Global Policy Forum

By Nofa Khadduri

The war against Iraq has now been raging for nearly a year. The American government can claim all it wants that the war is over. The truth is: it is not. It is not over until the Iraqi people receive what they deserve. It is not over until Americans realize and understand that they will not be able to control us, to take away our culture, to step foot in our land and expect us to bow to them because of their guns and money. Therefore, this war is bound to continue for longer than my eyes will live to see. That reality hurts.

It hurts even more now that the children in Iraq, who have not had a chance to experience what it really means to have a dream, are already experiencing how it feels to hold a gun and point it at someone. They do this because their minds have been altered to develop a sense of resistance against their "liberators," who were ambiguously welcomed at first, yet stayed an excessively long time, until the point was reached that it became apparent they were not liberators anymore, but occupiers.

Our culture has been around for too long to be stomped on by people who have no appreciation of from where they, themselves, have relatively recently migrated. I want to make it clear that not all Americans are like this; many are very educated, intellectual and have a great love for their heritage. However, it is not amusing to me as a Christian that some Americans who are in Iraq fighting for our democracy have the indecency to take the Qur'an out of a woman's purse in public and throw it on the floor, simply because they feel it opposes their mission to bring democracy from their land to ours. They feel the need to improvise our Iraqi culture, which not only has been around for more than 6,000 years, but is also deeply rooted in the hearts of the Iraqi people. This also makes it irreplaceable for them.

I cannot comprehend how the American government plans to gain the trust of the Iraqi people by having let the artifacts that shaped our culture for many years be "transported" from our homeland to someplace else because the U.S. government did not care for protecting them or considers them "safer" somewhere else. It is so insensitive to not comprehend that it is morally wrong for male soldiers to feel-up a woman on the street, just to check for weapons.

Though it is a long road to gain the trust of the Iraqi people, it is not a very difficult process. Here is a suggestion that the American government might consider: The government is sending pop stars to perform concerts for American soldiers in Iraq so the soldiers do not feel very isolated from their home country. Would it hurt to save the cost of the travel accommodations of those pop artists and print out a pamphlet outlining the Do's and Don'ts in Iraqi culture?

After all, the soldiers are definitely staying a longer duration than originally expected, and there is no way to stop the feeling of isolation by bringing bits and pieces of their culture to them. The American government might as well make the stay of their soldiers more palatable by giving them some pointers on how to fit in where they are; they are going to have to do it if they are expecting any cooperation from Iraqi citizens.

If the American government would only understand that it is nearly impossible to destroy Iraq's culture, beliefs and way of life, then working toward a democracy would be much easier. There would be a lot of Iraqi and American blood saved and was that not the whole point of this war: to stop terrorism? Or was it the weapons of mass destruction? Or was it the connection with al-Qaeda? Maybe it was oil, or maybe…well, I lost track of all the reasons for this war, as did most of the world.

Nofa Khadduri is a 16-year-old Iraqi-Canadian who escaped from Iraq with her father, Imad Khadduri, and her family at the end of 1998. She will soon be graduating high school and intends to continue her education pursuing a Bachelors Degree in Political Science and International Law. Her earlier article of a year ago may be found at http://www.redress.btinternet.co.uk/nkhadduri.htm.

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