Nawruz and Mother's Day

A friend sent me this in an e-mail on Mother's Day. I wrote to ask its author, Nesreen, if I could post it on our blog and to ask her a little about who she is. She kindly agreed to allowing us to share her words. She is an Iraqi expat in Canada and, like most Iraqis I know, her love for her country transcends time and distance. Iraq is in her blood and heart.

You can read more of her writing HERE

Nawruz and Mother's Day
Nesreen Melek

Six years ago I was sitting on the same couch watching their shock and owe bombing on my beloved country. I asked myself what anology they would use for Baghdad and other cities this time. In the early nineties, a CNN reporter covering the Gulf war reported that Baghdad looked like a Christmas tree. Six years ago, when they started their war, it was too late for Christmas... it was spring, a season of fertility, but for Iraqis it was a season of death.

I felt like as I was watching a horror movie; I was watching but not believing that the American government could be so brutal. There were no weapons of mass destructions, Iraq was not responsible for 9/11 and Iraqis didn’t cause any harm to the American people. I knew it was about the oil and was not about the Iraqi people. American people didn’t care about the Iraqis. The American government pushed the United Nations to impose ten years or economic sanctions on Iraq which caused the death of more than one million Iraqi children.

The horror continued, and I kept asking myself what had we done to them to hate us that much? What was wrong with them? Did they have hearts? What had we done to be punished that way?

I knew that there were people against this ugly war but they could not do anything. I kept asking myself, why would Americans allow their government to kill innocent people in their names? The people could stop this ugly war... But nothing stopped their hatred against my people...

Rallies were held, I attended them all, people stretched out their arms to reach mine and apologized for the American acts against my own people. People wiped my tears, hugged me and I cried on strangers’ shoulders knowing that the destruction would continue and so would be the killing. I knew that they had their plan to destroy Iraq.

Life went on and I was part of it knowing that in Iraq there was a child who could not sleep because he/she was scared from the continuous bombing, there were women who lost their beloved ones and that there was fear in the hearts of each Iraqi because of the daily bombing and the daily killing..

I was speechless when I watched the looting of the Iraqi museum. My sister called me from the States early in the morning that day but we could not say a word to each other. We were both mourning our losses...we were mourning the death of the cradle of civilization on the hands of barbarians..

Nights and days passed, each day the damage and the pain was bigger than the day before..

The American president who orchestrated this war kept talking about how democracy will be spread in Iraq, not mentioning that his troop spread their poisonous hatred on the fertile Iraqi soil

Iraqi prisoners were dragged on the floor in the name of their democracy, women were raped in the name of the democracy, children lost their parents in the name of their democracy, men were killed in the name of their democracy, palm trees were burnt in the name of their democracy, deceased were eaten in loose dogs in the name of their democracy, people left their country in the name of their democracy, scientist were killed in the name of their democracy, yet the American people couldn’t stop their government’s atrocities against the Iraqi civilians.

Americans celebrated each and every occasion. None of these occasions meant anything to me anymore. The last occasion they celebrated was Valentine day.. I asked myself, if they did not feel for the Iraqi children who were killed in their names how could they care about each other...

I felt speechless in so many occasions, until I started expressing myself through written words.. Now I feel that I’ve used all the words and I have no more words left. I can’t cry anymore, the pain in my heart has reached its peak, I feel numbness spreading over my body..

During my last visit to Baghdad, I realized how much Iraqis had lost. There was no life in their eyes, nothing excites them anymore, as they had lost interest in living. Even the children I saw looked different, there was no happiness on their eyes there was only fear.

A few days ago, was the first day of spring, it was Nawruz.. It is spring in Baghdad, the orange trees must be full of Kaddah (Orange tree flowers) and there is no better smell than the smell of the Iraqi Kaddah.. It smells like Jasmine flowers but stronger.. In Iraq, it is mother's day.. I hope that I can make necklaces from this Kaddah, give it to all Iraqi mothers who suffered from the continuous brutality of the world, I wish I can give an orange seeds to the Iraqi children so they can to plant them. My tears, yours and others shall pour like rain on these seeds hoping that there will be good days to come. ..

(photos taken in Amman, Jordan)