From: "Jo" <[email protected]>
Date sent: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 13:47:49 +0000
Subject: I'm going back to Iraq

Iraqnophobia

Hello

I want to thank everyone for the emails and support you've all sent
while I was in Iraq and since I got back. Lots of them I never replied to,
because we had very limited internet time over there, because we were
using a satellite modem completely illegal in Iraq, smuggled into the
country with a 10 Euro bribe, which we were very keen not to be caught
with. It meant a lot though, to know that people were thinking of me and
of all the people there, and also to know that what I saw was being read
and was getting out. So thank you.

If anyone's received this twice or doesn't want to hear from me again,
sorry, and please let me know.

I'm going back to Iraq in October for eight or nine months to do the
following:

1. More writing and talking to people and finding out what needs doing.

I want to find out and write about what the situation is now for ordinary
people, as opposed to what I'm hearing on the news. Again it's all
about politicians, soldiers, guerrilla fighters, but nothing about street
children, doctors, teachers, secretaries, taxi drivers, students,
schoolkids, parents, big Saif and small Saif and Asmaa and Zaid and
everyone.

As well I want to see what people outside Iraq can best do to support
people in Iraq and pass that on.

2. Set up a twinning programme.

I want to make links between schools, universities, hospitals, towns,
sports teams, anything and everything.

I think it's important that people get to know each other, humanise one
another, learn about each other and make peace directly, bypassing the
warmongering governments that have come between us. Iraqi people have been
isolated internationally for 12 and a half years and a lot of kids growing
up now have never had any international contact. Likewise a lot of people
here don't know any Iraqi people.

It will mean Iraqi people can tell their stories directly to people here.
The schoolkids in Britain were great when they came out against the war
and school twinning would be a really good way to build on that, having
them communicating directly with schoolkids in Iraq.

I hope I'll be able to facilitate things like exchange visits, art
exhibitions and football tours between the countries, which a lot of
people have been keen to organise but find it difficult without a contact
in the country.

Iraqi people are proud and, being a wealthy country, those I've spoken
to hate to hear of people collecting charity for them, bringing them aid
as if they were a backward country not able to do things for themselves.
They have the money and expertise they need, but are stopped from using
it. So I think the information exchange that twinning can create is
potentially much more valuable.

For example the doctors are well educated but haven't been able to
travel to get the most up-to-date research from international conferences
and so on. If hospitals were twinned, the hospital outside Iraq could
maybe bring an Iraqi doctor to an international conference. Likewise with
universities, the libraries there have no journals more recent than 1990,
because of the sanctions. It would be good if, for example, students here
could raise money and buy 10 years worth of a particular journal on CD-Rom
and send it to the Iraqi university.

I think it would be very hard to set up the links without having someone
in Iraq to go to the schools and such like over there and set up the
contact. I won't be able to sort out hundreds all in the first month, so
you'll have to be patient, but I think it'll be really positive.

Last time, just before the war, I and some Iraqi friends tried to set up
an individual twinning project between students – essentially a pen-pal
arrangement, but the war got in the way. My friends had all the names and
e mail addresses on disk, and I haven't been able to get in touch with
them since I was kicked out at the beginning of April, but hopefully
we'll be able to get that going as well.

3. We're going to take a circus to Iraq.

For more on this, look at www.circus2iraq.org It's in an early stage of
planning but the reason is that playfulness and normality are vitally
important to the healing process for children (and adults) who have been
traumatised by the war and all that's come since and all that went
before. It's not practical for most of us to take the medical and food
aid that, in any case, are the responsibility of the occupying forces to
provide, but what we can take them is some healing, some laughter, some
play, love, solidarity, colour.

A couple of circuses and theatre groups went to Serbia and one to East
Timor, with positive results – look at www.risephoenix.org

So… here's the blag. If you want to help me, these are the things I
need:

1. Funds.

Thankyou so much to the people who have already sponsored me, especially
at the talks I've given. I need to raise a few thousand pounds, for
getting there, getting around to make contacts and set up the links,
paying a translator to translate the letters between schoolkids, etc. I
don't have to have all of it before I leave and it's hard at this
stage to know, with the cost of living over there fluctuating daily, to
know exactly how much it's going to cost. I know the flight to Jordan
will be about £400 ($600).

For people in the UK, cheques can be sent to Jo Wilding, co. 14 Robertson
Rd, Easton, Bristol BS5 6JY.

For people elsewhere, money can be paid into UK Co-operative Bank Account
no. 88026462, sort code 08-92-73. Your bank will be able to tell you the
most effective means of doing this – draft or transfer or whatever –
it seems to vary from country to country.

Please e mail and let me know so I can keep track of things and please
know I'll put it to good use if you do, and thankyou.

2. Publication
I'll be sending out my writing by e mail while I'm there. If you've
received this directly then you're already on my e mail list, so let me
know if you'd like me to take you off it. If you've got it from
someone else and would like to be on my list, e mail me on
[email protected] and I'll add you on. Please pass this on to
anyone else you think might be interested.

I'm happy for any of my writing to be used and published for
not-for-profit purposes and to discuss publication with commercial things.
You can read what I wrote on the last trip at
www.bristolfoe.org.uk/wildfire/ It was going out in the New Zealand
Herald, Guardian Unlimited, several local papers in various countries and
also translated into Japanese, Korean and others.

If anyone is reading this who might be able to help me get articles /
columns into any publications that'd be great.

3. Twinning
Let me know if you're interested in being twinned. As I said above, it
won't all happen in the first month, but I'll do my best to make as
many links as I can. I'd love to have sports teams visit, maybe have
some kind of Peace Games go on, perhaps get school and university exchange
visits going on, although I don't yet know what the visa situation will
be for Iraqi people coming abroad or foreigners getting in to Iraq, but
it's all ideas to think about.

4. Any other clever ideas and cunning plans that you'd like to share.

There's still so much for us to do and focus our energy on, both to
support the Iraqi people and to make sure that this doesn't happen
again, anywhere in the world. Thanks for reading,