Faiza: Blogging from inside the Iraqi refugee crisis

Back on August 1, I wrote this post about the new report the International Crisis Group has on the situation of Iraq’s refugees. I wish at the time I had thought to check in with the great blog that Faiza Arji, proud Iraqi citizen, writes from Amman, Jordan, where she has spent most of the past three years trying to provide front-line help to some of the very distressed Iraqi refugees in the city.
Because she’s been so busy doing that, in recent months she hasn’t been blogging very much– but that’s no excuse for me.
Today I went, and found this extremely heartfelt post that she put up there in English on June 24.
It is a classic piece of reportage from within one of the most vexing humanitarian crises of our day. (A crisis, I should note, that occurred as a result of Pres. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and his administration’s complete failure to exercise its responsibility as occupying power to assure public security within the country.)
Faiza describes the key demand being raised by the refugees themselves. It is for return home in a situation of general security and assured basic services:

We want a real commitment from the [Iraqi] government, to ensure the return of the displaced inside Iraq to their houses and their areas, to provide security, services, and jobs for them, so they can have a decent life in their homeland.
And how can the government ask the Iraqis in Jordan, Syria and Egypt to return to Iraq, while it hasn’t solved the problem of the internally displaced?
How can we believe that the situation has improved?
If those displaced inside Iraq returned to their towns and their conditions settled, now that would be a positive indication to the government’s credibility, and the Iraqis living in the neighboring countries will return when they see positive encouraging results on the ground… but now, even with all the suffering and the anguish, we do not think of going back; a least here there is security, water, and electricity…

About “re-settlement”, in countries other than Iraq– which is the option most frequently talked about by Americans, many of whom whom have a deeply engrained bias toward the alleged moral virtues of transcontinental migration– Faiza writes this:

I also talk about some families I met here, who are waiting to be re-settled; some of them see this as a temporary solution until Iraq gets back to the state of security and settlement, while others despaired of the improvement in Iraq’s conditions, but they all say- our eyes and hearts will keep on watching Iraq, and we will get back as soon as things get better; we do not believe there is a country anywhere more beautiful than Iraq….

She writes eloquently about the love of Iraq– and, crucially, the adherence to the idea of Iraqi national unity— that she encounters among the refugees she meets and works with:

I am amazed by the Iraqis’ love of Iraq…
When I sit with them, every person and every family, in separate meetings, no one knows about the other, but there is one common theme pulsing in their hearts, as if they have all agreed upon it among them…
Praise to God… Muslim, Christian, Baptist or Yazeedi, they all say the same words, complain about the same wound… Praise to God who united us on the land of Iraq, to the love of Iraq, and the grief about what happened to it…
And this amazing mixture of people lived together for thousands of years, they had an old, deep, common civilization since the dawn of history………. Many religions and various cultures lived on the land of Iraq, forming this beautiful mixture of people, who got accustomed to living together through the sweet and the bitter… wars, sanction, hunger, poverty and deprivation, until the last war came in 2003; which dedicated the ripping and tearing of this social, cultural and religious fabric, a fabric that survived for thousands of years in a tight solidity from the roots…
Iraq is going now through one of the worst experience in Iraq’s life; a big dilemma that will either break it completely, or, Iraq might emerge from it strong, like the phoenix of the mythology, that will rise from the ashes every time; strong, soaring, like it is created all anew. And that is exactly what I hope will happen one day….

Her vision and her commitment are awe-inspiring.
… Especially when you consider the tragic under-side of what she sees among the Iraqis she works with:

The agonies of the families here are countless… poverty, hunger and deprivation; by lack of finances, lack of food and medical services, patients who come from Iraq with diseases, most of which are cancerous, and the costs of treatment here are disastrous in private hospitals. These people suffer from the shortage of finances to cover the treatment costs, and I personally feel that with them I have lost some face; as I sent e-mails or phone calls asking for financial aid to cover treatment costs for this and that. And then I hear news about some Iraqis who drown themselves in nightclubs, dancing, drinking, and corruption, spending thousands of dollars every night on such silly matters, and say to my self: So; God is our aid, and He is enough.
What is happening to the world? Are we passing a phase of losing noble values and an absence of conscience? Where did this hard-heartedness and indifference come from?
I do not know…
Sometimes I imagine the world is closing down on me, and my chest tightens…. I wish I can find a forest or an island in a far-off ocean to live in, and forget about these tiring creatures called- humans; I no longer have common points with them…. But my sorrow for the poor and the needy prevents me from running away, forcing me into the commitment to remain and help them; knocking on all doors, not to abandon them…
… There is a number of Iraqi women who are alone without families; whose husbands or families were killed and they remained alone, waiting to be re-settled. They face improper advances and molestation by this and that, looking towards a life more dignified and more settled, in some spot in this world.
At work, I daily receive women who were beaten and treated cruelly by their husbands. Poverty is the reason in most cases; or the frustration that befalls the man because of poverty and unemployment; they turn him into a wild, cruel, and aggressive creature. This is what happens to some Iraqi families here; the conditions of displacement, poverty, estrangement and degradation all put pressure on the men and the women and increase the rate of family violence…
Some women also come to complain about their husband’s bad manners, being alcoholics, beating wives and children, or molesting their daughters. God help us; He is our aid, and He is enough…
Are these the signs for the end of time, of the dooms day? That the world has lost its mind, its ethics, its mercy, justice, and all its beautiful features?
I, personally, am tired, but I didn’t lose hope that some people still exist in this world who form a beautiful face to it…

I urge JWN readers to go and read the whole of Faiza’s post there.
One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that the people who do front-line humanitarian aid work, who have by far the richest and most direct understanding of the humanity and needs of those in distress, often don’t have any time or mental energy left over to get their voice out into the public sphere. As a result, on sorts of issues that directly impact the lives and wellbeing of some of the world’s most vulnerable people, the global “public discussion” ends up being dominated by people like law professors or pundits who have sadly little direct experience of what they’re talking about. (Hence, for example, the easy readiness with which such people view the prospect of the civil war in Northern Uganda being prolonged for several additional years while they, the lawyers and law professors, seek to “prove” some abstract point about the theory of “international justice” in an air-conditioned courtroom in The Hague… )
That’s one of the many things that makes Faiza’s voice so special. She is personally living the Iraqi refugee crisis. And she’s personally deeply engaged in responding to it. And then, in addition, from time to time she makes sure she gets her voice out into the global public sphere about these issues that are of such existential concern to her.
Thank you, Faiza.
She doesn’t give any information on her blog about how to donate to support her projects. I suggest that any readers willing and able to give money to good humanitarian-aid projects directed at Iraqi refugees in Jordan or Syria (where their numbers are even greater) can do so through the US-based organization Mercy Corps International.