One of the least reported stories of the U.S. invasion of Iraq is the dispersal of close to 5 million Iraqis displaced either internally or forced to flee across the country’s borders. This exile is one of the greatest refugee crises in modern history—the statistical equivalent of nearly 50 million Americans leaving the United States. These masses of people displaced by the war in Iraq have become invisible and insignificant, overshadowed by other war-related events. Many of the displaced were the brains, the talent, the pride, the future of Iraq. Many of them, stigmatized by unforgettable violence, will never return to their homes.
Some of the most recent Iraqi refugees in America had signed up to serve as translators working for the U.S. military or as experts with other U.S. government agencies, NGOs, or American companies in Iraq. They saved lives; they built cultural and linguistic bridges; they sacrificed their own safety and the safety of their families to help participate in what they thought would be the creation of a better Iraq. They quickly became one of the most hunted groups in the country. They bore a lethal stigma as “collaborators” or “traitors” that transcended sect or tribe, and they were targeted in assassination campaigns that drove many of them either into hiding or out of the country.
For people who fear for their life and seek refugee status in America, the U.S. government offers resettlement as the “option of last resort” for the most vulnerable refugees. In this project, I photographed and interviewed Iraqi refugees who have been resettled to the United States and are living in Washington, D.C. or other American cities.
Once in the United States, these refugees encounter the intricate, challenging, and often disillusioning process of transitioning to life in America. Many feel abandoned by the country they helped and risked their lives for; many are unemployed and facing dire financial crises; many yearn for the embrace of family and friends left behind; and many wish they could return home. Still fearful for their own safety and the safety of family members in Iraq, many refugees asked that I not reveal their faces or names.
“Yesterday, I was shouting during my sleep. I woke up suddenly, my dream was really scary, it was about Iraq. If you live as a refugee or anyone who was suffering inside Iraq, you would feel this pain living inside you, making you really suffering; struggling for survival.”
One of the least reported stories of the U.S. invasion of Iraq is the dispersal of close to 5 million Iraqis displaced either internally or forced to flee across the country’s borders. This exile is one of the greatest refugee crises in modern history. These masses of people displaced by the war in Iraq have become invisible and insignificant, overshadowed by other war-related events. Many of the displaced were the brains, the talent, the pride, the future of Iraq. Many of them, stigmatized by unforgettable violence, will never return to their homes.
Amongst the displaced is a group of Iraqis who were forced from their homes because they had helped the United States. They signed up to serve as translators working for the U.S. military or as experts with other U.S. government agencies, NGOs, or American companies in Iraq. They saved lives; they built cultural and linguistic bridges; they sacrificed their own safety and the safety of their families to help participate in what they thought would be the creation of a better Iraq. They quickly became one of the most hunted groups in the country. They bore a lethal stigma as “collaborators” or “traitors” that transcended sect or tribe, and they were targeted in assassination campaigns that drove many of them either into hiding or out of the country.
“The threat came in 2006. I got the envelope with a bullet in it and a message: “Leave your house, leave your town, or death is coming to you.” They gave me just 24 hours to leave…and I left. I received the threat because I was working with the United States Marine Corps.”
For people who fear for their life and seek refugee in the U.S., the government offers resettlement as the “option of last resort”. I photographed Iraqis who have been resettled and are living in Washington, D.C. Once here, these refugees often feel abandoned by the country they risked their lives for; many are unemployed and facing dire financial crises; many wish they could return home. Still fearful for their own safety and the safety of family members in Iraq, many asked that I not reveal their faces or names.
As the U.S. cuts back its military presence in Iraq, the plight of Iraqis who helped the United States is uncertain and deeply troubling. Currently, there is no scenario for aiding or airlifting all those Iraqis and their families, thus putting them at great risk of being targeted as soon as the U.S. Army withdraws.
The historical, cultural, political and religious depth of this ancient Persian culture paralleled with its 21st century technological emancipation and its religious fundamentalism, create dualities expressed in every-day-life contradictions. The multi-faceted and intricate layers of life in Iran require much time spent inside of the society in order to observe, understand and then photograph the nuances of daily minutiae as portrayed in the life of individuals. These enthralling dichotomies create captivating fascination, albeit bordering on semi-blinding false romanticism.
Iran is just like a story…poetically narrated with its past profoundly present in its future, illustrated in vividly saturated colors alongside complex black-hued agendas, political propaganda, religious fundamentalism and imprisonment of non-conformist thoughts.
Iran is a contradiction…its society living a double life– religious and secular, traditionally Iranian yet with consumerist attraction to Western life-style, fundamentally rigid yet also reformist, highly emancipated and educated. It’s a life of family privacy and openness, and a life of sophisticated blending into the masses of obedient followers. It’s a country of deeply respected customs and rules where clerical conservatism battles modernism and where ‘westernization’ is an outlawed term.
