On a recent afternoon in eastern Baghdad, speaking English well and wearing T-shirts with brand names like Diesel and Ecko, they said they wished the world would remember that not all young Iraqis wanted to kill one another.
Mudher Rafid, 22
Ahmed Bahir, 22
Hasan Haitham 22
Graduates from the dentistry department, Baghdad University
NY Times article .
I was touched by the last line, when one of these ordinary young people who just wanted to continue living stated: "there is no more future here [in Baghdad]".
ReplyDeleteHe was right and I imagine that must have been a profoundly painful realization.
When the US invasion of Irak turned into a tragic Sunit-Shiite Muslim faction war, I couldn't help but wonder why religion (along with power/greed, etc) still appears to be one of the major causes of human suffering.
Just take a look at the current ongoing major conflicts: if one removes the major reason for war ("we want that piece of land/natural resource" etc)
religious conflicts still remain the #2 reason to start or continue a conflict/war.
I was going to put so much more of the article up but I came to the words that I posted and they made me so deeply sad that I knew I should post them alone.
ReplyDeleteIt's that simple.
Religion as the second biggest reason to fight is a horrendous fact ... words fail me.