A personal note from Donna Mulhearn

Dear friends

It’s my birthday today (16th), and I would like to invite you to help me celebrate!

To be more specific there’s a gift I would love to receive above anything else: the chance to tell a story that urgently needs to be told, to give voice to those whose voices are rarely heard: the women and children of a dusty, war-torn Middle Eastern town struggling to survive a war that, for them, has never ended.

On the contrary, the war begins anew every day in the maternity ward of Fallujah City Hospital where gynaecologists say that on average three babies are born each day with severe deformities. That’s more than 1000 a year for what is now a relatively small town. Many babies are stillborn, others live a few hours, and the majority of those who survive will only live a few months such is the severity of their abnormalities. Fallujah cemetery is littered with tiny ‘baby’ graves. Others, who make it past their first birthday, will need intensive specialist care for the rest of their lives.

The medical recommendation of the gynaecologists to the women of Fallujah is simple: “just stop”. Stop having babies, stop falling pregnant because it is likely you will not give birth to a healthy baby.

These words carry a shocking implication: a whole generation of young women who will never be mothers, a whole generation of babies, little human beings, who will never see light, or laugh or feel love.

This is life now, in Fallujah - a once-thriving town the size of Newcastle or Wollongong. Once alive with growing families, bustling markets, ornate mosques, sporting fields, schools, industry and the famous ‘best falafel’ in all of Iraq.

Now the residents of this toxic, war-ravaged, virtual ghost-town are the ones who simply can’t afford to flee, or have nowhere else to go.

The dramatic rise in birth deformities in Fallujah began in 2005, a year after intense U.S military attacks on the city in April 2004 and again in November 2004. It is alleged that depleted uranium was used widely in the attacks as well as white phosphorous, and that the toxic nature of these substances and their subsequent contamination of the local eco-system, is the reason for the rise in birth abnormalities, as well as an increase in cancers and leukaemia amongst adults. This would seem a logical conclusion given the evidence we have on the impact of depleted uranium on human beings. But the U.S military has denied there is a problem, claiming there is no solid evidence of a link between its use of chemical weapons and the dramatic increase in birth deformities in Fallujah. It claims reports are anecdotal, that there are no accurate figures or research to respond to. So it refuses to respond - as does the World Health Organisation, despite pleading from Doctors, Iraqi and international human rights groups and medical NGOs around the world. At the same time, the military occupation makes it almost impossible for western researchers to go to Fallujah to do research. Despite this, one research team, led by UK scientist Prof Chris Busy, did get into the city and conducted a major survey, the results of which are confronting and demanding of a response by governments. The research, published this year in an international health journal, concluded that the birth defects and other health problems in Fallujah such as cancers and leukaemia are worse than in the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki following the use of atomic bombs there.

I repeat. The health problems in Fallujah are deemed worse than the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A copy of Prof Busby’s report can be found here:
www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/7/2828/pdf

News items and short docos on this issue can be found here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-legacy-of-us-assault-on-fallujah-worse-than-hiroshima-2034065.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8549745.stm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFqyK8kB1Vk
You may have noticed this story has barely made it on to the radar of the Australian or U.S media. But I’m sure you agree it is a story that needs to be widely told and responded to with immediate action. The babies of Fallujah deserve justice and the women of Fallujah deserve hope.
That’s where you come into the picture. Dr Richard Hil, a semi-retired academic and author, and myself have decided to collaborate to tell the story of the babies of Fallujah from the point of view of the families themselves. We hope to produce a book, a documentary and resources to contribute to the world-wide campaign to ban depleted uranium weapons (DU) so that this can never happen again.

To do this we will need to go to Fallujah. The aim is to use the scientific data from Prof Busy and others, and humanise it through the stories of the children, the grief of the mothers, the struggle of the families and the views of the town elders. But, as you could imagine, getting into Fallujah will be a major logistical challenge, which is why we will need your help. The cost of the mission and the extra safety precautions we will need to take mean a very large budget that we cannot fund ourselves.

