The follwing is a letter written by my father, Phil St.John, to Faiza Al-Araji, an Iraqi blogger and mother of three sons who all actively blog. My Dad is true "compassionate conservative" who back in 1990 served on a mission to Haiti and has been very active in promoting energy conservation for over 30 years. Ms. Al-Araji contributes to A Family in Baghdad along with Khalid Jarrar of "Tell Me A Secret", Raed from "Raed in the Middle, and Majid from "Me vs. MysELF".
The family, the Jarrars, operate a business providing water treatment purification equipment. They post from both Baghdad and Ammam, Jordan where they keep their residences. Recently, Khalid was picked up and questioned because of his blogging activities. You can read about that HERE. After three rather tense days he was released and the family continues with their posts, some of which are very critical of the war and the occupation.
Ms. Al-Araji spent the month of June in the United States on a peace mission where she, at her own expense, attended the Center for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont, met with Sen. Hillary Clinton's staff in Washington, D.C., and attended events in New York and at Harvard University in an effort to promote peace.
She continues to participate in an ongoing project to count the Iraqi War Casualties.
Here is a brief excerpt of some of her initial observations arriving in the States followed by my Dad's reply.* * *
In America, I saw a majority of people who are crushed, not comfortable…
I learned that they do not study the history of other nations in their schools, nor their geography, and know nothing about other religions… their information usually comes from the Media, and that media is usually directed, owned by a number of wealthy people, the owners of the big, beneficiary companies…meaning; they deliver the news to the people according to their moods, explaining things according to their private, narrow, visions….
I have seen the TV., and its just like in the days of Saddam Hussein, (as we used to say), repeating the same boring song over and over again, whenever you change the channel, you see the same faces, and hear the same talk…and its all about the war, the army, and fighting terrorism...
—Faiza Al-Araji
* * *Dear Faiza,
I woke up early this Saturday morning and at 4:00 AM I opened my window to the world and began reading blogs. Our son in Chicago had put me onto
"Baghdad Burning" blog and I read that regularly. From that blog, I took the jump to your son's site and through
Khalid's blog, I came across your writings and read about your recent trip to the United States.
To give you a little background, I am in my 60's and have spent most of my working life as a residential contractor and real estate broker. My wife and I have a few rental properties and now that we no longer have employees, we spend our time taking care of the properties with the exception of the winter time and we do try to go South for a couple of months, living in a trailer that we pull behind our pickup truck.
I have been politically conservative most of my life, meaning that I want the least amount of government possible to have its influence in my life and I want individuals to be responsible for their own lives and those around them. I do not identify with the "so-called" conservative views of these days as espoused by many in positions of power and influence. It is as if the ideological plane I was on got hijacked by a different group. I understand that sometimes societal problems can and must be solved by government and that in this technological age we cannot hope to revert to a form of governing that would have served us a century ago.
I opposed our troops going to Iraq. If there was any truth to the allegations of those proposing war, I felt it needed to be done with a multi-national effort and through the United Nations. I didn't see the urgency that demanded the United States shoulder this effort mostly by itself.
My purpose in writing is to give you my view on a few of the points that you made about my country and its people. First, capitalism doesn't have to be a dirty word. Its good side can outweigh abuses. A capitalist starts by trying to give society a product or service that is better than what is now provided, and in doing so generates business. We have seen outstanding achievements in this country through capitalism. Oh yes, there are downsides, too, but those are present in any kind of an economy. Communism collapsed under it's own weight of inefficiencies, leaving much devastation. As you traveled this country, surely you had to see much in the way of positive economic benefits.
All Americans are not preoccupied with materialism. We go about our days trying to provide for families, pay our bills, etc. Many of us worship regularly to seek guidance for our lives. The benevolence we have shown towards others is not as a result of guilt, but many of us want to be good world citizens. Most of us really desire peace, there just seems to be a difference on how to achieve it. If the invasion of Iraq was an attempt to control oil that is not what was on the minds of the people who supported this war. Most Americans really thought they were helping Iraq to get rid of a bad leader and they were willing to send their boys and girls to help in that effort. If it turns out later that other motives were involved, it will not be pleasant for those in power because although you seem to think we are not free, we are certainly free to vote. You can fool these voters for just so long and right now I hear a lot of rumblings against the actions taken by our president and the people in power. I think that just this week a
poll showed that the majority would vote out the Republican controlled Congress if an election were held now.
I seem to detect some animosity towards my European ancestry, especially as it relates to the American Indian. I want to make a couple of points here. First, although we romanticize the lifestyle of the American Indian before they were "invaded" by Europeans, their lifestyle left a lot to be desired. They warred against neighboring tribes and their lives were hard, many times lacking basics needed for survival. I do not condone in any way the atrocities committed against them. The fact that we even have a museum in our capital that gives us a glance at this part of our history is an expression of our freedom and the way most of us feel about the injustice towards Native Americans. Really, that part of man's history is full of brutality, and one didn't need to come here to find it. I think there are times in all people's history that are not looked upon with pride. Many of those who indentured themselves to come to this country were trying to escape from worse conditions. My own ancestors were driven from France to England, then made their way to this country to try to find a better life. If you look objectively at it, there was no way the Native American's life was going to continue as it had for the previous centuries. People of this world were reaching out to new territories and it was bound to change everything. I wish it could have been a more peaceful time, but it wasn't. The only things we can do at this point is look back and try to see what went wrong, then try to find ways to live in today's world.
