The Loss of the Human Element in the Aftermath of a Tragedy
by Masha Williams
There are currently well over 4 million displaced Iraqis, and at the time of writing, there were approximately 655,000 Iraqi civilians and exactly 3,990 US soldiers dead. Officially, 29,395 US troops have been wounded. Countless Iraqis have lost their homes, and even more have lost their jobs or members of their family. The statistics can go on and on, but, when naming figures, it is all too easy to forget that each one of those listed has, or had, a face, a name, and a life apart from their statistical significance. People have always had a weakness when it comes to imagining numbers larger than a couple thousand, and when the numbers enter the millions, it becomes almost impossible for the mind to comprehend the magnitude of the equation, especially if those numbers represent distinct human lives.
When Iraqi refugees are mentioned, the scope of the figures is so large that it is hard to imagine anything beyond a vague sense of tragedy. The faces and the names become irrelevant, and, as a result, those mentioned in the statistics lose their humanity.
Joseph Cornelius Donnelly, of the humanitarian organization Caritas Internationalis, mentioned at a recent panel discussion in New York that Caritas had been creating buttons for refugees who have beat the cruel odds and relocated to the United States. The buttons carry the simple slogan, "We have family in Iraq." It seems like an insignificant gesture, but the concept of those buttons is to help Americans put faces to the figures.
In 2005, the last year for which complete statistics are available, only 200 of the millions of refugees were admitted into the United States, passing the rigorous, and oftentimes unfair, screening process. With so few Iraqi refugees allowed into the U.S, Americans are not forced to confront the reality of the situation. They are not able to look one of these refugees in the eye and realize that he or she is not simply a far-removed statistic, an inhabitant of a world apart from our own comfortable microcosm.
Even those who work with the refugees, be it in Iraq or in one of the many other countries plagued by violence and injustice, get so caught up in the statistics that they forget that those they are feeding have other needs as well.
Sarah Chynoweth, of the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children lamented at the same panel discussion: "We get laughed at when we tell [the other organizations present] we're [in the countries that need humanitarian assistance] to take care of reproductive health. They tell us, 'We'll deal with the rapes later.' No, you'll deal with the rapes NOW!" Even in the countries where people are suffering from starvation and living each day wondering whether it will be their last, they are still human, and still deserving of treatment befitting a human being. It is easy to forget about the emotional well-being of the refugees when humanitarian workers are struggling even to provide for the basic needs of survival.
When a woman is raped here in the United States, police immediately organize a search for the offender and she is given abundant medical attention, access to facilities and contraception, and ample heartfelt support, as she should be, but if the same thing happens to an Iraqi woman, no one even bats an eyelash. The different standards of living in the two countries do not make that excusable; people are people regardless of where they live.
It is true that saving lives is and should be of the first and foremost importance, but it is also important to consider the quality of the lives saved. If they have been irreversibly shattered, that is not success.
Rome was not built in a day, and Iraq will not be rebuilt in a day, a month, or even a year, but, in the course of its rebuilding, it is important to rebuild the quality of the lives saved as well as decrease the quantity of those lost. This daunting but absolutely vital task will be more easily accomplished if the attempts at its success start immediately, and the U.S. government and its citizens, inextricably tied to this responsibility, must face up to what it truly means to have 4 million Iraqi refugees in the world. Not to mention the fact that for every moment it is postponed, human suffering increases by far too great an extent.
