I have just returned from Karbala in Iraq. I was attending the 3rd International Conference of the Call of Al Aqsa subtitled From the Battle of Karbala to the Flood of Al Aqsa ,The triumph of Will over Tyranny. The international delegation included representatives from South Africa, West Asia and people from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon. Palestine. Syria. Latin America, Europe, Indonesia and Malaysia. Topics discussed included how to promote the call for Palestinian national self-determination ,how to support the people suffering under genocide and how to solidify solidarity action and strengthen international collective actions and support for Palestine.
Upon receiving my invitation my first response was the vivid mental pictures of Operation Shock and Awe, America and Britain’s illegal war on Iraq which devastated the country adding one million Iraqi deaths to the 600,000 children who had already perished under the illegal sanctions imposed upon Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion. I added that to the ongoing CIA/M16 funded and controlled ISIS terrorists still operating inside Iraq with the demand by the elected Iraqi government for the last remaining American military presence in Iraq to leave. A call that has gone unanswered leading to occasional engagements between some independent Iraq Popular Mobilisation Units and the continued illegal presence of armed American occupation forces.
Having visualised the problems I then decided to do what I always do.I asked myself what was the right thing to do in this situation and I made the decision as a solidarity activist that I would go. This is the same mental thought process I used before deciding to go to Gaza in 2010 with Tony Upton where we delivered a 13 seater wheel accessible minibus to the Al Awda hospital via the Viva Palestina George Galloway inspired land convoys. The same process that took me to Beirut in 2011 the Westbank in 2012 a second aid convoy in 2014 Bradford to Gaza, the same process that saw my arrival in Syria in 2017, 2019, 2023 and visit Venezuela Jordan Donbas and now Iraq. If you believe in solidarity in action then if you have the time you must go and stand by those who need support.
My first impression on arrival at Baghdad airport via Dubai was the military helicopter overhead, possibly American as Baghdad hosts the Green Zone at its centre, where many of the international embassies are situated. Then I noticed only two aeroplanes on the escarpment. Perhaps not a real surprise in hindsight but a very visual representation of the numbers flying in and out Baghdad.
Having obtained our visas and alighting the bus we headed the 2.5 hour trek to Karbala.
The scenery is stunning just like all the Levant in West Asia.
I could have been in Jordan, Syria or Palestine. Beautiful stretches of golden desert interspersed with small towns like an oasis in bloom. The rebuilding projects are everywhere. Iraq is re-emerging from the imperialist onslaught of 2003 with vibrant new buildings, infrastructure housing developments, retail shop business and factories.
In a short time I was disabused of my western brainwashed vision of an Iraq in tatters
replaced with the spectacle of modern technology flourishing .Everything you can buy in the
west you can buy in Iraq from designer clothes to state of the art electronics and phones.
Looking at Iraq as it really is ,made me wonder if West Asia had not been dismembered and
balkanised by the British and the French after the First World War and had not Britain
facilitated the birth of the Zionist terrorist genocidal state of Israel, what a veritable paradise
the Levant and West Asia would be.
All the terror and destabilisation in the region for more than 100 years is at the feet of
western capitalist imperialist militarist intervention.Interventions to aggrandise the west and
impoverish the people of the region.
The sectarian violence visited upon the Iraqi Shia and Sunni communities were exacerbated
by the occupation forces. There were no car bombs outside of Shia mosques under Saddam
Hussein and many including myself believe those atrocious war crimes were instigated by
American and British forces to have Iraqis fighting each other and not their occupiers, events
borne out by the arrest and subsequent rescue of four British undercover operatives dressed
as Iraqis who had a bomb in the boot of their car.Taken to a police station for interrogation
they were subsequently released after occupation forces laid siege to where the captives
were being held, forcing their release, and nothing was to come from the arrest to expose the
real culprits behind these crimes.
I met Sunni and Shia muslims on the delegation. I visited the Imam Hussein Mosques where
the remains of ibn ali Hussien grandson of the Prophet Muhammed repose and the Imam Ali
Mosque in Najaf 90 kilometres from Karbala.
26 million pilgrims will walk the 90 kilometres from Najaf to Karbala on the annual pilgrimage
between August 11 and August 25 2024.
Do not believe the western stereo typing of Iraq nor indeed Syria or Iran as backward third
world countries.
In Iraq there are food stalls, water stations and covered areas for pilgrims to relax out of the
blazing midday temperatures reaching 55 degrees at its peak and cooling to 30 degrees at
night. I watched humanity in action as all those providing food, water and shelter do so out of their
own pockets.
Perhaps the West could learn from the East and not just impoverish, bomb and steal the natural wealth of these sovereign nations.
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