It’s a country of large economic discrepancies and highly revered family ties; with university-educated housewives, with women scared to be photographed, yet also with women who with fashionably colorful scarves worn inched backward and short-cut manteaus closely outlining their bosoms and hips are leading an uncoordinated but highly visible and effective revolution.
Can’t see it, can’t smell it, can’t taste it, can’t talk about it. The Chernobyl exclusion zone – initially set at 20 miles in radius, but expanding over time with the spread of radioactivity by wind and water – splits towns and villages in half: half hospitable and living, half lethal and uninhabitable, as if the radioactive contamination stops at some arbitrary line. What is life like in those settlements on the edge of one of the most radioactive areas in the world?
“As other tragedies are vying for the world’s attention, Chernobyl has been relegated to history. The images of Chernobyl are different than the deeply disturbing images of war where the immediacy of bombs and bullets are all too apparent. The war that has been waged by Chernobyl is a silent and invisible war, but nonetheless, deadly.” Adi Roche, Founder and CEO of Ireland-based Chernobyl Children’s Project International.
World dictionaries define Chernobyl as the worst environmental catastrophe in the history of humanity. But what does the ‘worst environmental catastrophe’ actually mean in the everyday lives of the people of Ukraine and Belarus, cannot be explained by any dictionary.
The complexity of living with Chernobyl can only be understood empirically though breathing Chernobyl, eating Chernobyl, sleeping with Chernobyl, and most of all, through denying Chernobyl.
An excruciating war waged by Chernobyl’s ‘atoms for peace gone wrong’ has been emitting its long lasting poisonous legacy for almost 25 years, but will continue to do so for centuries into the future. According to the UN, 7 to 9 million people were affected. 4.5 million children and adults live on contaminated land. Over 800,000 children are at risk of cancer. 400,000 people became environmental refugees.
A single refugee is a tragedy; over four million refugees is a statistic…
Iraqis have been fleeing their homes en masse. As displaced victims of war are forced to seek refuge in other parts of Iraq or in neighboring nations, they have turned into a number: 4.9 million un-named, anonymous non-entities, statistically relevant yet individually insignificant.[1]
The days of my stay in Syria offered a small window into the magnitude of a catastrophe that is still unfolding and shows no sign of abating in any immediately imaginable future.
Who are these fleeing Iraqis? Can they be turned from statistics into individual human beings?
At a first glance, Sayyida Zainab doesn’t seem much different from any other bustling, poor Damascus neighborhood, until one listens carefully: the Iraqi dialect spoken here transports one from Syria to Baghdad.
This is where Iraqi refugees come to escape war and sectarian violence -- temporarily, until they can return to their homes again. But if you ask them how long that may take, the uncertainty is immediately apparent in their gaze and in their repeated phrase, “Iraq’s future is like a long dark tunnel.”
Here, far away from their homeland, desperate, almost penniless Iraqi refugees congregate on “Iraqi Street,” a road that serves simultaneously as a community center, a market, and an access to nearby living quarters. As one passes the tea sellers and other merchants who are the nerve center of the neighborhood, one can start to imagine what life used to be like in Iraq…before.
In many ways, Sayyida Zainab represents the ideal concept of Iraq, an enclave where sectarian divisions are a foreign concept, a religiously and politically unified community. It is a sensitive topic, one often addressed in hushed tones, but many refugees assert: “We are Iraqis! We don’t refer to ourselves as Sunni or Shiia, we are all Iraqis here!”
“Baghdad…Baghdad,” yells a man on Iraqi Street, attracting the attention of potential travelers. Many Iraqis are lured by the appearance of a reduction in violence in Iraq; by a monetary incentive offered by the Iraqi government (a Faustian deal for which they have to turn in their passports and remain inside Iraq for five years); by the thought of escaping the desperation, humiliation and poverty they witness every day as refugees. Some respond to the call and board buses and cars, not knowing the precise circumstances they will find on the other side of the border. Others still fear for their lives and stay.
Damascus is home to over two million once proud Iraqis, now living as “guests” in Syria, without official recognition as refugees. These “guests” have extremely limited prospects – they are without the ability to earn a legal income or create new lives.
Which desperate story to mention? Which door to an unheated room to open first? These photographs are intended to puncture the statistics and reveal human beings.
[1]The United Nation High Commission on Refugees estimates that up to 2.5 million Iraqis have fled the country, with most settling in neighboring Syria and Jordan. The International Organization for Migration estimates that 2.4 million others -- nearly 9 percent of Iraq’s population -- have become “internally displaced refugees,” abandoning their homes.
