Your open letters to the leaders

• Open letter to the UK
• Open letter to the people
• Open letters to the leaders of the British Labour Party, the Liberal Democrat Party and the Conservative Party
• Open letters to James Hamilton
• Open letter to George W. Bush
• Open letters to Tony Blair

Open letter to James Hamilton

From Majd Muhsen, 26 March 2003

To “no one in particular”,

Like so many people I read with interest your letter to Mr Coelho and as much as I would like to comment on all you said, I’ll only say this:

You accused Mr Coelho of not thinking… sir, you may very well be right. And allow me to add that our Coelho and your Bush sure need some brains that they may find on the streets of Iraq belonging to Iraqi children that your government, supported by people like yourself, saw fit to kill in the name of freedom and so that you won’t sink into another Great Depression.

Thank you for solving humanity’s biggest question Mr Hamilton. We were all born so that Mr George W. Bush Jr. can fulfil his destiny.

The Iraqis death will be easier now, on them and on us.

Thank you!

Majd Muhsen

Open letter to the leaders of the British Labour Party, the Liberal Democrat Party and the Conservative Party

From Amy Kellam, 26 March 2003

Dear Mr Blair, Mr Kennedy and Mr Duncan Smith

Firstly, in these days of fear and uncertainty, let me take this opportunity to congratulate you all on your bid to claim the moral high ground. Your certainty, that such a high ground exists in the mire that is today’s political landscape, is truly heartening. I suppose this should have been the warning. After all, marshlands are notoriously treacherous places; to the unwary they are nothing but shifting ground. And so it is that you, Mr Blair, Mr Kennedy and Mr Duncan-Smith, people who stood up claiming to legitimately represent the population of this nation, became unexpectedly lost in a quagmire of moral misapprehension.

From being people committed to giving the citizens of Britain a voice, you became custodians of the soundproofed room that silences us, the millions of this nation opposed to war. Still, I suppose that there is some consistency between your professed intentions and your present actions; you do indeed speak for us. But it is not our voice. We are locked in a soundproofed room. We watch helplessly whilst a fabricated, pre-scripted version of our voice is projected across the world by your government in our name. Ventriloquists that you are, you even claim to speak for the Iraqi people too. You say that Saddam is not the legitimate leader of Iraq. This may be so, but where is your legitimacy Mr Blair, Mr Kennedy and Mr Duncan Smith? When did the Iraqi people elect you? From being people who sought to give us a say (or at least a whisper) in the decision-making-process-that-we-call-democracy, you have become nothing more than conjurors of institutional fantasies such as accountability and legitimacy. You have become illusionists peddling the-decision-making-process-that-we-call-democracy, although what you sell is nothing but a tawdry 21st century counterfeit of the real thing.

Often illusionists are deemed to be nothing more than harmless sources of entertainment. Certainly they do not need to be taken seriously. I would like to say, Mr Blair, Mr Kennedy and Mr Duncan-Smith, that I do not, and cannot, take you seriously. In fact, I can think of nothing better right now than to be able to utter such a statement with wholehearted conviction. But I can’t. I have called you illusionists, but paradoxically the effects of your tricks are tragically real. Sadly, the political morass from which you each conjure reassuring conceptual trinkets such as ‘democracy,’ ‘freedom,’ and ‘justice’ has claimed untold lives (note that I use this word ‘untold’ with precision).

You each commit a sleight-of-hand that erases your complicity in the deaths of innocent men, women and children. Men, women and children who between them had collected decades of lived experiences, experiences that you – looking down as you do from your supposed moral high grounds – portray as trivial and mundane. You spread your wares on the table, your glitzy trinkets called ‘democracy’, ‘freedom’ and ‘justice’, and next to their scintillating allure the everyday lives of a distant people pale into insignificance.

