Iraqi woman asks Americans to help her people directly

WARWICK - Nesreen says goodbye to her family each day as if for good before leaving to teach students, who if present, have risked their lives on the journey. She gives all students high marks because she fears retaliation from their families. She walks home from the bus stop past bodies, one is a fellow passenger shot before her eyes, but it is illegal, punishable by a bullet, to kneel by his side. She goes home to a house where men confine themselves out of fear, electricity and fuel are closely rationed, dinner is uncertain and children cry because of heat. For now, Nesreen, who for safety reveals only her first name, is far from all that. She is among Americans, who she calls occupiers, sharing the daily struggles of Iraqis. On Aug. 22, Nesreen, one of only 133 Iraqis permitted to visit the United States this year, pleaded with about 60 gathered at the Winsor photography studio in Warwick to take responsibility for their government’s actions and give Iraqis their lives back. Nesreen, a teacher in a girls’ high school in Baghdad with a master’s from the University of Baghdad, has been communicating via e-mail with Brooklyn high school teacher Bruce Wallace since Wallace reached out to her four years ago. The teachers established a “peace bridge,” through the Web site www.121contact.typepad.com where students and the public can exchange e-mails to learn and understand each other. Nesreen succeeded in reaching the U.S., through Jordan, with help from Wallace and the United Nations. She paid her own traveling expenses and is asking for contributions to defray costs. While in the U.S. Nesreen has spoken on National Public Radio, the United Nations International Institute for Peace Educations and will speak in Boston College’s Iraq Awareness week on Sept. 11, before returning to Iraq. On Thursday night, at her talk titled, “How ordinary people survive war, (or not),” Nesreen asked for Americans’ help. “I am a victim,” she said unabashedly. Nesreen is 38 and from an educated middle class family in Baghdad. She sat in the front of the room clad in jeans, a denim jacket and a hejab. Her voice was soft and when she stood she was only a couple inches over five feet, but the room was hushed and focused when she spoke her near-to-perfect English. “I’m asking you to give me my normal, usual life. You are responsible for this lie,” said Nesreen, referring to the basis of the American invasion four years ago. Though every day soldiers remain, Iraqis’ suffering increases, Nesreen also stressed once American soldiers are withdrawn ordinary Iraqis will need help recovering. “You are responsible for this war,” she told the audience. “You have to do something for the people there.” Nesreen’s family, like many in Iraq, consists of Sunnis and Shiites who thought little of religion when marrying and settled in mixed neighborhoods. Nesreen, whose bedroom wall is splattered with bullet wounds, said American guns have made peace impossible. The U.S. policy of arming militia to fight Al-Qaeda is reckless. The proliferation of weapons by self-interested factions creates more violence and disorder while disempowering the haphazard Iraqi government. “What we’ve done is successfully thrown their nation back about 100 years,” said Wallace. “Today Christian woman are covered in hejabs because they’re afraid.” Nesreen, who enjoyed the novelty of ice in an American restaurant, explained that her neighborhood is permitted an hour or two of electricity on lucky days. During that time they fill everything they have with water to drink. To escape the unbearable heat many sleep atop their roofs, under hovering helicopters. Before the war Nesreen would shop, visit friends and family and talk about ordinary things. Now talk is difficult because trusting is foolhardy. Adding to other miseries, unemployment has been estimated as high as 60 percent, compromising the educated middle class. Nesreen said she ran into a ex-student selling his books on the street for food money. According to an Aug. 19 New York Times article, “The War As We Saw It,” written by army specialists and sergeants at the end of their 15-month deployment, as many as two million Iraqis are unwelcome refugees in neighboring Arab countries and another two million are internally displaced, most in urban slums. The economy is also a casualty of war. Nesreen’s brother-in-law is among those who no longer work. “I’m not going to see the monsters in the street,” he told his family. As a Shiite man he drove a taxi in a Sunni neighborhood until he was kidnapped by a band of militia. They ordered him to kill but he refused saying he would rather die. He was forced to watch while fellow detainees were assassinated. His life was spared, but now he will not leave his house. Each month family members contribute money to sustain his family. Her relative’s story, said Nesreen, is common. Men, who are targets of sectarian violence, often barricade themselves in their homes for months at a time. Women, many widows, often tackle the responsibility of sustaining their family. The audience made it clear they felt for Nesreen, but the question of how to help caused a stir. The Aug. 22 event was sponsored by Warwick’s Women in Black and September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Members from each emphasized pressuring the U.S. government through letters and protests. Nesreen had her own ideas. “I had this impression that you are powerful people,” she said, “but your government doesn’t use this democracy with you.” She talked of protests on TV unheeded by elected representatives. She felt similarly about the government in Iraq. “You should know,” Nesreen said, “there is no government in Iraq who looks out for the Iraqi people.” Instead of focusing on governments and politics, Nesreen advocated direct American to Iraqi civilian interventions. Wallace said an early e-mail from Nesreen’s student asked: “Why do Americans hate us so much?” The e-mail exchanges and Nesreen’s presence bring humanity and understanding to both sides, steps necessary for progress, reparation of Iraq and forgiveness. “I have this bad impression of you,” said Nesreen. “But each day since I’ve been here I find the American people are just like the Iraqi people - wonderful and generous.”