How do you admit you were wrong? What do you do when you realize those you were defending in fact did not want your defense and wanted something completely different from you and from the world?
This is my story. It will probably upset everybody — those with whom I have fought for peace all my life and those for whom the decision for war comes a bit too fast.
I am an Assyrian. I was born and raised in Japan where I am the second generation in ministry after my father came to Japan in answer to General Douglas MacArthur’s call for 10,000 young people to help rebuild Japan following the war.
As a minister and due to my personal convictions I have always been against war for any and all reasons. It was precisely this moral conviction that led me to do all I could to stop the current war in Iraq.
From participating in demonstrations against the war in Japan to strongly opposing it on my radio program, on television and in regular columns, I did my best to stand against what I thought to be an unjust war against an innocent people — in fact my people.
As an Assyrian I was told the story of our people from a young age. How my grandparents had escaped the great Assyrian Holocaust in 1917, settling finally in Chicago.
Currently there are approximately six million Assyrians — 2.5 million in Iraq and the rest scattered in the Assyrian Diaspora around the world.
Without our own country and no rights even in our native land, it has been our prayer over generations that the Assyrian nation will one day be restored and the people of the once great Assyrian Empire will once again be home.
It was with that feeling, together with supplies for our church and family that I went to Iraq to do all I could to help make a difference. The feeling as I crossed the border was exhilarating — “home at last,” I thought, as I was about to visit the land of my forefathers for the first time.
The first order of business was to attend church. 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.
“We Want War”
Following a beautiful “Peace Service” to welcome the peace activists (even the children participated), we moved to the next room to have a simple meal.
Sitting next to me was an older man who carefully began to sound me out. Apparently feeling the freedom to talk in the midst of the mingling crowd he suddenly turned to me and said, “There is something you should know….We didn’t want to be here tonight. When the priest asked us to gather for a Peace Service we said we didn’t want to come.”
“What do you mean?” I inquired, confused.
“We didn’t want to come because we don’t want peace,” he replied.
“What in the world do you mean?” I asked. “How could you not want peace?”
“We don’t want peace. We want the war to come,” he continued.
“What in the world are you talking about?” I blurted back.
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. That night, and continuing on in the private homes of relatives with whom I stayed, the scales began to come off my eyes.
I had not realized that all foreigners in Iraq were subject to 24-hour surveillance by government “minders” who arrange all interviews, visits and contact with ordinary Iraqis. By some fluke, however, either by my invitation as a religious person and or my family connection, I was not subject to any surveillance at any time throughout my stay in Iraq.