But I say to you, Mr Blair, Mr Kennedy and Mr Duncan Smith, that these lives, these collected moments of human existence, I say to you that it is precisely the insignificance of these lives that we must remember. These insignificant lives belong to people who spend their lives doing insignificant things. The way you tell it, Mr Blair, Mr Kennedy and Mr Duncan Smith, it is only the grand things that count, the significant things.

What has become, then, of all the in-between times? What has become of all the in-between people, quietly living in-between lives? The pissing and shitting and spitting and blinking, the throat clearing and fingernail cutting and armpit washing, the just-falling-into-sleep moments and scratching-that-itch moments? The insignificant moments, Mr Blair, Mr Kennedy and Mr Duncan Smith, that you in your wisdom have monopolised and turned into a commodity. You have stolen these insignificant moments from their rightful owners. You have taken them by deception and by force. You have extracted them from their rightful place in history, processed them into dollars and filled in the gaps with bogus claims to ‘democracy’, ‘freedom’ and ‘justice’.

These are cheap tricks Mr Blair, Mr Kennedy and Mr Duncan Smith. Tricks better off peddled in fading cabaret halls than paraded through the institutions that are supposedly emblems of our national pride. Where is this thing you call ‘democracy’, this thing you call ‘freedom’ and this thing you call ‘justice’? I look at the wares you have spread before you, Mr Blair, Mr Kennedy and Mr Duncan Smith, and I see clearly that there is no democracy, that there is no freedom and that there is no justice. When fraudsters and confidence tricksters lead our legislature such things cannot exist.

It is time to venerate the insignificant and celebrate the in-betweens. It is time to reclaim the gaps.

Yours sincerely,

Ms Amy Kellam

Open letter to George W. Bush

From YS, 21 March 2003

You are not my president
You do not represent me
My voice, my heart, my views
Opinions, ideas and perspectives
You are far removed from me
And all that I am and hope to be
I pray for understanding
You invite conflict
I run toward tolerance
You relish injustice
I seek compassion
You chase inequity
I value truth
You honour deception
I embrace creation
You thrive on destruction
I stand still in peace
You assault with savage war
I revere the earth in all its glories
You plague the earth as your crowning glory
I build bridges toward countries, peoples and cultures
You burn them down with your self-supremacist ideology
I cherished my noble nation before you arrived
I will cherish it again after you are gone
You do not represent me
YOU ARE NOT MY PRESIDENT

- YS

Open letters to Tony Blair

From Bernard Beaven, 21 March 2003

Dear Mr Blair,

I am dismayed to find that my worst fears have been justified by the explanation given in parliament by Robin Cook as to his reason for resigning.

Until then I had shared the same fears, but in view of my necessary lack of access to information, had given you the benefit of the doubt. Robin Cook did have access to this information and has spoken out clearly against the use of British troops in a war which is unjustified, and interests only the Bush administration.

The use of military force to bring into effect regime change in a sovereign state can only be justified if there is patent evidence that there is immediate massive cruelty or loss of life in large sections of the population. This is not the case in Iraq.

The spin on weapons of mass destruction would appear to be untrue. There is no evidence that Iraq possesses such weapons, and if such weapons do exist, the presence of UN inspectors in the country would make their deployment and use impossible.

The insistence on twelve years of ignored UN Resolutions loses credibility when it is evident that much progress has been made in the disarming of Iraq, and that Israel has ignored similar resolutions for a longer period and with total immunity.

Mr Bush has reiterated on numerous occasions that the UN is failing in its obligations, and in some way is on trial. It is the Bush administration that is on trial and is failing.

Many, many people will die in the coming war. International terrorism may well be exacerbated, thus increasing the death toll. Mr Blair, do not allow the UK to become part in this genocide. Keep our troops back for the humanitarian aid that will be necessary in the aftermath of the war. Above all, let the Bush administration see that it is alone in its war.