When I drive through my area of the Midwest, I am constantly reminded of the efforts of my ancestors to build a good life for themselves and their communities. They built towns, churches, factories, schools, and businesses. This wasn't done in the absence of proper values, but rather the result of such values. When Europe was threatened with World War I, our grandfathers answered the call. When they won the war, they didn't stay to occupy those lands, they came back to their cities and towns and started to rebuild their lives. When the world was threatened with World War II, our Dads went to fight for freedom again. My Dad left two little boys and a wife. Many fathers didn't come back home, but died on foreign battlefields. Did we stay there after the war as occupiers? No, these guys came back and with the aid of our government, those devastated countries became new economic powers of their own, not a United States colony.
Viet Nam was for my generation. I didn't participate because with a wife and two sons I was not eligible for the draft. Most Americans thought this was a fight against the spread of Communism and initially gave support. For many of us, this war was the first time we began to question the official policy of our government. It has been a healthy skepticism. I began to question the use of any military force and I have tried to be a peacemaker in my own little realm of influence.
World War II was such a heady time in the history of this country. I think the defeat of Hitler provided justification for war that pervades thinking even today. We are not in that kind of a world now. The Cold War brought "Mutual Assured Destruction" into the picture. Nuclear war is unthinkable if mankind is going to exist in any reasonable fashion. Now we are engaged in a "War on Terrorism" in which we are unable to use our superior technology to produce a win. In a way, this is just an evolution to the point where we can recognize that if we are to win this war, and maybe wars of the future, it will be done with positive influence and not just military advantage, but that has been hard to grasp with what I call the "World War II mentality" that gave us an absolute victory over an enemy we thought would subjugate the whole world.
I have a difficult time seeing how the "group think" of radical terrorists can be challenged by peaceful dialogue, but somehow we must find a way. It is in their interest to find the way, but will they be willing to try? If the majority of an educated populace of individual thinkers can be convinced to go to war by using labels for our supposed enemies, what chance is there for radical terrorists to change the labels their leaders have placed on us.
We must find peacemakers from all parts of the world to try to bring reason to conversations. A little word injected to make people drop labels and try to understand our neighbors. It is obvious to me that you are one of those peacemakers. You have traveled halfway around the world at your own expense to express your views and to listen to views of others. I honor your commitment. You are a part of the solution. Thanks for making my world a better place.
Sincerely,
Phil
P.S. I would have offered to help you with your luggage. I still open doors for my wife after almost 45 years of marriage. Chivalry isn't dead, even in a country with "Liberated Women".
* * *
This is some of what I wrote in reply after reading a copy of the letter he had sent.
Dad,
I really like your letter. With your permission, I would like to post it to my blog. No one actually reads my blog, but this kind of dialogue is intriguing and represents a concrete example of how two very separate cultures may seek to find the connections we are going to need.
After our conversation this morning, I read through Faiza's posts regarding her visit to the U.S. Her observations were keen eyed, but given the context of her coming from a wholly different culture, one faced with the burden and destruction of war, and only seeing New York and Washington, D.C., not fully encompassing. Your letter perhaps may provide a better perspective to who we are as a people. If there is a way out of this mess, it is through more connections like the one you initiated. We no longer enjoy the latitude to be the ugly American. I get the sense that unless individuals show a tendency to rise above the cage of clichés we find ourselves so often in, Americans as a people will be distrusted and disregarded by the majority of those abroad. Do you think it is possible for Faiza to reconcile her perception of the U.S. as being a largely materialistic nation with a lust for war with the one you describe?
It was obvious that on her trip Faiza recoiled from her exposure to Capitalism. Perhaps Capitalism has not lately been a very good ambassador on the world stage lately because the craven extremes seen with World Com, Enron, and our current grab for energy resources initiated by the administration do not prepare someone coming from another culture to be impressed with the intrinsic qualities that help propel real progress. Your efforts to counter some of that misperception tackles difficult territory. Corporations have been too aggressively pursuing growth, and too reckless in exerting leverage over people not as big as them. They are after all people, albeit artificial ones.
It is a shame that too many foreigners only see New York, LA, and Chicago. A while back I was speaking with a filipino immigrant who had lived in the country with her family for many years. Her father had never been outside the city limits of Chicago in his 10 or 12 years here. She had been out to LA, but that was it. Actually, I have known a few people born elsewhere who have only physically seen America through the small aperture of a couple cities. Hearing from someone who comes from the rural Midwest where the roots of community are allowed to grow more thick, I would think is vital for a better understanding between the divide that we stare across.
These divisions are choking the life out of us. It is obvious to me they are exploited by those in power to advance a particular agenda. On the large blogs I frequent, the talk can quickly become course due to the lack of willingness to bridge ideological gaps. My current beef revolves around very educated people who focus the power of their intellect to producing the perfect put down, the stylistic and often prosaic cutting remark, to their adversary. They are droll, sometimes even powerfully witty. But they don't further a damn thing. Too many are bystanders commenting glibly to one another like moviegoers providing smart ass commentary for their own enjoyment. I am like the guy sitting in the seat directly behind sometimes wishing they would shut the hell up. Two sides standing on opposite sides shouting at each other---not intending to find compromise. Who will carry the water? It is left to others willing to venture forth. Few stick their necks out that far. With all their learned discourse, there are too few viable solutions. They won't carry the water of peace, they will merely critique how it is being done by others.
We have to carry the water of peace to our neighbors and it has to be carried in our hands. If the gulf is wide, as this one is, most of it will slip through our fingers and not make it. It will take many hands. Blessed are the peacemakers.
Thanks for forwarding along the letter. Let me know if you don't mind me throwing it up on the blog. It is a wonderful thing to see someone trying to reach out across the chasm and offer something more than Shock and Awe.
Read more!
