November 14, 2009
And why should ye not fight in the cause of Allah and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)?- Men, women, and children, whose cry is: "Our Lord! Rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from thee one who will protect; and raise for us from thee one who will help! (the Koran. Chapter 4 The Women/ An-Nisa: Verse 75)
I feel terribly distressed...actually, I've been crying uncontrollably...and the tears don't seem to want to stop...
Today has been particularly hard on me. They must provide some kind of support for people who deal with traumatizing material on a daily basis...traumatic lives, traumatic pictures, traumatic stories, wrought with pain, immense suffering, silence, indifference, deep sadness and an anger that coils around itself like a snake about to explode, implode...
Assailed from all sides, whichever way I turn my head, I see only destruction and pain, endless pain...endless grief, endless misery...and the silence is sharper and deadlier than all the weapons, knives, and daggers of this world.
Why do I have the feeling that am alone witnessing all of this, where are the others? why is their voice so mute, why have they gone deaf and blind ? What are they doing in their corner, observing from afar ?
This is not a film, this is not an action film, not a video game, this is our lives...or what is left of them.
Why are they no tens of articles a day on Iraq's suffering - on its children, its prisoners, its women, its men, its walls...why are they no tens of articles daily on the continuous rape of Iraq, on the stealing of its water, its oil, its land by Iran. Why aren't they tens of articles daily on the abominable state of a country in total shambles...
How come they are no pictures of your city, send pictures, show the world what has become of your city, show the world what has become of your schools, hospitals, streets, buildings, homes...show the world what has become of your lives, of your health, of your neighborhood, your friends, your family...tell your story...tell your story...show your wounds, cry your anger, write...expose, share...your silence is maddening, your absence is frightening...you have left a vacuum for your torturers, and their paid whores to fill it in with garbage and sewage water like the garbage and putrid water that surrounds your homes and your lives...
Shamelessly sitting and observing...and am particularly referring to the Iraqi middle class youth, who are supposedly educated. Just now, another video emerged of a 60 year old man raped by two British soldiers in Basra, adding itself to the innumerable stories of rape, torture and sodomy that took and are still taking place in your country...and you sit and observe.
Neda Soltan, the young woman killed by the Iranian militias in Tehran, her boyfriend shared the story with the BBC, they are going to make a film about her. A scholarship was put out in her name at Oxford University, and posters were carried by Iranians making her the symbol of Revolt and Protest.
And you Iraqis, supposedly educated Iraqis, over 1 million of us have been murdered and you sit jerking off, immersed in shallowness and pettiness, mesmerized by the culture of McDonalds, Coca Cola, MTV and video clips...you have got no fucking shame at all.
And for the rest who have some conscience left, where are your Iraqi voices ? What are you doing, what are you doing instead ? Are you just going to let it go like this, that easily ?
SPEAK UP, For God's sake SPEAK UP.
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