2 Februrary 2004

Saying Goodbye to Umm Haider and Mostafa; Saying Hello to Our Work of Resistance Here
by John Farrell

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. continue…

Angela’s Reflections: Hamburgers with “nothing, nothing, nothing on it”
by Angela Garcia

Winter is a mark for change. It was time for reconstruction and for Um Haider and Mostafa to go home. The last few months were heavy with emotion. Our farewell lasted a week. continue…

• Backgrounf reading about Umm Haider and Mostafa please read Doug Hostetter’s Catching up with Mustafa and Umm Heider Years after a missile gone astray, one young life remains in limbo

• Photos of Um Haider’s Family
• Christopher Allen-Docot’s A Hajj not to Mecca but to Home, a story of Umm Haider and Mostafa’s trip home

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Angela’s Reflections: Hamburgers with “nothing, nothing, nothing on it”

Umm Haider and Mostafa moved into our apartment in August. I remember getting ready for them and not really knowing what to expect. “Safaa, what do I need to do?” I remember asking Safaa. Safaa is a Sudanese student who interned at Voices in the Wilderness during the summer and was currently living with us. When they first arrived, Safaa was an immeasurable assistant to Mostafa, Umm Haider and to the Voices in the Wilderness members.

Safaa reassured me that everything would be okay and just to be my self. That was a huge relief. I do have to say that I am a little changed now. I have a deeper appreciation for the Muslim culture and of the Iraqi people. For the five months that I lived with these wonderful people, I learned a great deal about community and how very similar our cultures are. Umm Haider, like a mother, cared for our home as she would her own. She enjoyed going to the market with me to pick up groceries. I enjoyed the supper she would prepare and the meals that we would share. Mostafa and I would go for bike rides, play go fish and tic-tac-toe, and go out to eat hamburgers with “nothing, nothing, nothing on it. Just the meat and bread-nothing, nothing, nothing, no cheese, no ketchup-nothing, nothing!” Mostafa liked his kebob-oh I mean hamburgers with french fries and ketchup.

I have to say Mostafa acclimated to the American lifestyle much easier than Umm Haider. It was such a pleasure to watch them approach each day with a renewed experience of what life in the US is really like.

The first few days of winter brought in snow. I remember Umm Haider gazing out the window looking at the beautiful dance of snowflakes as they made their decent to the earth. “Awe, these snowflakes are tiny. It’s more like sleet.” I said, “Wait until it really gets heavy and the flakes are as big as a quarter.” The day had arrived. It snowed all afternoon and evening. The snowflakes covered the cars, streets, sidewalks, and houses with a thick blanket of frozen flakes. The next evening, Mostafa and I bundled up and journeyed to the nearest play lot. There we played in the snow until it was time to go home.

Winter is a mark for change. It was time for reconstruction and for Um Haider and Mostafa to go home. The last few months were heavy with emotion. Our farewell lasted a week. We kicked it off with a farewell dinner with Voices in the Wilderness members and friends at a local Indian restaurant, the next day we sponsored “Bowling for Basra,” a fundraising event for Umm Haider and Mostafa. All evening, Mostafa bowled and snapped photographs of fellow bowlers. The morning of their flight home, we all sat at home and ate pancakes and eggs and shared more stories of adventures of Mostafa. It was hard to say goodbye.

I now feel as though I want to travel to Iraq and visit my new family. That is what we were, little Mostafa like a little brother and Umm Haider like the wise aunt/mother/older sister.

I miss them but I will never forget them. I will continue to try and know what their struggles are and let you know about them with future “Bowling for Basra” events.

Angela Garcia

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Saying Goodbye to Umm Haider and Mostafa; Saying Hello to Our Work of Resistance Here

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.

At first I tried to reassure Mostafa that the police officers were there to protect us, but in the back of my mind I could not forget some of the things that I’ve seen and heard of US police officers doing in the name of ‘national security’. I know some of the nonviolent activists who were beaten in Miami for marching against the FTAA, or Free Trade Area of the Americas, and I also know families in Iraq who have had family members killed by US soldiers there, just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time or for demonstrating nonviolently for their human rights. It makes me reflect on where we find our security, and it reminds me that our security will never be found in weapons and threats of violence, but only in friendship, mutual understanding, and true social justice for the poor of our world. As long as the poor and those who advocate for their rights are being beaten and killed for the sake of corporate profit and political gain, there can never be any real security in our world, despite what President Bush tries to tell us. In his State of the Union speech, Bush mentioned that Quadafi had finally made the right choice for Libya and decided that weapons of mass murder would not make his country or people more secure. When will we realize that simple fact in our own country, and see that our weapons and our acts of violence against the poor, the marginalized and the dissenters are only eroding our rights, our security, and our freedoms?

I learned all of this from an Iraqi woman and her son living with us for five and a half months; more than that, though, I learned to love them and I will miss them dearly. It gives me reason to want to go to Iraq again, as I did in August of last year, but it also gives me reason to continue active resistance the cultural and political forces of militarism here in the United States. By extension, I learned to care even more dearly for the well-being and true liberty of the Iraqi people, which can only come when they are free to choose their own leaders and system of governance and they are free of US corporate ownership of their natural resources. On September 19 of 2003, Paul Bremer signed Executive Order 39, which put all of Iraq’s natural resources (except oil) up for sale to the highest bidder, and allowed for 100% repatriation of profits to the countries of those mega-corporations that win the deals. Iraq was effectively made into a huge free trade zone because of this; when the Iraqis begin to protest this in the streets, will they receive the same strong arm of ’security’ that protesters in Miami felt? NO, I fear that it will be worse.

Like Mostafa, who had to learn to overcome his fear of airplanes and police officers, I feel that I have my own fears to overcome now. I fear what may happen to Umm Haider and Mostafa in Iraq and I must overcome that by continuing to organize for an end to US aggression and occupation there. I fear what is happening to our country’s bill of rights, and I must overcome that by persisting in waving the flag of resistance here, alongside the immigrants and dissenters that are feeling the loss of those rights. And, I fear losing hope that anything will change, and I hope to overcome that through a supportive community and through knowing that I now, very truly, have family in Iraq.

Umm Haider and Mostafa, we hope to see you soon, healthy and happy. A free Iraq, we hope to see you soon, based on human rights for all people, an end to military and economic occupation, and the autonomy of ordinary Iraqis. A renewed USA, we hope to see you soon, built from the ground up, with new cultural advances and political advocacy that respect the needs of the marginalized and those who are so often the victims of war.

John Farrell, Voices in the Wilderness