The time that I was fortunate to share with Umm Haider and Mostafa here in Chicago will be influential in my life for years to come. It completely changed my world view because, for a brief time, I shared time each day with someone who was a direct victim of US military aggression. It was not always an easy thing for them to be here. One day, Umm Haider told me that when Mostafa first came here to the United States he was afraid of all police officers and airplanes. It’s easy enough for me to understand his fear of airplanes; his brother was killed and he himself was maimed by a US missile that dropped on them from above. Eventually, I came to understand his fear of police officers as an intuitive connection that he had made between the US governmental authority and what happened to him and his brother in Iraq. In Iraq during Mostafa’s childhood there was a secret police always looking to capture and kill those who opposed the government; logically, he assumed that the same aggression shown to his family by the United States missile attack would be reflected by the police force here in the US.
Mostafa