Yours sincerely,

Bernard Beaven

From Laura McMenemy, 21 March 2003

Dear Mr Blair,

Do you expect the people of Iraq to thank you, as they stand holding their dead and dying loved ones, children like yours, in their arms, for bringing regime change to Iraq? Clearly, it is not good enough to proffer the view that war is wrong and then to leave the people of Iraq to their suffering. The solution, I believe, lies in the art of reason. I realise Saddam is unlikely to listen. But continued pressure and support for the people of Iraq to enable them to demand more is the only way humanity should be moving – any other way and we are going backwards.

The 21st century should not hold to the notion that might is right. A more humanitarian world – which you profess to be your goal in liberating Iraq – is not attainable by force. Democracy is not a commodity that one can sell or force onto another. It is brought into being by struggle, by debate, by pressure – not by external force, or by killing the inhabitants of a country already ravaged by suffering.

If one is to further the course of democracy; to deepen its meaning, so that it becomes the sole political struggle of a people, then bombing those people into freedom is surely the antithesis of all that freedom should mean.

I will continue to oppose your choices on this war; they are not mine, they are not those of the majority of your people – and yet I am told that I live in a democracy.

Yours in hope,

Laura McMenemy

From Rona Cameron, 21 March 2003

Dear Tony,

I am writing to you as a member of the human race. We share the same air, we inhabit the same planet and yet we seem to be universes apart when it comes to the way we think.

Might there not be a different way of thinking, of doing, of being in the 21st century? Could we not accept that the past 2000 years – whilst certainly educational – have not yet taught us how to evolve a way of living and loving in peace with our fellow human beings?

I am appalled by the men in suits who choose to employ macho posturing, bullying, browbeating and bombing in their efforts to amass greater riches and greater power.

I am a mother, a wife and a colleague. If I behaved the way you and your bullies have behaved in my own small part of the world, I would be locked up. You do it in the name of democracy and a “war on terrorism”. Well, not in my name.

Yours sincerely,

Rona Cameron

Open letter to the UK

From Bear Jack Gebhardt, 20 March 2003

Dear UK friends,

Please know that most ordinary people in the United States are ashamed and heartbroken at the military actions of the present US administration. Because of recent events, several hundred thousand of us have already signed an “Impeach Bush” petition. He did not receive a majority of our votes to be elected and his present militaristic policies do not have the backing of most ordinary US citizens. Peace vigils and anti-war protests, attended by millions, are being held in almost every city in our country. Again, we are deeply ashamed and heartbroken at the murderous violence being unleashed in our name by the current Washington militarist minority.

We join with ordinary people around the world, and especially you there in the UK, in voicing absolute rejection of this unnecessary war, and we call for an immediate cessation of this illegal and immoral aggression. We are grateful to the millions of you who have also spoken out against this war. We are ashamed and heartbroken and ask that you continue, with us, to voice unyielding opposition to these barbarian tactics and immediate cessation of the bombings. Let us continue to communicate with each other. Together, we can bring about the peace.

Bear Jack Gebhardt
People Against Martyr and Military Methods
Fort Collins, Colorado, USA

Open letter to the people

From Carla Ribeiro, 20 March 2003

This morning while I was making up my mind where to take my little boy to play and run around a sudden feeling of worry and shame stormed my heart.

Where to go? What food to store? Water for how long? How to protect my children?

While I was entertaining my mind with simple, light and mundane thoughts real mothers with real children had truly real, decisive and desperate thoughts on their minds!

“Life goes on!” we are used to hearing.

Well in Iraq the word ‘war’ is for real and not some combination of sounds and letters on the radio, in television and in newspapers.

Whether justified or unjustified, morally right or wrong ‘war’ is war and the total, unbelievable, precise and immediate coverage of it should at least strike our consciences as to the fact that life shouldn’t go on as normal!

Instead of ignoring or locking away these feelings, as fellow human beings, regardless of sex, ethnic origin and religious beliefs, we should find a way for solidarity in our own safe and really preoccupation-free lives. I have chosen to share my moment of shame with you; what will you do?

Carla Ribeiro