Halabja Memorial
16/3/1988
The day of the Halabja Genocide- the 16th of March, 1988.
The white writing around the walls are the names of those murdered during or missing since the attack:
Each name signifies a human being whose life was deemed worthless by Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist party. Human beings who were brutally murdered by a gruesome mixture of chemical weapons (most of which were supplied by western companies, the majority from Germany and the United States- as well as a $5 billion loan to Hussein granted by Christopher Drogoul, a banker based in Atlanta). For more information on this, see Shuurman p 99-108 and the related appendices and citations. But I'm here to talk about people, not politics.
[Graphic language ahead]
These husbands, wives, sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters did not know that the first bombs dropped on Halabja that day were simply meant to break windows and doors. They did not know that these "normal" bombs were only dropped to ensure that the chemical weapons dropped soon after would be able to enter all of the homes and businesses and shops, so that there was no shelter from the Mustard Gas, Sarin, VX, and Tabun. To ensure that as many people as possible would receive lethal doses accompanied by blistering of the skin or eyes or lungs or mouth, burning of those same organs, inability to breathe, vomiting, paralysis until strangulation, bleeding from the mouth or nose or eyes, or more likely, some combination of the above.
This is a personal blog, and many of you are reading this because you want to know more about what is going on with me here, so I am not writing this as another piece on the politics of Halabja, or to talk about speculations on how much the US government under Bush knew about Saddam's actions when they supported them during this period, or to talk about the known connections of many US and European based companies with the Ba'athists' chemical weapons program. However, in order to talk about Halabja, you must realize the horror of the genocide committed there, and the horror of genocide is never completely separate from the politics of genocide.
I am now going to be completely honest: as I walked up to the Halabja Memorial, I felt excited in a selfish (and now looking back- shameful) way. I told myself I would try to be emotionally prepared, but instead I prepared myself to take in information so that I could make better arguments and present my interesting closer-to-first-hand-than-you knowledge. It took about 10 minutes and an image of a man covering his child in an attempt to protect her from an invisible airborne death for me to realize how little I understood. It only took another 10 seconds and a few images of little boys and girls and their moms and dads lying in the dirt with bloody, blistered faces for me to really see the horror that I had originally only come to look at. The distinction is huge. It's the difference between saying "that's so terrible" and saying absolutely nothing because you realize how arrogant it would be to try to put a suffering you can't understand into words.
We were taken around the memorial by one of the few remaining survivors of the gas attacks. But survivor does not mean he is not a victim. In addition to the emotional devastation of losing his entire family in a day, being presumed dead, and waking up on a truck piled with dead bodies wearing his own burial scarf, he and his wife have tried to have three children- all three were stillborn. He told us his story, how he was taken to Iran and treated and taken care of there. Taking a picture with this man as we left the memorial was... humbling, to say the least.
Hearing this man's story firsthand, as well as the stories of others and seeing so many images from the Halabja massacre is definitely something I will be bringing home with me. And it may indeed come up in an argument or discussion and I may actually use those experiences to try to prove some point sometime. I hope, however, that I do it with a different mindset. I have written before about seeing the people behind the statistics and facts and arguments. I didn't leave for Halabja ready and trying to do that, but it happened. And I'm glad it did.
I tried to snap a shot of the sign as we walked out of one dark section of the memorial- it didn't turn out well and wouldn't be readable if even the top was in English- but I can tell you what it said:
"Life and victory for all nations. Death for all kinds of racism."
The Halabja genocide overseen by "Chemical Ali" under Saddam Hussein is only the most well known of the atrocities carried out against the Kurds during the genocidal "Al-Anfal" campaign. I encourage you to research and read and see more about it yourself.
I am now going to go use my non-blistered, non-burnt, healthy lungs and legs and eyes that I thank God for to go play football with Kurdish friends.
Much love from Iraqi Kurdistan,
Alex
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