Crazy few weeks

Some friends have been concerned that I haven't been blogging for a while, actually I've been doing 3-5 posts a day, but over on here. I haven't had time to do any personal musings because it's been such a crazy busy interesting couple of weeks. Somehow the world is still turning in spite of the second Bush term.

We've had an Iraqi economist working for Jubilee Iraq since mid-October, and he's done amazing work informing key people about the threat to Iraq's future posed by Saddam's debts and the machinations of the creditors. He's been braving the mean streets (I can often hear gunfire over the phone line when we talk) to build a coalition against the odious debt. And we're getting a strong response at last, we've even got a blessing from Grand Ayatollah Sistani. Just in time too with the Paris Club ruling last Sunday threatening to enslave Iraq to an IMF economic program.

I was over in Norway & Sweden on a mini speaking tour last week, which was a real pleasure, then in Paris on Wednesday for the first day of Paris Club talks. We held a demonstration outside the French Treasury and managed to get an audience with Paris Club officials inside the belly of the beast. The dorky photo below is taken in the Club's inner sanctum during their lunch break. We were actually left alone in there for a few minutes, and my Iraqi colleague, having been treated very rudely by the Paris Club President, mused that we could have easily brought spray cans with us and covered the room with justice slogans before anyone noticed! Next time ;-)

I somehow found time during my 24hrs in Paris to wander the streets and bars a fair bit, and was caught off guard as I found myself falling for the city. I think a genetically ingrained francophobia is one of the most conscious prejudices, and it was wonderful to start shedding the spirit of Agincourt and sampling a little of the charm of La Plus Belle Ville. One of my good friends has just moved over there, so I'm hoping to find more excuses to visit in the future.

A highlight of recent weeks has been spending time with Canadian activist Naomi Klein, who gave a tremendous lecture [there will be a link here when we get a video/transcript of the talk sorted out] with us to raise funds for the Fallujah Human Rights Centre and the Southern Oil Company Trade Union. I had the privilege of sitting in on some of her media interviews and hanging out with her for a couple of days. I've learnt a tremendous amount from her about the economic occupation of Iraq, the one subject I'd thought (due to obsession) that I was something of an expert on, as well hearing many new things about Argentina and other subjects. I learnt, for example, that the IMF's post-Soviet economic shock therapy program was created using a "find and replace" of the South Korean one, and in places they forgot to take out Korean references! I should have got in touch with her months ago about Jubilee Iraq, but I guess was shy of the whole celebrity status. Mistakenly of course, as she is not in the slightest bit affected by her global brand-name and willing to make time even for the little people like me. I've been greatly inspired and challenged to emulate a little of her passion, analysis and clarity of expression.

I'm beginning to get some concrete plans for the new year, though only the first steps. I've just been accepted to do the Christian Peacemaker Teams training in Chicago in January, with a view to joining the team out in Iraq (providing they judge it safe enough to remain there) soon afterwards. I still need to pray over this and talk it through with my parents a bit, but it's now looking like the most likely next season in my life.

Naomi Klein talk in London

If you want to hear what the second Bush term will mean for Iraq and the rest of the world, come along to hear Naomi Klein (author of no logo) in London on 24th November. This is an event I've been involved in organising in aid of Iraqi NGOs. Please come along and reserve your place here.

Time to learn Farsi?

It feels like the worst hangover in history, though i didn't drink anything. I went to bed at 2am GMT with the exit poll figures on the net showing a reasonably Kerry lead in most of the swing states and woke up to the horrific news that Bush is almost certainly the winner. There is the thinest sliver of hope (bouyed slightly by Kerry just winning Wisconsin) that Iowa and NM could go to Kerry in the next few hours and then if he gets about 65% of the absentee and provisional ballots he could still pull back the 120,000 or so votes needed for victory. But realistically speaking that's unlikely and could take weeks to emerge. (full data from CNN).

As I listened to the results last night I was filling in an application form for something which is now more relevant than ever, in the face of another four years of neo-con aggression. I was applying to join Christian Peacemaker Teams, an organisation which is genuinely pro-life in that it works to prevent violent conflict (I cannot get my head around the mentality of people who oppose abortion (like me) but at the same time enthusiastically support the death penalty and the massacres of thousands of foreign civilians).

I have spent time with their team in Baghdad and, if I am accepted, hope to join them in Feburary after doing a month of intensive training in Chicago. I'll be committing to at least three years service, and with Bush in power there will, unfortunately, be plenty of work to do both in Iraq and who knows where else (it is perhaps time to start learning Farsi and Korean). The latest email from my friend Matt, who is out there now, says there is substantial interest among Iraqis in forming a sister Muslim Peacemaker Team group, and that is a development I've been praying for for many years and I'd love to be involved with helping get that up and running.

Urgent: Pray for Fallujah

The situation in Iraq continues to get worse. I was talking with a friend in Baghdad this morning and I could hear the sound of battle in the street outside his home. I've just heard the dreadful news that the Deputy Governor of Baghdad has been assassinated, I'm particularly worried as one of my dearest friends had recently started working for him (after years of unemployment) and I don't yet know if he was caught in the attack or not.

The worst place of all is Fallujah, which Bush seems to be gearing up to attack in a cynical attempt to win votes tomorrow. I've just been chatting with a brave friend who has remained in the city, he writes: "NOW THE AIREPLANS IS OVER Fallujah and befor one hour attacks with tanks some houses in side fallujah but we thank for god that houses without any peoples. I am sure your prayers it will protect me and my peoples. yes, most of the peoples such womens and children are left fallujah but the large number of men and youth is stay to defince and protect my town. I hope to hear your voice again." So please pray for my friend's safety and for all the innocent people in Iraq.

Only Authorised Nonconformism Is Permitted

Today I went around the Turner Prize nominees' exhibition. This is probably Britain's most famous annual art award. At the end of the exhibition there was a place where visitors could write their feedback onto hundreds of cards maked "comment" arranged in a grid pattern around three walls of the room. I treat this kind of art fairly light heartedly, but found one piece thought provoking and so wanted to write down a quick reflection on it. The comments cards, however, were quite small and had only about 4 ruled lines on them. To get around this limitation I simply turned the card over and was able to write out my full reflection on the blank rear. I pinned it back up on the wall but when I glanced back, a minute later, one of the gallery staff was removing it. All the other cards had been filled in on the front side of the headed cards, and they clearly didn't like my one breaking their ordered array. But isn't this ironic that, in an exhibition of art which is in large part about challenging conventions and conformity, my tiny piece of self-expression against the mold was immediately squashed. I violated the ordained layout and my voice was unacceptable, unlike the exhibiting artists who were being paid and honoured for making far more blatant challenges to social norms. It seems that only authorised nonconformity is permitted.

The comment I was trying to make concerned Langland & Bell's installation "NGO" about post-war Afghanistan. Their imagery of NGO signs and names was very familiar from my time in central Africa (and Iraq to a lesser extend, although organisations no longer want to advertise their presence there). The implication of the work seemed to be that the proliferation of NGOs was a hindrance rather than a help, and focused attention on their little subculture rather than the real human needs of the country. Certainly there is a real danger that NGOs become restricted by a particular way of doing things, and there's a danger of waste and duplication, not to mention confusion, with so many mysteriously acronymed groups piling into fashionable disasters. However there is a counter argument, with which Langland & Bell don't seem to engage, that the variety of NGOs can result in creativity of response and a better chance that local concerns are met, instead of a situation where relief and development is delivered by some homogeneous entity.

Anyhow, I think art which stimulates a response is interesting and therefore Langlands & Bell get my vote for the Turner Prize this year. If you're in London go and have a look yourself and post up your views. And if you're worried I'm becoming pretentious and arty-farty, don't be, as the other thing I saw today was Alien vs. Predator. The catch phrase of the film "Whoever wins, we lose" sounds very much like what many of my Iraqi friends said during the war last year, and unfortunately they seem to have been correct.

My ears are burning...

I'm a huge fan. I've read the book, plastered the stickers on the tube, worn the t-shirt and bought all the other branded merchandise, and now she's quoted little me in a Guardian editorial: "If justice and not power prevailed in international affairs, then Saddam's creditors would be paying reparations to Kuwait as well as far greater reparations to the Iraqi people."

Ghareeb was NOT a spy

My dear friend Ghareeb was killed 6 weeks ago defending Italian Enzo Baldoni on the journey home from taking medicial aid to Najaf. The tragedy has been made worse for his family - living in Kuwait, Jordan and Palestine and unable to get into Iraq - because his body hasn't been found to bury and now because some Italians have been making blatantly false accusations.

Maurizio Scelli, the coordinator of the Italian Red Cross (who opposed taking the desperately needed medical aid to Najaf), has called Ghareeb "a double faced Palestinian who spied for the Israelis" ("doppiogiochista, palestinese spia degli israeliani"). He said on Italian TV that Enzo and Ghareeb were kidnapped because they were on a CIA spy list. Pino Scaccia, a Italian journalist in Iraq, wrote on 30th September "I myself have a lot of doubts about those days and, i'll be honest, on Ghareeb's role. But I swear that I, at least, am not a spy." [I've been in touch with Pino to assuage his doubts and ask him to defend Ghareeb's reputation in the future].

