No matter who wears it, it remains her perfume. No matter how they call it, it’s her essence, and he would recognize it among thousands. It has nothing to do with an atomizer that would spray few drops on her neck, no.
It is her.
It is her hair when she bends towards him, it is her hand when she caresses his face, it is each and every single t-shirt, sweater, skirt, scarf that she would carelessly leave on the bed.
The mix of bergamot and rose is pure chemistry. Even the subtil touch of freesia with deep white musc, cedar and sandalwood added to it merely reach the fabulous scent of her neck.
They don’t know the secret that he knows. They don’t know that neither that perfume, nor any other one would smell the same on someone else, for she is the one that transforms it.
It becomes mesmerizing only the moment it touches her skin.
And each time it would envelop him, whether in her arms or in the embrace of a shawl, he would feel at home.
Read and make it viral - dictatorship and terror are often not where we’re being told they are.
***
Mike Prysner during an anti war demo
When I first joined the army, we were told that racism no longer existed in the military.
A legacy of inequality and discrimination was suddenly washed away by something called “Equal Opportunity.” We would sit through mandatory classes, assuring us that racism had been eliminated from the ranks, and every unit had its own EO representative to ensure no elements of racism could resurface. The Army seemed firmly dedicated to smashing any hint of racism.
And then Sept. 11 happened. I began to hear new words like “towel head,” “camel jockey” and – the most disturbing – “sand nigger.” These words did not initially come from my fellow soldiers, but from my superiors – my platoon sergeant, my company first sergeant, my battalion commander. All the way up the chain of command, viciously racist terms were suddenly acceptable.
I noticed that the most overt racism came from veterans of the first Gulf War. Those were the words they used when they were incinerating civilian convoys. Those were the words they used when this government deliberately targeted the civilian infrastructure, bombing water supplies knowing that it would kill hundreds of thousands of children. Those were the words the American people used when they allowed this government to sanction Iraq – and this is something many people forget.
We’ve just learned that we’ve killed over 1 million Iraqis since the invasion; we had already killed a million Iraqis before the invasion throughout the 90s through bombings and sanctions.
‘Haji’ was the enemy
When I got to Iraq in 2003, I learned a new word – “Haji.”
Haji was the enemy. Haji was every Iraqi. He was not a person, or a father, or a teacher, or a worker. But where does this word come from? Every Muslim strives to take a pilgrimage to Mecca, called a Haj. A Muslim who has completed that pilgrimage is a Haji. It is something that, in traditional Islam, is the highest calling in the religion – essentially, the best thing for a Muslim made into the worst thing.
But history did not start with us. Since the creation of this country, racism has been used to justify expansion and oppression. The Native Americans were called savages. The Africans were called all sorts of things to excuse slavery. A multitude of names were used during Vietnam to justify that imperialist war.
So Haji was the word we used on this mission. We’ve heard a lot about raids during Winter Soldier, kicking down people’s doors and ransacking their homes. But this mission was a different kind of raid. We never got any explanation for these orders, we were only told that this group of five or six houses were now property of the U.S. military. We had to go in and make those people leave those houses.
So we went to these houses and told the people that their homes were no longer their homes. We provided them no alternative, no place to go, no compensation. They were very confused and scared, and would not leave – so we had to remove them from their houses.
There was one family in particular that stands out: a woman with two young daughters, an elderly man who was bed-ridden and two middle-aged men. We dragged them from their houses and threw them onto the street. We arrested the men for not leaving and sent them to prison with the Iraqi police.
At that time I didn’t know what happened to Iraqis when we put a sandbag over their head and tied their hands behind their back; unfortunately, a couple months later, I had to find out.
Our unit was short interrogators, so I was tasked to assist with interrogations.
A detainee’s ordeal
First, I’d like to point out that the vast majority of detainees I encountered had done nothing wrong. They were arrested for things as simple as being in the area when an IED went off, or living in a village where a suspected insurgent lived.
