On Iraq

     Midnight…our sons and daughters
           Were cut down and taken from us
                 Hear their heartbeat, we hear their heartbeat.
                       In the wind, we hear their laughter
                             In the rain, we see their tears
                                   Hear their heartbeat, we hear their heartbeat...
                                         In the trees, our sons stand naked
                                               Through the walls our daughters cry
                                                     See their tears in the rainfall

                                                            (U2, Mothers of the Disappeared )

Indian perspectives on the war in Iraq Aranyani Bhargava Hoping For Hope, Anuradha M. Chenoy Why Women oppose war, Tani Bhargava India’s new anti-Americanism, Ruchir Joshi Be very afraid

Orange flames consume Iraq as smoke and toxic fumes cloud the sky. The sound of shells and bombs muffles all hope around the world. People feel helpless and hopeless. One man, President George W. Bush of the United States, has decided the fate of so many people – British and American soldiers as well as Iraqi civilians – and created a highly dangerous ‘post-war’ world for everyone.

I find myself at peace with nothing, at war with everything inside and outside me. I am speechless, weaponless, and without any significance in this war. I am no one in this big bad world. There are many nobodies like me in Asia, Africa, Europe – and in America too – who are powerless in the face of one man and his whim. Yet despite there being so many nobodies, we still count for nothing. Our opinions and feelings don’t matter. What is this war being fought for?

The US makes an enemy wherever it finds argument, opposition and disagreement. It creates enemies only to fight them later. In a sense, it has found another one in me. While innocent people – fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters – prepare to give up their lives, George Bush, comfortable and safe in the four walls of his office attempts to find the answer to the question all are asking: why?

It just won’t go away. Is Bush waging war to fight terrorism, to liberate the people of Iraq while Iraqi civilians protest against the war, to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, to gain access to cheap oil? It cannot be because Saddam Hussein is with al-Qaida because he clearly is not. In short, Bush and his government are claiming to liberate a country that has not asked to be liberated at all.

The truth is that the US wants blatantly to expand its influence, to control everything. Uncle Sam wants to rule the world at any cost. Not all Americans, but certainly George Bush is unperturbed by protests within his country and outside it, by the catastrophic consequences of war, by innumerable families who will be left incomplete, psychologically impaired and scarred for ever. Nor is he moved by the strong but alarmingly subdued voice of the entire global community and their strenuous demand to stop the war. Lust for power and greed – to seize all it can while it can – has blinded the US to goodness and humanity.

Already, I am frightened and horrified at the prospect of a future in which the US – undoubtedly the most powerful nation in the world today – emerges victorious without much of a fight by its opponents. It is Iraq today; tomorrow it could be anybody, India even. This time they want ‘regime change’. Next time the excuse could be anything else that George Bush feels is wrong with a country.

I see liberty, equality, justice, freedom, fraternity, peace and all hope struggling to stay afloat. In the face of this war, I mourn the murder of democracy and see public opinion shatter in front of my eyes. I see a livid current of hopelessness and violence, a dangerously rising tide of oppression, authoritarianism, repression and absolutism. I see only emptiness and darkness, no ray of hope, no light. Perhaps I sound melodramatic but I feel so threatened, vulnerable and naked.

I am a 17-year old girl in the middle of my school leaving examinations. There is nothing I can do to make the world a better place just yet, or anytime in the future for that matter. I am troubled and distracted. I feel helpless and sad. I try to find something that will keep me going, something that I can hope for. And I realise, much to my horror, that there is only one thing I can hope for, as every other powerless and disturbed person can – I can hope for hope.