The Illumination of Hate Email

One of the last emails I received before I left for Amman was from a peace activist who had seen me speak the night before at a fundraising show of my photos arranged by a gallery that represents my work. Although I repeated a minimum of 5 times that Iraqi people hate being occupied, yet he seemed to take his own meaning from my words and create a new reality. He went so far as to insinuate that my photos were perhaps not mine after all.

It went like this:
“Ms. Tychostup:

Tonight I listened to your presentation at the strip mall out in Delmar. I was the one who asked you to reconcile your contention that Iraqis were happy to have an occupying force in their country with the well-known data about Iraqi opinion and estimates of the Iraqi death count since the invasion.

I was stunned and appalled that you dismissed the famous Johns Hopkins estimate of Iraqi dead as "propaganda."

http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/press_releases/2006/burnham_iraq_2006.html

I did not challenge you because I did not have the facts in front of me, so I am sure that you would have easily out-talked me. But there is one thing I could have said to you if I had been as sharp a talker as you are. I could have pointed out that your dismissal of the Johns Hopkins study is remarkably reminiscent of George W. Bush's dismissal of the study:

http://www.newu.uci.edu/showArticle.php?id=5002

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/11/bush-iraq-tolerate-violence

Until you let slip this one blazing error I was willing to overlook all the little red flags in your speech. Up until that point I saw no reason to assume that you were anything but what you claimed to be.

When I came home my wife asked me how was your presentation. Forced to sum up in a few words, I replied, "The woman was phony baloney."

Perhaps I could have more accurately said, "She is very, very slick."

I tell you this because I want you to understand that while you may have fooled and befuddled most of that audience, there is at least one person who sees you in clear focus.

Your photographs, though, were excellent, quite extraordinary. That is, if they were yours.

-Dan Van Riper
Albany”

Oh well. You can’t please everyone.

Right before I left the US, I contacted Judy Meeker in Tennessee. She makes handmade quilts with children – peace quilts – and sends them off to far corners of the world where children are in need. I have taken her quilts with me on at least 3 trips now. I asked her to send me some more – over might them because I was leaving the next day. The quilts arrived by way of miracle and early this morning, my 4th day in Amman, Judy put an email exchange up her internet newsletter that spoke of this miracle: http://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:8831.674014312/rid:64e14311fb54cb64d3b905c87101e135

Approximately 5 minutes after I read her newsletter I received this email:



“Dear Lurna
I have checked your website
what are you doing?
trying to help Iraqis , or just making propoganda for yourself?
where is the refugees you visited?
and to whom to gave the blankets or quilts?
if you are activist, you need to help people on ground, for their basic needs like education
for their kids here in Amman,
do you know whats the needs of Iraqis here in Amman?
have you met families and write down on your notebook?
I dont know what to say, another naive American trying to bring lights on herself under the name
of Iraqi refugees?
how much you know about the suffering of Iraqis?
4 times you visited Iraq?
how?
by hiding inside American tank?
who protect you?
have you seen the mess, your government done in mt country?
is your quilts , the solution for what happened in Iraq?
are you an American dreamer?
please ask your government to pull out its troops from Iraq, leave the country to its people,
I dont think that Iraqis need your quilts or pity
thank you
Faiza Alaraji
an Iraqi mother”

Unlike the first writer, an angry American person who calls himself a peace activist and thinks sending an angry hate email is taking action, an angry Iraqi I can deal with. Iraqis have a right to be angry. There is a lot to be angry about. I forwarded the email to Judy and wrote Faiza back:

“I am here in Amman. Would you like to meet?

Lorna”

Apparently, Faiza traveled to the US with the help of Code Pink. Judy Meeker wrote of Faiza: “She went to California- around Santa Cruz and spoke. She was blown out by the people of the US mindlessness about what was going on. After, she was given a quilt by my friends. She was inspired that American children cared about her people and had her son take it to his school to show.”

I’d be interested to hear what Faiza has to say about Code Pink. Just about every international and Iraqi person I know who worked with Code Pink and Global Exchange in Iraq does not have anything positive to say about the experience. One Iraqi woman formed her own NGO after working with them, she was so disgusted. They are known as media hounds. Coming to Amman for photo ops with Iraqi refugees, not daring to step foot in Iraq themselves. Collecting money for their own coffers by way of the Iraqi poster child they choose for the moment who must support their agenda.

I am waiting for Faiza’s reply. I hope we can meet. I’ll keep you guys posted.

PS One of the Iraqi refugees I was taken to meet was Haj Ali. Apparently, Haj Ali claimed at one time that he was the man in the infamous Abu Graib photo with the hood over his head and attached to electrical wires. He later said that he was not that person, but that the same thing had happened to him. But that is another story.