Iraqi and American Reconciliation Project

In 2009, Minneapolis residents worked with the city council to approve a “Sister City” relationship with Najaf, Iraq. A sister city relationship is about building peaceful relationships between the people of two cities. President Eisenhower launched the idea in 1956, when he called for exchanges between Americans and people of other nations.

Since 2009, Minneapolis residents have hosted seven delegations from Najaf for professional training and friendship-building, sent unarmed individuals (“citizen diplomats”) to Najaf, and helped provide clean water to tens of thousands of students and hospital patients in the Najaf area. Projects and partnerships have developed between academics, businesspeople, artists, and others in the two cities.

This February, six Iraq Ministry of Culture staff persons from Najaf will visit Minneapolis for training on event and festival management, coordinated by Meet Minneapolis: Official Convention + Visitors Bureau. Invited by the Governor of Najaf Province, a large delegation from Minneapolis plans to travel to Najaf in 2012.

As a staff member of the Iraqi and American Reconciliation Project (IARP), the Minneapolis-based nonprofit organization that manages the sister city relationship, I had the opportunity to travel unarmed to Najaf last summer, carrying with me a letter of friendship from Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak to the people of Najaf and the governor of Najaf Province. Hosted by Sami Rasouli, the Iraqi-American director of IARP’s partner organization in Najaf, the Muslim Peacemaker Teams (MPT), I helped teach English classes and visited local families for five weeks.

My thoughts after returning to Minneapolis were similar to those of a Najafi physician after he participated in a medical delegation to Minneapolis: “I am so honored to gain your friendship. Meeting with you made a great difference in my life and thoughts. Thanks for all that you did for me. Hope to see you soon.”

These are small-scale efforts, but they offer an alternative to the narrative of American domination and superiority often present in our country’s foreign policy. In fact, it is in part because they are small-scale that “city” and “citizen” diplomacy can see past the rhetoric and positioning of nation-based international relations. Our country and our foreign policy need the occasional, or frequent, reality check that we are dealing with people and not ambiguous entities called, “nations.”

The relationship between America and Iraq (and America and the world) depends not only on our nation’s actions, but also on the actions of our nation’s communities. The Minneapolis-Najaf sister city relationship is a model of alternative diplomacy–with a peace-building impact that would make President Eisenhower proud.

Luke Wilcox is a staffperson of the Iraqi and American Reconciliation Project. He can be reached at luke (at) reconciliationproject.org.

Below are images from schools and a mosque in Najaf, Iraq, where water filtration units were recently installed by the Iraqi and American Reconciliation Project and our partner, the Muslim Peacemaker Teams. Thanks to donors St. Augustine Church, Cohasset, MN; Albuquerque Mennonite Faith Community, Albuquerque, NM; and Community Presbyterian Church, Cohasset, MN.

Water for Peace is a partnership between Iraqis and Americans to restore access to clean water in Iraqi schools and hospitals. It is a way for Americans and Iraqis to work together to build trust and partnership in place of conflict and fear. To learn more, visit http://waterforpeaceproject.org.

Raed Jarrar is a nationally known Iraqi-American blogger. The below post originally appeared in the Washington Peace Letter.

Voices from Iraq: End the Occupation Now!
By Raed Jarrar

Baghdad did not fall in three weeks, as the U.S. public was made to believe. Baghdad fell after 13 years of wars, air strikes, and economic sanctions. While we think of March 19, 2003 as the day that marks the beginning of the Iraq war, Iraqis believe the war began in January of 1991 – and never stopped.

In Iraq during the 1990s, I remember my father coming home some nights with a black plastic bag, acting suspicious, because he brought us “illegal items.” These items varied, but they included some Iraqi sweets, homemade Coca-Cola, and sometimes white bread – items that were outlawed under the ruthless economic sanctions of the1990s. A strict rationing system was required to ensure there was enough sugar and flour for everyone. Another consequence of the sanctions was the collapsing infrastructure of Iraqi cities. Our schools were falling apart without windows to replace the broken ones, or desks to accommodate new students. The first bombs that were dropped on Baghdad in March 2003 woke me up. I knew it was the last straw – Baghdad would fall in the next few weeks. Baghdad fell under the U.S.-led military occupation on April 9, a date that is commemorated with anannual protest by hundreds of thousands of Iraqis demanding a complete withdrawal of the U.S. armed forces.

