THE FOLLY OF WAR – A PERSONAL LAMENT OF LOSS AND FINDING HOPE with my Guest SAFA FADHIL AL SULTANI in Baghdad
Smitten By Faith Issue Number : #000033 March 19th 2022
Left and right : Sad pictures of death and destruction - the invasion and war in Ukraine which started on 24th February 2022
Above : Escaping a war - the human cost - the exodus of millions from Ukraine to border countries
In 2014 when Pope Francis visited the military war memorial at Redipuglia in Italy, he spoke with immense pain about the millions of lives lost during the two world wars. He said, “…war is folly … war ruins everything; even bonds between brothers. War is irrational; its only plan is to bring destruction: it seeks to grow by destroying.”
In the Pope’s Christmas message in 2017, he again sadly lamented the “winds of war” blowing around the world. But the world still has not heeded his call; those who wage war refuse to listen; and here is a very sad fact – that there has never been a time since the end of the Second World War in 1945 that the entire world has been at peace. There have always been pockets of wars – here and there – all over the world. Look at some interesting statistics compiled in 2003 by The New York Times: in the past 3,400 years, nations have been entirely at peace for only 268 of them or just 8 percent of recorded history. Imagine that! And, even more horrifying, at least 108 million people have been killed in wars in the twentieth century alone. Estimates for the total number killed in wars throughout all of human history range from 150 million to 1 billion. It is a staggering and shameful figure. In the 20th and 21st centuries, we continue with this insanity. Here are some of these senseless wars - in no chronological order - Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, Israel, Korea, Vietnam, Crimea, Syria, Somalia, Cuba, Haiti, Congo, Chechnya, Libya and so on. The list is actually endless and too heart-breaking for me to compile.
And now, just very recently, on 24th February 2022, there is a new unprovoked war; an invasion of a sovereign nation by another. This time the predator is Russia (with its huge military resources including nuclear weapons) against a sovereign Ukraine whose President says that Ukrainians will die to the last man before it surrenders to Russia. War is such a folly. Such a madness. From the moment of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, now in its 4th week, there has been a global chorus of support for Ukraine and universal unequivocal condemnation of Putin and his illegal reckless invasion. With relentless indiscriminate bombardment of Ukrainian cities by Russia, the civilian casualties in Ukraine already number in the thousands and there are already 3 million refugees continuously streaming into the border countries of Poland, Moldovia, Romania and Hungary. Before it ends, this dishonorable war will displace millions more of the 44 million Ukrainians.
As I publish this article today, on the 24th day of the war, Ukraine has not surrendered; the Ukrainians stand united to fight to the last man. But, many parts of the country have been reduced to rubble and pain and suffering are everywhere. The world supports Ukraine with financial and economic sanctions against Russia; they support them with logistics, food, military aid etc. Most of all, we support Ukraine with our hearts and prayers. The massive world outcry against Russia continues unabated. We have a communal lament; a national lament; a global lament – for so many hundreds of thousands of innocent lives which eventually will be lost in this senseless war.
Above : Pictures of another destructive war - the Iraq War and Civil Insurgency 2003 to 2011
Courage to withstand this is needed. As a shining example of courage in the face of loss, I would like to re-produce below a poignant and moving personal lament from a very brave and courageous young Iraqi woman, SAFA FADHIL AL SULTANI who wrote the most beautiful lament ( below ) for my book, ‘Millennials Meet Mary’ in 2020. I am extracting Safa’s passage from the book - brave words; not just acknowledging loss but also giving hope. What Safa wrote in 2020 about how she grew up in an Iraq at war – another war; another aggressor – the suffering of the Iraqi people in the 10 years following 2003 is as relevant today in 2022 as it applies to the suffering of all the brave Ukrainians. Today, Safa will be our lens to view the folly of war; lament our loss – how to endure loss; how to have courage, and how to carry on.
Above : Pictures of Safa Fadhil Al Sultani at a Baghdad conference doing what she loves best - speaking out and training young people
As a child and then as a young girl, Safa went through the terrible conflict and war in Iraq from 2003 to 2011. It is known as the Iraq War or Second Persian Gulf War. In 2003 the combined American and British forces invaded Iraq; attacked the government of Saddam Hussein for ‘possessing weapons of mass destruction’. The US led occupation of Iraq and the terrible insurgency and civil war which followed lasted more than a decade. Just like millions of ordinary Iraqis, Safa and her family went through hell; they underwent long years of deprivation. In Iraq, Safa never really had a ‘normal’ childhood; no access to good food, quality education, health care and most of all, freedom of movement, opinions and thoughts. Worse happened to her family. During the years of war and insurgency, Safa lost first her elder brother and then her father. Although Safa’s story is heartbreaking; her story is indeed one of bravery and courage in the face of adversity and loss.
In 2003, Safa’s mother became a member of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) which constituted of 25 members, 3 of whom were women. Safa’s mother as a member of the IGC was working hard to formulate a new constitution for their devastated country. In one of her negotiating roles, Safa’s mother went on a mission to Najaf to mediate between the US and an opposition group. She was successful but, on her way back to Baghdad her convoy was attacked and Safa’s elder brother who was accompanying their mother was killed in an instant. In that moment, Safa lost not just her beloved brother but also her best friend and tutor. Safa was only in 9th grade at school and was about to take her final exams that week. Instead of falling to pieces, Safa buried her brother (she so hates funerals today), went on to take the exams and passed with distinction. Bravery indeed.
