CPTnet
IRAQ REFLECTION: The story of Bahar
July 20, 2004
by Greg Rollins

When Bahar woke up his ear was gone, all because he refused to kill.

Under Saddam's rule, Bahar had to join the army. All Iraqi boys just out of
high school did. When the army sent Bahar to the front during the Iran/Iraq
war, he refused to fight. He told them he did not believe in killing. The
army jailed him. They tortured him and tried to break him. He did not break.
They sent him back to the front and when they were not paying attention, he
fled home to Baghdad.

Bahar's story should end there, but it did not. While he was in jail, his
father died. Several days after Bahar returned home, his stepmother called
the police. They took him from his bed back to prison. He still refused to
fight so they took him to the hospital and drugged him. Bahar woke up and
his ear was in his pocket.

The amputation was one of Saddam's ways of punishing conscientious
objectors. Bahar screamed. He shouted. He cursed Saddam. Saddam's people cut
him loose. They had no need of him. Society had no need of him. His
biological parents were dead, and after the police took him from his home,
his stepmother ran away.

You would not know that Bahar is homeless. His clothes are always clean and
his smile sincere. He spends all his time volunteering for whatever human
rights group that has work for him. Whenever he visits the CPT apartment, he
laughs and cries about the difficulties of his life.

Bahar is an amazing man. His convictions are simple: "This [other person] is
a human being. I am a human being. How can I kill him?" Bahar's past also
scares me. He was only eighteen when he lost his ear. Eighteen--an age where
you want to fit in. I grew up in a Mennonite church, but threatened with
what Bahar went through, would I, at eighteen, have been as true to others
and myself? Would I have been able to preserve the lives of others if it
meant giving up much of my own? It scares me that I honestly do not know and
I am grateful that I will never have to find out.

Christian Peacemaker Teams is a program of Brethren, Quaker and Mennonite
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