May 6, 2003
Shall We Get Real?... Let's take five with Moira Gunn. This is "Five Minutes".
We sit here stateside, aghast at the bloody self-mutilation and frantic crowd energy of Iraqi Shi'ite Muslims, finally able to practice the religious traditions they've been denied for so long. It's hard to remember they are simply exercising the religious freedoms the US has advertised it was invading their country to return.
But this is only one aspect of our puzzlement.
The possibly professional shakedown of select Iraqi antiquities serves as counterpoint to the roving bands of luckless looters, whose bounty appears less to be valuable commodities and more to be along the lines of light fixtures and office furniture. Add to this, essentially interchangeable TV analysts, jawing on about the various religious-ethnic-political motivations of every faction in the country, and it's difficult to shake a pervasive sense that each of these groups would like to rule Iraq exclusively, just like the last guy.
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Our confusion isn't helped by the media, where every molecule of news is wrung dry. The same questions are asked and answered, again and again, while there are plenty of questions which go begging.
Take this example. With little hard evidence of weapons of mass destruction, there appears to be even less evidence that women live in Iraq. Even the children all appear to be boys. Of course, I'm being facetious here, if only because I can't believe Iraq perfected human cloning without our crack global intelligence sources catching on, but if we've come to liberate the oppressed, we probably should include everybody.
As for the potential for liberation, let's just say I have diminished expectations.
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Humans are the products of their heritage: nature and nurture, or the lack thereof. We try to rescue the children of abusive parents, but even so, some of these abused children go on to become perpetrators. Others live adult lives of perpetual victimhood, and in the saddest cases, being a victim becomes a type of passive perpetration - they are simply unable to protect those around them, because they were never protected themselves.
To become whole takes tremendous force of character, the personal decision to make your life different and the passionate belief that it is the only way to lead a responsible life.
Even so, the children of abuse yearn for their parents, because this is the nature of being human. As adults, they still yearn for their parents, in ways that may never be healed, never even be understood. And to heal, they may need to lose even the meager remains of their fractured lives. It is understandable that so few attempt the journey.
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I was reminded of this while trying to put the media cacophony of Iraqi impressions together into a single unified view. In simple terms, it is this: we have to get over the idealization of the oppressed.
It's what happens every time we try to relieve someone's suffering, whether individually or collectively. Despite our best efforts, some will become outright perpetrators, some will continue to be victims, and some will unwittingly become passive perpetrators.
The kind of leadership Iraq needs must be someone or some group with a vision of all-encompassing emotional health, and with a sense of how to heal centuries of abuse.
From where I stand, that would take an absolute miracle.
I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.
