The Iraqi Tragedy, in One Act

Yesterday I attended a theatrical performance written and performed by Iraqis who have been displaced to Jordan by the War in Iraq. Sponsored by CARE International, the play was designed as a psychosocial project to help Iraqis living in Jordan deal with their feelings about their current situation.

In humanitarian aid jargon, "psycho-social" refers to the type of aid programs that help the intangible effects of tragedy - the psychological and social ones. The emotional and social problems that come from being exposed to violence, torture, loss of loved ones, being forced from your home, or simply living in an unstable or dangerous condition. This kind of work is long term and involves the reconstruction of broken families and societies. It's different from humanitarian work that deals with more immediate needs such as food, clothing, and shelter.

This play is a good example of pscyho-social humanitarian work, as it gave Iraqis a chance to express themselves and relate about their personal tragedies in a community setting. And all Iraqis that I have met, no matter what their view on the current situation, mourn the state of their country. Some are getting the first chance to publicly voice personal sadness from the Saddam regime as well as the current one. I recently attended a day-long conference about human rights in Iraq and learned that a torture-victim rehabilitation center there found that one out of every two families in southern Iraq had a torture victim.

I think this is important to remember as we consider the reconstruction of Iraq. It is a country which has dealt with years of repression, abuse, starvation from sanctions, and now going on five years of a "liberation" turned bloody civil war. It is not as if, once rid of Saddam, a healthy and whole Iraqi society would be uncovered - they have a lot of history to overcome.

And according to this play, they see that this is possible. It was a dramatic re-enactment of the Iraqi people's abuse at the hands of both their own government and American forces - and them finally forcing both of these out to regain their beloved country.

The play did not portray American soldiers very favorably - the two on stage were both searching for "terrorists" by barging into families' homes and insisting that someone there come forward as a terrorist before they would leave. Mostly the play showed that they couldn't penetrate Iraqi society or get a handle on the population (and I can certainly understand why this would be the perception of Iraqi people, regardless of whether or not it is true.) Although there was an interesting moment where one soldier came back to warn a family that they were going to be arrested because one brother had already been arrested as an insurgent. The other soldier discovers this and shoots the young girl whom the soldier has warned. "What are you doing? You can't give them that information!" I guess they recognized that the Americans were in a moral bind no matter what they did.

The "actors" were not professionals but rather Iraqis from the local community. Some of them were young children. (Although one of the American soldiers was played by an American.) As the characters gave speeches on the sadness they had experienced, I saw real tears in many of the actors' eyes - I imagine that this was an extremely cathartic experience for them.

I watched with wonder at the strength of both the actors and the audience members to address what had happened to them and to their country. I was glad to see a positive ending, showing that they had enough hope to conceptualize such a thing for their country.

There was one thing that made me worried, however. In two different scenes, the Iraqi characters, all the way down to the children, surrounded a nemesis - first the old, corrupt regime and then the soldiers - and forced them to leave. While the show of Iraqi unity was powerful, both situations had to create a common enemy in order to bring unity. At the center of each of those circles was the source of "evil," and thus you ended up with a situation of othering or dehumanizing another group.

The soldiers are not evil, and neither is every single member of the former regime. I think it is dangerous to continue a cycle of hatred. Could the play have ended with Iraqi unity built on another principle, without having to reject other human beings?