By Sheila Provencher
November 29, 2004

Thanks to Witherspooner Bill LeMosy for forwarding this report from a member of a Christian Peacemaker Team in Iraq.  [posted here 12-1-04]

Iraq feels like a prison. Our neighborhood is surrounded by the dangerous places our friends tell us to avoid. People in neighborhoods like Haifa Street are surrounded by daily gun battles between insurgents (foreign and Iraqi) and soldiers (U.S. and Iraqi). Baghdad itself is surrounded by roads known for everything from kidnapping to explosions.

People in the U.S. enclave otherwise known as the "Green Zone" are in prison too. They surround themselves with blast walls, checkpoints, and razor wire, cutting themselves off from harm. But they also cut themselves off from ordinary Iraqis - the very faces and voices they claim to liberate. "You live outside the wire?" one soldier asked me. "Wow. I can't imagine that."

Thousands of Iraqi detainees are still surrounded by prison walls, slow review procedures, and unanswered questions about legal rights. I know a detainee whose spirit is surrounded by a broken body. During his detention he suffered injuries that paralyzed his right side. Now he cannot walk.

An Iraqi journalist tried to get into Fallujah, but found it completely surrounded by U.S. forces. The journalist could not get in, the truth could not get out.

Last week, Abu Hanifa Mosque in Baghdad was surrounded by troops and ear-splitting noise. "Ali" lay on the floor amid the screams, sound grenades, and blood, before troops hauled him away. While he was detained, an Iraqi officer burned a cigarette into his hand and mistreated other detainees as U.S. soldiers laughed.

All day, every day, children in Baghdad are surrounded by unending sound: generators, mortars, car bombs, gun shots, fighter jets, helicopters, humvees.

An embedded journalist who joined U.S. soldiers on an overnight patrol said they too were like prisoners inside their own tanks, surrounded by the roar of metal and motion.

We are ALL surrounded by fear: here, and in North America. I feel it in the air and on the airwaves. We are imprisoned by endless words and endless fears.

But here in Iraq, we are also surrounded by friends. My neighbor Abu Zayman insists on driving us to church, even though the building is only a few blocks away. "Please, let me do this for you," he says. A shopkeeper tells me, "Don't be afraid. If anyone tries to hurt you, I will protect you." Another neighbor says, "This is your home. Come here anytime, even in the middle of the night!" They are people in high places and low, in sumptuous houses and homeless, Sunni, Shi'a, Christian, Sabeaen, old, young, male, female. They all say the same thing. "If there is ANYTHING I can do for you, please, I am ready." They surround us with care.

What else surrounds us, all of us?

We are surrounded by grace. We are surrounded by family. We are surrounded by the breath of life. Grace is infinite, everyone is our Family, and every breath is the Breath of God.

When, how, will we open our eyes? And how will we act once we see?
 

Christian Peacemaker Teams is an ecumenical violence-reduction program with roots in the historic peace churches. Teams of trained peace workers live in areas of lethal conflict around the world. CPT has been present in Iraq since October, 2002. To learn more about CPT, please visit http://www.cpt.org.  Photos of our projects may be viewed at http://www.cpt.org/gallery.