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| <back | home A Delegation to Fallujah that you never heard about: Medea Benjamin, Code Pink and Activism by Justin Popov Floods, tsunamis, and earthquakes — there is something about death and destruction that brings out the best in people. Otherwise-dysfunctional and -divided families and communities come together and forget their trivial differences to pay respect to lost loved ones. The king of consumerism decides to donate to Doctors Without Borders after watching in wonder as a wave destroys life, with power and efficiency so great that the military looks on with envy. Death keeps us humble, puts everything into perspective. It’s hard to say if the motive is ever pure altruism, or if such a thing even exists. The more interesting question is what draws interest and resources to certain causes. To get the attention of the general public (and their checkbooks), a cause must pass a public "taste test." Natural disasters are best; they embody the romantic fight between humans and the brutality of their environment. If the tragedy is human-caused, it must have a clear perpetrator who is understood to be an enemy of the entire population, such as Osama Bin Laden. A well- received and -perceived disaster must, as a prerequisite, be free from controversy. The corporate media focuses on wildfires, tsunamis, earthquakes and blizzards. These are events that require no value judgments; it is common thought that they are negative and therefore they are easy to cover and generate large audiences for advertisers. War-torn cities, genocide and refugees are generally ignored or trivialized, although the loss in both life and property is often far greater. The controversy often comes from the fact that, in most cases, these events could have been avoided in the first place. The war in Iraq and its repercussions is one of these stories. First. there is controversy; the war became a dividing point in this country long before the first bombs hit the ground, a controversy only amplified by religious undertones. As expected, the man-made disaster that is the war in Iraq has not received the attention and sympathy of the general American public. At least not as it appears on the evening news. So when the United States military invaded the Iraqi city of Fallujah in November and proceeded, in typical military fashion, to destroy it in order to "save it," the public saw very little of the human cost. However, the group Code Pink, who had just previously organized against the re-election of Bush, saw what was happening and decided the least they could do would be to help the Iraqis living in what used to be the city of Fallujah. "We knew that George Bush was going to take this (his re-election) as a green light to invade Fallujah a couple of days after. What happened was that the US military went in and basically leveled a city of 300,000 people," said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink and founding member of United for Peace and Justice, at a Feb. 3rd speech at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. "We could not stop the invasion because everybody was so exhausted from the election. We couldn’t even get people to go out and protest. We decided to start at least collecting medicine and blankets and things for the people of Fallujah." A call for donations was placed on the Code Pink website, which was quickly deluged by an outpouring of support. The initial goal was a modest $25,000, which was met and exceeded in just 24 hours. Eventually the group acquired over $600,000-worth of material aid and funds from private individuals and humanitarian groups like the Middle East Children’s Alliance and Operation USA. A small sector of the United States was stepping into the controversy, giving their resources to undo something their own government had just done. The delegation that assembled to deliver the aid included parents of US soldiers who had been killed in Iraq and a member of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows whose son, a New York City firefighter, was killed on September 11th.They were accompanied by peace activists, doctors, and authors. "This delegation is a way for me to express my sympathy and support for the Iraqi people. The Iraq war took away my son’s life, and it’s taken away the lives of so many innocent Iraqis. It’s time to stop the killing and to help the children of Iraq," said Rosa Suarez of Escondido, Calif., in a press release. Her son Jesus was a marine who died in Iraq on March 27, 2003. The delegation left for the Middle East on December 26th, the same day the massive tsunami slammed into Southeast Asia. While most of the world focused on the tsunami, these people focused, with an amazing gesture of compassion, on helping the people of Fallujah. It could have been the perfect human interest story, the ultimate reality show; parents of children who had died in the war going over to Iraq trying to mend the fences that have been destroyed and showing a different face of America to the Iraqi people. But this human interest story reeks of controversy and the American press was not interested. Perhaps more importantly, the Arab media was. "It was something that should have been covered all over the US, and the day we left was the day that the tsunami hit. There was good reason to be covering that horrible tragedy, but I also wonder whether the US media would have covered this delegation anyway," said Benjamin. "The problem is that we did not get to show this in front of the American people, but we did get to show it to the Arab world, and from the moment that we landed in Amman, Jordan, we had the Arab press with us every single day. We had Al Jazeera from the moment we arrived, we had the Al Arabiya, we had Dubai, we had the Iranian media, and by the end of the week they were like our dear friends, kissing and hugging us goodbye and saying we never knew there were American people like you, thank you for showing us another face of the American people. We were very excited that we could portray that face of the American people." A major reason for the lack of American media attention likely stemmed from the fact that this was not just a humanitarian mission. It was made clear that this delegation was against the occupation. Humanitarian missions help people recover from something that has happened. This delegation was to help heal, but also to dig deeper and protest against the occupation of Iraq, the root cause of the suffering in Fallujah. In addition to distributing aid, the delegation invited 20 Iraqis to give testimonies on how the war in Iraq has changed their lives. There were stories of children dying in their parents’ arms because ambulances were not granted access. Others told of entire families being destroyed and bodies left in the street to be eaten by dogs because people couldn’t leave their houses to recover their remains. The families in the peace delegation had their own stories of suffering, tales of loved ones being killed in unnecessary wars. Both groups were able to come together, grieve together, hope together, and most importantly dress each others wounds with bandages of compassion and understanding. The delegation moved past the layers of politics and controversy so often avoided in the public and media. They helped those in need, all the while helping themselves and the rest of us. Justin Popov is a Cal Poly journalism intern for HopeDance. <back | top^ |