In a recent interview the two Simonas rebuffed these accusations: "For us, Ghareeb was a generous man who often came to us asking for drugs to take sick people"(Simona Pari replies). "He took serious risks in this work. I remember him organising a convoy to Falluja in the days of the worst bombardments on the city. He even managed to get a few wounded people out of that city" (Simona Torretta).

Ghareeb was a generous self-giving man who regularly risked his life for no personal gain to help people. He gave away everything he had and devoted his time and health (he never slept!) to help people ranging children crippled by the war through to naive do-gooder visitors (that's me!). He was committed to the Palestinian cause and longed more than anything to be able to return home one day. His character and his actions do not fit with the accusation that he was a spy, least of all an Israeli one.

Yet another raid

I just recieved a distressed message from an Iraqi doctor friend. I've heard so many stories of agressive American nighttime raids, which real reveal the cruel and contemptuous attitute that so many in the US army have for the people they claim to be liberating: "I do not know what to do. Yesterday at 1am at morning a group of the Americans crossed the fence of my house in Baghdad ...trying to smash in the main door of the house inorder to enter, while my family was sleeping. My father thought that they are thieves (actually they r), and they ordered him to open the door threatening to kill him. He asked them for any papers but they refused and pointed the gun toward him. He opened the door then they grabbed him and put the pistol to his head and dragged him to my sisters room. They also grabbed them and took them to the roof of the house where they started to humilate my father under the eyes of my sisters. When he asked them for the reason they did not answer him and started beating him, and he is an old man of 65 years... Then they gave my father a gun and told him if u have the courage kill yourself now (can you imagine how sick they are). Then the neighbours called the police. Five police cars came but said they could not do anything because they r the Americans. They kept him till 6am, finally leaving when the local people started making a demonstration. This is the new democrasy..." See the updated Christian Peacemaker Teams report on detainees (Word document) for more accounts of abuse similar to this.

In the belly of the Beast

So here I am at the centre of world government, not Geneva of course, this is Washington DC. I'm actually blogging from the belly of the beast, two floors underground in the IMF. I've been here for the last three days lobbying for a just resolution of Saddam's debt and generally making a nusiance of myself. There have been some formal "dialogue" meetings which i've attended (here's a webcast [at the 38th minute] of me stutteringly asking a question and Gordon Brown refusing to answer it). I've also gatecrashed a few events I don't think I was meant to attend and asked some controversial questions... it's amazing how far you can wander with a smart suit and a confident stride!

Today there hasn't been much for me to do at the Fund and Bank, so I've been wandering around the city. I went to church this morning just east of the Capitol and then had a picnic lunch with some people I met there. Then I went wandering along the Mall, snapping like a typical tourist at all the iconic buildings and monuments. It's strange how familiar it all seems. I think almost everyone who's grown up in the last quarter of the 20th Century with access to a television (and particularly in Britain) can't avoid but feel partly American. It's one of those classic love/loath relationships. I loath US foreign policy, decedant consumerism, introverted nationalism etc. etc. Yet at the same time there's lots I admire about the ideals the US theoretically aspires to and many exemplary individuals and organisations. You find the extremes in America - the very worst and the very best that humanity has to offer... not to forget the very wierdest as well!

CPT attacked by Israeli settlers

Kim Lamberty and Chris Brown, volunteering with Christian Peacemakers Team in Hebron, were accosted by five masked settlers dressed in black and wielding chains as they escorted a group of Palestinian children to school, something CPT has been doing for almost a decade.

"We were accompanying the children because they have to walk through a settler area. When we got to that area five men came out. They had chains and black masks. The children ran away and they came after Chris and me," said Kim, 44. "They threw me to the ground and beat me and the same with Chris and then they disappeared into the trees," Her arm and knee were broken in the incident while Chris, 39, sustained a punctured lung. Kim said she was certain the assailants were settlers as she said that Palestinians did not dare visit the area which is near an Israeli settlement. Chris told BBC news: "They threw a stone at my head which knocked me over and then whipped me with chains. They normally throw stones at us or fire their guns over our heads - but this is the most vicious assault so far." The incident has been almost completely unreported in the US press.

CPT was invited to work in Hebron ten years ago, to reduce violence in the tense city were 600 militant settlers living in an enclave in the heart of Hebron, supported by 1,200 soldiers. This seriously disrupts the life of the 120,000 Palestinians citizens. CPT is also working in Baghdad, currently being almost the only organisation remaining in Iraq with the threat of kidnappings.

Hostages freed!!

What wonderful news! The first ray of light in an awefully long time in Iraq. There was an amazing outpouring of support from around the world, ranging from a statement of support from Hizbollah in Lebanon, to a hunger strike by an exiled Algerian Islamicist. Over 10,000 people signed our petition and hundreds of groups registered their support. We struggled through three weeks of rumours and counter rumours but no solid evidence, and were beginning to lose hope... when suddenly there are the two smiling faces which have become so familiar around the world! It has not been consistently reported, but the Iraqis Ra'ad and Mahnoaz have also been freed. Alhamdulillah! I'm heading off to Washington this evening to try and lobby in support of Iraq at the IMF Autumn meetings, it's going to be a tough and frustrating couple of days I expect, but I'm feeling encouraged by this wonderful news.

Hunting for perspective

I was protesting in Parliament Square once again yestarday. This time the topic was not Iraq, at least not directly. In an attempt to divert public attention from the continuing abuses of the Occupation, Tony Blair announced our of the blue last week that he will rush through a bill to turn hundreds of thousands of ordinary British citizens into criminals through banning hunting, sometheing he feels doesn't fit into our civilised world of fast food and depleted uranium bullets.

Tony Blair doesn't seem to give a stuff about more than 13,000+ Iraqi civilians who have been killed by the Coalition (two days ago I met a couragous 11yr girl from Basra who lost 17 family members and one leg when Blair & Bush bombed her home in Basra), but apparently he cares a great deal about preventing foxes and hares from dying natural predatory deaths, in a chase as old as evolution.

In order to force this Bill through against the wishes of the public and the more sensible second chamber, Blair is taking two very unusual step. Firstly he will use the powerful Parliament Act, for only about the sixth time in a century, and secondly he wants to delay the implementation of the bill for two years in order to avoid nonviolent civil disobedience through people violating this law in the run up to the next general election.

There are plenty of moral grounds upon which one can judge hunting negatively, but very few of the opponents of hunting, and almost certainly none of the 339 MPs who voted for a ban yestarday, actually live by a system of ethics (such as Janism) consistent with such a view. Furthermore, irrespective of their personal ethics, by banning hunting they will be violating the civil liberties upon which our democracy is meant to be based.

I am a Green activist who has been largely vegetarian for 8 years, and I personally consider hunting to be an exteremely positive pursuit which is in tune with nature and nutures in most people a love and concern for our landscape and ecology. I followed hounds for a couple of years as a boy (though I haven't done so for almost a decade now), and that was one of main stimuli which impressed on me the importance of the environment (the primary stimulus was becoming a Christian and recognizing the intrinisic value of God's Creation).

For a closer scruitiny of hunting under the lense of a wide range of ethical systems, from utilitarianism to Islam to environmental ethics see my philosophy thesis: The Ethics of Hunting.

Acknowledgement at last...

It's a strange world! Last night I went to the launch of a friend's book on third world debt "IOU: The Debt Threat and How to Diffuse it"(Go out and buy it now! On page x you'll spot got my first ever book acknowledgement alongside Bono, Jeffrey Sachs and Ann Pettifor!... Okay, not exactly alongside, more like way down below in the small print, so my ego has been kept in check :-) but still I was really childishly excited by it). Anyhow, I had a couple of surprising and intriguing conversations at the launch party. One was with some investors in "distressed debt" (or debt vultures as some people call them) who had gate crashed the event to investigate the opposition and they even tried to lure me over to the dark side with the promise of a job with a fat pay check.

Another interesting discussion was with a friendly unassuming lady who turned out to be fashion designer Vivienne Westwood. She was a classic example of not judging people, as she didn't at all fit the mould one might expect. She was very well read and insightful (even when fairly drunk), and we had one of the most interesting conversations I've had in weeks, ranging from Bertrand Russel and moral relativist through climate change, the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and eventually focusing in on the way the poor subsidise the rich through cost-externalisation in international trade and the related spiritual decay caused by consumerism (something she was extremely worried about, though we didn't get around to discussing whether the fashion world is one of the leading drivers of this). The parting line of our conversation was "anyone with religious beliefs is sick in the head", so possibly a good thing I hadn't mentioned that I'm a committed Christian.

