As US troops entered Baghdad's heart, their first action had been to fire on journalists filming them, killing and maiming and already there was suspicion that this was not the tragic accident claimed. The subsequent open season on independent minded journalists, largely by the US military, with eighty dead in under three years in further 'tragic accidents', would lead the conspiracy minded to concur with the suspicions.

Comfort, wrote the correspondent, for her and her colleagues, came only from the call to prayer, constant, unwavering. As dawn and dusk's bombs fell from the apricot streaked heavens, the muezzin seemed to drown their destructive thunder. Faith, unwavering continuity, total belief that God prevailed over mans' destructive madness. One does not have to be a believer to empathize. To be woken at dawn by the call, to hear it punctuate the day and as the sun falls from the sky, leaving every shade of impressionist's beauty in its wake, is to discover a still, calm, inner place.

British traveler and diarist Freya Stark, in 1937 ('Baghdad Diaries') writes of being in Iraq's holy city of Najaf, hearing the lilting calls and: 'One evening I spent watching the great gate of the Shrine and the fading light upon it and remember it as one of the most beautiful evenings of my life ... as I came away ...I walked feeling in love with the world ... ' If, she muses, those in the teeming soukh : '...could look past my English bodice in to my heart', they would see it: 'filled ... with respect for this Shrine, which stands over the souls of men, as the golden dome ... stands over the desert', drawing all from afar. She concludes across a near seventy-year divide: 'Who are we to criticize a faith that gives so much?'

Indeed. And one could add, asks so little: largely, simply to be allowed that faith, free from the interference of others. From the crusades of the Middle ages to secure the rights of Christian pilgrims: 'to recover the Holy Land from the Mohammedan conquerors.' 'Crusade' was derived from the cross, which the crusaders wore on their dress. When America's born again Christian President announced his new Crusade against Iraq (detracted it and then repeated it) anyone who understands even a little about the rich complexities of Islamic nations, felt the collective shudder. Had he announced a new Holocaust, the world would have erupted in horror.

Between retraction, confirmation and an unfortunate close encounter with a bag of Pretzels, the British Army stormed the Iraqi border flying the St George's flag on their vehicles (the Crusaders' flag) and the largely Catholic Spanish troops wore their crusader Saint's emblem on their uniforms. Almost on the back of tanks Franklin Graham's far right, fundamentalist Christian evangelists fanned out across Iraq and another group 'Korean Aid', also fundamentalist Christians moved in as an aid agency with a mission, one might speculate.

In a country where they will tell you that Christians and Muslims have lived together for a thousand years (once the old Crusaders were defeated) Canon Andrew White, the former envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, now 'bridge building' in Iraq, has stated on the BBC that he favors turning magical, mystical Nineveh province in northern Iraq, into Iraq's nineteen Province. For Christians only. Oddly Nineveh, with its mix of Mosques, Churches, Yazidi temples, is where Franklin Graham's bunch reportedly first headed. According to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Ninus, son of Belus, was the reputed builder of Nineveh, thus perhaps, 'nineteenth Province'.

And the west talks of 'Islamic fundamentalism'? Perhaps Canon White has a wall in mind, they are growing in popularity, one separating Palestinians from Israel, families and lands, another separating Mexico and Central and South America from the United States, why not Christian apartheid in John Masefield's haunting, revered, 'distant Ophir ..'

Added to these cultural, colonial, outrages, an illegal invasion, destruction of three ancient Muslim countries (Afghanistan, Iraq and the Balkans, the latter, which by some sleight of hand has become 'legal') is the printing of cartoons in numerous countries, depicting the Prophet Mohammed (Peace and blessings be upon Him) as a terrorist.

The Islamic world is largely depicted, in their hurt, anguish and insult, as being unreasonable. It is nearly two decades since 'Muslim' or 'Islam' has appeared on page or airways in the West, without a negative being tagged on. Threats, destruction rampant have rained down, yet, incredibly, broadly, there has been minimal response - in comparison to the level of onslaught - at all levels.

Nearly three thousand years ago, the Babylonian 'Council of Wisdom' instructed:

To the feeble show kindness,
Do not insult the downtrodden,
Do charitable deeds, render service all your days,
Do not utter libel, speak what is of good report,
Do not say evil things, speak well of people.

Editors, politicians and cartoonists, would do well to pin it to the wall and reflect from time to time. Large gatherings will, near, inevitably contain hot heads – and sometimes even agent provocateurs, determined to discredit. Burning buildings is tragic, illegal, unacceptable, reprehensible and inexcusable.

So is burning homes, towns, villages, state buildings: countries. Cartoons too are a two way stretch. An Arab newspaper recently showed a crusader, helmeted, cross regaling the front of his robes, blood dripping from sword depicted as pen. The caption was: 'European Press.'

We are in a war against: 'a global, extremist, Islamic empire', stated Defence Secretary Rumsfeld, this week. Really? I thought of the amazing Mohammed Ghani, possibly Iraq's greatest living sculpture. He was the first Muslim artist ever to be commissioned by the Vatican, to make two vast doors for Baghdad's largest Catholic church, depicting the 'stations of the Cross'.

He was working on them when the 1991 war started. When dusk fell, with no lights (electricity bombed) he would drag them in to the street outside his studio - and the entire neighborhood would gather, night, after night, holding candles, lamps, lighters, hour after hour, so he could finish them on time. There is no 'clash of civilizations', little religious animosity, except that generated by the deluded with agendas and a thirst for oil and gas. And wall-bent fundamentalists.

Addressing the US nation on March 4th 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt said: 'In the field of world policy, I dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor.' His vow has been disgracefully trashed, other nations have followed, attacking, rather than nurturing, so many neighbors. For countless millions, they do not speak in our name.


by Felicity Arbuthnot

-Felicity Arbuthnot lives in London. She has written and broadcast widely on Iraq, one of the few journalists to cover Iraq extensively even in the mid-1990’s during the sanctions.

She with Denis Halliday was senior researcher for John Pilger’s Award winning documentary: Paying the Price - Killing the Children of Iraq. She is also the author, with Nikki van der Gaag, of recently published 'Baghdad' in the educational Great Cities Series for World Almanac Library.