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For Goodness' Sake
Civil Affairs	Jack Oatmon
"There's a whole lot of humanity out there that the average American will never be able to see." Last month I opened with a quote from Condi Rice. This month the opening quote is from, well…yours truly. Hmm, quite a downgrade. You might want to ask for a refund on this issue of Front Porch! The quote is the first line of an email I sent to a colleague in another part of Iraq, currently involved in a Civil Affairs function. CA is the mission that seeks to care for basic human needs. In this case, CA involves a classroom in a small village. The team is teaching Iraqi women, aged 25 to 55, to read. I acquired a photo of this class. I won’t show it to you. I deliberately left it out this month. Although the photo perfectly illustrates one aspect of hope for this troubled people, and although this particular image is worth a thousand times a thousand words... it’s classified. It's classified not to protect national secrets, but the students themselves. If identified, any one of these women might be deliberately punished by beating, rape, or even murder – for striving to claim a future for her children – by a self-imposed guardian of decency. How's that for mixed messages? 75% of the ladies in this class are widows. Remember, their average age is only 40. Three out of four have already lost husbands. These are individuals of fierce strength and courage, burning with the vision that their children deserve better. They risk as much as any mother could. Since this photo is so meaningful, and since we can’t print it, I will try to "show you" the picture with words. I will try to help you see the brightness; the dreams; the colors. I will try to help you see the future plainly visible in the present. There is a rich theme of greens throughout. Green is the color of paradise in Islam. The cement floor is a mottled green; the visible right and front walls are in two lightening shades of green. Sunlight floods through open windows and reflects from the old, green chalkboard propped up with old, green chairs. There is even a green, two-liter soda bottle brought for drinking water by a lady who cannot afford anything else. The women are mostly in head-to-toe black abayas, seated and attentive. One stands at the board, chalk in hand, carefully practicing the letters that promise to unlock the world for her children. Staring innocently, uncertainly, at the camera is one tiny girl. This little girl (we’ll call her “Wahida” – the One), as small children tend to do, is leaning back toward her source of certainty – the loving care of her mother, who peers intently at the chalkboard. Except for Wahida’s tragic familiarity with savage violence and torn bodies, she is no different from any American two-year-old. She even has a little pacifier hanging from a little string. In contrast to the greens of the room and the black shrouds enveloping the mothers, Wahida is an oasis of brightness. Her big brown eyes and short, reddish hair frame a cherubic face. Her orange shorts and blouse dance with pretty flowers and lace; she even has little matching sandals. Wahida is a fragile symbol of this region’s potential. In another two decades she might be finishing a degree in Economics at Baghdad University, eager to burst forth to take on the world and eternally grateful for the many sacrifices of her tireless mother. Baghdad might then be once again a thriving, bustling oasis of hope for this part of the world, the Tokyo of 1965. These things just might be. It’s not impossible. I will conclude with the second part of that opening email, which read as follows: "You know where the hope of the world lies? In that beautiful little girl facing the camera. We just have to give her hope, first." I’ll pray for Wahida tonight. Will you? Be good. Jack Oatmon, our man embedded in Iraq, is a recently retired veteran who served worldwide in more than 30 nations during a 20-year career. He urges us all to remember MacArthur’s words: “The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.” You can see more of his work at PowerfulPeace.WordPress.com.
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