Not long after America initiated the Iraq war, I saw an article
in the Sunday NY Times about an Iraqi family who had been
decimated by a kind of intimate military debacle. At the outbreak
of the earliest fighting they had left their home in central
Baghdad for an uncle’s home on the outskirts. Then the
uncle’s home had been bombed out, so the entire extended
family decided to return to the home in central Baghdad. They
squeezed into several cars for the return trip to what was
now, unknown to the family, a restricted zone rife with small
arms fire between American and Iraqi troops. Signs were posted
within a few blocks of their home restricting the area, but
the signs were in English and therefore unintelligible to
the Iraqi family. When the three cars entered the restricted
area, American troops began yelling at them and waving their
weapons. Confused and frightened, the drivers tried to speed
through the chaos to their home. American troops, believing
them to be insurgents, opened fire, killing the driver and
front seat passengers in each vehicle, in one moment wiping
out all the male members—fathers, uncles, sons—of
an entire family.
There was a photo of the gun-shot cars with doors hanging
open and an American trooper looking at them, arms in hand,
looking like a tragically lost child, completely dismayed
at what he had done.
The slumping shame of that soldier echoed my own, my sense
of horror and helplessness, of horrible responsibility. As
an American citizen, I had not found the way to divert this
juggernaut of war. Protests, letter writing, calling upon
our representatives to be representative of our better, not
our lower, instincts—nothing had worked. No one I knew
had endorsed this war, and yet here we all were, in as deep
need of terrible forgiveness as that soldier.
A short while later I saw an exhibit at the Mexican Museum
of retablos and religious ex-voto images. A popular subject
was repeated again and again, that of Our Lady, Refuge of
Sinners. As a docent explained to me the significance of the
arch of blossoms representing grace, life, renewal, the blossoming
of the human spirit, which rose above the child the Madonna
was gently supporting, I saw the image I needed.
A juvenile nation, in desperate need of a higher wisdom, deeply
in need of guidance and aching for forgiveness. I painted
this piece as a prayer and a protest. The symbol of our county’s
glory, the statue of Liberty, is represented as a faltering
juvenile, unable to hold up the righteous flame, the tablet
she cannot support bearing not the date of American independence,
but the date, March 19, 2003, that America invaded Iraq. The
rays of the child’s crown pierce the sight, voice and
wisdom of the Madonna, yet they draw neither blood nor pain.
She is unperturbed, able to hold up the staggering Liberty
with clear vision and a firm but gentle grip. This is the
refuge, the vision, the strength and forgiveness I pray for—something
divine and deeply feminine to guide this madness to a better
place.
— Susan “Montana” Murdoch
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