Ghareeb

I'm overjoyed that a friend in Baghdad has just sent me a photo of Ghareeb, my friend who was killed on 20th August returning from delivering medicines to Najaf and protecting Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni. I gave Ghareeb my camera when I left on 10th August, and he was killed before he had a chance to email me the photos I'd taken, so I had nothing to remember him by until this photo arrived.

The photo shows Ghareeb with me and another friend (who's face has been blacked out for his own protection). It's hard to believe that this fun evening in Baghdad, discussing very serious things and yet also joking about, was only a month ago. A few days after this photo was taken Enzo Baldoni had arrived and we had another fun evening in the same splace. Today I'm going to be having another evening mixing the serious and the jovial - you need to hang onto both to stay human. I'm meeting two of Ghareeb's closest friends and we're going to think about ways of commemorating him and carrying on his humanitarian work through starting a charitable foundation in his honour.

The bloodshed continues

As American planes once again pound Fallujah, at Sheik Omar Clinic, a big book records 10,363 violent deaths in Baghdad province since the war began last year. This figures cover only one of Iraq's 18 provinces and do not include people who died in such flashpoint cities as Najaf, Karbala, Fallujah, Tikrit and Ramadi. The Iraqi Health Ministry began tabulating civilian deaths in April, when heavy fighting broke out in Fallujah and Najaf. The ministry's figures indicate 2,956 civilians, including 125 children, died across the country "as the result of a military act" between April 5 and Aug. 31. Of those, 829 were in Baghdad, the ministry figures say. Dr. Abdul-Razzak Abdul-Amir, head of the Baghdad coroner's office said "Our work here has multiplied by at least 10 times compared to prewar periods."

Ra'ad

The Iraqi man, Ra'ad Ali Abdul-Aziz, kidnapped along with the Italian girls is a longtime friend of many people from Voices in the Wilderness. Here is an article he wrote on star gazing. One benefit of blackouts and powercuts during the Iran-Iraq war was that Ra'ad as a boy was able to watch the stars without light polution! "I forgot the wars and the battles and I just thought about astronomy."

Ed Kinane from Voices writes: "My most vivid picture of Raad was at his office. A friend had brought him a large box of books from overseas and I watched as Raad unpacked that box. He removed each book slowly, as if doing so were a kind of sacrament. With each new book he examined, his face shone with delight. With each book he exclaimed which of his friends or which of his students – he taught at the University – he would share it with."

Sign Occupation Watch petition

Occupation Watch, of which Un Ponte Per is a member, has issued a petition for the release of Ra'ad, Mahnoaz and the two Simonas and the end of the occupation. I've put a version of it online which you can sign here: http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/freeourfriends. Also I'm started a weblog for news and developments: http://freeourfriends.blogspot.com which any friends of the kidnappees are welcome to write on.

Support from Falluja for Simonas

Italian newspaper Repubblica (which has a timeline here)reports that in a post on the site Islamic-Minbar.com a group calling itself Ansar El Zawahri claims responsibility for kidnapping the Simonas, however Mohammed Salah, editor of Al Hayat has expressed doubt about the claim. This kidnapping is even harder to understand than Enzo's. Un Ponte Per Baghdad is well known throughout Iraq for supporting the Iraqi people through the long years of sanctions, in opposition to the war and now demonstrating solidarity through these difficult years of occupation. The kidnapping was carefully targetted - the kidnappers knew their names, where there office was and when they would be there. (photo: Simona Pari on left, Simona Torretta on right)

A statement of support of them (in arabic) has been issued by the human rights organisation in Fallujah, where Bridges to Baghdad provided medical aid during the siege in April. Also Islamonline reports a plea issued by Mohammed Bachar Sharif Al-Faidhi from the Committee of Muslim Ulema, Iraqi's most senior organisation of Sunni Muslim scholars; brothers Mohammad and Jaouad Mahdi Al-Khalisi from the Iraqi reform council; and Shlemon Wardnuni, the Catholic bishop of Baghdad: “In the name of God the merciful... we urge the kidnappers to release immediately and without pre-conditions the two Italians -- who were working in the interest of Iraq and the Iraqi people -- and their Iraqi colleagues.”

More Italians kidnapped

A few hours ago (5pm Baghdad time) 20 armed men, claiming to be government agents, kidnapped two Italian aid workers from their Baghdad offices along with two Iraqi collegues (Raad Ali Aziz and Mahnaz Bassam). Simona Pari and Simona Torretta were working for the charity Un Ponte Per Baghdad (Bridges to Baghdad) which has beening working in Iraq since 1991, inititally against sanctions. These wonderful ladies were friends of Ghareeb and Enzo who were murdered a few weeks ago. I have not met either of them but know them to be good people who are supporting the Iraqi people. Please pray for their safety.

• English news search for "Simona Pari"
• Italian news search, translated into English

Controversy over Enzo's death

It's painful writing about this, but here is a quick update on developments with regard to Enzo: (1) The Italian media had been saying that the video submitted to Al-Jazera featured a violent execution, however the station has denied this and said that the 15 seconds of footage only had "one scene showing ... the body partly hidden in sand, with only the face, neck and part of the shoulder visible." (2) The fact that the video was taken in daylight implies that his death happened before the 48 hr deadline expired. (3) There have been commemoration in various parts of Italy but no news yet about whether Enzo's body can be obtained for decent burial. (4) There has been considable controversy over the first video announcing his captivity. His image was clearly pasted onto the background and this coupled with the fact that he appeared relaxed and uninjured from the explosion has lead to suggestions that he may already already dead at the time of the first video, which may have been created using old footage created by Enzo himself found on his computer or camera. The Italian Red Cross delegate in Iraq Giuseppe De Santis claims that he did not witness anything that may have looked like an assault.

Update from Palestine: Ghareeb's and my friend Ewa is still being held prisoner in an Israeli detention centre and may be deported after her appeal hearing today, here is a statement by her on Electronic Intifada. Another friend Keith, an English Jewish peace activist, has just arrived in the region and has a blog during his stay.

Peace in Najaf but more wasted life

Ashkurallah that the conflict in Najaf has finally ended. The nonviolent solution was inspiring, with around a million people entering the city and thousands going for juma prayers in the mosque enabling the Mahdi army to disengage safely. Sadly more people died unnecessarily in all this, apparently killed by the interim government forces. These casulties are just numbers on the news, but of course they represent real people. One was an aquaintance from my recent trip to Baghdad called Mousa. He was a bright young lawyer armed, in the words of a mutual friend, "with only great potential and deep religious conviction". The kind of person Iraq desperately needs to build a good future.

The Italian Olympic team are wearing black armbands today in respect for Enzo, including in their football game against Iraq. I think the best way we can remember him will be to continue striving for peace and justice Iraq, uncovering the truth and enjoying life with the same passion that he did.

Ewa is still in jail in Israel. Al Jazeera has an excellent report with some powerful quotes from her: "At what point do social relationships with people implicate someone as security threat?" asked Jasiecwiz rhetorically, noting that the Israeli army regards all men between the ages of 15-30 as a security threat. "They are equating social relationships with political relationships. But social relationships need to happen to foster coexistence and Israel is doing everything it can to prevent that. It is encouraging conditions of apartheid, and the wall is the most obscene and stark example of this."

Haraam

No true Iraqi nationalist or believing Muslim could have done this. Bastards.

Enzo, like Ghareeb, was a man amongst a million. A fiery passion, a gentle heart, a canny perception, a deep appreciation of other people, a quick wit and an infectious laugh, a dedication to his work of truthtelling.

I knew him just a few days but I will remember him always and Baghdad will be empty when I return.

Iraqi and Italian footballers appeal for Enzo

Iraq and Italy will be playing for the Olympic bronze tomorrow. Iraq's national football coach Adnan Hamad said: "We want to send a message of peace to those who have taken [Enzo]. They should let him go back to his family. We are all brothers, we are all human beings." The Italian coach Claudio Gentile has said that if Italy wins the game it will dedicate the bronze medal to Enzo... however I suspect that Enzo will be cheering for Iraq and I wouldn't be surprised if he has already won over his captors with his good humour and he is currently teaching them Italian football chants and learning Arabic ones in return in preparation for the big game!

Follow the amazing Iraqi football team on Iraqisoccer.net, the National Olympics Committee and Iraqisport.com. I spent a couple of hours wandering around Hyde Park in London a few months ago with Ewa Jasiewicz looking for them when they were over in Britain for a goodwill tour, but unfortunately I got the time wrong and so we missed them.

Appeals to Enzo's kidnappers

Italian Stop the War activists have issued an appeal to Enzo's kidnappers: "Baldoni is a journalist who has always openly spoken against the war on Iraq and against Italian participation in the occupation of that country. To harm Enzo Baldoni will in no way further the cause of peace. On the contrary, it will merely serve to strengthen the war "faction", to which the Italian government belongs. Baldoni is part of the vast majority of the Italian population. For a long time now, this majority has demanded the withdrawal of Italian troops from Iraq. In Italy, huge demonstrations have shown time and again how the people are truly committed to peace. We shall continue in this commitment, calling for the withdrawal of all occupation troops and for the end of the criminal policies pursued by the United States and their allies, policies that spell death and destruction for Iraqi civilians. We ask that Baldoni be allowed to continue to give his contribution to peace and correct information, alongside millions of Italian men and women committed to peace and justice."