My first invitation to you is to help send Richard and I to Fallujah early next year to make this a reality. Together we can ensure this story is told. You are also invited to help with other needs for the campaign to ensure justice, accountability and an end to the use of DU weapons. We will need help with a website, lobbying of governments to achieve new U.N resolutions, distribution of information, graphic design, publicising the issues in your groups etc
More on that in due course, but first, for my birthday, you can give me the most useful present ever - please donate an amount that you can afford to an appeal that will support the logistics of this project: $20, $50 - if enough of you respond in a small way, it will be possible!
We believe this project can make an important contribution to the international campaign to ban depleted uranium. (We now have an international treaty banning cluster munitions; we can do the same for depleted uranium weapons). It can help ensure justice for Fallujah, and above all acknowledge the suffering of the people who are so often overlooked by our governments and corporate media. It will give us the chance, on behalf of all of you, to say “we are sorry, and we will work for change”.

For me this is personal. Many of you are aware of my intimate links with depleted uranium. My relationship with baby Noura, a DU baby I met in Baghdad in 2003 who was born with no arms and legs. She is just a torso and a head, but her smile and her energy has a profound effect on me. Then there was Arean: the girl from Basra I met in Baghdad Children’s hospital who was dying of leukaemia because of the use of depleted uranium in the 1991 Gulf War.
My interaction with her was powerful and sacred, something I will never forget. My book, Ordinary Courage, is dedicated to her memory because she helped me realise that all we have to do is what we can do. That will empower us when faced with shocking situations like this one.

I was present in Fallujah in April 2004 when the U.S attack was taking place and was an eye-witness to the massacre of civilians there.
And then there’s my exposure to depleted uranium during my time in Iraq which has affected my fertility options (explanation of this in the last section of my book).

The story of the Fallujah women is my story. Their babies are our babies.
Arean, a dying Iraqi girl, body riddled with leukaemia, gave me hope the day I met her because she taught me that although I could not save her, I should not cry for too long over what I cannot do. She encouraged me to think of what I can do....to think of who I am, and what I can actually do to contribute to change.

I am not a Doctor, but I have a notepad and camera. I am not a scientist but I can go to Fallujah, (I know the way), I can listen to the people there, I can help give them a voice. That’s what I can do.
And that’s just the start. With all of you, we’ll do much more than that.

Your pilgrim
Donna

PS: If you are able to contribute to my birthday wish, the bank account details are: Commonwealth Bank, a/c name: Donna Mulhearn – volunteer expenses, BSB: 062 181 a/c number: 1030 5704, or if you want to do the old fashioned cheque thing, reply to this email and I’ll send my address.

PPS: Dr Richard Hil is Honorary Associate in the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney. Richard has taught previously at Southern Cross University, Queensland University of Technology, University of the Sunshine Coast, James Cook University, and the University of York. He has published widely in the fields of criminology, child and family welfare, youth studies, and peace and conflict studies. He’s also a great guy with a big heart!
PPPS: More news soon on how to pressure the Australian government to support U.N resolutions which challenge the use of depleted uranium. At the last vote, they abstained, while 131 nations supported the resolution. The United States voted against the resolution. Why did we abstain?

PSx4: If you want to grab a copy of my book, you can now purchase one from me, so you don’t have to pay bookshop price ($32.95) rather my ‘mate’s’ price ($25). Just email back and I’ll post you out a copy, see www.ordinarycourage.org


PSx5: “When I saw her suffering it made me so depressed. I hated the world. I feel like I’m having a nervous breakdown. She stopped sleeping recently and cries with anger.” Mother of Baby Tiba from Fallujah, born with two heads, who has now passed away.