But Safa had to endure more. The Iraqi civil war continued and in 2007, her father who was a successful businessman was killed. Now, she had lost both her brother and her father and she was only 16 years old. Together with her other brother and sister, Safa was sent away from Iraq for their safety. Later, Safa graduated with a B.A in Business Administration and a MSc in Finance from the American University of Beirut and made it her mission in life to pursue her father’s passion for her to succeed as a vigorous and exceptional woman. Today, Safa’s father would be so proud of her. Safa is utterly fearless. She received the prestigious Chevening Scholarship to study for her MSc in the UK at Kings College in London. By the age of 25 years, Safa was the youngest, only female board member at one of the biggest publicly listed companies in Iraq, Baghdad Soft Drinks, Pepsi Co, and she was also a financial analyst at the largest foreign investment fund in Iraq. But Safa finds it most fulfilling to help train the youth in business plans development as part of UNDP’s Program, ‘Innovation for Development’. She also trains widowed women as part of GIZ program for Prosperity Catalyst Organization, teaching them how to formulate business plans. Until early 2020, Safa was an Executive Assistant at the Presidency of Iraq. She has accompanied the Presidency Team to the UN General Assembly in New York among others and is usually the only woman wearing a dress in the team! Today, Safa has moved from her previous position in the Presidency to work full time for the UNDP Accelerator Lab in Iraq fulfilling a commitment which is best articulated by Safa herself, “I want to have a mission in life, not just to live. I want a prosperous life for myself and for my community; I don’t want more youth to have to live the life I lived; I cannot help everyone, but I can defiantly help some. I want to, and to some degree have achieved that - to transform the loss I had in my life and make it a motive to achieve and to be a decision-maker in the prosperity of this community.”
Safa quotes, Eershad Guness and his amazing words on loss, “Someday you will be faced with the reality of loss ...You will never forget them ... They will live on in the warmth of your broken heart that doesn't fully heal back up, and you will continue to grow and experience life, even with your wound. It's like breaking an ankle that never heals perfectly, and that still hurts when you dance, but you dance anyway with a slight limp, and this limp just adds to the depth of your performance and the authenticity of your character. The people you lose remain a part of you. Remember them and always cherish the good moments spent with them.”
Safa says that she would add to this by cherishing the lessons our loved ones taught us through their lives and their deaths. Let us join Safa Fadhil Al Sultani and dedicate Safa’s Lament from Iraq to the people of Ukraine; their young women and children who are now going through what Safa went through herself in Iraq 20 years ago.
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A PERSONAL LAMENT ON WAR and FINDING COURAGE
By SAFA FADHIL AL SULTANI
Baghdad, Iraq March 19th 2020
Above : A poised and tranquil Safa today - a life touched by war but blessed by God.
Lamentation is necessary to express one’s grief, yet it is a grievous way to unfold one's true nature and courage; that before courage and enthusiasm to transform can emerge, unbearable pain should be felt and expressed. …. I have felt such loss, lived it and it affected my life ever after. I still remember painfully the time when my father brought the casket of my brother home to say one final goodbye. An eternal goodbye to my brother’s body, but never his spirit and the values he stood for. I see my brother’s tomb in the middle of our garden and next to his favorite olive tree. I still feel the grief which my parents and younger siblings felt. Next to his casket, on the grass, we were filled with tears, denying this ugly reality and begging my brother to come back to life. At this moment my mother told us, ‘you cannot oppose God’s will, but to be honest I too want my eldest son back.’ Then my father said, ‘we cannot leave him out here in the sun, let us bring him inside.’ We took him inside while we cleaned the tomb outside. Even though it was just a tomb, it would be the burial place of my own brother and we wanted to treat it with love and care. After that, for most of the upcoming two years, I always dreamt of my brother coming back, but it was just a dream! It took me time to realize the reality of loss, the proximity of death, and to grieve for my loved ones but also for myself because I knew I will never be the same person again. Death had disturbed my peace, my stillness and my comfortable life. In my previous life, I was a spoiled daughter who lived in a bubble of comfort despite everything that was happening in her country. My only duties in life, the ones that I was conscious about, were getting good grades, working hard and honoring the family name.
The continuing strife in Iraq shook my foundations and pushed me to realize other values my father had instilled in me - of amounting to something in society. This in turn gave me resilience, persistence, and courage, which I realized precisely in 2006. This was the year I moved with my two siblings to Jordan to live there – on our own- to escape the civil war in Baghdad while my parents had to stay in Baghdad to work. I am speaking about a 14-year-old girl who had to take care of her two younger siblings; living by ourselves, cleaning, paying the bills, going to school, making sure to behave and most importantly still recovering from the trauma of the death of their eldest brother from an armed attack. This was the first responsibility I ever had to face in life; not by choice, but by necessity. I thought I would fail; I thought I wouldn't be able to recover from the shock of my brother’s death; the separation from my parents; and the responsibility of taking care of my younger siblings, two amazing human beings, but I did not. I found courage which I was not even aware of. I remember writing in my journals, “These wounds are deep but it is all in your head Safa. You can direct your heart to tolerate and be patient, and your head to be persistent through finding motivation and joy in the transformation that is happening in you and through you to others.”
And today, I would say this is my definition of courage. This courage to contend with my own valid feelings of pain, weakness and devastation made everything that came after, manageable. …The deaths of my dear ones …devastated me and this loss changed me; or to put in a more ‘positive’ way, it nourished my true courageous self to come forth and gave me the motivation to hope that I can still do something, no matter how little it would be, to prevent future generations from going through the rough paths I went through.
This quote from Rumi has been my patient guide: “Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.” I abide by this even though sometimes it is so hard to believe that loss, grief and pain are the doors for light and courage.
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