Sunshine Speaks

I mentioned in the last post that Naomi Nye recommended Sunshine's blog called "Days of My Life." Sunshine is a 15 year old girl who lives in Iraq. She talks about teen-age stuff like all of my students (studying for mid-terms, friends, family, etc.), but she also talks about what's going on in her war-torn country. Her honest and innocent view of something absolutely horrific seems almost paradoxical, and it absolutely breaks my heart. Here is an excerpt from her latest blog post on January 18th that I find especially relevant (very heart-breaking indeed and beautiful at the same time).


"I got a letter from a dear friend of mine telling me that the media says that the Sunnis kill the Shiites and the Shiites kill Sunnites in Iraq .. OOOOHHHHH Of course that is not true , Sunnites and Shiites have been living together for ages , they marry each other , I have relatives married Shiites women\men, if that was true , that means my parents’ uncle should kill his wife ,my mom’s uncle should kill his wife , some of my parents’ cousins should kill their wives\husbands !!!!!!!! and I should kill my two best friends , that is ridiculous…In my grandparents’ neighborhood, there are people from many religions there are Muslims(Sunnites, Shiites) , Christians , Subba , &Armenians.. they are more than neighbors , like one family , when my eye problem happened ( I had Deplopia) our Christian neighbors went to the church and lightened candles for me , and our Shiites neighbors went to Karbala , she traveled to another city , just to pray for me ( Karbala is a religious place specially for Shiites ), the examples are so many . I’ve talked about that in many posts . and said that in many interviews , and I will keep saying that till the people in the world start to realize , that Iraqis (Sunnites and Shiites) live in Iraq for more than 1400 years, they are MUSLIMS and IRAQIS.We go shopping together , if we need any help , we ask our neighbors to help us , because we are all Iraqis , no matter what are our religion , nor creeds , I didn’t know what are Shiites and Sunnites until I was 12 years old, and lately it appears that there are more creeds , Shafee and hanafy !!!!!! and other creeds , I don’t know which one I belong to , and I don’t even want to know , those names are not important , we all believe in the same god , and say the same prayers , no matter how do we stand and those formals if we put our hand together when we pray or not !!!!!!, what’s important is what is there inside our hearts .So , NO we don’t kill each other , the terrorists who kill Shiites are the same who kill Sunnites , it is impossible that Good Iraqis kill each other , no matter what is their religions nor creeds …In my own big family , there are Arabs and Kurd , Sunnites and Shiites , Iraqis Americans , British , Turks , and Germans ( my parent’s uncle married a British lady , his daughter married a guy originally from Germany , and my dad’s cousin has a Turkish wife, many of my relatives married Shiites ) , what a mixture !!....From many nationalities and creeds. We are one big family.."

Sunshine could teach us a lot..