Open Letter To Mohammad Nafik, aged 12 


Before reading this you may want to read this story on Reuter's
http://www.reuters.co.uk/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=486497
This is not child friendly reading.
WARNING, THIS IS KINDA POLITICAL - SORRY FOR HAVING AN OPINION 

Dear Mohammad,
My name is Toby Wallwork and I live in the United States. I was not a big supporter of this country's war in Iraq. For whatever reason America was in Iraq I think that removing Saddam was a good thing to do. I hope that you will feel that way too.
So today all over the internet there are photos of a car on fire and the news that 4 civilian engineers were shot in Falluja, which I guess is where you live. The Reuter's story quotes you quite a bit. They even mention that you were involved in kicking the dead bodies and mentioning that you were "happy to see this" meaning the bodies burning in the street after the attack.

Some of those people may have had families just like yours. Imagine how much you would miss a parent or how much a parent would miss you.

I understand that you are only 12 years old, and that your childhood growing up in Iraq has probably had more than a fair share of difficulty, adversity and violence. You might even think that things were better before the American's came along and kicked out Saddam (and maybe they were).

All I can say is that in the grand scheme of things, I hope that one day you will regret the fact that you took pleasure in the death of civilians. Those men were contractors, in Iraq to assist in the rebuilding of your country (it's something America likes to do after smashing a place up pretty bad). In less than one hundred days, the sovereignty of your country will be returned to you. The Americans won't be leaving right away (something else America does) but the responsibility to govern the future Iraq will fall on the shoulders of men like you. Your country's future is very important, and there will be lots of people trying to get the upper hand in how it is run (maybe even some Americans). Few of them will really have what's best for Iraq as their main concern, but they will all say that they do. Many of them will invoke Islam as their directive and declare it essential to the future of Iraq (they may even be right about that, I don't know). However I think you should be very careful about what you listen to, especially people invoking the will of Allah. We have people here that want us to do things because it is the will of God, or not do things because it is the will of God; but in the end these people are usually thinking a little more about themselves than about everyone else.

Philosophy, idealogy, religion, any of the belief systems that we humans employ to explain why we are here and what we should do, contain an inherent flaw. Whenever you have people who are willing to die for what they believe, you will have people who are willing to let them prove it. There are over one billion children of Allah in the world, that works out to one out of every six people on the planet. How many of them will die, just to hurt one of the other five?

Mohammad, I was more upset to read of your revelry than I am to read of suicide bombers and innocent casualties, because they have already done or become what they believe was their destiny to do or become. You still have a chance to select your own destiny, and help your country to achieve it.

Please choose wisely.

Toby Wallwork
2004 

Posted: Wed - March 31, 2004 at 01:39 PM       @ toby

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