March 2005

Dear Friends, family, and supporters,

I wish everyone a wonderful International Women’s Day! For many, reflection and resolutions come at the start of the New Year, but for me, I always use International Women’s Day as a time of reflection on my challenges and accomplishments of the past year. No matter what obstacles I have faced, for some odd reason, I always feel optimistic and re-energized on March 8th, a day that women have celebrated since 1857. So I would like to seize this moment of strength I can draw on annually and use it as a chance for reflection on my time in Iraq.

For many of you, it has been a long time since I have written or since you have heard from me about events occurring on the ground in Iraq. I think the main reason I have not tried to capture the past few months experience on paper is a refusal to process what is happening, which at first sight may cause panic and seem like chaos. The whirlwind of feelings I have are very much intertwined with the feelings of the Iraqis I have lived with for now close to two years—making me appear to be just as fickle as they are. I switch back and forth from disappointment to hope to depression to optimism so quickly and frequently that I have developed mental whiplash. These changes of mood are understandable as the security situation could plummet almost anyone into depression. Yet the determination of the Iraqis to move forward also creates a strong sense of optimism. This optimism is contagious, and for someone immersed in the society, it cannot be denied. At the same time, the Iraqis’ fears, disappointment and feelings of betrayal at the deteriorating security situation in their country also is undeniable. The two overwhelming feelings make it seem like I am caught in a revolving door between hope and despair.

I believe the sense of betrayal comes from never imagining the situation would get as bad as it did. I never anticipated that I would look back and feel foolish for the hope and dreams for Iraq that I once felt. I never imagined the day would come when I would be expelled from the wonderful streets of Baghdad, the magnificent and warm hospitality of my friends from the south and the vibrant life in the northern Kurdish areas. The months filled of kidnappings and deaths of people close to me, both foreign and Iraqi, left me with an unbearable feeling of being defunct. I now feel like a bandit in Iraq, not allowed to sleep in the same location and traveling under a guise due to fear of falling into the wrong hands. The last time I left Iraq I was practically smuggled across the border, and when I arrived on the other side, I heard of the possible killing of Margaret Hassan. (1) I collapsed, ready to allow myself to be swallowed by defeat.

But Iraqis were not so willing to fall into the jaws of defeat. They reminded me that the martyrs who were falling gave us even more of a reason to continue our work, and that the women who believed in us would provide the fuel for our programs. We went underground, but I am proud to say we never stopped. As the elections approached, I felt the fervor and hope of the Iraqis return. Change was inevitable—too much bloodshed and energy had been spent to allow this opportunity to pass.

In January 2005, the Iraqis taught me the most valuable lesson—despair is not a bottomless pit, but hope is—once a person throws themselves into complete hope it will provide an endless source of energy. Yet, I could not share their hope for the elections and braced myself for another failure for Iraqis to overcome. But the Iraqis were determined to prove me wrong—and they did.

For many of my friends, the idea of holding elections was a farce—a process that even under normal circumstances and a normal timeline would have been extremely difficult. With Iraq in chaos what was the chance for a successful election? It was hard for me to disagree with these arguments. Nonetheless, I knew very well the tenacity of the Iraqi people and maintained that the determining factor for the success of elections would be the Iraqis’ belief in the process. This was where I allowed my faith room to grow, as I knew the elections would be the barometer for how much Iraqis wanted change. The personal risk for participation was clear—would Iraqis decide the process was worth the risk?

One of the first things I realized about the elections was how irrelevant my own reservations were, and like many times before, I reminded myself that this was not about my own views and experiences from other countries—it was about Iraq and how the Iraqis feel. I think this idea is something many people have lost sight of. Women for Women International was among the witnesses of the out-of-country voting for Iraqis in Jordan, and I was happy that the observation team consisted of Iraqis who could witness the process themselves. Some people are determined no matter what to prove that the elections were a failure. I would like to shift attention back to the Iraqis and what the elections meant to them.

Iraqis came out to vote in masses, and although I do not refer to any statistics, phone call after phone call from across Iraq reported the long lines at the voting stations. I was amazed. Even Iraqis were amazed by the turn out. One Iraqi writes, “It was such a beautiful experience! It was something amazing watching the crowds walking miles and miles just to get to these boxes and vote. I saw people on wheelchairs. I saw blind people guided by their families. I saw very old people with smiles on their faces. I heard people talking about how this is the first time this happened in Iraq in more than 50 years. This is half a century! I walked with my dad and brother about 1.5 miles to reach the election centre. I couldn't imagine a better success for the elections, in fact, I'm amazed by the numbers heading to vote.

”Naturally, security was the primary concern, and indeed many explosions on election morning made me wonder if there would be a turnout. One young woman from Baghdad writes, “We wore our bright clothes just like for the first day of Eid, had breakfast and then walked to reach the electoral post by 8:15 a.m. (2) We spent about one hour to participate in this new experiment, with multiple checkpoints and a high security alert. At 9:40 a.m., after we were back at home, we heard a loud explosion in the area of our local electoral post. There was a man hiding his hands in his pockets, refusing to be searched. The police insisted on searching on him, and at that moment he bombed himself and killed about eight people, including a child. The place was so crowded. But what is wonderful and brave is that it became more crowded after the explosion even though the American forces asked people to go home and come back to vote an hour later while they searched and cleaned the place. But the people refused. They said ‘we will stay until you are done and then vote.’”

