CPTnet
30 December 2005

IRAQ: What keeps us busy

by Anita David

What do you do to get people released by kidnappers? How do you know the
kidnappers are who they say they are? How do you know what they want to
hear before they release our friends? How do we get those who've spoken
on our behalf to do more?

How do you encourage others who may have some influence to become engaged?
 How do you contact them? How do you know who the most influential people
will be when you are not certain what the kidnappers want?

   How do you treat a TV crew who shows up at 2:00 a.m. in front of your
Baghdad apartment building with a police escort to shoot video of our
location? I know the answer to this one, but just to let you know*

We make phone calls, we answer questions from media via telephone.
We write letters of thanks to the people and organizations who have
supported us. In morning meetings we brainstorm "other" strategies as
though we had a clear one. We write messages to our teammates and to
their "hosts" and post them on the CPT website. We listen to small arms
fire. We talk about how many Iraqis are kidnapped and how no one pays much
attention except their families.

 We wait and wait and we celebrate Christmas with a real tree which, when
it arrives, gives off a beautiful scent. We decorate it with blinking
lights, the best of which were given to us as a Christmas present by the
man who drives for us. We exchange gifts. On Christmas night we sing
carols for our landlord and his family.

We speak three times a day with the team in Canada, once a day with the
team in Amman, intermittently with the teams in Hebron and at Tuwani. We
wash our clothes, cook our meals, clean our apartment, write reflections
for CPT Net.

We thank our Iraqi friends continuously for standing by us and continuing
to work with us. Their presence with us puts them in real danger. We
continue to shop in the market and when we walk down our street our
neighbors ask about our teammates - have we heard, has anyone called, what
are we doing.

It's the same in the markets. Everyone remembers Tom and asks about him I
still visit Adil, sit on his front porch and ask him what he thinks we
should do, how is the stock market doing, does he have new pictures of his
grand daughter?

Every conversation with everyone revolves around this kidnapping. There
is no escape from either this place or this kidnapping. What we do, along
with other Iraqis is try to think our way through and around the stupidity
of daily violence, intermittent presence of water and electricity, long
delays in traffic and bad, bad air. And we enjoy and are humbled by
offerings of graciousness and friendship from so many Iraqis.

How do you respond to U.S. press reports criticizing our presence here?
Proof of our "recklessness" is the kidnapping of our four teammates. How
do you react to Rush Limbaugh who says "* I like any time a bunch of
leftist feel-good hand-wringers are shown reality." What makes him think
there's even one leftist feel-good hand-wringer here? What kind of man
"likes" the suffering of others? How is the reality of over 2000 dead,
over 15,000 wounded Americans and a much greater number of dead and
wounded Iraqis working for him? Why does he accept the consequences of
war? And a final question which begs answering--do we have the right to
advocate a message of peace if we are not prepared to pay the cost of
nonviolent peacemaking?