I witness and participated in many interrogations; one in particular I’d like to share. It was a moment for me that helped me realize the nature of our occupation.
This detainee who I was sent to interrogate was stripped down to his underwear, hands bound behind his back and a sandbag on his head – and I never actually saw his face. My job was to take a metal folding chair, and as he was standing face-first against the wall, I was to smash the chair next to his head every time he was asked a question. A fellow soldier would yell the same question over and over, and no matter what he answered, I would smash the chair next to his head.
We did this until we got tired, then I was told to make sure he stayed standing facing the wall. By this time he was in an extremely broken state – he was shaking uncontrollably, he was crying, and he was covered in his own urine.
I was guarding him, but something was wrong with his leg – he was injured and kept falling to the ground. My sergeant told me to make sure he stayed standing, so I would have to pick him up and slam him against the wall. He kept falling down so I’d have to keep picking him up and forcefully putting him against the wall.
My sergeant came by, and was upset that he was on the ground again, so he picked him up and slammed him against the wall several times – and when the man fell to the ground again I noticed blood pouring down from under the sandbag.
So I let him sit, and whenever my sergeant starting coming I would warn the man and tell him to stand. It was then that I realized that I was supposed to be guarding my unit from this detainee, but what I was doing was guarding this detainee from my unit.
I tried hard to be proud of my service.
All I could feel was shame.
Face of occupation is laid bare
Racism could no longer mask the reality of the occupation. These were people. These were human beings.
I have since been plagued by guilt – anytime I see an elderly man, like the one who couldn’t walk, who we rolled onto a stretcher and told the Iraqi police to take him away. I feel guilt anytime I see a mother with her children, like the one who cried hysterically, and screamed that we were worse than Saddam as we forced her from her home. I feel guilt anytime I see a young girl, like the one I grabbed by the arm and dragged into the street.
We were told we were fighting terrorists. The real terrorist was me. The real terrorism is this occupation.
Racism within the military has long been an important tool to justify the destruction and occupation of another country. It has long been used to justify the killing, subjugation, and torture of another people. Racism is a vital weapon employed by this government. It is a more important weapon that a rifle, or a tank, or a bomber, or a battleship. It is more destructive than an artillery shell, or a bunker buster, or a tomahawk missile.
While all those weapons are created and owned by this government, they are harmless without people willing to use them. Those who send us to war do not have to pull a trigger or lob a mortar round; they don’t have to fight the war, they merely have to sell us the war.
They need a public who is willing to send their soldiers into harm’s way, and they need soldiers who are willing to kill and be killed, without question. They can spend millions on a single bomb – but that bomb only becomes a weapon when the ranks in the military are willing to follow the orders to use it. They can send every last soldier anywhere on earth, but there will only be a war if soldiers are willing to fight.
The ruling class – the billionaires who profit from human suffering, who care only about expanding their wealth and controlling the world economy – understand that their power lies only in their ability to convince us that war, oppression, and exploitation is in our interest. They understand that their wealth is dependent on their ability to convince the working class to die to control the market of another country.
And convincing us to die and kill is based on their ability to make us think that we are somehow superior.
Soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen have nothing to gain from this war. The vast majority of people living in the United States have nothing to gain from this war. In fact, not only do soldiers and workers gain nothing from this occupation, but we suffer more because of it. We lose the limbs, endure the trauma and give our lives. Our families have to watch flag-draped coffins lowered into the earth.
Millions in this country without health care, jobs, or access to education must watch this government squander over $400 million a day on this war.
The real enemy is here
Poor and working people in this country are sent to kill poor and working people in another country, to make the rich richer.
Without racism, soldiers would realize that they have more in common with the Iraqi people than they do with the billionaires who send us to war. I threw people onto the street in Iraq, only to come home and find families here thrown onto the street in this tragic and unnecessary foreclosure crisis that is already leaving hundreds of Iraq war veterans homeless.
We need to wake up and realize that our real enemies are not in some distant land; they’re not people whose names we don’t know and whose cultures we don’t understand.