Interfaith Dialogue and Rabbi Ron Kronish

Joshua Stanton
Co-editor, 'Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue'
Can Interfaith Dialogue Make a Difference in the Face of Middle East Setbacks?
For many, the end of the moratorium on settlement construction in the West Bank feels devastating. Could it mean the end of the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians? Could it lead to another round of violence?
But for one rabbi, it is just another day of work. He has been making peace longer than most diplomats -- and arguably with greater success.
Rabbi Ron Kronish, Executive Director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel (ICCI), has been living in Israel for 31 years and carries himself with the assuredness of someone who has experienced a great deal and will find a way, somehow, to overcome new obstacles.
Having arrived in Israel in the euphoric wake of the '67 War, in which Israel assured its own survival and overnight found itself to be one of the region's strongest military powers, he has seen the hope for an enduring diplomatic peace evaporate time and time again between Israelis and Palestinians and many of the nationalistic ideals of both peoples undone by war.
As a "Post-Zionist Zionist" who acknowledges many of Israel's national myths but takes great pride in his adopted country nonetheless, Kronish's identity and vocation have been shaped by the idea that there are just two options in the current conflict: You can "be ensconced in despair and stop watching the news" or "avoid 100 years of war and don't let them [Israelis and Palestinians] be enemies" -- at least person-to-person.
It is of little surprise that Kronish has not cultivated a "can do" so much as a "must do" personality. The ICCI was founded in the midst of the Persian Gulf War of 1991, and the two dozen founding members met in one of Jerusalem's seminaries with great gusto and gas masks in hand to formally launch it. Not even the threat of scud missiles from Saddam Hussein could dissuade them.
In many ways, that gathering has been symbolic of ICCI's work and Ron Kronish's outlook as its leader: Peace can only be made through hard-nosed efforts to make it happen on the ground. The time for fluffy dialogue had long passed. The time for a political solution may stretch on into the future. Now is the time for transformational gatherings that produce results for citizens, not just politicians.
One of the ICCI's flagship programs is the "Face to Face/Faith to Faith" initiative, run in partnership with Auburn Theological Seminary for high school students in and around Jerusalem. I had the chance to meet up with the some of its participants just after the 2009 Gaza War. The room, full of about a dozen cheerful Israeli and Palestinian high school students, contrasted with the grim political scene. The group's conversations that day centered on outreach to houses of worship in order to involve them in inter-religious work and volunteer efforts that would assist both Israeli and Palestinian communities.
The underlying determination of the group gradually became apparent as I grew to know its participants. Lighthearted conversations gave way to more serious discussions about how their group managed to stay together in spite of the Gaza War -- and in contrast to nearly every other interfaith group for Israeli and Palestinian youth. "If we were able to get through those times without hating each other, nothing can keep us from being friends," one student told me, with an intense smile on her face. She then went on to tell me how the group had grappled with the toughest, most personal issues of the war.
Several students dropped out of the program; many cried, raised their voices, or had to take a few moments to themselves. A number had friends or relatives in Gaza, while others had loved ones in the Israeli army or the south of Israel, which was impacted by ongoing rocket fire. But the program's organizers refused to ignore the issues and pushed the group to confront them head-on.
By engaging directly with the toughest topics of the time -- life and death, injustice, bad politics, theology, the media's spin -- students managed to dialogue their way through the war and emerge from it ready to lead their communities and work together. They spent the remainder of the year leading volunteer programs and demonstrating that even in the most infuriating moments of diplomacy and war, interfaith engagement and leadership development can endure. They must.
As I reflect on the recent, unsettling news about the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, I look to the example of Ron Kronish. Even when inspired to work for peace by the belief that "we are all part of God's creation," he has shown that it is the tough, up-front, determined dialogue among citizens that sustains the possibility of a lasting political accord. There is no choice but to continue on.

