COMMISSION COMMUNITY

Pregs Govender
Sunday Times
South Africa
March 16, 2003

On International Women’s Day, a group of women from around the world met the mothers of Iraq. Pregs Govender was one of them.

In March, women across the world join hands in celebration of International Women’s Day. The International Conference of Socialist Women meeting in Copenhagen in 1910, proposed a day to honour the movement for the rights of women.

In 2003, eleven women traveled to Iraq from different countries: the United States, Britain, Palestine, Bangladesh, Sweden, India, Philippines, Lebanon, South Africa and Tunisia.

We went as the International Women’s Solidarity –Iraq, to say to the women of Iraq that they do not stand alone, that women across the world will join hands with them. Our actions spoke our solidarity with them for peace and an end to war.

In the days preceding and following the eighth, we listened closely to their testimonies; we went to their hospitals and saw the destruction they live with daily.

In Baghdad, we hear the testimony of a woman whose son had died as a result of leukemia. “Um’Allawi” is what she wants to be called: “the mother of Ali – her son who died.

“He was my first child – the first is very much loved. When my son fell ill I sold everything- my house, the furniture – to try to buy drugs for him. It was a slow death…it is the worst. A bullet is merciful – the soldier dies instantly.

“I fought death for two years. Death would snatch him and I would snatch him back. Death was always at the door, at the bed. I would kick it away through blood transfusions, pills. I did my best to supply hemoglobin and the blood components. But the blockade made it very hard.

“He was the best student in his class. He was hoping to be a doctor. He would say: “Mummy will I get well?’ And I would say ‘Yes, Yes, you will get well.’

He died in 1996 aged 11. What kind of a barter is that to take the life, the future of a person? I want to take Bush to court. Who is the lawyer who will defend him against so many thousands of women who suffer because of him? He killed my son.”

She is crying – the room is crying. Tissues are handed to her. “I don’t want your tears”, she says. “ Take my voice and spread it in the whole world…I want to hear the echo of what you do.”

In the hospitals, doctor after doctor explained that leukemia, together with other cancers, such as breast cancer, have increased dramatically in the last few years.

Martha Munde, from Britain, shares the story of Professor Doug Rokke, the army physicist from the US. His team, which was responsible for trying to decontaminate Kuwait of the depleted uranium, are all ill …he himself is dying. He has termed what happened in the first Gulf war “a form of nuclear warfare”.

In Basra, Abal Fardous meets the team sitting with her little boy on her lap. He smiles shyly at the camera as she talks.

“Welcome friends. We need peace, love and help from people abroad. Peace makes life full of happiness. In 1999 on January the 25th a missile hit our area. 67 civilian homes were destroyed and 165 civilians were killed. It destroyed lives, happiness, everything beautiful in life. There were no army bases here. It was just full of poor people.

“I realised that my two children were playing outside. I ran out into the streets crying their names. The streets were full of parents like me crying for our children, searching everywhere to find them. I found the two of them. Kaeder was covered with dust, wood and iron. I found pieces of him. Mustapha woke up crying: “Mama, Mama”, his eyes full of smoke.

“I tried to carry both of them. I realised my older boy is dead. He doesn’t answer me. I carry Mustapha to the highway for a taxi to the hospital.”

As she talks Mustapha buries his head in her lap crying, as she holds him and comforts him with her body

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“I did not notice that two small fingers fall down so the doctors operate his hand. Pieces of the missile go from his leg to his liver and damage the liver. Some pieces of the missile are still in his legs and back. When he moves it crushes the bones in his back and legs. He stayed one month in the hospital. An American organisation is going to help him get treatment.

“We need peace to prevent this to other children. Everyone in the world must help us to achieve peace. We need help from good people in the world.”

“ I have a small (she brings her fingers together to express how small) message to Bush: We don’t need the war. War is not a good way to solve problems.”

The area Abal lives in falls into the so-called ‘no-fly zones’ established by Britain and the US after the first Gulf war. Dr Bhoutrous Bhoutrous-Ghali, past Secretary-General of the UN, has labelled these zones “illegal”. The US Defence Department confirmed that in 1999 alone, American airforce and naval aircraft flew 36 000 sorties over Iraq, including 24 000 combat missions. This translates into almost daily bombing. The “collateral damage” are mainly children like Kaeder and Mustapha.

In Basra at the hospital, Corinne Kumar, from India, who brought us all together, holds a child – a little boy – he dies in her arms.

Later after more women’s testimony in Baghdad, she recalls the words of Madeleine Albright (at the time, US Ambassador to the UN). Albright was presented with the fact that half a million (at the time) Iraqi children had died because of sanctions. She was asked whether their deaths were a price worth paying for. Her response: “we think the price is worth it”.

“A world which says this, is a world which has lost it’s soul.”

Corinne says quietly to the room filled with women. When it is my turn to speak, I ask the women to: “Bring your beauty, your art, your poetry, your music tomorrow to the square. Let the world see you in all your richness, as we have experienced you, beyond all the boxes they have put you in.”

I share the example of South Africa’s women and the struggle against apartheid.

“One of the most powerful images that showed the world the truth about the war that was apartheid, was a photograph of a child carrying a child (hector Peterson), who had been killed by the soldiers in 1976. It carried the cruelty of apartheid around the world.

“The soldiers, the decision-makers and those who love them, need to remember the light in the eyes of their own children when they kill the light in the eyes of Iraqi children. It is the same precious light. Let them know that they kill the future of our world.”

“Shukran” (Thank you), they say again and again to all of us.

The next day, March 8th, women gather in Talai’ square at 5pm, until it is packed. Women come bearing their clay and paint. They sit on the ground and start to create art. Others come with their poetry, drums and guitars. They bring photographs of the children they have lost.

They wear brightly coloured gowns, hijabs, skirts, jackets and jeans. They wear their hair covered in scarves and uncovered, short, long, swaying on their shoulders. They are students, doctors, lawyers, engineers, housewives, and scientists.

There is a young girl of about 12 years doing street theatre, animatedly gesturing with her hands. There is a woman on stilts dressed as a white dove who weaves through the crowds with her masked face.

There are banners and posters calling for peace. It is creative and chaotic.

The women’s eyes shine. As the sun goes down, we lay down our posters and banners and light our candles.

In this country of the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia, it’s temples and goddesses, of Babylon and the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, women sit in a circle of silence evoking the peace the world wants.

Pregs Govender is a feminist activist; Associate at the Africa Gender Institute, UCT.

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