Hope is worth more than oil

While visiting IRAQ THE MODEL, I noodled my way to a couple of the links they blogrolled. This segment, from Democracy in Iraq, caught my eye, as the author, Mr. Husayn, receives and answers some of his mail, back in March, on the 2nd anniversary:

"Your website would be more enjoyable if you gave us accurate news rather than just telling us about hope and other abstract things. Sure you have hope, but do your countrymen? Do those who died for imperialism have hope? How does it feel to get robbed for oil by the worlds strongest nation? Talk about these things, and then I might start reading your blog. BTW � I found it by accident

Charlene Spector
Boston


Hope is worth more than oil, money or anything else that dictates your life.

This is a sample of what I have received, it is in a way a rude awakening to me of the attitudes that some people in the West hold. Perhaps I was a big naive in the past, I thought these were fringe ideas, but I see that you in the West have people similar to the self-defeating terrorists who infest our nation. If the US or Europe were in a similar situation that Iraq is in, then these people would surely be the ones blowing up innocents so that your nation would be stopped from progress."

He concludes with:
"Long Live a Free Iraq
Long Live Freedom
Long Live the Free World"



I am ashamed of the Westerners who are so eager to squelch his enthusiasm. It's little different from telling a laughing toddler his mommy is going to die and leave him alone forever. Even if it were true (and in this case, it couldn't be farther from the truth, as Husayn is witness), saying so is cruel and stupid and ignorant and selfish and a number of other negatives I can't rightly say in a public forum. They make me feel befouled. I'm heading home to shower and wash my eyes out. And then I will remember Husayn's words, tonight:"Hope is worth more than oil, money or anything else that dictates your life."