Gabriella Baldoni, Enzo's daughter, appealed : "We turn to the Iraqi people, tormented by war, and to the men who are holding our father Enzo, with an appeal simply to tell them that Enzo Baldoni is in Iraq as a man of peace. He was trying to save human lives in Najaf by helping a Red Cross convoy in a spirit of solidarity which has always underscored his thinking and his actions. It is in this same spirit that we ask you to be able to hold him in our arms again, alive."

Enrico Deaglio, editor of Dairio, the magazine for which Enzo is writing, said: "We would like to let the men who are holding Enzo Baldoni know who he is. He is a person animated by human feelings for the people who suffer in the world. He is an independent and absolutely autonomous journalist."

The Italian government had said Enzo was in Iraq in "a private capacity as a journalist and was absolutely not connected to the Italian government" but insisted it will not leave Iraq, although Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told al-Jazeera today that Enzo is a man of peace who is in Iraq "to tell the tale of the suffering of the Iraqi people," and said "we are ready to leave Iraq, even tomorrow, if the government of Allawi asks us."

Ewa expelled from Israel

Today Tel Aviv District Court judge Drora Pilpel has issued an expulsion order for my friend Ewa Jasiewicz. The court granted a 48-hour injunction on the expulsion, allowing her lawyer to appeal the expulsion to the Supreme Court. The judge said that although Ewa doesn't pose a direct threat to Israeli security, Palestinians could manipulate her "naivety" !!!! Ewa is one of the most inteligent, knowledgable and canny journalists I know, so the charge of "naivety" is ridiculous and offensive. Ewa arrived at Ben Gurion Airport on 11th August (we must have crossed somewhere over the Meditaranian as I was flying back from Iraq) in order to report on Israeli and Palastinian perspectives on the Wall, and was immediately detaineed. I've been trying to call her for days at the detention centre, but they won't let me speak to her. In response to the courts charges, Ewa stated: "I know myself. My agenda is no secret. I am against racism and fascism and in favor of peace."

Enzo on Al Jazera

Enzo appeared alone on a video broadcast (looking as unflappable as usual!) saying: "I am Enzo Baldoni from Italy, I am 56 years old, I am a journalist and I do social work by volunteering with the Red Cross."

Al Jazera said it received a statement from the group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq. The group said it could not guarantee the hostage's safety or his life if Italy does not respond within 48 hours with a decision to withdraw its forces from Iraq.

The brusque response from Palazzo Chigi of the the italian government is that it will try to free Enzo but "will remain in iraq."

No news about Ghareeb. Please pray for them both and their families.

No clear news yet

The Republica newspaper reports that Sheikh Hassan al Atharii, Muqtada Sadr's spokesman, said he had no information about Enzo, which fits with my conjecture that he was taken by bandits rather than a resistance group. The Republica article also says the Italian Secret Service has heard rumours from some tribal leaders that Enzo is alive. Italian friends have warned me not to put much wieight on these rumours, as the Italian newspapers are publishing any scraps they can without proper sourcing. I've experienced this directly as some of my tentative third hand accounts have been published as fact by papers. Unfortunately the only news we have at the moment is that there is no news.

No one seems to have properly identified and arranged burial for Ghareeb's body, three days after the attack allegedly happened. As I understand a couple of people had planned to go from Baghdad to find his body yesterday but decided not to because of security concerns. Some Iraqi friends living in the area are hopefully going try and idenify his body today.

USEFUL LINKS: (via Google autotranslation into english)

• search Italian media for Enzo
• search english language media for Enzo
• Enzo's blog
• Pino's blog

Goodbye my friend

For the last two days there has been little information and a great deal of confusion about Enzo and Ghareeb. I began to grieve and then started clasping at straws, hoping there had been some mistake in the account I had recieved. However a friend in Baghdad has just told me that the iraqi police have confirmed that Ghareeb was killed in Latyifia, on the road of Mahmoudia.

I only knew him properly for a week (2-10th August 2004, though we met briefly in October 2003) but his self-giving, wisdom and humour have left a deep impression on me which i hope will shape the way i live in the future. I pray that Allah raises up many people of his caliber to give Iraq hope for the future.

little news

I have not heard or read much to verify the account I have written about Ghareeb and Enzo. I keep hoping that this means that maybe my source (who had got the information from the Red Cross yestarday afternoon) was mistaken and they are safety holed up in Kufa (as Daniela's account below implies) or somewhere, but I really have no idea. Many of the reports on blogs or newswires seem to be third hand accounts of my third hand account.

The account I have hear from Daniela (1pm GMT), who manages Enzo's website is: "Enzo and Ghareeb were going to Najaf on Thursday along with a convoy of the Italian Red Cross. Somewhere along the road, the convoy bumped into a mine, which blewed up and shattered the windows of an ambulance and a truck. The iraqi driver of the ambulance (not Ghareeb however) got injured, but not seriously. Are you absolutely SURE it wasn't *that* accident your sources were referring to? No one got killed in that accident anyway: the convoy got safe to Najaf, where they distributed humanitarian goods around. Then, part of the convoy got back to Baghdad right away within the day, and another part stayed in Kufa. Enzo and Ghareeb are reported to have stayed with this convoy in Kufa overnight, and again they decided to stay when even this convoy moved back to Baghdad yesterday."

This from Ass. Press (5.50pm GMT) is a new source"The Italian Red Cross, which is working in Iraq, said Saturday that Shiite sources in the country had also told them Baldoni's interpreter [Ghareeb] was dead. "None of us have seen the corpse," Italian Red Cross spokesman Fabrizio Centofanti stressed. But "they said he was killed by gunfire."

keep praying for Enzo

I have spoken to some of Enzo's friends and family this morning, but no one knows anything more at this stage. My information in the previous post came via a mutual friend who talked with the Iraqi red cross drivers who were in the convoy from Najaf. My working theory is that the people who have taken him are after money and therefore should keep him safe, i hope that's correct. I know that Enzo is a brave and resourceful person, as well as being warm hearted and instantly likeable. If anyone has any news you can reach me on 0044 7813 137171 or email to justin [at] jubileeiraq [dot] org (though i'll be away from my computer a little today). There are two other blogs which might carry news about Enzo in their comments pages. Here are auto-translation links for non-italian speakers (like myself): Enzo's blog, Pino's blog. If you hear any new information, please post it in the comments page of this blog and the other two so other friends will see it.

Seperately Ghareeb's closest friend Ewa Jasiewicz is back in detention in Israel. She was released on bail after an Israeli court found that the state had no evidence against her (it was claiming she was threat to security because she has been involved in the International Solidarity Movement and was an eyewitness to an Israeli killing of a 13yr old Palastinian boy last year), however immediately the Israeli government immediately appealed so she is back in detention (see BBC news). I don't know if she has heard about Ghareeb's death yet, and I can't decide whether to try and contact her and tell her since she has enough to deal with as it is.

Ma'asalama, love, peace and constant prayers.

A true martyr

I don't know why I'm blogging, perhaps because I can't think what else to do. I'm sitting numb at my computer having emailed and called and recalled and rerecalled everyone I can think of in Iraq. I heard a few hours ago that one of my closest friends in Iraq has just been killed returning from Najaf with a Red Cross convoy which he had arranged to provide desperately needed medical supplies.

Ghareeb is (I can't yet face saying "was") one of the most selfless people I have ever met. For the past 18 months he has been travelling up and down the country helping anyone and everyone, from paying for an injured girl to be airlifted abroad to recieve a prosthetic limb to helping secure funding for an independent newspaper, to chaperoning around a naive British visitor (me).

Aparently a roadside bomb damaged his car and then gunmen shot him and carried away our mutual friend and blogger Enzo Balduni. I think it must have been gangsters, since none of the genuine Resistance would have attacked a Red Cross convoy or killed Gharib who was well known across Iraq. Please could anyone reading this blog pray for Enzo's safety, that he may be released unharmed soon, and also for Ghareebs friends and family who will all be heartbroken.

A photo of Ghareeb taken by Enzo a few days ago.

Najaf nonviolence

As things get hotter and hotter in Najaf I am finding it very difficult to settle back down to my day job in Britain, ever 5 minutes i find myself contemplating flying back to Iraq. I've just heard some shocking news from a friend out there that the Americans are taking hostage the families of Al-Mahdi army fighters in order to force them to submit - this is a shocking development which I doubt will be reported in any the mainstream media, particularly as journalists have been expelled from Najaf by the Interim Iraqi government. Apparently one of the women taken hostage is pregnant and due to deliver in the next week.

