GLOBAL NETWORK CIRCLE STORY

NORTH AMERICA and IRAQ
Two Circles become one, impacting many

In 2004, a Circle of several women from across North America and a Circle of women from Baghdad, Iraq were connected through the Peace X Peace Global Network. Like many connected sister Circles, they began by emailing their questions, experiences, and insights about family, life, and the war in Iraq. Over time, these two Circles reinvented themselves as one collective Circle named The Beads.

Naba Hamid and Sharon SimoneThe following stories present perspectives from three members of The Beads - Barbara Thibeault of East Lansing, Michigan; Sharon Simone of Redlands, California; and Naba Saleem Hamid of Baghdad, Iraq.

East Lansing connects with Baghdad
Barbara Thibeault of East Lansing, Michigan, formed a Circle of college friends and colleagues that connected to a sister Circle in Baghdad called New Horizons for Women. After exchanging emails for a few months, women from the two Circles began sharing on a more personal level. They fasted together during one day of Ramadan and discovered ways to support New Horizons' work empowering young Iraqi women. In Barbara's words:

"Months after forming and connecting my Circle, I am still in awe of this 'up close and personal' witnessing of the Iraq war in contrast to the faceless war portrayed in our nightly news. Circle sisters from Toronto, California, and Michigan share the privilege of learning from our Iraqi sister Circle about the human faces and hurting hearts, when war is not only on the nightly news, but a part of daily life invading the refuge of one's home. I'm a member of the 'sandwich generation' -caring for my ailing mother, being with my family, and having a meaningful job. In addition to this juggling act, I feel it is important to be involved, aware, and informed and to share what I know and feel with others.

Enter Lola, an 83-year old friend of my mother. She and three others of my mother's high school girlfriends have met regularly for more than 60 years. Recently, the four of them called to plan a visit to my mother. As we chatted, I longed to strengthen my connection to my mother's peers and I found myself blurting out that I, too, am part of a Circle. I described my relationship with my sster Circle in Iraq, fully aware of the risk of rumors that I had gone over the line and was communicating with terrorists. I shared details of the last email I received from one sister in Baghdad about a nearby explosion shattering all the glass in her home and how she spent days cleaning glass out of her furniture and gardens. The heavy military vehicles stir up so much dust that it is impossible to keep her home clean.

Lola reacted with understanding and alarm. She has friends with diabetes, and one sliver of glass in the foot could cause severe medical problems. What about grandchildren or friends with asthma? How could they breathe? The frustration of never having a clean house! Then Lola asked if I could send her the letter, so she could share it with her circle of high school friends. Our Iraqi sister had assured us we could share whatever would be helpful in our peace work. And thus began the gentle ripple effect of activism.

Yesterday, our Iraqi sister's email described listening to the bulbul's birdsong from her yard while she sipped Turkish coffee, trying to hold onto hope despite constant power outages and the danger that made it impossible for her to enjoy her annual leisurely drives during her favorite season of autumn. I can't wait to call Lola and share with her this new message and the feeling of connectedness I have with all my Iraqi sisters. Women's compassion knows no geographic, generational, or political boundaries. We are making and connecting ripples of compassion. Without compassion, there can be no enduring peace."

Iraqi Professor travels the US
In June 2005, the US members of The Beads Circle organized a visit to the US by one of their members in Baghdad - University of Baghdad Professor Naba Saleem Hamid - to promote peace and women's rights in Iraq. Professor Hamid has a longstanding dedication to education and support for the women of Iraq. In September 2003, she founded New Horizons For Women (NHFW) in Baghdad. This Iraqi-based nonprofit organization prepares Iraqi women to become politically active through education, opportunities to acquire professional skills, and psychological support.

