May 2, 2008
By Tonya Sneed
Peoria (IL) Peace Network
In protest of a recent air show, the Peoria Area Peace Network flew kites at a local park. We had a gorgeous, sunny day, and Jack, who organized it, says we’ll likely make it an annual event.
I told a reporter from Channel 25 that while “to us, to Americans, the warplanes represent entertainment, to the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, they represent terror.” They aired my comment.
Some years ago a woman told me about attending an air show in which a plane crashed. That was in my mind an hour or so later when Harry, Matt, Mohamed, Ahmed and I were working in our new garden (Jim calls it a farm — I guess it is a little big). We live relatively close to the airport. A couple of the planes started flying really low, seemingly toward us. I grabbed Ahmed (who is 11 and very small for his age), and hugged him tightly, and for a moment, felt a sense of panic. For a split second, I had this tiny glimpse of the fear that so many mothers must have felt and continue to feel as we drop bomb after bomb on these poor people.
But someone could argue that even in that second I didn’t know the fear — because, for one, I’m not a mom, and for another, I knew deep in my heart that the chances of the planes actually crashing were minuscule compared to the risk of bombs raining down in Iraq or Afghanistan.
And how could I debate such a point? Who do I think I am to suggest that I can even begin to empathize with the fear of hundreds of thousands of moms in these countries? My gravy life is so far removed from theirs. Their nightmares don’t go away in the morning. I haven’t a clue about how they continue on following the devastation that we cause, and here I am, benefitting every single day from their heartbreaks. Ya know, oil is our god.
A few minutes later Dhiaa joined us in the garden and told me, in his broken English, about seeing and hearing U.S. warplanes in Iraq, and about his wife, Aseel, shaking uncontrollably when the bombs came.
