Reaching out to Guantanamo detainees
Sara Badaracco posted this comment that I have promoted:
Hi,
Pardon the intrusion, but your blog came up in a search for those who commented on Jumah Al-Dossari’s appeal to the American people against the torture he has suffered at Guantanamo Bay. I am trying to raise a direct response to that letter. I am looking for people who are also moved by this issue and might be looking for an outlet to do something. On my site, www.mercyinitiative.com, you can access a petition on Jumah’s behalf. Please spread the word.
Thanks. - Sara
On her website she gives this background:
My name is Sara, and I am a student of clinical psychology at West Chester University, Pennsylvania. As a drug and alcohol counselor for county detentions, I have witnessed firsthand the jaded thinking and subsequent dehumanizing power that comes of labeling people. So the situation at Guantánamo makes sense to me. In fact, the only distance between myself and the Gitmo guards is that my clients can sue me if I mistreat them, and they have full access to the court. It is scary to think this way. I only work with drug addicts. How would I be tempted to treat them if they were labeled terrorists?
I first heard about the plight of Iraqi detainees during the Abu Ghraib scandal in 2004. Though the nation reeled in shock and horror, it was easy to write off such an incident as an anomaly. After all, America has always been a world leader in standing up for basic human dignity; it is easy to blame the torture and humiliation of our enemies on a few “bad apples.”
However, in November 2006, I stumbled across the name of Guantánamo Bay while doing research for a book I was writing. Perhaps like some of you readers, I was one of those that did not always keep up on the news, unless it was an issue that interested me. This did interest me. Disturbed by the connection between specific interrogation techniques used there and popular Medieval methods of torture, I determined to learn more about the shadowy detainment camps where “the worst of the worst” are secreted away from the public’s eye.
But instead of terrorists, I found pictures. Names. The faces of fathers with beautiful children, of sons and daughters and brothers. And the tales of systematic abuse that they faced, and still face, broke my heart. I think the treatment of the Muslim prisoners goes beyond “torture,” crossing into a deep violation of the human soul. Guilty or not guilty, these are human beings, and their despair, their pain, and the indignities they suffer at our hands are real.
My Jewish and Christian relatives suffered under the oppression of the Third Reich and the Soviet Gulag. I often wonder whether the common people of those countries were aware of the atrocities being committed, and if they did, what could have kept them silent. It is not enough that we shed a tear or become angry when we hear of evil going on in our own society. Democracy gives everyone a voice; therefore, each citizen is responsibility for his action or silence. In the words of Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.”
But fighting terror with terror is like trying to put out fire with a flame-thrower. I do not believe that violence or coercion will be able to stop violence and coercion. Yet neither can we sit back and let the fire of hatred rage before our inaction. Instead, the only antidote for hatred is boundless mercy. Like water to flames, positive action in a spirit of love is the only thing that can quench the fires both of terrorism and of our own fearful hatred.
The quality of mercy is not strained;
it droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven
upon the place beneath. It is twice bless’d:
it blesseth both him that gives and him that takes…
And earthly power doth show likest God’s
when mercy seasons justice.-William Shakespeare, Portia in The Merchant of Venice.
I have no idea if her efforts will lead to anything. For example, will the letters she solicits get through US censorship? But I wish her well.
Add comment January 23rd, 2007