Washblog

My name is Majid Al-Bahadli.  Since I have become an American citizen I have voted in every election and have participated in anti-war demonstrations and peace rallies, but this is the first election where I have been totally committed to making a difference in this country.  I believe that if Barack Obama becomes president, we can finally end this terrible war in Iraq and present a new face to the rest of the world that America can be proud of.  I am from the city of Baghdad in Iraq, and I feel like I am always being pulled in two directions when I talk to my family and my friends in Iraq.  I try to defend Americans as people, while at the same time I have to answer for what we have done to the Iraqi people by our policies both now and in the past.   I have a hope that a President Barack Obama could set a new course in dealing with other countries, especially in talking to our "enemies" and help bring about new coalitions that can work together to create a more stable, open, and peaceful world.  

I have been inspired by Barack Obama to believe that each individual can make a change.  In my Iraqi American community, I came up with several Obama button designs using English and also Arabic writing.  Once I put them up on the internet, Arab Americans and others who were interested in them contacted me from New York, Pennsylvania, California, Washington DC and as far away as Hong Kong.  People have carried my buttons to their countries such as Egypt, Morocco, and United Arab Emirates.  This helps activate the Arab American community in this country to talk about and endorse Barack Obama, and increases his stature abroad.  One of my most popular buttons has Barack Obama written in Hebrew, Arabic and English.  I have actually managed to have Arabic people wear Hebrew lettering and have defended my button as a statement for the peace process.  I have since come up with many other button designs, crated for all the different kinds of people who support Barack Obama.  I have about 22 different designs in all and I have made thousands of buttons from them.  They all promote Barack Obama and raise money for his campaign--though I have given hundreds away.  I have stood on street corners selling them and talking to people about Barack Obama and went to Oregon recently to register voters there.  I have also worked making buttons with the 43rd District and we managed to send over 10,000 buttons to Pennsylvania.  We gave 2000 buttons out when we canvassed in Oregon and are working to make more of them for Montana as well.

I have actually been politically active my whole life, but until I became an American I was not free to express myself.  I was raised in a political family, and was surrounded by political discussions at home for as long as I can remember.  When I was 13 years old, in 1980, my uncle and cousins were executed because they worked against Saddam's regime which had taken over in 1979.  Many other family members were executed or imprisoned also for their political activities.  In 1991, when I was 23 years old, Saddam invaded Kuwait.  At that time the Americans encouraged those of us who were against Saddam to rise up against him.  I participated in that uprising.  When the Americans decided to pull back and leave Saddam in power, I was forced to leave the country or face certain death from the Iraqi government.  Over 150,000 people lost their lives when Saddam's armies punished those who had fought against him.  Iraqi police hunted me for days and I barely managed to escape them.  Finally, I sneaked through an Iraqi checkpoint and ran straight into the arms of an enormous Americans soldier and surrendered to him.  He arrested me, and I was sent to a prison camp in Saudi Arabia for POWs and was later classified as a political refuge which is correct.  For almost five years I lived in the middle of the desert in a broken tent with thousands of others who also resisted Saddam's tyrannical and unjust government.  Eventually I arrived in Seattle as a legal resident alien, and later became an American citizen,

So my story, like so many people's story, has everything to do with the consequences of American policies in the world.  America supported Saddam; America invaded Iraq in 1991; America pulled back and let Saddam regain power; America saved me from certain death from Iraqi police.  Then America sent me to live in a prison camp and finally America adopted me and gave me a new home.  Seattle is now my real home, where I can have a vote and a voice and help contribute to making this country the best it can be both for its own citizens and for the rest of the world who are so affected by America's behavior.

I know well how damaging it is when people do not have the right to participate freely in a political process and I am honored to have come this far.  I hope you can help me go all the way to Denver.