electronicIraq.net
Iraq Diaries

Trauma Story

Cliff Kindy, Electronic Iraq
2 February 2005

The thirteen people in the circle were activists, committed to human rights. On this day Peggy Gish invited the circle to examine the topic of trauma as part of the five-day training that CPT Iraq brought to the group in Kerbala.

The nine Iraqis hemmed and hawed after Nadia, the facilitator for the day, held up a red paper heart and asked them to tell a story of trauma and then tear out a piece of the heart to indicate symbolically how each was wounded by the trauma. "The heart isn't big enough to show all the pain we each have experienced." "Every Iraqi could tell stories without end." Finally two of the CPTers told an example of trauma in their lives.

The floodgate opened. Assad grabbed the heart. "In the Iraq/Iran War, people died all around me. I slept with dead bodies until they were carried away. I helped bury the bodies after the 1991 resistance to Saddam Hussein. In this war (2003 US invasion of Iraq), I watched as a friend exploded before my eyes as he de-fused US cluster bombs." He started to continue, but Nadia encouraged him to let others share.

Abbas spoke. "In 2003, a child was at the scene as another child died violently. The child was unable to speak for a year." He tore a corner from the heart and sat down. Ahmed, a practitioner at the Kerbala hospital, stood and reported his pain at the dozens of bodies that came to the hospital after the explosions in December 2004. Another told of a sniper who blew up his friend who was at his side in a war. He had to carry the body away.

Another story surfaced. "The oldest in a group of handicapped children told me that their teacher was the hero who saved their lives during the bombing by Saddam Hussein in 1991 here in Kerbala." Then Nadia took back the heart. "I was a student in the college of literature in Baghdad. I am one of three sisters and four brothers with a politically active father who was in exile. Saddam removed me from the university and placed me in the local technical school. We were all threatened by the regime." Another took the heart from Nadia. "I was working at the hospital where we had volunteered to help as the tragedy developed. A man came with a box of body parts. He opened the box and pleaded, 'What can we do?'"

Finally Sami, the translator, took his turn at the request of the other Iraqis. "I was fighting in the north in 1975. I went on leave. When I returned, I looked and looked, but my entire unit was new. All my companions were dead. I wanted to kill myself. I could not manage the pain."

"How do we handle this trauma we have?" Nadia queried. Almost immediately Ala'a responded, "First we cry, initially with words and then in silence. Men and women, we cry."

This group of people was gathered to form a Muslim Peacemaking Team. In the later evaluation of the day Assad shared, "I am an angry person, easily agitated. I am a different person because of you. I want to participate in a CPT action."



Related Links
# Christian Peacemaker Teams


Christian Peacemaker Teams is an ecumenical violence-reduction program with roots in the historic peace churches. Teams of trained peace workers live in areas of lethal conflict around the world. CPT has been present in Iraq since October, 2002. To learn more about CPT, please visit http://www.cpt.org. Photos of CPT projects may be viewed at www.cpt.org/gallery

a direct feed to Electronic Iraq is available at our website, http://www.duckdaotsu.org/newspage.html