The victims of 9/11 were not only the 3,000 lost in the attacks, but also the Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, and non-Muslim Arabs and Iranians who were murdered, beaten, discriminated against, illegally detained, and subjected to racial profiling, humiliation, and the vilification of their way of life in the aftermath. Let us also not forget all of the lives lost in the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Let us not also forget all the soldiers who were emotionally manipulated & forced to join a war that was never theirs to fight, and could not withdraw when disillusioned.
In remembrance of all Iraqi victims, I remind you all and myself with the words of the brave journalist, Muntasir AL Zaidi who threw his shoe at Bush, and was detained & viciously tortured for it.
"If those who blamed me knew how many destroyed houses I walked over with those shoes that I threw, and how many times those shoes mixed with the blood of the innocent, and how many times those shoes went into homes where the honor of those who lived there was disgraced, then it was the proper response."
Muntader al-Zaidi
The shoe thrown at President Bush during a press conference in Iraq in 2008. Photograph taken at the Museum in TriBeCa, New York City.
No comments:
Post a Comment