Six years after the tragedy of Sept. 11, the Undergraduate Government of Boston College and the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Student Association sponsored the first of a series of lectures examining the current war in Iraq Tuesday night in front of a packed house in Higgins.
Three speakers had been invited, one of them a native Iraqi, Nesreen, who had flown all the way from Baghdad. Nesreen refused to reveal her full name or have any pictures taken for the sake of her personal security when she returns to Iraq, where sectarian violence continues to haunt the lives of Iraqis like Nesreen.
A school teacher in Baghdad, Nesreen had been contacted and invited to the United States by Bruce Wallace, a school teacher from Brooklyn, N.Y. In 2001, Wallace lost a family member in the Sept. 11 tragedy and shortly after, he began to seek a pen-pal connection between his students in New York and Nesreen's students in Baghdad through his organization 121 Contact Iraq, which sought to put a human face on war.
On July 7, Nescreen received a visa to the United States. It was the 133th visa issued to an Iraqi by the United States government, which closed its doors to Iraqi citizens after the Sept. 11 tragedy.
In Higgins 300, in front of BC students, Nesreen told vivid stories of her life in Iraq, which changed drastically after the U.S occupation.
"Violence is escalating day after day, leaving dead bodies and dogs in the streets. Eight-hundred thousand children are out of school," Nesreen said. In her speech, she insisted that stability and peace observed during Saddam Hussein's regime has been stripped away, and that Iraqis are now suffering in silent tragedy because of the "mistake" of the U.S government.
To Nescreen, who has to use public transportation to get to school, her life has become unbearable. Seeing dead bodies on the streets and hearing gunshots have become a part of her ordinary life. She is unable to trust anyone, obsessed with the idea of possible detention, and haunted by fear caused by the presence of the U.S army. "Sometimes we are afraid of each other. We are visited by American soldiers several times a day. Meanwhile, our cell phones never stop ringing because our families are so worried," she said.
In addressing the serious hardship resulting from lack of basic accommodations, she stumbled upon her speech, choking back tears. "We cannot provide simple things," she said.
Nesreen pointed her finger at the United States for its "mistake." "You, yourself admitted that it was a mistake. My people are dying. My people are killed, and my country is falling apart because of your mistake. You do care about your money and soldiers - but how about your responsibility concerning your mistake," asked an emotional Nesreen.
Bruce Wallace, whose speech proceeded Nesreen's, also contended that the reasonability for destruction in Iraq lies in the hands of the United States. "Government has no reason to shorten occupation at all. We are forcing more and more laws there, benefiting big businesses. Money is not disappearing -it is going into the pockets of big businesses," Wallace said.
The last speaker was a veteran of the Iraqi war, who was wearing a shirt that said, "Iraq veterans against war." The 23-year-old war veteran insisted on immediate evacuation of U.S troops in Iraq, denouncing the war as a "joke." He shared his experience in Iraq, speaking of how quickly his original intention of doing something honorable became a mere fight for survival. He maintained that he wasn't taught to understand and protect the innocent civilians but to successfully drive them out and destroy their homes. "Only thing I was taught was to say 'get out of the way,'" he said.
All three contended that the invasion was a mistake, and that it is important to acknowledge our responsibility. Wallace concluded, "Are you, as an individual American, responsible for an individual Iraqi?"
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