The enemy is people we know well and people we can identify – the enemy is the system that sends us to war when it’s profitable; the enemies are the CEOs who lay us off from our jobs when its profitable; they’re the insurance companies who deny us health care when it’s profitable; they’re the banks that take away our homes when it’s profitable.
Our enemies are not 5,000 miles away.
They are right here at home, and if we organize and fight with our sisters and brothers we can stop this war, stop this government, and create a better world.
I received a couple of days ago an email that made me feel terrible, that forcibly put me in front of my mistake, our mistakes as Muslims. And I felt ashamed of myself for letting such things happen around me.
Following is the email, that I thought important to publish so that every and each of my fellows question him/herself about what they learnt from Islam and what God expects from us. Take a moment to read, open your eyes and your mind and answer the call.
***
I sit here with headphones on as music blasts through my ears, the ink of this pen stains the paper with the confusion, anger, hurt, and sadness that has plagued my heart for a few months now. Caught in a muddled haze and feeling like I’m slowly drowning. I have my little circle of support but everyone having their issues and problems I bother no one with my petty things and just smile and say “Alhamdulillah” when asked how things are. I have no intention or desire to “call anyone out” with this but to just draw attention to what I see and I’m sure everyone else does too. I also have no idea what this will accomplish, if anything, except to just get this off my chest and maybe, just maybe, it won’t feel like its eating me from the inside anymore. Maybe the doubts will stop giving Shaytan fuel for a fire that could easily consume me.
I’m troubled by so many things I’ve seen lately. Arguments over petty things, the use of racial slurs, sexual innuendos, and the never ending fights and struggles of the different sects inside this beautiful religion I love. But above all I’m troubled by what I perceive as a racial divide. Maybe I’m seeing it wrong and someone reading this can help me, I pray so.
In my own masjid I am one of a kind. No one like my face, and at times I feel like an outsider. I can be painfully shy around groups of people I don’t know which makes this even more difficult, none more evident than the nights when between prayers the brothers break into their own social circles and before I know it I’m sitting alone in a backroom, Yes before you say it I know, go join them etc., and while I am multi-lingual, Urdu, Arabic, Kurdish, and a few other of the languages spoken at the masjid aren’t any that I speak. This makes things slightly difficult as everyone prefers to speak in their native tongue. The emptiness at times is indescribable and over whelming. Even as I sit and write this I’m choking back the tears and I fully hate admitting that. I’ve gotten to the point of just walking through it all, my head down, my eyes rarely leaving the floor or buried in a book of Hadith and soaking in the stories of brotherhood from the Prophets(PBUH) time that I truly wish I was experiencing. Of course there are the obligatory Salaams, but some seem like nothing more that notions of expectance rather than a genuine interest in how you’re doing. Don’t get me wrong there are a few brothers that I have “bonded” with but they are usually the ones who show up, pray, and then leave shortly thereafter. Yes I know we all have lives, families, responsibilities and I’m sure I sound like all I’m doing is whining. My apologies for that, so at the moment I feel as if all I’m doing is drifting. Trying to learn, change, and implement this beautiful religion and its teachings into my life. Contrary to what “born” Muslims think or say, it’s not that easy. Struggling with meaning, pronunciation, interpretation, and realizing that the support circle I have isn’t enough when they are so far away.
My other issue in this divide is when it comes to marriage. Now I’m not saying I’m ready for it, I can barely lead myself right now let alone a wife or children. Let me expand for a better understanding. I see so many of my beautiful sisters’ talk of how their parents expect them to marry their own ethnicity to the point where anything else will be unaccepted. I understand that we are taught to respect of parents’ wishes, not to against them, but aren’t we taught as well that nothing is more important than these teachings sent to us from Allah? Not our wishes, our parents’ wishes, our culture, upbringing, none of this is more important than what was given to us. Am I wrong? Am I misunderstanding this? Then these beautiful sisters say they won’t do the same thing to their children. Can I ask how you can say that? Insha’Allah your parents will still be here for their grandchildren’s weddings, in which case you won’t undermine their wishes to this as well as there really is no difference between them and you now. Maybe I’m just too black n white on this issue. But if you want to break that cycle, who better to start with than yourself? Being someone who has been told by a sister that she would love to marry me, how great I am, etc. but her family wouldn’t approve for this very reason, it’s quite crushing.
