Standing in the light

Ex-Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, General Wesley Clark, made this comment eight years ago.“We’re going to take out seven countries in 5 years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran”. Hasn't exactly gone to chronological plan, but they are still working on it. My friend Haifa Zangana, novelist, short story writer and political columnist, invited me to a showing of 'Whose Peace Will it Be' at the P1 Studio London last night. Directed by the Belgian filmmaker, Luc Pien, it was deliberately not a film about the atrocities that have been committed in Iraq—and now far beyond its borders. Pien spoke with writers, poets, academics and refugees. As well as Haifa, they included Zainab Khan and Intisar al Obaidy, artist Rashad Salim, film maker Al Daraji and academic Mundher Adhami. Harold Pinter said, “We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people.” Yet out of this degradation the survivors emerge, defiantly standing in the light and speaking for themselves and for a civilisation that belongs to all of us. Don't forget to be at Downing Street at midday on Saturday. We still have to act against Clark's seven-country plan and stand in the light. More on Haifa Zangana in Left Field