Communication between Iraqis and Americans since the onset of the Persian Gulf crisis has been limited mostly to accusations and threats between the two governments. The rhetoric of war has contributed to an already-looming gap of understanding between the two cultures.
The Just Connections community, a small group of Mennonites living in a low-income section of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, recently came together in prayer and discussion about the escalating Gulf crisis. "We were pretty uneasy about the feeling that war was going to happen any time, and about the letters in the local daily papers saying, 'Let's nuke 'em,'" community member Daryl Yoder-Bontrager said.
The group's response was a public statement addressed "to the children, women, and men of Iraq." The letter quickly picked up widespread ecumenical support in the Lancaster area, where it was run as a paid ad in two local papers. "Despite what we hear from the media and most pulpits," Carolyn Schrock-Shenk, the drafter of the statement, told Sojourners, "there is a deep sense of concern" about the growing preparations for war in the Middle East. "Ultimately, I hope that our efforts will make people stop and think about alternative ways to solve this crisis." Members of the Lancaster group brought the statement to Washington, DC, in mid-September, where they presented it to Iraqi Ambassador Mohamed al-Mashat, James Zogby of the Arab American Institute, Edmund Hull of the State Department's Northern Gulf Affairs office, and several members of Congress. The group was seeking to have the letter published in Iraq when this article appeared.
-- The Editors
To the children, women, and men of Iraq,
The guns of our country's military are trained on you. With a single command the blood of many could be shed. We do not want this. We do not want any of you to be killed. We do not want our own young men and women to die.
While we can never accept what your country's military did in Kuwait, neither can we support our country's threat of massive military response. We will resist it. We will refuse to ask our fellow Americans to kill and be killed to ensure our supply of oil.
We as Americans do not know much about you. Our government and our news channels have not been kind in their descriptions of you and your leaders. Your government and your media have perhaps described us and our leaders in a similar manner.
Today we write to you as brothers and sisters. We believe that your needs and joys and pain are not so different from ours. You love and care for your children. You work to earn your food. You cry when someone dies. You laugh and sing and fall in love. We do the same. Of course there are many differences. But we believe that God, in whose image we are all created, has made us more alike than different.
We are being told that you are our enemies. We do not agree. We refuse to allow our government, our media, or anyone else to determine our enemies for us. In this period when our cold hatred and mistrust of the Soviets is slowly warming and the seeds of friendship are beginning to sprout, we will not redirect that hatred toward Arabs or Muslims or Iraqis. We want instead to know you, to accept you, and to pray for you as equal members of a world-wide family.
Many of us here in the United States have allowed ourselves to be infected with war fever. Our TV screens show us tearful farewells. Bands play stirring music as soldiers march away. We paint the scenes in glorious colors to hide the true ugliness of war. We begin to believe that it is a kind of exciting game. We wonder if it is the same for you.
When we look beyond the gloss, we know that war is hell for all sides. Young men and women who have never met will be sent into the desert to kill each other. Your families and ours will never be the same as loved ones are snatched away during the prime of their lives.
For you a war will be even worse than for us. It is your land that will be ravaged. It is your innocent civilians that will "get in the way" and suffer most. Because our soldiers have fought all of our recent wars in other lands, many of us do not understand the harsh realities of war. We commit ourselves to focus on the real cost: the dashed dreams; the broken bodies of soldiers and children; the despoiled earth, rivers, and trees.
It is also you who will experience hunger as more and more food is denied entry into your country. We believe that food is a basic human right for all people regardless of race or class or religion. To deny food to anyone in need is to deny God and God's laws. We will work to ensure that an adequate supply of food reaches your people.
There are many of our people now being held in your country against their will. We ask that you intercede for their safety and their freedom. They are our brothers and sisters, and we care about them deeply. In the same way we pledge our intercession for your safety. We pray that the presence of your civilians will be as strong a deterrent to all-out war as the presence of our own.
As world citizens, we affirm the sovereignty of all nations, large or small. From our country's own history, we understand the temptation to intervene in the affairs of smaller countries, but we can never bless it. So even while we humbly remember our own sins as a nation, we urge you to intercede for the people of Kuwait, and we will support your efforts to undo that wrongful occupation.
In the spirit of repentance, we also remember the contribution of our country to your leaders' war-making ability in the past. We, as well as other nations, sold missiles, poisonous gas, and nuclear potential to your country for our own financial gain. Ironically, some of those weapons may now be used on us. We humbly remember our victual silence when some of your minority people were being gassed by your leaders. We lament our providing arms during your terrible eight-year war with Iran.
Finally, as people of the United States and Iraq, let us agree together to use our human, material, and financial resources for creative good. Let us use them to meet the incredible human needs within our countries.
We have many hungry, uneducated, arid sick people, as you do. The military machine is sucking up our resources, and yours, in unimaginable quantities, creating suffering for us all. Our newborn hope for military spending cuts and a peace dividend in this country are being smashed by this new crisis.
Together let us raise our voices against the defense industry and others who profit massively from war making. Let us say no to those who would tell us that military solutions are needed. In our hearts we all know a better way. Let us together listen to our hearts.
We pray for you to the God who is the giver of all life. We ask your prayers for us. May we together find creative, non-destructive methods to solve our differences. We pray for wisdom and humility for Presidents George Bush and Saddam Hussein. We pray not for the success of either army, but for the protection and loving presence of God for all. We pray for a peaceful end to this crisis.
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