Kashmir’s Fruits of Discord By ARUNDHATI ROY

Search All NYTimes.com
Published: November 8, 2010
A WEEK before he was elected in 2008, President Obama said that solving the dispute over Kashmir’s struggle for self-determination — which has led to three wars between India and Pakistan since 1947 — would be among his “critical tasks.” His remarks were greeted with consternation in India, and he has said almost nothing about Kashmir since then.
But on Monday, during his visit here, he pleased his hosts immensely by saying the United States would not intervene in Kashmir and announcing his support for India’s seat on the United Nations Security Council. While he spoke eloquently about threats of terrorism, he kept quiet about human rights abuses in Kashmir.
Whether Mr. Obama decides to change his position on Kashmir again depends on several factors: how the war in Afghanistan is going, how much help the United States needs from Pakistan and whether the government of India goes aircraft shopping this winter. (An order for 10 Boeing C-17 Globemaster III aircraft, worth $5.8 billion, among other huge business deals in the pipeline, may ensure the president’s silence.) But neither Mr. Obama’s silence nor his intervention is likely to make the people in Kashmir drop the stones in their hands.
I was in Kashmir 10 days ago, in that beautiful valley on the Pakistani border, home to three great civilizations — Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist. It’s a valley of myth and history. Some believe that Jesus died there; others that Moses went there to find the lost tribe. Millions worship at the Hazratbal shrine, where a few days a year a hair of the Prophet Muhammad is displayed to believers.
Now Kashmir, caught between the influence of militant Islam from Pakistan and Afghanistan, America’s interests in the region and Indian nationalism (which is becoming increasingly aggressive and “Hinduized”), is considered a nuclear flash point. It is patrolled by more than half a million soldiers and has become the most highly militarized zone in the world.
The atmosphere on the highway between Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar, and my destination, the little apple town of Shopian in the south, was tense. Groups of soldiers were deployed along the highway, in the orchards, in the fields, on the rooftops and outside shops in the little market squares. Despite months of curfew, the “stone pelters” calling for “azadi” (freedom), inspired by the Palestinian intifada, were out again. Some stretches of the highway were covered with so many of these stones that you needed an S.U.V. to drive over them.
Fortunately the friends I was with knew alternative routes down the back lanes and village roads. The “longcut” gave me the time to listen to their stories of this year’s uprising. The youngest, still a boy, told us that when three of his friends were arrested for throwing stones, the police pulled out their fingernails — every nail, on both hands.
For three years in a row now, Kashmiris have been in the streets, protesting what they see as India’s violent occupation. But the militant uprising against the Indian government that began with the support of Pakistan 20 years ago is in retreat. The Indian Army estimates that there are fewer than 500 militants operating in the Kashmir Valley today. The war has left 70,000 dead and tens of thousands debilitated by torture. Many, many thousands have “disappeared.” More than 200,000 Kashmiri Hindus have fled the valley. Though the number of militants has come down, the number of Indian soldiers deployed remains undiminished.
But India’s military domination ought not to be confused with a political victory. Ordinary people armed with nothing but their fury have risen up against the Indian security forces. A whole generation of young people who have grown up in a grid of checkpoints, bunkers, army camps and interrogation centers, whose childhood was spent witnessing “catch and kill” operations, whose imaginations are imbued with spies, informers, “unidentified gunmen,” intelligence operatives and rigged elections, has lost its patience as well as its fear. With an almost mad courage, Kashmir’s young have faced down armed soldiers and taken back their streets.
Since April, when the army killed three civilians and then passed them off as “terrorists,” masked stone throwers, most of them students, have brought life in Kashmir to a grinding halt. The Indian government has retaliated with bullets, curfew and censorship. Just in the last few months, 111 people have been killed, most of them teenagers; more than 3,000 have been wounded and 1,000 arrested.
But still they come out, the young, and throw stones. They don’t seem to have leaders or belong to a political party. They represent themselves. And suddenly the second-largest standing army in the world doesn’t quite know what to do. The Indian government doesn’t know whom to negotiate with. And many Indians are slowly realizing they have been lied to for decades. The once solid consensus on Kashmir suddenly seems a little fragile.
