Through Iraqi Eyes

The BBC has part of a great new photo exhibit on
Iraqi women online that I highly recommend.

It is not often that we get to hear the personal stories of ordinary
Iraqi women living under occupation. Earlier this year, however, eight
women were asked to record their daily lives in a series of photo diaries.

I am a big believer in the contact hypothesis, and so creative works like
this that offer a glimpse into the lives of the other are, I think, hugely
important to undercutting grand scale miltary adventures and the xenophibia
that often enables them.

Many years ago the mother of a Russian friend came to stay with my family for
a week while attending a conference and the most lasting impact on my mother - who grew up in the Cold War and its imagery of the other - to this day was
the awesome revelation that Russian mothers wanted 99.9% of the same
things for their Russian kids that American mothers wanted for their
American kids.