Small Lights in the Darkness

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Dear Dr. Rashad Zidan,

Thank you for your courage and your message and your willingness to visit the U.S. to help Americans understand that our army must leave Iraq to bring peace.  May I offer a suggestion?

Would women in Iraq consider organizing a gesture-message "from the people of Iraq to the people of the US", a peaceful but clear message to convey how much they want the US Army to go home.  The message:  "American soldiers, please take your guns and go home."  The means:  A candle in the window, one home and the next, window after window, apartment by apartment, neighborhood by neighborhood. ... that's what the Czechs used to bring about their Velvet Revolution when no other message could get through.

Such a candle, with more and more families joining the gesture each night, could get news coverage in every town, large and small, building momentum with news coverage throughout the Middle East and the world and the US.   Such a gesture would provide overwhelming evidence of the will of the Iraqi people to move our President to a different course of action.

Can a candle in the window stop an army?   It proved effective during times of martial law in Eastern Europe, it may show its value now.  Through the power of the signal light (one of the few tools available in times of house arrest), the Poles kept their Solidarity movement alive during martial law in1981—and even President Ronald Reagan told the world he "lighted his candle in the White House window as a small but certain beacon of our solidarity with the Polish people".  In 1989, the Czechs and Slovaks used candles in their windows as the most important tool in their Velvet Revolution.  Their 1968 armed revolt failed them but the candle gesture in 1989 sent the Soviet army home without bloodshed.

Personal Experience:  In New Hampshire in 1990, during the standoff w Iraq, I asked my neighbors to join me to use this signal to send the people of Iraq a message they might be able to hear.  We asked Iraqi families to join us as neighbors to peacefully end the standoff before the 1991 Gulf War.  Some 10,000 Americans participated then - and my essay in the New York Times was translated to Arabic and carried to the Federation of Iraqi Women just a week before Desert Storm.  I am attaching that essay... perhaps the NYTimes would publish a reply from Iraq, now, 16 years later.

What we learned was that the candle was a starting point - it signaled personal intention.