The stories of tragedy were balanced with stories of true heroism. A security guard at one of the voting centers noticed a suicide bomber and sacrificed his own life by tackling the bomber and running with him to minimize the fatalities. In an act of kindness, a father of three brought tea to the Iraqis operating the polling stations and was struck by one of the bombs.

A friend and someone I consider to be a pioneer for Iraqi democracy wrote, “Although we lost 44 people on election day, in one day Saddam killed more than five thousand in Halabcha. (3) Our people didn’t think their lives were cheap when they went to vote. They voted because they felt their lives were precious, and it was their decision to keep it this way.”

Of course, there are those who shared with me their disappointments. One Iraqi from Baghdad whose family is in Falluga, wrote that his polling station was more than an hour and a half away, and because all Iraqis were walking to the polls due to the curfew, he could not participate. He was also very disappointed in what he saw as reckless behavior from the Iraqi army, such as shooting randomly in the air, and felt that it created a climate of intimidation. Nonetheless, he admitted that in the days following the elections, he felt a sense of peace in Baghdad, and if it continues, for him that in itself was worth the world.

Another older man who has been cooperating with our organization since the summer of 2003 reminded me that democracy is not some theory that is discussed or taught in school or at the university but something that emerges with practice and experience. For the first time in his memory, Iraq was finally able to take the first step in building its own experience of democracy.

I can’t hold back my own reservations, nor do I think it serves the best interest of Iraqis to silence these doubts. For close to two years, I have seen too much lip service, too much smoke and mirrors, too many false promises and way too many unnecessary deaths to allow myself to fall into the trap of unmonitored hope. If the elections were an Iraqi wedding as they are commonly being described, I must remind the newly-elected National Assembly to add electricity, water, security and job creation to the bridal registry.

The past couple of years have proven that enthusiasm is short-lived if slogans are not backed up by deliverables. Iraqis are too intelligent to fall for illusions. Cooperation and enthusiasm will only be maintained if the elections are followed by tangible results that prove there will be a difference in their lives.

I speak of the elections now on International Women’s Day because 2005 will witness many more historic events—most importantly, the writing of the constitution. Many women I know across the globe are expressing despair about the future of Iraqi women. The same reservations and sense of hopelessness about the elections are re-surfacing about the referendum to be held in mid-October 2005. (4) But Iraqis have hope, and Iraqi women are determined to safeguard their rights. They have proven that with little resources, little support, and only lip service to support their cause, they can earn their place at the decision-making table by winning over 30% of the seats in the newly-elected National Assembly. Iraqi women have proven their place in Iraq’s history throughout the 1900s and on into the 20th century. I am cautiously optimistic that they will not let the opportunity to help shape a new constitution slip through their fingers. I hold onto the stories of the women on the ground. I have a picture in my mind of the Iraqi woman from a socially and economically excluded area who threw candy in the air after she placed her vote—an Iraqi custom after a wedding to express joy and ecstasy.

Iraqis did their part, and now the international community must do its share to support the Iraqis in being the main decision-makers for their future—after all, they are the ones with the most at stake.

The process of holding the elections has set the tone for 2005, and for one Iraqi friend, it has “returned … a sense of pride and nationalism.” Today, the debate is not about whether there is an army of occupation or one of liberation or where the weapons of mass destruction are. Although we should not ignore mistakes of the past, if we continue to focus on events of two years ago, we will miss the very important present—a present that will determine the rights and status of women for decades to come.

Footnotes
1) Margaret Hassan, a humanitarian aid worker with Care International, was kidnapped in Baghdad on October 19, 2005. A video of her apparent murder was released a month later, but her body has never been recovered. Hassan, a British and Irish citizen, lived in Iraq since the 1970s with her Iraqi husband and worked with Care since the start of its Iraq operations in 1991.
2) Eid-ul-Fitr is the celebration that marks the end of Ramadan, a month of fasting and reflection observed by Muslims around the world.
3) On March 16, 1988, 5,000 Iraqi Kurds were killed in a chemical gas attack ordered by the Saddam Hussein regime in the town of Halabcha, located in southern Kurdistan, in the northern region of Iraq.
4) Iraq is currently governed according to the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), an interim constitution drawn up by Iraqi authorities and ratified in March 2004. The interim government elected on January 30, 2005, is mandated to write a new constitution to replace it, providing Iraq with a more permanent legal framework. The TAL states that the new constitution must be drafted by August 15, and a national referendum will vote to approve it on October 15, followed by a general election scheduled for no later than December 15. The clauses in the constitution that pertain to family law, including issues of marriage, divorce, child custody, employment, property rights, etc. are critical to the future status of women’s rights in Iraq.