During her visit, Professor Hamid shared the daily realities of women in Iraq and their efforts to assume leadership roles in shaping their country's future. She met with advocacy groups including Women Waging Peace, Vital Voices, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), the Women's Information Network (WIN), Women Opening Doors for Women, Search for Common Ground, League of Women Voters, Women's Policy Institute, the International Republican Institute, and the National Democratic Institute. She was accompanied by her US Circle sister Sharon Simone. This is their story:

Simone, honest about her opposition to the war but "not a missionary," as she puts it, was "looking for some sanity." In particular, she was eager to get past what she saw on TV. "I'm not saying the media lies, but it's not the full picture, you know?" A connection to someone in Baghdad was an opportunity to learn from the ground level, without press conferences, embedded US journalists' reports, charged Al-Jazeera reports, or 30-second sound bites. It provided a quiet space for "an alternate conversation, a place to be under the radar, away from the political polarization in the US."

Hamid was equally as concerned about what she considers the inaccuracy of the media's war coverage. She wanted to convey what was really happening in Baghdad and tell Americans that the coverage they saw on the nightly news was not a complete picture. "American women are so busy; they do not have the time to run after the truth unless it is presented to them. And what they are finding out is so incomplete," she says. As she coped with the chaos at home, she found herself particularly eager to expand the picture of reconstruction she felt was being inaccurately presented to the American public. As someone who has spent time in the US and was educated in American schools in Iraq, Hamid also wanted to show her compatriots in Baghdad that is it possible to separate US citizens from their politicians' actions.

The connection - one seeking to know, the other seeking to tell - seemed a meeting of minds. What evolved was more than an exchange of information.

For both women, being in a Circle means having a non-judgmental sounding board, quiet support, room to find their voices, a space to begin that "alternate conversation." Together, they set the terms of communication, acquired a deeper understanding of what it means to be in a battle zone, and learned how to better construct long-lasting peace through shared conversations that are about anything, beyond politics and the war.

Simone admits it took a huge leap of faith to sit down at her computer and extend herself to a stranger: "I was afraid Naba would hate me. I didn't know why a woman from Baghdad would want to speak with an American woman, with me." Naba's first response was typical of many international Global Network participants - short, and several weeks in coming. The seeming lack of interest underscored her fears, and Simone didn't know what to think of the silence. "I heard nothing for weeks," she says.

The reason Hamid's response was slow highlights an issue affecting many of the Global Network's international members. Emailing, which we take for granted in the US, is not easy in Baghdad. The 15-minute journey to the Internet café takes two hours in the midst of war and the insurgency. The café might not be open and, if it is open, there may not be electricity. The obstacles are many, yet Naba finds the wherewithal to respond to her sisters.

For Naba, communicating with Simone is a moment of hard-won peace in her day, when she can speak and be heard. In the process, what she says is tried out, practiced, and refined. Hamid says that having Simone simply listen and ask questions has taught her how to approach a different audience, one that defines knowledge and looks for it in facts rather than emotions. She has learned the extent to which people in the US get their information from "the directed media." So, she talks of her emotions, of her intense worries and anxieties, of the human element in terms of quantifiable information that appeals to American powers-that-be, choosing "keys that will open closed doors."

Getting a reply to her first emails with the subject line "Salaam from Baghdad" is a memory that "still makes the emotion rise up in me," says Simone. "When Naba did write back, her response - written while the going was good - got straight to the point, acknowledging my pain and finding common ground." Hamid takes that realization in stride. "We're both human," she says, "women, mothers, teachers. Agony: She has hers and I have mine. There are commonalities."

For Simone, being in communication with someone in a different country, and in a situation she had no power over but deeply objected to, was empowering. "Naba's lack of security, the daily hurdles she faces to do simple things like bathe or buy groceries, came about because of actions taken in my name. The communication made me feel I was reclaiming my citizenship. It's an antidote to the powerlessness and futility I'd felt."

For Hamid, in an iffy cyber cafe in Baghdad, the connection with her U.S. sisters provides peace in her heart, if not in her physical environment. "I wish the world could have this same feeling of peace," Hamid says, "so we would all have time to think, to be peaceful."