This year, protests in Iraq were more intense since the Iraqi public wants and expects the U.S. to withdraw before the end of the year, in accordance with the bilateral security agreement that was signed in 2008. The agreement included a clear plan with two deadlines for a complete U.S. military departure. The first required all U.S. combat forces to withdraw from Iraqi cities, towns, and villages by June 30, 2009. The second deadline, which Iraqis are watching very closely,requires the complete withdrawal of all U.S. troops (combat and non-combat)and shutdown of all U.S. military bases before December 31, 2011. For Iraqis,a recent visit by Secretary Gates and other top military officials to Iraq was seen as an attempt to delay or cancel the December 31 deadline. This sparked massive demonstrations, including threats to resort to violence if the U.S. stayed longer. Muqtada Al-Sadr, the prominent nationalist Shia cleric, encouraged his followers to take up armed resistance if U.S. forces stayed after the end of the year. Harith Ad-Dhari, from the nationalist Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, demanded that the U.S. stick to the current deadline for withdrawal.

The U.S. military occupation has been causing death and destruction, destabilizing Iraq, and delegitimizing its government. Extending the occupation will discredit President Obama after his repeated promises to abide by the deadline,and will destroy what is left of Obama’s political capital in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

Repairing the damage done to the U.S.-Iraq relationship will take a lot of  work. Iraq set an example for the U.S. to follow in its actions following theIraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 – paying compensation to Kuwait and its citizens, through a United Nations program, without restrictions or interfering in the country’s domestic issues. The United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) is still working to compensate Kuwait for the crimes committed against them during the Iraqi invasion and military occupation. More information on the commission’s work can be found at www.UNCC.ch. In addition,citizens from the U.S. and Iraq should engage in a serious dialogue to discuss the damage that has been done to American-Iraqi relations, and should determine ways to work on bilateral reconciliation. As an Iraqi-American, I know that people from both sides want to rebuild the bridges that were burned in the last two decades, and I know that we can do it with the efforts of ordinary Iraqis and Americans.

Raed Jarrar is an Iraqi-American blogger and political advocate based in Washington, D.C.

GiveMN tool kit: Birthday fundraisers

Got a birthday coming up? Well then, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! We hope you get everything you want. However, if you feel like you’ve got enough stuff already, consider asking your friends and family to make a donation to IARP in lieu of gifts. Other folks are doing it, check out these fabulous fundraisers:

http://givemn.razoo.com/story/Mollysbirthday

http://givemn.razoo.com/story/Jason-And-Nicola-s-Birthday-Wish

To start your own fundraiser, visit http://givemn.razoo.com/p/how-to-setup-a-fundraiser

The original version of this article appeared in The Veteran (Spring 2011).

By Luke Wilcox

“It’s not clear how much time passed. Perhaps it was only a handful of minutes. Suddenly, she awoke to a burst of pain. Sitting squarely on top of her legs was a shell bomb. Shock and horror. Crushing weight. Loss of consciousness. An errant US shell had crashed through her bedroom wall and landed on top of her as she slept in bed. It did not detonate. If it had, this would be a different story. There would be nothing left to speak of.”

— Excerpt from Zainab Jawhar, a book by Clare Beer, Monica Haller, and Zainab Jawhar appearing in the exhibit, Navigating the Aftermath.

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Navigating the Aftermath is an art exhibit and campaign that creates a shared space for Iraqis and Americans to speak about the ongoing war in Iraq and its consequences.

Organized by the Iraqi and American Reconciliation Project (IARP), Navigating the Aftermath opened on February 18 at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. From June to October, it will tour with the film, The Unreturned (a documentary film following five Iraqi refugee families), to six towns in Minnesota: Duluth, Ely, Mankato, Bemidji, St. Cloud, and Winona.

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