[Shadow_Group] Fw: ||SeattleActivist.org|| Fwd: Event Friday: Funeral for Iraqi friend and all Iraqi civilians who have died

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--- Not In Our NameSeattle <seattle at notinourname.net<mailto:seattle at notinourname.net>>
wrote:

> To: dave at seattleactivist.org<mailto:dave at seattleactivist.org>
> Subject: Event Friday: Funeral for Iraqi friend and
> all Iraqi civilians who have died
> From: Not In Our NameSeattle
> <seattle at notinourname.net<mailto:seattle at notinourname.net>>
> Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 18:01:01 -0500
> 
> Message forwarded from Jessica Anderson of Another
> World is Possible:
> 
> Many of you have received an email from me about the
> death of a good friend in Iraq and/or his memorial
> service I am organizing here in Seattle. Below is
> the information for his memorial and below that is a
> tribute I wrote about him after his death. I hope
> that you will all consider coming to a funeral not
> just for Ghareeb, but for all Iraqi civilians dead.
> Peace,
> Jessica Andersen
> Another World Is Possible 
> 
> Funeral for Ghareeb Mohammed Ramadan, killed in
> Najaf August 19th, 2004 and All Iraqi Civilians who
> have died under War and Occupation.
> 
> Friday, October 9th at 7:00PM/ Practice at 6:00PM
> Gather in front of Lowell Elementary on 11th and E
> Mercer St.
> for a funeral procession down Broadway, ending at
> SCCC for a short service at 8PM.
> 
> This event is a memorial procession above all. We
> will be doing a "Slow Walk" on the sidewalks down
> Broadway as we carry a coffin that we will
> symbolically wash in the place of the body. We will
> stop for short intervals along the way to read
> poetry and the stories of Ghareeb and other Iraqi
> civilians who have died, before moving on. Please
> wear black in mourning and bring candles. At SCCC,
> there will be a 15 minute service at which we will
> wrap the coffin and invite people to lay flowers,
> letters, newspaper articles, photographs, or other
> small symbols of the grief we carry because of this
> war and occupation.
> 
> For those of you willing to act as readers,
> drummers, or coffin carriers (and we need more!!!),
> please arrive at 6:00PM to run through the lay-out.
> Questions, please feel free to call or email.
> Thank you all for helping me to share the beauty
> that was this man.
> Peace,
> Jessica 
>
> 
> 
> Mourning Ghareeb
> Killed August 19, 2004
> 
> My friends, I am writing to you now with a broken
> heart and a
> personal request. Many of you received emails last
> spring in which I wrote of my friend Ghareeb and his
> experiences in the besieged city of Fallujah. I
> asked you then to please respond to Ghareeb's call
> for help, as he was the one responsible for getting
> Anya and I back home safe and sound. I hope now you
> will heed another call to remember this amazing man
> in any way you can. 
> 
> Mohammed Ghareeb Ramadan was killed August 19, 2004
> while trying to prevent the kidnapping of Italian
> journalist Enzo Baldoni, who was later beheaded by a
> resistance group calling themselves the Islamic
> Army. Ghareeb was apparently shot three times in the
> chest and once in the head and his body was left in
> the hot desert air for a day and a night before
> being found by neighbors and transported to the
> local morgue, where his body was most likely thrown
> into a mass grave.
> 
> Without his body, a funeral is difficult. There is
> no body to wash with our tears, to carry to the
> mosque, according to his tradition, to pray over or
> hold. There is no body to bury in the plot he had
> staked out between his mother and his infant
> daughter who died in birth. Without a body we cannot
> honor his last wish to be buried there.
> 
> I have wondered for many days just what I can do and
> if all I can do is to share the story of this
> friend, this man of peace, this prince, then I hope
> that by introducing you all to Ghareeb, he may live
> forever in the hearts and minds of all his family
> across the globe.
> 
> Ghareeb's name means "Stranger" and is a nickname
> given to him by his mother. When his family tried to
> return to their tribal lands in Gaza Strip,
> Ghareeb's papers were denied and his family, knowing
> they may never have another chance, went on without
> him and Ghareeb had to turn away from one Occupied
> home to another.
> 
> I do not know if his family even knows of his death.
> 
> 
> Ghareeb had been a computer engineer before the war.
> He drove a
> Nissan. He wore polo shirts. He wanted to go to
> Canada. He was just your average, every day man
> trying to live his life in Baghdad. The entire time
> we were with him, he absolutely refused payment of
> any kind, instead always thanking us for being his
> entertainment, for giving him a reason to practice
> his fluent English, for telling him about America
> and the world, for simply being there.
> 
> To my knowledge, when we met Ghareeb was not
> involved with any
> humanitarian or political groups. He was just a
> regular guy who
> wanted to help his country and to do right however
> and whenever he could. In the end, his goodness
> would make him everything but regular or ordinary. 
> 
> By the time of his death one year later, Ghareeb had
> become guardian and friend to travelers from the