I WAS in a bit of trouble the morning we drove to Shopian. A few days earlier, at a public meeting in Delhi, I said that Kashmir was disputed territory and, contrary to the Indian government’s claims, it couldn’t be called an “integral” part of India. Outraged politicians and news anchors demanded that I be arrested for sedition. The government, terrified of being seen as “soft,” issued threatening statements, and the situation escalated. Day after day, on prime-time news, I was being called a traitor, a white-collar terrorist and several other names reserved for insubordinate women. But sitting in that car on the road to Shopian, listening to my friends, I could not bring myself to regret what I had said in Delhi.
We were on our way to visit a man called Shakeel Ahmed Ahangar. The previous day he had come all the way to Srinagar, where I had been staying, to press me, with an urgency that was hard to ignore, to visit Shopian.
I first met Shakeel in June 2009, only a few weeks after the bodies of Nilofar, his 22-year-old wife, and Asiya, his 17-year-old sister, were found lying a thousand yards apart in a shallow stream in a high-security zone — a floodlit area between army and state police camps. The first postmortem report confirmed rape and murder. But then the system kicked in. New autopsy reports overturned the initial findings and, after the ugly business of exhuming the bodies, rape was ruled out. It was declared that in both cases the cause of death was drowning. Protests shut Shopian down for 47 days, and the valley was convulsed with anger for months. Eventually it looked as though the Indian government had managed to defuse the crisis. But the anger over the killings has magnified the intensity of this year’s uprising.
Shakeel wanted us to visit him in Shopian because he was being threatened by the police for speaking out, and hoped our visit would demonstrate that people even outside of Kashmir were looking out for him, that he was not alone.
It was apple season in Kashmir and as we approached Shopian we could see families in their orchards, busily packing apples into wooden crates in the slanting afternoon light. I worried that a couple of the little red-cheeked children who looked so much like apples themselves might be crated by mistake. The news of our visit had preceded us, and a small knot of people were waiting on the road.
Shakeel’s house is on the edge of the graveyard where his wife and sister are buried. It was dark by the time we arrived, and there was a power failure. We sat in a semicircle around a lantern and listened to him tell the story we all knew so well. Other people entered the room. Other terrible stories poured out, ones that are not in human rights reports, stories about what happens to women who live in remote villages where there are more soldiers than civilians. Shakeel’s young son tumbled around in the darkness, moving from lap to lap. “Soon he’ll be old enough to understand what happened to his mother,” Shakeel said more than once.
Just when we rose to leave, a messenger arrived to say that Shakeel’s father-in-law — Nilofar’s father — was expecting us at his home. We sent our regrets; it was late and if we stayed longer it would be unsafe for us to drive back.
Minutes after we said goodbye and crammed ourselves into the car, a friend’s phone rang. It was a journalist colleague of his with news for me: “The police are typing up the warrant. She’s going to be arrested tonight.” We drove in silence for a while, past truck after truck being loaded with apples. “It’s unlikely,” my friend said finally. “It’s just psy-ops.”
But then, as we picked up speed on the highway, we were overtaken by a car full of men waving us down. Two men on a motorcycle asked our driver to pull over. I steeled myself for what was coming. A man appeared at the car window. He had slanting emerald eyes and a salt-and-pepper beard that went halfway down his chest. He introduced himself as Abdul Hai, father of the murdered Nilofar.
“How could I let you go without your apples?” he said. The bikers started loading two crates of apples into the back of our car. Then Abdul Hai reached into the pockets of his worn brown cloak, and brought out an egg. He placed it in my palm and folded my fingers over it. And then he placed another in my other hand. The eggs were still warm. “God bless and keep you,” he said, and walked away into the dark. What greater reward could a writer want?
I wasn’t arrested that night. Instead, in what is becoming a common political strategy, officials outsourced their displeasure to the mob. A few days after I returned home, the women’s wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (the right-wing Hindu nationalist opposition) staged a demonstration outside my house, calling for my arrest. Television vans arrived in advance to broadcast the event live. The murderous Bajrang Dal, a militant Hindu group that, in 2002, spearheaded attacks against Muslims in Gujarat in which more than a thousand people were killed, have announced that they are going to “fix” me with all the means at their disposal, including by filing criminal charges against me in different courts across the country.
Indian nationalists and the government seem to believe that they can fortify their idea of a resurgent India with a combination of bullying and Boeing airplanes. But they don’t understand the subversive strength of warm, boiled eggs.
Arundhati Roy is the author of the novel “The God of Small Things” and, most recently, the essay collection “Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers.”

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on November 9, 2010, on page A35 of the New York edition.