What about age differences? How can we as an Ummah claim love for this beautiful man Allah sent us, and refuse, or worse yet, run from his example? The example we should be striving to be like. Divorced? Nope that seems to be another hang up. Again, I’m sure I’ll be corrected if I’m wrong, but our Prophet(PBUH) married divorced women, embraced their beauty, their value, and respected them, not treated them as second class(or worse) citizens. So if marrying is half our Deen, and this major respected aspect, then why are we making it so difficult? Isn’t the potential spouses’ faith, their fear of Allah and love for Him, their love for the Prophet (PBUH) all that’s truly supposed to matter? Yes I get it, money plays a part because bills must be paid, but to say they have to be a certain profession once again goes against what we are taught. So with all that’s been said, to have a sister tell me that since I’m not Arab or Asian blood, I’m not a “born” Muslim, that I have a failed pre-Islamic marriage that I should stick to a white, divorced with children, revert for a spouse, its rather discouraging to say the least. You just painted my self-worth into a few set ideals. You’ve given me this beautiful religion, showed me everything I’ve desired, and then sectioned me off with velvet ropes and told me ‘no, you can’t have it all, you’re not good enough’.
Now I’m sorry, but Allah in His wisdom, guided me to Islam when He did, how He did, for a reason. How dare you sit there and tell me I’m not good enough? How dare you tell me what I can and can’t have inside this religion? How dare you come off with the impression that you know what is better for me than Allah does? Because that’s exactly what you did, whether you meant to or not. Again I’m not calling anyone out, I’m venting, I’m reaching out, I’m begging for someone, anyone, to come and help me piece this together and help me understand better. Before I completely drown.
Long forgotten to their disastrous fate, very few remember that the Iraqis marked a couple of days ago the 9th anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq – with the help of the some NATO and Middle Eastern countries – that has left the fierce land of Mesopotamia torn by chaos, death and sectarian wars.
American blogger Tony Pilgrim shares with us his tribute.
***
“Was it cast for the mass who burn and toil?
Or for the vultures who thirst for blood and oil?”
-Zack de la Rocha
Candlelight Vigil & Rally organized by the LA Answer Coalition
Today I signed on to one of my many social media sites to find a friend’s status update read “3/19: the worst day ever.” It didn’t click in my mind immediately.
What’s wrong? I asked.
Nothing, it’s just today is the day the war started, she replied.
The war that started 9 years ago, and is now a fading memory for many in America. But not for those who have to live with it every day of their lives. Like my friend Marwa who lives in Baghdad.
For Marwa, the war is still a harsh reality. Every day she goes to work fearful of what could happen, as Iraq is still plagued with instability. Every day she is mindful of the sectarian violence that tore apart her beloved city, as she, a Sunni, goes to work in the predominantly Shiite Sadr City. Every day she is reminded of what she lost, as most of her family is now in Syria, waiting for the right time to return to their home. She doesn’t need a reason to reflect; she lives this reality every day. But so many here, in a country with collective ADD, should reflect. We should reflect on how the actions of our criminal government affect the lives of ordinary people all over the world.
After talking with Marwa for a while, I began to reflect. I reflected on how, as teenagers in high school, my friends and I spent our week off school watching the beginning of the war on TV, following CNN’s round-the-clock coverage, as if we were watching some reality show. I remembered how we made jokes, cheered for “our team” and were eager to see some of our friends from school get some air time. I also remembered how, in a moment of weakness and fear, I left the “viewing party,” and sat in my car, listening to the more sober accounts of the invasion on the BBC, anxious about the future.