One positive thing are the signs of nonviolent resistance, with thousands of civilians forming a human shield around the imam Ali Mosque. I'm excited to see this happening, and I pray that it will be successful in deterring the Americans from launching further assaults and will encourage Iraqis across the country to start practicing nonviolent resistance in the model of Martin Luther King and Badshah Khan (the incredible, though little known, muslim counterpart to Ghandi in the Indian independence struggle).

separately my friend Ewa Jasiewicz has been arrested at Ben Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv, entering Palastine/Israel. The Israelis are attempting to deport her, as part of their policy of censoring news about human rights abuses and opposition to the occupation. (see Reuters, Jerusalem Post).

Ma'asalama Iraq

So already my trip is over. I was plotting my return even as the mini-plane began it's spiral combat assent from Baghdad Airport which, in passing, is much flashier than when I was there last October. There's even a sovernier shop where you can buy geeky baseball caps saying "Welcome to the FREE Iraq" along with dusty old cases of coins from the days when Dinars came in a metal format and fractional denominations which were still worth more than a dollar. I bought an Iraqi flag and crate-loads of dates (iraq used to export 90% of the world's supply back in the good old days before oil ruined the economy and everything else).

One theme of the last few days has been blogger meetups. A few days ago I hung with Abu Khaleel's son in Baghdad, then yesterday Majid and Khalid Jarrar introduced me to the wonders of Iraqi icecream (some Riverbend had described to me last year in mouthwatering detail and I was worth the wait), then I searched the city for a decent juice bar with Enzo and today in Amman I munched salad with the most glamourous middle eastern blogging duo, Niki and Raed. It's wonderful realising that typing occassional waffles onto the net draws you into a vast network of some of the most interesting people on the planet. I'm typing this in Books@Cafe, a famous hang-out for Jordanian anglophiles. It's been refurbished since I was last here and really is a splendid venue to eat and email (the connection is much faster now), though the book selection is still as dreadful as ever (the seem to specialise in bulk shipments of just volume three's of obscure trilogies!). I'm killing time now since my flight back to London is tomorrow morning.

It's a hard time to be leaving, with the Marines about to storm Najaf. I'm clearly no Sadrist, but its horrific that the US is happy to slaughter so many Iraqi civilians in order to try and wipe out practically the only person likely to get a significant number of votes in an election. Maybe I should have quit my job and stayed out there, trying to help out in Najaf as Jo Wilding and others did in Falluja. I'm probably not savvy or brave enough to have emulated her, but as always I'm torn apart, unsure what I can do to best help Iraq while balancing my responsibilities in Britain.

An Englishman in Baghdad

The last 5 days in Iraq have been tough and on the few occasions where I've had 15mins to blog I've felt overwhelmed and therefore wimped out. Apologies to friends who've been worried by the silence...

Would you believe I only managed to write that first paragraph when there were five heavy explosions so I quickly quit the hotel internet cafe (to avoid flying glass if a mortar rounds lands outside, and more importantly to avoid all the excited journalists scurrying around with a hungry look on their faces) and headed up to my room. It's quieted down now, so I'm going to have another go!

Iraq, as you may guess, is hot and chaotic. Until last night I was staying in a cheap hotel without air-conditioning (and often without any electricity most of the night) which meant I got no sleep but did get a little understanding of how exhausting and frustrating it is just trying to live a few nights in Baghdad at the moment - quite a few people have suggested that I'm brave coming here but I reply that what takes real courage is to live out here permanently and remain as friendly and self-giving as so many Iraqis are.

However the situation has changed considerably from my last trip in October 2003 when I used to travel alone around the city by foot and taxi, chatting with so many people along the way. Baghdadis whose opinions I respect have insisted that I can no longer do this. It is heartbreaking not to be able to interact so freely now, and my schedule is difficult to juggle as I am dependent on friends to pick me up and drive me around Baghdad's gridlocked streets. One change for the better is a reasonably functioning mobile network, although that results in another variable to juggle - keeping one's phone charged is not easy when the electricity supply is so hit and miss, and the stakes are much higher if the battery suddenly dies (as mine did yesterday evening when I was trying to arrange a pick up at night in a dodgy area).

But anyway, life here still goes on of course. And not just the daily chores and tasks. Love is in the air. I kid you not. One insightful friend pointed out that most of the foreigners who've spent more than a few months here have ended up getting hitched, either to each other or more often to locals. I don't gossip so I won't mention any names, but I've heard of almost a dozen examples. If I was staying much longer than the 9 days of this trip the chances are I'd likely be kidnapped, not by Al-Qaeda but by Abu Jamila or someone who'd walk me up the aisle (or mosque equivalent) with his daughter!

Actually I do have a kidnapping story: I was almost the first person kidnapped in Iraq. Last October one friend approached me with a proposition - he and some friends would dress up in mujahadeen clothes, hold a gun to my head and video my pleas for release. I would then head home to the UK and they would sell the tape to Al-Jazeria or someone, and split the profits with me. When the world media started probing and found me safe and sound I could explain how the whole affair was a big joke. Ha Ha. Needless to say, though to my Iraqi friend's deep surprise, I didn't agree and missed out on my 5 minutes of fame/infamy.

My main task out here has been to find someone to run Jubilee Iraq on the ground here. It's been hard going and I've had so many gloomy assessments from Iraqi friends that it will be impossible to find a good trustworthy person with the appropriate skills and in the short time I have available. I'm not so pessimistic, as I have a higher opinion of Iraqis than I think many do themselves. Of course its a tough situation, unemployment is so high that people will do and say anything to get work, and the long years of dictatorship have meant that most well qualified people had either been coopted or fled into exile. My other task here has been to investigate Iraqi NGOs and it has been depressing to hear how many of them are shams just after donor money - but at the same time I have found some which are decent, and I refuse to reject the grain just because there is so much chaff.

I've had some fun times here as well. Long hours chatting with a fiery Palastinian friend who is known across the country for going the extra mile to help anyone in need. Listening to an Italian and an Arab argue over which race has contributed most to the development of coffee. An evening with a former minister who encouraged me to embrace Islam (one of his interesting proofs was that if you take a scan of someone's lungs and turn it on its side, then within the network of tubes - I think they're called bronchi - you can read (in Arabic script) the Kalimath At-thawheedh "La Ilaha Illallah" which means "There is no god but Allah" - does anyone have any pictures to demonstrate this?). He also told me of the occassion his daughter innocently asked him "in what way is Saddam related to God" - an understandable question in a society forced to submit to a personality cult in which a list was even drawn up of the 99 names of Saddam. A guilty debate with a vegan activist who correctly guessed that I'm a veggie in the UK but lapse when I'm here in Iraq. Joking with iraqi friends about the tastleless formless green statue which has replaced the one of Saddam at the end of Saadoon Street. Crusing at night around "TeaTime" and other favorite haunts of the Iraqi upper class youth with a junior doctor who explained how he'd boldly demanded, and eventually received, an apology from an American soldier who had randomly and mistakenly arrested him while he was waiting in a fuel queue... Everyone one meets in Iraq has a story to tell, and most of them are worth hearing.

Rwandan roadtrip

Rwanda is called the country of a thousand hills ("les milles collins") and the description is spot on. I drove across about half the length of the country yesterday from Kigali to Kibuye never once touching a straight stretch of road longer than 20 meters, just endless broad meanders around the hills. The countryside is very green, fertile and every square inch is cultivated - it has to be to feed 6 million people crammed into an area about the size of Wales. I love contours, and so the landscape is right up my street. The views can be spectacular as you crest one of the larger hills and gaze out over the endless fractal progression; this time of the year is quite hazy, so the more distant hilltops are blurred by vapour, giving the scene a kind of dreamlike quality.

Driving in Rwanda seems to involve jamming the wheel hard to the right around one bend, hard to the left around the next, and so on until you reach your destination, all the while tooting the horn to warn the hordes of pedestrians, cyclists, cows and goats about your approach. The density of population is obvious from the dozens of people who lined almost every stretch of the two and a half hour journey.

Lake Kivu is, to look at, a paradise location with crystal clean water surrounded by those milles collins. It's a perilous place, however, as it contains pockets of methane gas which periodically bubble up and can suffocate anyone swimming or fishing in the vicinity. Three years ago (to cap Africa's bloodiest civil war) the Volcano overlooking Goma on the Congo side of lake Kivu erupted and cut a lava path through the city centre. Apparently the lava solidified about 70m into lake Kivu, however if it had penetrated another 100m it would have ignited the methane, leading to an unimaginably vast explosion. That is one horror at least that the long suffering people around Lake Kivu have been been spared.

Here's a random observation: I've been known to start my sentences with an conteplative hum "Mmmm" but Rwandans seem to take this to extreme, beginning every word with the letter M. Okay, so this isn't strictly true, but certainly the four survival words of Kinyarwanda I've learnt so far all fit the pattern:

murakoze = thank you
mwaramutse = good morning
mwirwe = good afternoon/evening
murarakye = good night

Weddings and loose ends

I'm writing this from Kigali, Rwanda, where I've just arrived to assess HIV/AIDS projects for my charity NPC. I'm here until Saturday then driving down to Burundi (avoiding interahamwe and other rebels on route) for another six days research. This trip is hectically sandwiched between two weddings in England. I arrive back in London at 6am on the 24th and head straight to the wedding of my oldest friends Anne Westmacott, and the evening before I flew out here was the wedding of an Iraqi friend Hussein.

