“Nobody can convince the Iraqis that the American occupation tries to liberate them,” Al-Mufti

By Dina Rashed, IOL Correspondent

CHICAGO, December 19 (IslamOnline.net) - Two brave Iraqi women opted to defy occupation by coming to the U.S. soil and speaking about the miseries of their people under the American-led occupation. The sub-zero freezing night or being a Thursday (December 18) – not a weekend – did not prevent some 300 Americans from going to the Chicago Temple Church, located down town Chicago, to listen to them.

Amal Al-Khedairy and Nermin Al-Mufti have already toured six major U.S. cities, including Washington D.C., New York, in the past couple of months and are expected to visit more cities as the tour continues till the end of the year.

“Instead of Saddam on TV, we now have Mr. Bremer talking to us in English,” Al-Khedairy told the audience, with bitterness (showing clearly in her voice) about how the occupation brought more disorder and insecurity to the Iraqi society rather than freedom and prosperity (promised by the Bush administration).

Al-Khedairy has founded Al-Beit Al-Iraqi, - “The Iraqi House” - an art center in Baghdad in an old historic home that has been owned by her family for years. Following the bombardment of the house in the first Gulf War, Al-Khedairy restored the building.

It became the only center showing traditional Baghdadi arts and crafts during the 1990s. The center held concerts, exhibitions and attempted to restore the traditional craftsmanship by teaching courses to youth about calligraphy, brass and copper work and brick work, said Al-Khedairy.

Al-Mufti - a veteran Iraqi journalist for twenty years - has written extensively on Arab Affairs and other issues including environment, gender issues, and contemporary literature in different Arab publications.

Following a brief introduction of the two guests, a short film was shown to the audience about the Al-Beit Al-Iraqi before and after this year’s U.S. military invasion showing how Al-Khedairy wanted Al-Beit to be a cultural center for generations to come to restore and keep her people’s heritage.

“Iraq is not Saddam, it’s not one man, it’s generations, this is history,” a frustrated Al-Khedairy said in the short clip to the camera crew as they shot how the historic place was reduced to scattered stones.

Al-Khedairy said that the geographic proximity of the building to many of the Iraqi governmental buildings in the heart of Baghdad has led to its direct bombardment.

“With all of what we have seen in 1990, this was really unheard of, beyond our imagination that what happened to us could happen,” said Al-Khedairy as an eyewitness of how the U.S. military aggression in 2003 damaged buildings as much as human spirit in Iraq and far exceeded the earlier campaign on Iraq, twelve years ago.

As both ladies gave unscripted talks of how the invasion took a toll on Iraq, Al-Khedairy gave a more personal account of how the cultural center that she founded was lost in the war like many other cultural and historical monuments.

Al-Mufti’s talk, on the other hand, was supported with more figures about the damage of the embargo for twelve years, and with many quotes by U.S. officials and political strategists about how what happened to Iraq in 2003 was doomed to take place whether Saddam Hussein was in power or not because of its geopolitical place and resources within the Middle East.

“Iraq is not Saddam, it’s not one man, it’s generations, this is history,” Al-Khedairy (Right)

“The hardship of the blockade was not only the lack of the medicine or the food, but that we were isolated and demonized,” said Al-Mufti adding that the embargo not only affected the country’s human development and infrastructure transferring it from a leading country of educated population to rather an underdeveloped one as it stands now.

The blockade further affected the cultural and moral values of the society giving the racketeers more strength as the black market of the basic items of food and medicine flourished under the embargo.

The looting of the Iraqi museum is a scheme to make the Iraqis loose their identity, said Al-Mufti, adding “Nobody can convince the Iraqis that the American occupation tries to liberate them.”

Yet, both speakers despite their clear opposition to what is taking place in their country, said that they were received with hospitality in the U.S. and hoped that the American audience which seemed eager to listen to their stories and testimonies would act towards ending the current administration’s occupation of Iraq.

Al-Mufti said that given the current situation, the American forces should be replaced with U.N. forces and that the Iraqi society should be given some time for its civil society to develop and lead a more democratic process.

The event was attended by people of different background, but the majority seemed to be of Americans of non-Middle Eastern background. At the end of their talk the two Iraqis received a long standing ovation for their brave and strong speeches.

The Thursday evening event was sponsored by The American Friends Service Committee, Students for Social Justice, and by Voices in the Wilderness, a leading American organization based in Chicago which has campaigned heavily against the U.S. led embargo against Iraq in the last 12 years and whose founder Kathy Kelly has made several trips to Iraq prior to the occupation giving donated medical supplies and living with Iraqis in their calamity under the killing economic sanctions.