I recalled my friends and family, some of whom were with me watching the invasion, going off to Iraq to help “spread freedom.”And I remembered them coming back, some unscathed, some blown apart physically, others mentally, and one in a body bag.
I remembered my friend Henry, who was present at the viewing party, and with whom I shared a somber moment in my car, as we listened to the radio. Henry always had a way of putting things into perspective for me. He said, “man this is just how it is! Life just works this way. People are always going to fight. Until people can move past shit, people are always going to fight and kill each other.” I remembered when Henry became a proud Marine. And how after his first deployment to Iraq, he came back a changed man: the boyish sparkle in his eye replaced with something, or nothing. More like an emptiness where that light used to be. I remember hearing about Henry’s visit to our former high school, explaining the true horrors of war to the students. And I remember how those same kids, who were so young when he graduated, showed up en masse, along with the rest of our community, when we buried Henry on that rainy March day 5 years ago. Henry was the one who came back in a body bag.
I remembered how I was always against the war, even before it started. Because after 9/11, we all knew it was coming. We all knew and did nothing. We all knew and cheered as a nation which longed for blood, any blood, after 9/11. 9/11, which had nothing to do with Iraq, but ended up having everything to do with it.
I reflected on all the reading I began to do, all the movies I watched about Iraq, trying to understand as best I could without actually being there. I remember when I broke down in tears after seeing Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” (there’s 9/11 again), because that was the first time I saw raw images from the war; raw images of dead Iraqis and dead Americans and all the death and destruction that war brings. I will never forget the image of that old woman, standing in front of her home that was destroyed by an American bomb. I will never forget the sadness, the anger, the horror, in her voice.
I will never forget reading about the war from the perspective of Iraqis, like Hadiya in her blog IraqiGirl. Or reading books by journalists unencumbered by being embedded with American troops: the journalists who wrote of the collective punishment inflicted upon the Iraqis, the arbitrary detentions, the rapes and murders, and all of the horrors the Iraqi people suffered. I reflected on the forgotten veterans, the suicides, the homeless veterans, tossed aside after their service to the Empire and it’s war machine was over, no longer useful.
As I reflected, I remembered when it all began to click in my mind. I remembered the lies “my” government told me. The lies of Bush and Rumsfeld and Cheney and Powell: lies that could make Goebbels blush. The lies that enabled perhaps 1 million people to die, millions more to become refugees, and millions more even to become widows and orphans. The lies that didn’t include the genocidal polices of a decade of sanctions, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi children. The lies that somehow forgot the horrors of the first time the US went to war with Iraq.
And finally I reflected on the quiet exit of the American troops. The anticlimactic finish to a 20+ year tragedy. I reflected on Obama’s advice to the American people: the advice that we look forward, and not backwards. The same advice that will allow a gang of disgusting war criminals of the worst kind to live out their last years on Earth as millionaires and celebrities, as they publish their disgusting memoirs and become objects of myth and veneration. Because America has a short memory. And American war criminals always become heroes in the end.
American war criminals always, somehow, become heroes in the end.
As I reflected, I vowed to never to forget and not to “look ahead” as President Obama so kindly suggested. Because if we continue to look ahead, Iraq will become just another chapter in the History of Empire, surely not the last on a long list of countries destroyed in name of American Righteousness. America destroyed Iraq over 20+ years of aggression and sanctions: sanctions now shifted to Iraq’s neighbors, again in the name of American Righteousness. Hillary Clinton lamented the violence in Syria, warning of what would happen if the “heart of the Middle East” is destroyed. I guess Hilary Clinton failed to remember that, right next door, the Heart on the Middle East lays beaten and bloodied, fresh from it’s dose of American Righteousness. How quickly Hilary looked ahead!
I vowed never to look ahead, and I didn’t as Libya, Syria, Iran, among many others, became the next targets for American Righteousness. We must stand up to Empire, and we must not allow any more Iraqs, though I fear my words will mean nothing, as I live in a nation of ADD, always ready to be distracted by the new, exciting bombs as they drop on more and more people in the name of American Righteousness.