Hussein and Ghida's wedding reception was the most oppulant I've ever attended, or am likely to attend! It was in the Royal Counts of Justice in London, in a giant hall seating at least 500 people. All the great and the good of anglo-iraqi society were there, and at one point I even found myself bopping on the dance floor to an Amr Diab song alongside the lawyer who is organisings Saddam's criminal tribunal. It was wonderful meeting Hussein's friends from school and university, as I've only seen a small section of his life in the year we've known each other. One of them commented, and this is spot on, that H manages to make everyone in the room feel special, and that was demonstrated as he floated around arm in arm with Ghida greeting everyone. Brides are traditionally radiant, but Ghida really took it to a new level - the photos I have of them dancing together look like the must be scenes from a Hollywood film. I also had the surprise of bumping into another Iraqi friend who, unbeknown to me, had also got married that same day.

I'll post of some more in a few days about my impressions of Burundi and Rwanda. Before I sign off I better tie up a few loose ends, having not posted for quite a while. I mentioned, regarding my trip to the Congo a couple of months ago, that I'd been asked to carry over a "package" from the Ambassador in Britain the Foreign Minister. Various concerned friends had emailed to ask about my smuggling activities, and I have to admit that the package turned out to be a perfectly boring (but very heavy!) box of A3 paper and envelopes - clearly in short supply over in Kinshasa. So I'm not on the run from Interpol... yet. I should have really posted more about Kinshasa, but it took time to digest and I was really busy in May and June (excuses excuses). But grab me sometime and I'd be delighted to chat with you about the disco dancing funeral processions, the brightly coloured shops with names like "The Love and Blessing of God Grocery", canoing on the mightly Congo river, the sharp division of society into two rival groups - those who drink Skol and those who drink Primus beer - and many other things.

The other bit of news from the last month is that Jubilee Iraq has recived a grant from George Soros' Open Society Insitute, which will enable us to hire an Iraqi out in Baghdad to take the campaign forward there over the next few critical months. I'd hoped to go out there in June to recruit someone, but planning for this Africa trip meant I wasn't able to take of any holiday time from my day job, but I'm hoping to get over in August. It's been far too long, almost a year, since i was last out there and my heart strings get jerked with the news each day. Inshallah (providing NPC can get funding for this) I'll be over there for an extended period towards the end of this year, begining of next, catalysing support and funding for Iraqi civil society.

In memory of Nabil

I've just learnt that an Iraqi friend, visiting his family after decades in exile, has been killed by American soldiers. I don't have any more details at the moment.

Nabil was one of the most vibrant enthusiastic people I've ever met. He lived for many years in Switzerland, and was the cornerstone of our Jubilee Iraq demonstration against the UNCC reparations in Geneva in March.

He arranged to meet us in Geneva station, with the instruction to look out for his berret. I think Fay and myself spooked a couple of berret-wearing Swiss men as we stared at them and tryed to figure out if one of them could possibly be an Iraqi. But when Nabil arrived he was very clearly different - unfortunately I don't have a photo of the trademark berret, but the grin you can see here is equally distinctive. He was the sort of guy you can't help but warm to instantly: bright and bubbly, but also passionate and dedicated in campaigning for justice. I simply cannot conceptualise how a soldier can have imagined him to have been threatening enough to kill.

I don't feel able to write more now, but may do later. For me this obviously brings home the reality of the war. Those cold bodycount statistics (now exceeding 10,000) each represent a real person just as unique and precious as Nabil. I had been wondering whether or not to arrange a another demonstration at the end of June when the UNCC next meets (incidentally on the eve of the transition) to award yet more reparations against Iraq because of Saddam's crimes, and in fact I would probably have been emailing Nabil next week to discuss it. Now I am convinced the demonstration must go ahead as he would have wanted.

I pray for Nabil's family and friends in their grief, and I pray that Iraq may soon become the free, just and peaceful country that he longed and strived for.

[update] I've just recieved more information. Nabil was killed in the controversial strike on the wedding party near the Syrian border. It has not been widely reported that the planes also bombed all of the cars along that stretch of the road to Syria. Nabil was in one of them, on his way back to Switzerland. His elderly father had to go searching and found his still unidentified body in a hospital nearby.

Nabil was a Swiss citizen, and I hope the Swiss government will take a stand on his killing.

I, Robot and the purpose of life

There are some things buzzing in my head which I'm going to spit out and see if they make any sense. I've just got back from my first time in over a year at a home group (a few people from church who meet each week for fellowship and prayer). It reminded me that the christian life is meant to be lived as part of a community, and made me realise just how self-centred I've become

A lot of people think I'm a very decent and altruistic kind of guy. I've just got back from the Congo doing work on AIDS for a charity and I spend a lot of my free time campaigning on Iraq. Sure, there is an aspect of me that really wants to help people, but the truth is that I spend the vast majority of my time and energy thinking about ME and what I WANT. In fact I'm reasonably sure that I'm more self-focused now than at any point in my life, certainly since I was transformed by Jesus almost a decade ago.

I write a blog for goodness sake! Keeping a diary is one thing, but posting it online and assuming that it's worth YOUR time reading my ramblings is very egoistic. (who are you guys anyway? This blog gets about 50 visitors a day, so not Salam Pax or Instapundit (thankfully), but still considerably more than the number of people I talk to physically each week. And I can tell from some of the search engine terms used to get here that you're an interesting bunch.)

I'm trying to figure out why I've become so self-centred in order to decide what to do about it.

Certainly I've had a pretty rough time over the last few years (though not a touch on people I've met in Iraq, Congo and many here in Britain), with redundancy from a dream job, a long period of unemployment, a broken heart etc. etc. But I think the main thing which has contributed to my selfishness is a loss of regular christian fellowship. Although I have lots of friends scattered around London, it's hard to be part of a close-knit community here. So for almost three years I haven't had people to be accountable to and to pray with regularly; to share their concerns on my shoulders as well as receiving their support for me. As a result I have grown increasingly lonely and have retreated into my own head and even away from God. I think this drift self-centredness is what the Bible calls our "sinful nature", and we all have a tendency to do it unless we keep focused on God and have the support of a community.

The home group I've just joined is about to start studying together a book called "The Purpose Driven Life", and I read the first chapter on the tube home this evening. The opening paragraph is very relevant to the issue I'm blabbering about:

"It's not about you. The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. It's far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose... You could reach all your personal goals and become a raving success by the world's standard, and still miss the purposes for which God created you. You need more than self help advice."

I'm now going to make an apparently random connection with the other book I have on the go at the moment, a collection of early science fiction stories by the late great Isaac Asimov He coined the term 'robotics' back in the early 1940s and in a series of stories laid down the classic three laws of robotics:

(1) A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
(2) A robot must obey the orders given to it be human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
(3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection down not conflict with the First or Second Law.

This laws are embedded deep within Asimov's robots and as a result, in the words of Asimov's robopsychologist Susan Calvin, in stark comparison to most humans, "robots are essentially decent... The three Rules of Robotics are the essential guiding principles of a good many of the world's ethical systems... you can't differentiate between [the actions of] a robot and [those of] the very best of humans."

Asimov's robots *have to* follow ethical rules and serve the interests of their human creators, in fact they will shut down before violating one of the three laws. Like the robots, God has programmed us with ethical rules - our consciences - something demonstrated by the similarity of the core values of most religions and philosophies. However, unlike the robots, we are not forced to obey. We can chose to disobey our Creator and act against his purposes, and we've been doing just that since Adam & Eve.

Instead of creating us as robots, God has given us free will and hence the opportunity to obey him out of love rather than robotic requirement. As Jesus told his disciples at the Last Supper:

"If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching... I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. My command is this: love each other as I have loved you." (John 14.23, 15.11-12)

I think I've figured out the theory, but putting it into practice is another thing. I'd really appreciate your prayers that I move away from my current self-centredness and really pour my energy into obeying God through loving my fellow humans.

Smuggling up the Congo

My friends may not be surprised, given that I seem to be drawn to warzones like a moth to flame, to learn that in 48hr time I will be touching down in the Democratic Republic of Congo. What I suspect will surprise them is that on this trip I will be smuggling contraband goods, in fact smuggling them for the Congolese government itself.

I am currently in my flat in central London awaiting a phone call from the Congolese Ambassador to inform me off the pickup instructions. I am then to collect a mysterious sealed box which I have been told to deliver at precisely 11am on Tuesday into the hands of the Foreign Minister in Kinshasa. I have no idea what the box will contain. It might be fairly standard merchandise such as trafficked human organs, drugs or non-sequential dollar bills. It could however be something slightly more exotic, such as the design blueprints for a nuclear weapon, or evidence linking political enemies with the missile attack in 1994 which destroyed the plane carrying the Rwandan and Burundian Presidents and sparked a decade of genocide and war in the region.

