Major (Ret.) Tahir Wadood Malik, a survivor whose wife was killed in the 2009 United Nation World Food Program bombing in Islamabad is one of those who participated in the Global Survivors Network gathering in Jordan. He is also one of the key supporters of GSN. You can find more about Mr Malik at his blog: http://gsntahir.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/i-am-a-survivor-of-terrorism-went-to-amman-jordan-to-meet-survivors-like-me/
Please visit the facebook group of the Global Survivors Network at the following address:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=202548629609
Please read the press report of the event.
Marking Jordan’s 9/11, global survivors of terrorism speak out By Taylor Luck
AMMAN - Carie Lemack said she looks forward to working with “the best group of people I never wanted to know”.
Lemack, who lost her mother in the September 11 attacks in New York, travelled to Amman to mark “Jordan’s 9/11”.
Together with Ashraf Khaled, who lost his father and in-laws when his wedding was attacked four years ago, Lemack on Monday launched the first international advocacy group and support forum for those affected by terrorism.
In an event marking the fourth anniversary of the Amman hotel bombings, 18 people from different continents, cultures and backgrounds, whose lives have been irreversibly transformed by violence across the world, formed the Global Survivors Network.
“Disease, natural disasters, fate do not discriminate. But terrorism does. It discriminates against the innocent. We, in Jordan, know this firsthand,” Her Majesty Queen Rania said in a statement marking the occasion.
The Queen described the triple bombings of the Radisson SAS, Grand Hyatt and Days Inn hotels, which killed and injured scores of people, as “horrific and cowardly brutality”.
“The perpetrators of this ideology think that through violence and destruction, they can erode the ties that bind the nations of the civilised world. But they are wrong,” she said.
“The more they kill, the more they blow up and tear down, the more they fortify our determination to stand together for security and freedom. I am proud that the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is leading the way in this effort,” she said.
Queen Rania highlighted the Global Survivors Network as a tool to bring together “those concerned or affected by the scourge of terrorism”, noting that the organisation provides information, support and solidarity.
“...It [the network] sends a powerful message of resilience: If global terrorist attacks have achieved anything, they have made us stronger, more resolute and more united against extremism and for peace,” the Queen said.
Lemack, who was an early advocate of the 9/11 Commission and the implementation of its recommendations in the US, said the global network strives to be an international movement away from politics.
“For so many people, terrorism is just a one-day event. 9/11. 7/7. 3/11. But it is so much more than one day - it has life-long and generational ramifications and we need to stop it,” Lemack said.
The media often focus on the immediate carnage of terrorist attacks, she said, spending days analysing and profiling perpetrators while leaving survivors as statistics.
The global network comes as part of an overall effort to “reclaim the narrative” of terrorism, and put faces to each statistic to dissuade the future targeting of civilians.
“People want to hear stories where everything comes out OK, but this is not often the case. They may be uncomfortable and unfortunate, but these are stories that are important to talk about,” she said.
Gill Hicks took matters into her own hands to transform herself from “victimised by terrorism” to a “survivor of terrorism”.
The former architect lost both her legs in the July 7, 2007 bombings in London. Through the traumatic experience, Hicks said she saw “the best in humanity”.
“When they discovered my body, covered in ash, all they knew was ‘one unidentified, estimated female’. Those response teams worked their hardest to save my life because I was a human being, without knowing or caring my race, my religion or how much money I have. That is a pretty powerful message,” she said.
Shortly following the attacks, Hicks established Making A Difference for peace (MAD) to develop proactive peace efforts and bridge cultural divides in the UK and elsewhere.
She expressed hope of promoting the stories of survivors to prevent future terrorist attacks.
“No one should have to go through this,” she said.
The sense of loss is all too recent for retired Major Tahir Wadood Malik, who lost his wife Gul Rukh Tahir in the bombing of the UN World Food Programme office in Pakistan last month.
“I dropped my wife off at 7:45am, told her that I would pick her up at 5:00pm. At 2:30 in the afternoon I came to claim a dead body,” he said.
“I’ve fought two wars... and fought counterinsurgency. I thought I knew death, but I wasn’t prepared for this,” he said.
The WFP representative in Pakistan told him of the planned meeting in Amman, and after giving it a thought, Malik said he decided to make the journey to Amman to learn from other survivors how to live with loss and become empowered.
Noting recent attacks, such as in Peshawar and Islamabad, he stressed that each victim affects a whole family, creating hundreds of Pakistani survivors each week.
“What do you do about it? Keeping quiet is no longer an option; we have to talk,” he said.
Medical services, social and psychological support for terror victims in Pakistan are lacking, he said, adding he hopes to use the network to reach out to people in his native country.
Dr Habiba Rahim Shah said she still receives death threats at her home in Swat Valley, where two of her uncles and one of her cousins were killed in a series of attacks.
“My uncle was killed for talking about peace in a mosque following prayers. The Taliban are going home to home looking for reasons to kill,” Shah told The Jordan Times.
Due to the violence, she has not returned home in over a year, and continues her work in Islamabad. With death threats piling up at her house in Swat Valley, she said she is beginning to fear for her life in the Pakistani capital.
Febby Firmansyah Isran suffered burns over 40 per cent of his body in the 2003 bombing of the Jakarta JW Marriot. Although the physical wounds have healed, the mental and emotional scars remain, he said, particularly in the wake of the recent Jakarta bombing at the same hotel earlier this year.
“When I saw the news, it just all started coming back. This just has to stop,” he said, noting that he hopes to use the network to create more awareness in Indonesia.
“People only want to help when you are in the hospital. Once you leave, you are on your own as a survivor,” he said.
“The truth is our only power to stop this violence,” said Henry Kessy, who was seriously injured in the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Tanzania.
Yesterday marked an emotional reunion for Kessy, who said he had the chance to meet with colleagues who previously served in the US embassy in Kenya and are now posted in Amman.
The network is actively looking for survivors of terrorism from Egypt, Iraq and around the world.
Through its website, www.globalsurvivors.org, which is to be translated into Arabic, the organisation aims to link survivors with NGOs, potential access to medical and psychiatric support as well as toolkits and guidelines to provide support for those affected by terrorist attacks.
“Nobody can help survivors more than survivors themselves,” Khaled noted.
Also part of the network, a documentary is being developed to follow the survivors’ journeys, detailing their daily lives and the lasting impacts of terrorism.
Filming on the project, which is being carried out by Moxie Firecracker Films, is expected to start by the end of the year in Amman, Bali and elsewhere, Lemack indicated, expressing hope that their stories will make people think twice about supporting the killing of innocent people for political means.
“If we can prevent one person from ever having to join the network, then it has all been a success,” Lemack said.
Also during yesterday’s event, presided by HRH Prince Raad deputising for Queen Rania, survivors along with ambassadors and officials representing the US, the UK, Spain, Pakistan, Australia, the EU, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iraq among others planted trees around the Amman Martyrs Memorial.
Jordan Times, Tuesday, November 10, 2009
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