I think it was when he was interviewed on Dennis Prager’s radio talk show in 2003 that I first heard of Ken Joseph, Jr.. The Rev. Joseph had gone to Iraq just before the Iraq War started, to act as a human shield, to show solidarity with the Iraqi people, to declare himself a man of peace in a land that stood at the brink of an unwanted war. Iraq was the land of his Assyrian forefathers, and he traveled there as one would return at last to a longed-for home. He attended a Peace convocation at an Iraqi Assyrian Christian Church and it was there that his whole life changed. It was his moment of epiphany. Instead of being greeted as a messenger of hope, of peace, he was told by the Iraqis he met, that they longed for the war to start.
As he himself puts it, in his April 1, 2003, written narrative in Capitalism Magazine:
. . . it was here where my morals were raked over the coals and I was first forced to examine them in the harsh light of reality. . . . . That was the beginning of a strange odyssey that deeply shattered my convictions and moral base but at the same time gave me hope for my people and, in fact, hope for the world.
In a short time, he came to understand that what had seemed to be a country at peace was something quite different.
What emerged was something so awful that it is difficult even now to write about it. . . . . Simply put, those living in Iraq, the common, regular people are in a living nightmare. From the terror that would come across the faces of my family at a unknown visitor, telephone call, knock at the door I began to realize the horror they lived with every day.
Wherever he went, with whomever he talked, from average people to government officials,
. . . when allowed to speak freely the message was the same - `Please bring on the war. We are ready. We have suffered long enough. We may lose our lives but some of us will survive and for our children's sake please, please end our misery.’
I believe that this article is a must-read in its entirety. It must be read as a reminder in part of why we went to war in Iraq, as a reminder that those who live in tyranny live in a never-waking nightmare, as a reminder of why we cannot leave Iraq before we have done our job. The experiences of the Rev. Joseph are as meaningful and imperative now as they were when he lived them in 2003. The conclusions he came to then are truly priceless: Such epiphanies do not come with an exchange of funds, as one would purchase a souvenir as a reminder of a memorable journey, but only with an exchange of heart and mind and soul. The journey is inward, and there are neither maps nor guidebooks to speak to us of such matters. Many people made that same trek to the physical Iraq before the war, but few were open to the truth of the inner Iraqi experience.
Living during a tyranny is like living during a plague. Every member of your family, every friend and associate you have is at risk and may be carried off to die (or simply to disappear). Anyone, even a close family member, might be a “carrier” of the plague, ready to tell an official lies about you or to report something you did or said or someone “suspicious” who came to your house. At any minute your life or the life of someone you love could be destroyed, with no recourse. They might be taken away, never to be seen again. They may be found tortured and dead on your doorstep at any time. Whole families could disappear without explanation. And just as with a plague, the fact that there is no recourse does great damage to the emotions, to the soul. There is nothing you can do to immunize yourself, not even occupy a position of great power, because everyone is subject to the whim of the dictator. Just as with a plague, there is no warning, no way to prepare yourself or your family, there is no place to hide, no way to recognize who might be a carrier. And just as with a plague, there is no rhyme or reason as to who will be struck down next.
Living under the control of Saddam Hussein, the people in Iraq were in a man-made plague of fear, and though it seems that they are living in one now, it’s not the same at all. With the US military came hope, because they are doctors with strong medicine against the plague of tyranny. No deeply structured plague can be stopped immediately. Innocent people will still die, especially since there are people who do not want Iraq to be freed of the plague, and they deliberately go out and infect people when they can. But the only hope the Iraqi people have is to acknowledge that there is now something that can be done and to help do it. As long as the US and its allies are in Iraq, the plague can be fought. If we leave, it will regain its strength through the next dictator who takes power.
This is the basis of the plea that Rev. Joseph heard. It is important to repeat something he wrote. When they said to him, “We may lose our lives but some of us will survive and for our children's sake please, please end our misery”, they understood that breaking free of a tyranny is difficult and painful. It takes time, and it takes lives. It demands a rebuilding of the infrastructure of the country, and a reforming of the infrastructure of the human mind. It is a pact with the future, dedicated to those who are young and to those still yet to be. This was the message the Rev. Joseph brought back to us, the message he conveyed during that radio interview I heard.
I often recall that radio interview. I recall it when I hear people crying for peace, for an end to the war in Iraq, as though Peace were somehow the perfect state of being. I recall it when people try to tell me that the Iraqi people don’t want us there, that they want us to pack up and leave. I recalled it in the last few days when I was watching the Hannity and Colmes cable TV show and I saw Mario Cuomo stand at the Cooper Union in New York City and say that it would not be a betrayal of the Iraqi people if we left Iraq.
Not a betrayal?
Mario Cuomo was born in 1932, and therefore was alive and cognizant at the time that the United States left South Vietnam. Several million people died right after that, in Vietnam, in the waters off Vietnam, in Cambodia and elsewhere, because the United States simply walked away (or, to be more precise, flew away and sailed away) from that war. Millions more in Southeast Asia entered a nightmare from which there was no escape. Unlike the Rev. Joseph, it seems that Mario Cuomo did not have an epiphany at this much more obvious life experience; nor, apparently, has its lesson struck him at any time since then. Perhaps there are some forms of betrayal that liberals such as Cuomo refuse to recognize as such, because they want specific actions to take place and they just know that someone as wonderful as they are could not possible abide a betrayal.
I do wish that Mario Cuomo would take a few moments to contact Ken Joseph, Jr., and exchange a few ideas with him.
It’s never too late for an epiphany.
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