The official description which the Ambassador gave me yesterday, when he persuaded me to make the delivery (in return for getting a visa at short notice without all the officially required documentation), was that the box contains "headed stationary". So perhaps the truth of this little anecdote is merely that President Major General Joseph Kabila has a predilection for the kind of high quality scented letter writing paper that can only be bought from certain shops located on London's Bond Street... surely that's the most plausible explanation, isn't it?

My trip to Congo, by the way, is part of the work I'm doing on HIV/AIDS in the region. I'm just going to be in the capital for a week on this occasion, but will hopefully spend most of July visiting AIDS projects out in the eastern part of the country around lake Kivu, and also in Rwanda and Burundi. As a side line while I'm there, I'm hoping to solve one of the last remaining puzzles of African geography by discovering the source of Um Bongo .

The truth about Falluja

Reports suggest that at least 600 Iraqis have been killed and over 1000 injured in Falluja. Most of the UK media has repeated uncritically the US story that those all killed are "insurregents" but my friend Jo Wilding, who is taking a circus around schools in Iraq, spent the weekend working with ambulances in Falluja and tells a very different story: "The satellite news says the cease-fire is holding and George Bush says to the troops on Easter Sunday that, "I know what we're doing in Iraq is right." Shooting unarmed men in the back outside their family home is right. Shooting grandmothers with white flags is right? Shooting at women and children who are fleeing their homes is right? Firing at ambulances is right? Well George, I know too now. I know what it looks like when you brutalise people so much that they've nothing left to lose." (read more from her).

I feel so helpless here in the UK. Rationally I can argue to myself that I may be able contribute more to Iraq by working on long term issues such as debt through Jubilee Iraq, but my heart says I should be out there now like Jo standing alongside Iraqis and using my white skin, blond hair and english accent to try and protect the innocent and the wounded, assuming I could summon up a fraction of the courage that she and many brave Iraqis have.

Following on from my post on Easter Sunday, a story of solidarity from Iraqi newspaper Azzaman which reported that Iraqi Christians did not celebrate Easter in the normal way this year. They only went to church, prayed, and asked the Lord to end this distress. Instead of visiting relatives and friends, as is common on Easter, they went to health centres to donate blood. Najat Yousif Hanna said "How can we celebrate while our brothers in Fallujah, Karbala, Najaf, and other cities are suffering and bleeding."

Karbala and Calvary

I've long been intrigued by the Shi'ite understanding of the martyrdom (shahada in Arabic) of Mohammed's descendents, particularly that of Imam Husayn at Karbala. Husayn had been promised the caliphate (leadership of the Islamic community) after Caliph Mu'awiyya, however when Mu'awiyya died in AH61 (AD680), his son Yazid seized power and wiped out Husayn’s tiny army at Karbala on Ashura, the 10th day of Muharram.

This year is particularly poignant because as pilgrims gathered at Karbala to commemorate Ashura, hundreds were killed in terrorist attacks. Also the Arba’in (the 40th day after Ashura), which marks the end of the period of mourning both for Husayn and for the Iraqis killed by terrorists, falls today - Easter Sunday, which for Christians ends the period of mourning for Jesus, being the day of his resurrection. This coincidence of dates provides an opportunity to consider the concepts of martyrdom in the two faiths.

Others have noted the similarities. Sayyed Farqat Al Qizwini, Director of Relgious Studies at Hilla University says that "Imam Hussein sacrificed himself for human beings, justice, freedom, and peace on Earth -- just like Jesus Christ did for the same reasons." Anglican vicar Ray Gaston from Leeds gave a lecture at Karbala University, this year with his own reflections on how, as a Christian, he is inspired by the story of Imam Hussein.

What strikes me most powerfully is that both Ashura and Good Friday are considered to have cosmic significance and an empathetic quality. Husayn's descendent Imam Ja'far ibn Muhammad as-Sadiq famously said that "Kullo yawm'in Ashura, kullo ardh'in Karbala" which means "Every day is Ashura and every place is Karbala". The injustice and suffering experienced by Husayn at Karbala resonates in every instance of injustice and suffering, and can comfort and inspire the victims. Ghandi said “I have learnt from Husayn how to be oppressed yet victorious.” The resonance is particularly strong for Iraqis at the moment who have been suffering so much for so long, and are able to celebrate in public for the first time in 25 years. Channel 4 produced an excellent documentary tracing British pilgrims going to Karbala, and the website contains some quotes from pilgrims about "what Muharram means to me."

Jesus, like Husayn, willingly suffered an unjust death which appeared to be a defeat but was in fact a great victory over evil that brings comfort and inspiration to the oppressed today. So Christians might say in parallel that "Every day is Good Friday and every place is Calvary.”

Just as Ashura has resonance for every time and place, so many Muslims attempt to express their grief and share in Husayn’s sufferings through self-flagellation. There are also Christians groups who practice self-flagellation. While this practice is not mentioned in the Bible, self-denial and a willingness to endure suffering certainly is. Jesus said that anyone who wanted to be his disciple “must deny himself and take up his cross daily”, while Paul talked about “the fellowship of sharing in Christ’s sufferings”, and Peter even enjoined persecuted believers to “rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ.” The Shia have always been persecuted, with the first 11 Imams all being martyred, and so have faithful Christians: all of Jesus’ apostles were martyred along with a large proportion of believers over the first three centuries under the Roman empire. The presecution continues today and it has been estimated that more Christians were martyred in the 20th century than in the previous 19 combined.

There are differences in the two martyrdoms. Husayn’s death on the battlefield was honourable, as he himself said it is “better die with honour than live in shame.” Jesus’ death however was an inherently shameful way to die (as Mel Gibson’s film The Passion powerfully depicts): he was flogged, spat on, mocked and nailed to a cross. Another difference is that while Ashura is a time for tears, Christians actually rejoice and call the day of the crucifixion Good Friday not Bad Friday.

The differences related to an underlying difference in theology. Christians believe that Jesus’ death was redemptive, that he lovingly chose to take upon himself the burden of human sin and shame in order to offer people the opportunity of forgiveness through repentance and trust in him. Isaiah had prophesied 600 years before: “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” And the Apostle Peter wrote: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the Cross… once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God.”

Some Shia do seem to understand Husayn’s death in a redemptive way, for example Martyr Murtada Mutahhari writes “Imam Husayn… has insured us against the consequences of sin in return for our tears. All that we have to do is to shed tears for him and in return he guarantees immunity to the sinners.” However mainstream Islamic thought has generally rejected the idea of redemptive sacrifice. For example Imam Sa’dullah Khan, director of Muslim affairs at the University of Southern California, writes: “Muslims do not believe that another person can die to atone for the sins of human beings. Atonement for sins comes from sincere repentance of one’s wrongdoings, and salvation lies in submission to the commands of Allah and doing righteous deeds.” This is a soteriology (theory of salvation) based on good works, in contrast to the Christian soteriology of salvation through grace ("it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith... not by works, so that you can't boast").

With regard to Jesus’s crucifixion, some Muslims such as the apologist Ahmed Deedat argue that he did not die on the cross since, without the notation of redemptive sacrifice, that unjust death would imply that his mission had failed. One common theory is that he was teleported from the Cross and replaced with someone else (usually given as Judas) who died in his place. The Qu’ran does not contain this story, and some argue that the substitution theory comes from a misunderstanding of Sura 4.157-8 (which rebukes some Jews who were apparently boasting about killing Jesus) and that when it is read in the context of Sura 3.54 ("O Jesus, I will cause thee to die and exalt thee in My presence") the Qu’ran is actually in harmony with the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion.

This is an area of intense speculation and controversy which I need to research more, as I believe that many theological disputes between Christians and Muslims result from misunderstanding on both sides accentuated by centuries of conflict. As Muslims and Christians come to understand each other's faith from the perspective of individuals' heart-beliefs and experience, they realise that there is a great deal more commonality than they might expect. This is not to imply relativism or pluralism - there are indeed important theological differences between the two faiths - but God is much bigger than any human theology and reaches out in love to all people irrespective of their background and beliefs.

Self-sacrifice in the face of injustice is at the heart of both Karbala and Calvary, and it is this kind of loving self-sacrifice from Muslims and Christians working together which can build a peaceful and prosperous future for Iraq in the face of enourmous injustices.

International voting in the US Presidential election

An idea I've been mulling over for a while is to set up mock elections around the world to coincide with the US Presidential elections, since these arguably have more bearing on many of us than our own domestic elections. It seems that someone else has had the same idea, and there's now a website where you can cast your vote for the three main candidates. So far about 3000 votes have been cast, and Ralph Nader is narrowly ahead of John Kerry. The results are broken down by country, so you can see that twice as many Austalians favour Kerry over Nader, while in New Zealand the reverse is true. Interestingly the Netherlands is the only country which seems to have a sizable minority (22%) who favour George Bush.

