Eyes Wide Open with Blinders

   Entering the large courtyard space between the school buildings of the University of Massachusetts at Boston, the Boston Social Forum attendees were confronted with about 800 black army boots lined up in neat rows. That was the total death toll of US servicemen as of early August 2004, almost a year and a half into the war and occupation of Iraq. They were positioned as if to create the effect that they would have been lined up at attention if the soldiers had actually been in the boots. It was difficult to walk from building to building without being aware of the rows and rows of boots. It was strangely eerie to quickly realize that each one represented a dead soldier from the war in Iraq. There were name tags on each boot. Each tag indicated the name of the soldier, his/her age, and the city and state that they were from. 

   Lafayette students walk by Eyes Wide Open exhibit seemingly unmoved

   Along with these neatly organized rows of boots at attention was an adjacent display which symbolically represented the human costs in Iraqi civilian lives. Each shoe in that display was supposed to represent about 50 to 100 Iraqis per shoe, which at that time was estimated to be between 10 and 20 thousand.  

The Iraqi Display

   Since that time the display has grown to such massive proportions (US servicemen who have died is over 3800) that it would take over a tractor trailer of boots to represent the US servicemen who have died in Iraq. In order to make the display more cost effective and accessible to a wider audience about 38 state exhibits have now toured throughout the United States. Each state exhibit displays only the boots representing the dead from that particular state. It has made the display more manageable but less impactful. The Pennsylvania display is the third largest behind only California and Texas. For a full list of servicemen by state go to http://www.icasualties.org/oif/Statecity.aspx

   The Eyes Wide Open across Pennsylvania exhibit, created by the American Friends Service Committee, was sponsored by the Lehigh Valley Peace Coalition at Lafayette College and Northampton Community College in September of this year. In the fall of last year, it was presented at Lehigh University and Muhlenberg College. During its recent tour, the PA deaths had reached 175, representing 2.1 % of the total US casualties. In addition, there is no mention of the 27,700 US wounded, many of whom have come home with serious amputations and brain injuries.

   The Iraqi civilian display was the same size as presented by the original larger exhibit over three years ago. The depiction of the Iraqi human costs has now become misleading, considering The Lancet Report http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf , which reported that as of a little over a year ago approximately 650,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the occupation. In addition, there are many other studies like the Iraq Living Conditions Survey 2004, http://www.iq.undp.org/ILCS/PDF/Analytical%20Report%20-%20English.pdf that have indicated the grave humanitarian crisis that the war and occupation has had on Iraqi society. Currently Iraq Body Count, which documents only the lives lost from violent actions, has the number of civilian casualties at between 74,000 and 81,300. http://www.iraqbodycount.org . The AFSC’s own website http://www.afsc.org/iraq/guide/default.shtm indicates the huge refuge crisis that has affected Iraq’s neighbors: Syria, 1 million; Jordan, 750,000: Egypt, 150,000; Iran, 54,000; and Lebanon, 25,000-40,000.  

   Eyes Wide Open at Northampton Community College with the Iraq civilian display in the background

   Since the American Friends Service Committee calls the exhibit, Eyes Wide Open: The Human Cost of the War in Iraq, it seems lacking in balanced impact, when it shows the cost of United States human lives in such dramatic fashion without clearly showing the cost in Iraqi lives. The memorial nature of the exhibit clearly skews and perpetuates the notion that US servicemen’s lives are more important and have more value than Iraqi or Arab lives. 

   The display has evoked varying responses. A young former marine at Northampton Community College called it a “spectacle”, implying that somehow creating a moving exhibit that represents the human costs of war was wrong. There seems to be a great desire from AFSC as well as local peace advocates to “not offend” people who are pro military and pro war with the truth. Why not? 

   We would like to know when the costs of war become so offensive in nature that it would make people see that war does not accomplish peace in any manner.   Michael Franti says, “You can bomb the world to pieces, but you can’t bomb it into Peace.” http://www.spearheadvibrations.com/index.php

   As this exhibit moves many to tears, when will the true costs be evident enough to cause us to become motivated by those tears, turn our tears into anger, and rise up in non violent resistance and take back our government? When will we decide that Peace studies in all levels of schools are more important than teaching and glorifying war and militarism? When will we listen to the words of the great Irish orator Mr Nix stated in the story recounted by Kathy Kelly earlier this year (see elsewhere on this web site) Kathy Kelly link , “What will rise you? What is your excuse to not do more?"

Tim Chadwick & Joe DeRaymond