> U.S., Italy, Germany, and England, to name a few. He
> had gone into Fallujah at a time when everyone else
> was fleeing so that he could deliver medical aid and
> transport women and children to safety. When he and
> others were attacked by U.S. snipers and their
> ambulance destroyed, he was not deterred but
> returned again and again in his own beaten up car,
> squeezing into his back seat one injured child after
> another. He called periodically to report the
> damage, paying for hours of phone calls and staying
> up until the wee hours even after long exhausting
> days so that he could
> report what was happening to other internationals. 
> It is only
> because of those phone calls and the resulting mass
> emails that many of us have any idea of what really
> happened in Fallujah.
> 
> Upon hearing of Ghareeb's death I found myself
> sitting next to the only reminders I could find of
> his presence: a photo of his jolly grin, a small
> collection of the old Iraqi coins that are now out
> of print and that he had gone out his way to find
> for me, and a ticket to Babylon. From those memories
> I draw out images of him: Ghareeb laughing with his
> friends, whose children lines his lap like he was an
> Iraqi version of Santa Clause, Ghareeb stopping the
> car so we could pet the sheep or feel the breeze on
> our skin, Ghareeb driving us out of danger and into
> the sunset, showing us the beauty of his land and
> drilling us about the beauty of his home, Palestine.
> 
> I will always remember coming across an overturned
> van one day
> alongside the road. A group of men had gather to do
> what they must have known they could not and somehow
> overturn this hulking mass to free the young man
> trapped underneath. Even if rescued, he would likely
> die soon after, for there was no ambulance, no
> police, no 911 call, only desert and the pushing,
> sweating bodies of his countrymen.
> 
> We passed, Ghareeb halted and nearly leapt from the
> car saying, I
> MUST stop, I MUST. One of our group was arguing,
> there is nothing we can do now, we should just go,
> another began to cry at the scene, for the sadness
> and hopelessness of it all. I felt the hot air on my
> face, felt the sand creeping into the car. I watched
> as Ghareeb returned from the van, shaking his head.
> He stopped and stared briefly off into the distance,
> wiped his brow and returned to the car, lit a
> cigarette and drove us on. That look on his face
> then, how he felt, truly felt for all, for every
> last person, his saying, "I MUST," and his ability
> to take tragedy after tragedy and still see beauty
> and hope, that was Ghareeb as clearly as I know how
> to paint it.
> 
> Ghareeb was popular in Iraq. He introduced us to
> friends from all
> walks of life, who invited us into their homes and
> shared their
> stories, their meals, and their laughter with us.
> And no matter
> whether he agreed with them or not, Ghareeb carried
> understanding and compassion into every
> relationship. He was one of the most non-judgmental
> people I have ever met in my life. 
> 
> The last time I spoke with Ghareeb was last summer.
> His near-death experience in Fallujah had scared me
> enough to tell him how I felt, how I loved him, how
> WE loved him, to ask him to be safe at the end of
> every call. "Of course Jessica, of course. I will
> talk to you soon," he told me. I never heard from
> him again.
> 
> I tried calling him the last week of August but his
> phone was
> disconnected. It would be a month before I would
> know why. But even now, I find myself succumbing to
> irrational thoughts in the middle of the night
> sneaking downstairs to dial his cell phone,
> whispering, "please answer, please answer, ANYONE
> answer."
> 
> I find comfort in knowing that Ghareeb's life was so
> full and he was so loved in the end. But I still
> mourn for what could have been. In his death, we
> have not only lost this one man but all that this
> one man could have shown us.
> 
> For me, the greatest pain comes from knowing that in
> the end, it was Iraqis who killed Ghareeb. Because
> that is what Occupation does--it cages in people to
> the point that they begin to gnaw at each other, to
> destroy themselves, one person at a time, one dream
> at a time. We have see in Gahreeb's home in
> Palestine that Occupation creates terrorism. We have
> seen in Iraq that Occupation creates terrorism. We
> have seen, we have seen...
> 
> And every time I hear of another young Iraqi or
> another young
> American who has died for this senseless, endless
> war I have to
> wonder, what did we lose with their death, what
> accomplishments, what dreams, what hopes, what
> opportunities for society and for this world went
> into the grave with them? How many future Nobel
> Peace Prize Winners have we killed, how many future
> scientists or leaders of tomorrow have we killed
> already? And how many more will we lose? How much
> blood will it take for us to see the error of our
> ways and stop this war?
> 
> For Ghareeb, my friend, I have no words left with
> which to describe my love, my gratitude, my blessed
> experience at having known you. What words do we
> have left with which to speak the language of the
> heart? 
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
>

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