We meet so many people in our travels, and each one of them has their own stories to tell. Often we spend casual afternoons and late nights just talking about the world, its problems and possibilities.
But once in a while, one meets someone very special, whose story touches one's heart in such a way that it changes how events in the world are perceived. We met one such person while staying in the Platypus hostel in Bogota. His name is Saad (which is pronounced like we say "sad" in English, but which means "happy" in Arabic), and he is from that place carried in the minds of the newspaper-reading, news-watching world, Iraq. We can all attest to feeling tired when hearing about one more kidnapping or car bomb indiscriminately killing people in the streets. It never really feels personal, and after a while it's too much to take. We become desensitized and numb.
Saad was travelling alone in Latin America when he heard the terrible news of the murder of his younger brother and 10 year-old nephew apparently at the hands of Iraqi insurgents. He is continuing his travels and petitioning the governments of every country he visits to pressure the US government and those involved in the occupation to keep its promises to the Iraqi people and stop the terror their policies have exacerbated.
Saad's story made Jess and I sit numb and reflective for hours, tears forming at the creases of our eyes. He is a gentle and kind man, and one often sees him sitting quietly, staring across the room of western travellers. After hearing his story, Jess and I have felt the urge to hug him but have held back. He is suffering and needs to be with his family in Iraq, but he cannot return; the security situation there is getting out of control.
Although turning back time for him would be impossible for us to do, we are putting his family's story on our website as a helpless gesture of solidarity to him and the millions of innocent Iraqi victims of both empire and terrorism.
Like many Iraqi exiles, Saad is alone, grieving in solitude. He needs our support, so please read his letter. I was not able to include the photos of Haider and Mohammed sent to me by Saad. If you would like to see them, email me (todoparatodos@hotmail.com), and I can forward them to you. Saad's email address is below, and I'm sure any comforting letters would help him feel supported.
Thanks,
Mike
Presentation:
Saad Salim Ali fled from Iraq in 1979 and came to Sweden in 1980 where he worked as a licensed interpreter between Arabic and Swedish. Last year he visited his old homeland and met his friends and relatives.
What he did not know was that it was to be his last meeting with his brother and the eldest of his nephews.
Recently the news of the murder of his brother and nephew caught him during his travels in Latin America. Despite the distance, the terrorism was so near.
Here is his story in his own words:
Hello
I am writing to you as a fellow human being. The tragedy that has happened to me is too heavy for me to bear alone. I need help and solidarity not to mention moral support.
My name is Saad Salim Ali and I am a Swedish citizen, but ethnic Iraqi.
I had a younger brother in Iraq whose name was Haider and he was 37 years old. He lived in Bagdad together with his wife and three small children: ten, seven and two years old. On Friday February 18, 2005 Haidar was kidnapped together with the eldest son, Mohammed, who was just any other 10 year old school-going child. They were subjected to merciless and horrible torture. The young boy was even more ruthlessly tortured Ehis fingers chopped off among other things. Later in the evening their mutilated bodies were found on a roadside in Bagdads Altagi-area. They had been brutally murdered with several shots over their bodies. The kidnappers were apparently Al Qaida or Ba'ath-terrorists.
My brother had never been politically or religiously active. He had neither been a member in any party or organisation nor been in the police or the Army. He was just a regular guy who worked hard every day in his small shop and went home to his family after work.
His wife and two children 7 and 2 years old are left behind. The children shall grow up without their father and their brother. Well, grow up -- if the terrorists let them grow up.
The kidnapping, torturing and killing of innocent civilians without any reason except hate and religious fanaticism is a crime which should not be allowed to go unnoticed, especially when children are tortured and murdered. Children should ALWAYS be treated as innocents. Nobody has the right to subject a child to awful torture and murder as my nephew was. There is no excuse for such crimes, not even if the culprits were mujahedin fighting against the occupation by the USA. No freedom fighter tortures a child or innocent civilians and then murders them. No, such crimes are committed only by monsters: in Iraq by extremely religious Al Qaida or Ba'ath-terrorists.
These kind of awful crimes are quite frequent in Iraq: the terrorists want to turn the people numb and the world opinion wary so that nobody would react to what is going on. We cannot let that happen. This time it was my brother and his son who have fallen prey to terror. Who would be next?
The terrorists would not stop by themselves. They must be stopped, otherwise they shall continue to kidnap and torture and murder new innocent people.
The terrorists who murdered my brother and my nephew, the ones who carried out terror attacks on the USA on September 11, 2001, in Madrid in 2004, in Jerusalem in February 2005 and the ones who are making the Iraqi people suffer by kidnapping, torturing and murdering them are birds of the same feather.
We should not let the victims just become numbers or statistics in the news and then forgotten. This only serves the terroristsEpurpose. The victims must have a face in order to build opinion against terrorism. This is the reason why I am writing this.
My brother Haidar Salim Ali turned only 37; his son Mohammed Haidar Salim turned only 10. Mohammed used to go to school and dream of becoming a doctor when he grew up so that he could help the sick and the weak. His dream would never come true; the terrorists put an end to it.
I request you to demand that the Iraqi, the American and the British and other governments take seriously the horrendous crime that my brother and his son were subjected to, to find and arrest the murderers and prosecute them. Otherwise, the terrorists are going to continue to commit heinous crimes and spread horror among the Iraqi people in order to prevent the democratic development in the country. The aim of the terrorists is to introduce a kind of Taliban or Ba'ath-regime in Iraq.
The terrorism is a threat not only to Iraq, it threatens the whole world. Iraqs battle is your battle too. The battle against Al Qaida and Ba'ath-terrorism is your battle too. A victory for democracy and respect for human rights, for childrens and womens rights in Iraq would be your victory too.
We all belong to the same world.
Saad Salim Ali
2005-March
OBS. You have right to publish my letter, send it to your contacts or to any one you want. Please, do it. And please, write to the US, British and Iraqi governments about my brother and his son and about another victims for terrorism in Iraq, We must help each others to fight against the terrorism.
OBS. I'm just now in travel in South America. We can comunicate via emails. My email adress is: saadsalimali@hotmail.com
|
