Mary and Compassion

What you're seeing in this photo is the bodies of two very young children being put into one coffin. The two were sisters. Mariam was aged 2. Mariam's name means "Mary" - Muslims venerate Mary as the mother of Jesus and the name is a very popular one in Muslim countries for the same reason it is in Western ones. Her sister Rahma was three years old. "Rahma" which you'll sometimes see transliterated as "Rahmaa" is a lovely name. It comes from the word meaning "to have mercy upon" the "showing of compassion." A reasonably good translation of her name would be "Compassionate." Neither she nor Mariam were shown mercy or compassion by the men who planted a bomb in the al-Shula district of Baghdad today, Saturday May 6th 2006. Al-Shula is in North-West Baghdad. It's a mixed area, mostly Shii, by no stretch of the imagination can it be called a prosperous area. Not as bad in terms of economic deprivation as some areas but not well off either. Certainly not a "bad" place to grow up in, it's the sort of place where neighbours will keep an eye on each others kids to ensure that they don't come to harm. Nor a bad place at all to grow up. Except that neither of these two girls being placed so gently and tenderly by their relatives in a single cheap coffin will have the chance to grow up. They died because the United States of America wants to keep the country that was their home poverty-stricken, weak, and divided, and will stop at nothing to achieve it. They died because the United States of America and her allies know that a country split into Cantons with weak provincial governments means that naive and inexperienced provincial officials will sign blatantly exploitative 40 year long PSAs and that a weak central government will sign FSAs and Basing agreements. They died because that is far more important to the USA and her allies than the death of Compassion and her sister Mary. As a well known American stateswoman remarked about the death of Iraqi children: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it." It must be great to have such a "beautiful mind." markfromireland