Why I Am Crying

Tom Fox at an anti-wall demonstration in Palestine

I have just found out that less than a week ago the body of Tom Fox, a human rights activist from Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) was found in a garbage heap in west Baghdad. Tom was kidnapped in Iraq in November 2005 along with three other CPT activists; Harmeet Sooden, Jim Loney and Norman Kember. A previously unknown group calling themselves the Swords of Righteousness Brigade claimed responsibility for the kidnappings. I did not know Tom, or any of the three other men personally, but both Jim and Harmeet are friends of very close friends of mine, friends who have been hurting and hoping and working hard for their release over the last four months. The work that these four men were doing in Iraq was very similar to the work I myself was doing in Palestine last year, and most of them have also been very involved with both CPT and the International Solidarity Movement in the olive fields, villages, camps and cities of Palestine.

The peoples of Palestine and Iraq, trapped by violent and oppressive foreign occupations and by misguided and weak leadership continue to struggle daily for their lives, their freedoms and for their basic human rights. Theirs is a seemingly hopeless situation, as everything around them is torn apart again and again and as violence and death becomes synonymous with living. But it is men like Tom who do bring hope to individuals and to communities, who do work hard to foster and build and promote this hope, who do see a future without bloodshed. Tom and the other three activists acted through their opposition to occupation, through their commitment to non-violence and through their faith in love, and have helped pave the path, in whatever small way they could, towards a better future.

We anxiously wait in hope for the safe release of Jim, Norman and Harmeet, and send our prayers and thoughts to their friends and family, as well as, of course, to those who knew and loved Tom. Please, too, join the voices of activists and human rights workers worldwide on behalf of those who suffer, be it under occupation or by one's own government. It is only through hopefully one day bringing freedom and peace to others that we ourselves will find solace and relief.

Here is an excerpt from a piece, entitled "Why Are We Here?", written by Tom the day before he was kidnapped:

It seems as if the first step down the road to violence is taken when I dehumanize a person. That violence might stay within my thoughts or find its way into the outer world and become expressed verbally, psychologically, structurally or physically. As soon as I rob a fellow human being of his or her humanity by sticking a dehumanizing label on them, I begin the process that can have, as an end result, torture, injury and death.

"Why are we here?" We are here to root out all aspects of dehumanization that exists within us. We are here to stand with those being dehumanized by oppressors and stand firm against that dehumanization. We are here to stop people, including ourselves, from dehumanizing any of God's children, no matter how much they dehumanize their own souls.

Tom kept a blog which can be read here: http://waitinginthelight.blogspot.com/
Please, please consider reading it.

Christian Peacemaker Teams: http://www.cpt.org
Electronic Iraq: http://www.electroniciraq.net