speak for those
for whom I had never asked what they wanted!
All I could do
Then I began, carefully and with great
risk not just for me but most of all for
those who told their story and opened
up their homes for the camera, I did my
best to videotape their plight as honestly
and simply as I could.
Wanting to make sure I was not simply
getting the feelings of a long-oppressed
Assyrian minority, I spoke to dozens of
people. What I was not prepared for was
the sheer terror they felt at speaking
out.
Over and over again I would be told "We
would be killed for speaking like this"
and finding out that they would only speak
in a private home or where they were absolutely
sure through the introduction of another
Iraqi that I was not being attended by
a minder.
From a former member of the Army to
a person working with the police to taxi
drivers to store owners to mothers to
government officials without exception
when allowed to speak freely the message
was the same.
On the final day, for the first time,
I saw the signs of war. Sandbags began
appearing at various government buildings
but the solders putting them up and then
later standing within the small circle
they created gave a clear message they
could not dare speak.
They hated it. They despised it. It was
their job but they made clear to the people
watching that they were on their side
and would not fight.
But what of their feelings towards the
United States and Britain? Those feelings
are clearly mixed. They have no love for
the British or the Americans but they
trust them.
"We are not afraid of the American
bombing. They will bomb carefully and
not purposely target the people. What
we are afraid of is Saddam Hussein and
what he and the Ba'ath Party will do when
the war begins. But even then we want
the war. It is the only way to escape
our hell. Please tell them to hurry. We
have been through war so many times, but
this time it will give us hope".
At the border ... a final call for help
The final call for help came at the
most unexpected place - the border.
Sadly, and sent off by the crying members
of my family, I left. Things were changing
by the hour - the normally $100 ride from
Baghdad to Amman was first $300 then $500
and by nightfall $1,000.
As we came to the border we began the
routine paperwork and then the search
of our vehicle. Everything was going well
until the border guard asked if I had
any money. We had been carefully instructed
to make sure we only carried $300 when
we returned so I began to open up the
pouch that carried my passport and money
stuffed in my shorts.
Suddenly the guard began to pat me down.
"Oh, no!" I thought. "It's
all over."
We had been told of what happened if
you got caught with videotape, a cellular
telephone or any kind of electronic equipment
that had not been declared.
A trip back to Baghdad, a likely appearance
before a judge, in some cases 24-48 hour
holding and more.
He immediately found the first videotape
stuffed in my pocket and took it out.
I could see the expression of terror on
the face of the driver as he stifled a
scream.
The guard shook his head as he reached
into my pocket and took out another tape
and then from pocket after pocket began
to take out tape after tape, cellular
telephone, digital camera - all the wrong
things.
We all stood there in sheer terror -
for a brief moment experiencing the feeling
that every Iraqi feels - not for a moment
but day and night, 24 hours a day, 365
days a year. That terrible feeling that
your life is not yours; that its fate
rests in someone else's hands.
As the guard slowly laid out the precious
videotape on the desk we all waited in
silent terror for the word to be taken
back to Baghdad and the beginning of the
nightmare.
He laid the last videotape down and looked
up. His face is frozen in my memory but
it was to me the look of sadness, anger
and then a final look of quiet satisfaction
as he clinically shook his head and quietly
without a word handed all the precious
videotapes - the cries of those without
a voice - to me.
He didn't have to say a word. I had
learned the language of the imprisoned
Iraqi. Forbidden to speak by sheer terror
they used the one language they had left
- human kindness.
As his hands slowly moved to give the
tape over he said in his own way what
my Uncle had said, what the taxi driver
had said, what the broken old man had
said, what the man in the restaurant had
said, what the soldier had said, what
the man working for the police had said,
what the old woman had said, what the
young girl had said - he said it for them
in the one last message a I crossed the
border from tyranny to freedom:
"Please take these tapes and show
them to the world. Please help us ...
and please hurry!"