Dahlia Wasfi – Page 6 – Engaging Peace

[Note from Kathie Malley-Morrison: Engaging Peace is pleased to publish the second in the ongoing series from Dahlia Wasfi‘s book, Liberate THIS]

My father was born and raised in Basra, Iraq. Graduating from Baghdad University, he earned a government scholarship to study in the United States. He completed his graduate studies at Georgetown University.

Weapons cache in Basra (Image in public domain)

While in DC, he met and married my mom, a nice Jewish girl from New York. Her parents had fled their homeland of Austria during Hitler’s Anschluss and emigrated to the United States. Was it love at first sight? I don’t know, but my sister was born in 1969, and I arrived in 1971.

To pay back his scholarship from Iraq, my father taught at Basra University from 1972 to 1977. Thus, my early childhood was spent in both Iraq and the United States. For me, the bombing of Basra was equivalent to the bombing of Yonkers, New York. I had family in both places.

Upon returning to the Swarthmore College campus for the spring semester, I was dumbstruck by what I remember to be a mostly pro-war atmosphere. The militancy was in stark contrast to the peaceful traditions of its Quaker founders who established the school in 1864.

The Quakers, a Christian denomination also known as the Religious Society of Friends, are known as a peace church, because of their teachings’ emphasis on pacifism. While Swarthmore no longer has any religious affiliation, it prides itself on being an institution that still reflects many Quaker values. As the current brochures describe, “Foremost among [these values] is a commitment to the common good and to the preparation of future leaders who will influence favorably a changing and complex world.”

In the early months of 1991, as far as I could tell, Swarthmore was a breeding ground for warmongers. Flags and pro-military banners hung from the dorms of Parrish Hall, the main building on campus. Their messages remain burned in my memory. On a white sheet, students had written, “By Air, By Sea, By Land: Bye-Bye, Iraq.” Hanging from the next window: “U.S. Troops: Simply the Best.” They made me cringe. The blatant disrespect for the lives of Iraqi victims was sickening to me.

I thought, what the hell is going on? Why didn’t the best and brightest understand that war is unacceptable, no matter who is directing the tanks? Why was the anti-war sentiment drowned out at this “liberal” institution?

Internally, I condemned the hypocrisy of militancy on a campus that purported to reflect peaceful traditions. But the Swarthmore disconnect between image and reality was mirroring the hypocrisy that I despised within myself. I was living the American dream at one of the top—one of the most expensive—schools in the nation. Meanwhile my government rained down terror in the form of cruise missiles on Iraqi families.

Dahlia Wasfi

[Note from Kathie Malley-Morrison: Today we begin our serialization of excerpts from Dahlia Wasfi’s upcoming book on the invasion and occupation of Iraq from her perspective as the daughter of an American Jewish mother and an Iraqi Muslim father.]

Ordnance load on U.S. Marines plane during Operation "Desert Storm" 1991 (Image in public domain)

“Dahlia, come here,” my father called.

The resignation in his voice told me that something was wrong.

On the east coast of the United States, it was 7 p.m., January 16, 1991. In Iraq—my father’s birthplace—it was 3 a.m. the following day. I was upstairs in my parents’ house in Delaware, during winter break of my sophomore year at Swarthmore College.

When I heard his sad command, I tiptoed to the balcony overlooking the family room. I thought that if I stepped delicately enough, nothing would be disturbed when I reached my father. My efforts were futile. Peering over the railing, I saw him standing by the television.

“They started bombing,” he said. The assault of Gulf War I had begun.

I looked down to my father over the banister with helpless despair. He looked into the television screen with helpless despair. I wanted to reach down into the TV and stop what was happening, maybe even stop time until I could figure out a solution. But I could only stand motionless, frozen at the balcony, trying to process what was happening.

Even as I tell this story years later, my stomach churns as it did that day, for the hopelessness and helplessness of that moment. Fear and sadness instantly overcame me.

My relatives were among the millions of Iraqis who had no say in their government’s actions, but who would pay dearly at the hands of the most powerful military in the world. I couldn’t help my dad. I couldn’t help my family.

Moments later, once the initial shock of the news passed, I found myself nervously humming. I soon realized the song was R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.” For me, it was.

Dahlia Wasfi, M.D.

My government rained down terror (Liberate THIS, Part 2)

“They started bombing” (Liberate THIS, Part 1)