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Traveling Light
by
Kathy Kelly
December
6, 2007
Traveling
with as light a load as possible is something I long for during long stretches
away from home. I routinely discard paperwork and periodicals, "recycle" gifts
and give away clothing. But, here in Amman, Jordan, when a ten year-old Iraqi
girl named Nauras gave me a camera, I quickly put it in the envelope where I
keep my money, confident it would survive my next
purge.
The
camera consists of two pieces of drawing paper, cleverly folded so that the
parts slide past each other, opening up a tiny square "shutter." I think of
Nauras peering through the shutter and pretending to snap my picture, then
gleefully posing for imaginary snapshots as I take my turn as photographer. I
remember her fetching her only other toy, a bedraggled baby doll with long white
hair and eyes of aqua blue, and placing it in my arms.
Fortunately,
Nauras is playful and inventive; for the time being, she seems somewhat
oblivious to the desperate insecurity she and her family face. But Nauras,
though she seems to register it but little, is no stranger to tragedy. Growing
up she daily saw her father's fingerless right hand, a brutal message from
Saddam Hussein's government which left Nauras' mother the family's sole
breadwinner, and for which, following the U.S. invasion, Nauras' parents had
hoped to obtain overseas medical care, traveling here to Jordan seeking a German
visa. But a series of catastrophes have ensured that, barring a miracle,
they will never complete this
journey.
First
their travel money, kept in their Amman apartment, was stolen in a burglary.
Then they discovered their desperate need of it, as word arrived from Baghdad
that their oldest daughter, staying behind like Naurus with relatives there, was
to be abducted and slain by a group of the kidnappers so horribly active then
and now in the city, if they didn't quickly produce as ransom the money they had
just lost. When Nauras' father rushed back to Baghdad to rescue his daughter and
his other children, he never arrived. His family has heard nothing; he has
disappeared. An uncle brought two of Nauras' sisters here to Jordan, and then
Nauras and a third. She hasn't seen her father, or her only brother
whom she left behind in Baghdad, since she was seven, a third of her life
ago.
Since
2004, Nauras's mother has tried to manage in Jordan, living in a humble dwelling
with no furniture apart from a few cushions that line the walls and four beds
shared by her and her four daughters. Her only son, age 18, is still in Baghdad,
living with relatives. She hasn't seen him for three years. He called the night
before I visited her, distressed because he has no money and no job and no one
to whom he can turn. Jordanian authorities won't allow him to cross the border
and join his
family.
Here
in Jordan, a judge recently decreed that Nauras's mother is now divorced, since
she hasn't seen her husband for three years and doesn't know if he is alive or
dead. Her new legal status as a single mother may entitle her to some
assistance, but so far the support that charities can provide has dramatically
lessened. More cutbacks are predicted at the beginning of next year, and prices
for food and fuel are rising
steadily.
Already
in debt to someone who is charging 15% interest, she wondered how she could
manage to procure a heater and fuel for the cold months ahead. She showed me the
inside of her empty refrigerator, shut off to save costly power and infested
with large bugs. The smell of sewage fills the second of their two rented rooms
as paint peels from the drab
and dismally bare
walls.
When I
said goodbye to Nauras's mother, I urged her to try to stay strong. With her
face turned from little Nauras, her eyes filled with tears. She must somehow
hide her misery and fear from Nauras, who still delights in make believe
snapshots of friendly
faces.
Nauras's
camera is a keeper. It will join three other items so important to me I try to
carry them with me wherever I go. The first is a picture of an old Russian man,
beggared and homeless, stooped in a street in Moscow, covered with a layer of
frost. It reminds me of the
awful misery even the preparation for war brings – in this case to the poor that
the U.S. and Soviet Union failed to support in favor of a mad and wasteful race
to best each other at acquiring the means for global destruction. The second
item is a photo, quite famous, of a starving child standing in desert sands,
alongside an expectant
vulture.
The
third item is a printed speech by Muriel Lester, delivered at one of the many
nonviolence trainings she pioneered in her decades of tireless activism at the
start of the twentieth century. Though I'm keeping these items to travel with,
along with Nauras' camera, I'd nevertheless like to "re-gift" Ms. Lester's words
to you here; a paper gift
like Nauras', but maybe one which offers an imaginary picture of ourselves
"traveling light:"
"Remember
that the possession of a healthy, free and unoppressed mind can be ours if we
are willing to observe the necessary discipline… The golden rule to keep
unswervingly, unflinchingly, is to never grow slack. Whatever the form of
discipline you adopt as your own, let it be as beautifully balanced, as poised,
as the supple body of a
ballerina…
To
disarm — not only our bodies by refusing to kill, or make killing instruments in
munitions factories — but also to disarm our minds of anger, pride, envy, hate
and
malice…
Sometime
in the cold light before dawn, in an unexpected moment of solitude, we suddenly
find ourselves facing stark reality — our future, the world's future, war, pain,
hunger.
We
feel almost intimidated as we consider the condition of men and things. 'One
half the world is sick, fat with excess. The other half, like that poor beggar
past us even now, who thanked us for a crust with tears.' The issue becomes
clear and
urgent:
Are we
going to spend our lives struggling and fighting for a place in the fat half? Or
shall we tilt against the old spectres of war and inequality, unmasking them,
stripping them of their glamour, revealing them as old fashioned imposters and
tyrants we can no longer tolerate in a world that might be full of common sense,
plenty and
goodwill?"
Just
up the street from where I'm staying in Amman, Jordan, several dozen Iraqis
traveled from all parts of their country to participate in a week of nonviolence
training carried out in the spirit of Muriel Lester. The sessions were organized
by an Iraqi human rights group, Al Massalla in collaboration with Un Ponte Per,
an Italian Non Governmental Organization based in Amman. The group concluded the
first part of their training with a resolve to organize, in 2008, a weeklong
action next year throughout Iraq, a public demonstration of nonviolent
determination in a country where political action can be horribly
dangerous. They laughed and applauded as they exchanged certificates for the
training and then posed for photos, already a remarkably courageous act for what
are planning soon to do, and for where they're planning to do it. Over the next
several days, representatives
from this, the third gathering in their untiring campaign, will strategize with
representatives of similar networks developing all around the
region.
Do
they with their certificates have as little chance of producing a happy picture
in Iraq as Nauras with her paper camera? This is a harsh, harsh world to journey
in – and if we travel at all we're going to have to travel light. We can each
choose small things to strengthen us in the journey – here in Jordan endangered
Naurus is surviving on imagination,
a small item which nevertheless gives her a better world to look at than the one
she's stranded in. And for their journey my friends from the training have
chosen hope, and their determination born of hope, to be themselves a
"make-believe picture" of the justice and kindness which, if and only if we join
them, may yet come to be the world we walk
through.
Kathy
Kelly, co-coordinates Voices for Creative
Nonviolence, http://www.vcnv.org
The
original article, including photos, can be found: http://vcnv.org/traveling-light
This
essay is herein reprinted with the author's permission.
Posted March 17,
2008
URL:
www.thecitizenfsr.org
SM 2000-2011
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