Epiphany on the Central Line

Do you ever find yourself assessing people on the Tube? Yestarday I was standing in a crammed carriage and found myself unconsiously passing the time by inspecting my fellow passangers. It's the shallowest kind of judgement, deciding whether someone looks interesting or attractive based on a few seconds glance in a sweaty train. Most of the people around me looked depressing, ugly and smelly (as I'm sure I appeared to them). No one's at their best on the Tube, but some people look particularly repelant (and other passangers edge away from them, not wanting to be squeezed up with against an Arsenal supporter reeking of lager or an obesse American tourist) while once every few days, among the thousands of people one passes, there is the flash of an angelic face, seemingly untainted by the London grime, which causes one to gasp and almost miss a stop.

Then it struck me. Looking around at all those depressing and ugly faces of my fellow commuters - God loves them.

Not in some sort of general philosophical way (love is an attribute of the divine nature) but in an intense and individual way. Mel Gibson's controversial new film The Passion covers the most extreme expression of this love - that God "became nothing, taking the very nature of a servant" and chose to bear immense suffering to wipe away our sins. But God's love is also revealed in more tender ways. The Bible says that he counts the numbers of hairs on each of our heads (the sort of thing lovers might do as they are wrapped in each other's embrace) and that he even sings love songs about us! [Phil.2.7, Matt.10.30 and Zeph.3.17]

I've known this all for many years, but occassionally it strikes me at a particular moment in a profound way. And that's what happened yestarday on the Central line between Oxford Circus and Bond Street!

I've just watched the DVD of "Bruce Almighty" the rather mediocre Jim Carrey film in which a very self-centred TV reporter is given God's power for a week. The film is not very theologically sound of course, but I rather like Morgan Freeman's representation of God as a wise-cracking cleaner. It captures two characteristics of God - the way he humbles himself in order to relate to humans and the deep love he has even for Carrey's spoilt and irritating character.

Nonviolent muslims and Bollywood stars

I'm reading a really inspiring book "Nonviolent Soldier of Islam" about Badshah Khan, Ghandi's contemporary in the North Western Frontier province (now the Afghan/Pakistan border). He transformed a hundred thousand Pathans, renowned for their blood feuds and fierceness as warriors, into a nonviolent satyagraha force (the Khudai Khimatgars = "Servants of God") who contributed a great deal to the end of the British Raj. Here is a quote:

"There is nothing surprising in a Muslim or a Pathan like me subscribing to the creed of nonviolence. It is not a new creed. It was followed 1400 years ago by the Prophet all the time he was in Mecca, and it has since been followed by all those who wanted to throw of an oppressor's yoke."

It would be wonderful if this example of effective Islamic nonviolent resistance could inspire people in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. If anyone has any ideas on how to go about doing this then please do get in touch.

Lots happening with Jubilee Iraq over then next fortnight: A demonstration in Geneva against the reparations Iraq is paying, a conference on Saddam's odious debt in Berlin hosted by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and then a meeting in Vienna with Austrian MPs. Alongside this I'm writing articles, putting together a report for Iraqi politicians, failing to control my bursting inbox... as well as doing my day job and trying to keep some contact with my friends and family.

Just discovered that a friend from university, Soha Ali Khan, has become a rising star of the Bollywood film industry! She has two (!) films under production and when I Googled for her I found over a thousand articles, mainly from the last few months, in english alone! Her forthcoming films are "Yeh Dil Maange More" and "Mohabbat Ki Kii Kiii" which is apparently a "breezy romantic comedy depicting three phases of love directed by Ananth Narayan". Here's an early interview and a more recent one. Here are some photos. Also turns out one of the stars of my favourite Bollywood fic Dil Chahta Hai is Soha's brother Saif.

I wonder which of our Balliol colleagues will be next on the big screen? Will Adi McGowan quit his job as a Vice-President at Deutsche Bank and become the next James Bond? Will Mike Follett soon eclipse Hugh Grant in trans-Atlantic romantic comedies? What about John Riordan in Dennis Hoper style bad-guy roles? All of this will be meaningless of course to most of the readers of this blog.

SPEAK against the arms trade

Today I participated in an inspiring prayer and protest action against the arms trade. About 400 young people from SPEAK gathered at the Defence Export Service Organisation to repent of our nation's involvement in the arms trade and pray for its abolishment. DESO is funded with £16m a year of British taxpayers money and exists to push the arms trade, often to poor countries and oppressive regimes.

(see my photos from the event - they're not great unfortunately because I was in the thick of it).

The day began in nearby Bloomsberry Baptist Church for teaching and prayer. We then walked to DESO in a silent funeral procession. On the way a guy in the top floor of a building we passedspontaneouslyy stuck his head out and added some beautiful mournful harmonica music to the slow drum beat at the head of the procession. A mock World War 1 trench had been constructed in the road opposite DESO, to symbolise the horror and pointlessness of war, and we all descended into the trench. The trench also represented the "gap"referredd to in Ezekiel "The people of the land practiceextraordinaryn and commit robbery; they oppress the poor and needy and mistreat the foreigner, denying them justice. I looked for a man among them who would stand before me in the gap onbehalfd of the land so I would not have to destroy it." (Ezekiel.22.29-30) The gap of sinfulnessseparatingg God and people has been bridged by Jesus'sacrificiall death.

The main action began with a drama about the lies of the arms trade (it brings security, it is essential to our economy etc.) and using the light of God's word to reveal them as falsehoods. Next we all participated in a liturgy of repentance for the sins of our nations, involving reflection on the terrible facts about the arms trade and confession on behalf of ourselves and our nation.

(some extracts)

"We pray for those who are starving whilst their leaders buy more weapons. We pray for those trapped in a land full of war. We pray for child soldiers who have never had childhoods... Set us all free God"

"In permitting the continuation of this brutal trade: Lord we have sinned.Inn our worship of money and materialism: Lord we have sinned. In walking past on the other side: Lord we have sinned. In failing to pray for change: Lord we have sinned. In our unjust colonial history: Lord we have sinned...."

After the litugy we all shared communion. By this stage we were freezing from kneeling on concrete on a cold, rainy February day - but it was appropriate that our repentance for the arms trade involved discomfort. As you'll see from the photos, we were kneeling in quite a disordered way, and could learn a lot from muslim friends about how to organise into neat ranks. As Christians we need to rediscover communal prayer involving kneeling and prostration which was common in the early church - in fact in many ways the style of Islamic prayer would be very familiar to early Christians.

Next we prayed for strength to bring about change and advocate for the rights of the poor. Here we tied messages calling for an end to government support for the arms to daffodils (representing the alternative to war: life) which were handed into DESO. We ended the day with drumming and song in praise of God's love and justice.

More mumbai

My most intense reaction in India came as a considerable shock. I was overwhelmed by the immense number of people crammed together in the stinking slums of northern Mumbai. Apart from two relatively quiet hours between 2-4am, every single street in the city is seathing - with lorries, cars, rickshaws, motercylces, bicycles and (fearless) pedestrians, dogs, cows and even one elephant all jostling to get in front. Over a billion people in the country, and 18 million in Mumbai alone. The noise and smell are so intense. What shocked me about my reaction to all this was that I found myself thinking about the people as drones or parasites, rather than as precious individuals loved and cherished by God, just as I am.

My main companions during the WSF were people I luckily met on the plane. When we touched down at midnight on wednesday last week, I had no idea where I was going to stay that night. But as we were preparing to leave the plane someone overheard my conversation with my neighbour about Iraq - the person turned out to be Andreas, an American filmmaker also going to the WSF. So I waited and chatted, for about an hour it turned out because his traveling companion Myrna, an energetic 70yr old Pueto Rican activist, had lost her luggage in transit. By the time all the lost-luggage paperwork was completed, and the clock had passed 1.30am, I had two new friends and a place to stay for the week. Andreas is cheerful, bearded, passionate and wears a distinctive sailors cap. He fasted for 50 days (6 longer than David Blaine!) to try and persuade Bill Clinton to meet religious leaders from Pueto Rica to hear about the suffering of the people of Viequez, the little island where Myrna lives which for 60 years had been used by the US Navy to test weapons. He's also been a tireless campaigner against the School of the Americas (where the US trains Latin American police in torture). Myrna is a radiant and gregarious. She has recently survived a bout of cancer, quite possibly caused by depleted uranium or other toxins from the weapons testing on Viequez. I was exhausted by the WSF, and so I don't know how Myrna, nearly triple my age, managed to thrive in that environment. Both Andreas and Myrna were a barrel of laughs whether we were chewing the cud at the hotel or braving the streets in a rickshaw. The third member of the gang, who joined us a couple of days later, was an Swedish-Iraqi girl we christened "the princess" (al-emira in Arabic) because of her appauled reaction to Myrna's basic hotel room which she was going to share!