Fleeing to Jordan

A message from a Mother from Iraq to US mothers

Can Mothers Promote Global Peace?

“Mother’s Day is a celebration founded by Julia Ward Howe as a day for peace. But what I read in The Boston Globe on April 20, 2008 shocked me and shattered my heart. A mother and son off to Iraq! A woman is being sent to Iraq with her son as part of the 126th Brigade Support Battalion of the Massachusetts National Guard. They are the first mother/son of the Guard being deployed together to my country. This is so far removed from the powerfully-worded proclamation of Julia Ward Howe – that no mother would raise her children to harm another mother’s child.
I am a daughter, mother, and a grandmother. Because of violence and occupation in my country, Iraq, I am prevented from living any of these roles any more! Because of the mayhem in Iraq, I am thousands of miles away from my mother, my daughter and my little grandson. This is just one side of the cruelties of the invasion and occupation on mothers in Iraq.
In Iraq, mothers live with despair and helplessness which overrides their spirits. They are raising their children in a polluted environment with little security, a failing economy, a lack of hygiene and health care, insufficient education, polluted water and air, along with hundreds of thousands of US troops, violent gangs, angry people, and terrorists. Mothers live with fear for the future of their children. They keep them imprisoned at home away from the danger of kidnapping and killing. School buildings lie in ruins. Children have no playgrounds, no toys, and no joy in their lives. Each day they live in uncertainty and fear. The hope of mothers is squandered. Iraqi society as a whole will suffer. Chaos and occupation are hell for anyone anywhere in the world. For mothers in Iraq, this hell is especially deep.”
Can you realize the magnitude of the catastrophe in my life?

Naba Hamid
University Professor
Women's rights and peace activist

I want to comment on this pod itself and say that it's an incredible story and totally heartbreaking. While working for the Vanguard department, I've seen a number of refugee stories and they're all deeply affecting. The concept of home is integral to the human experience, and there are millions of people who have no home whatsoever. Nowhere to go. But it's also incredible how people pull together and make a new life with what they have. I don't want to get all "triumph of the human spirit" on ya'll, but...well.