Richard Powers11 maart 2008 – 15:29

In our small Midwestern town in the middle of cornfields that extend hundreds of kilometers in every direction, there is a grocery run by a former Iraqi schoolteacher named Mohammed. We often shop there; my wife likes to practice her Arabic with him. Mohammed came to the States in the late 1990s, a refugee from Saddam’s terror. And he stayed to witness his adopted country invade and destroy the country of his birth.We visited with Mohammed not long ago. He’s our best source of reliable information about Iraq, five years after the invasion. He has by now lost 11 extended family members in the war. His cousin survived imprisonment by the Americans. His brother recently died a terrible and wholly gratuitous death. I asked Mohammed what he thought about the struggle now gripping America, dominating the elections, and at last challenging the conscience of the core of the country. I asked him what he thought the best way forward was, out of the intractable morass we have made there.

In his cosmopolitan, Middle Eastern, now Midwestern-inflected English, he answered, “The Americans must leave, the sooner the better. Today, if possible. It doesn’t matter how. If they do, the situation can only improve. Iraq has governed itself for 5000 years; it can do so again, without any further lessons in nation-building.”

Most people in our small town now agree with our friend. So do most people in the state of Illinois, and, by several different counts, so do a majority in the rest of this incredibly diverse country. And I believe that, come November, most of our elected officials in Washington will agree as well. If I’m right, then the next time we greet Mohammed, our As-Salāmu `Alaykum stands some better chance of coming true.

Richard Powers
American novelist

Bericht aan de Bevolking is een initiatief van Het beschrijf, in samenwerking met het B/Russell/s Tribunal. Een aantal auteurs van deze teksten treedt ook aan op de Literaire Wake n.a.v. 5 jaar oorlog in Irak, op woensdag 19 maart van 20 u. tot 24 u. in Literatuurhuis Passa Porta, A. Dansaertstraat 46, 1000 Brussel. Zie www.passaporta.be

Link naar het overzicht