The Gospel of Rutba: War, peace and the Good
Samaritan story in Iraq
Greg Barrett
Orbis Books £16.99
(978-1-57075-951-2)
Church Times Bookshop £15.30
NINE days into the Gulf War of 2003, three American peacemakers
believed that they were as good as dead after their taxi was
wrecked on a desolate stretch of Iraqi road. Injured and forlorn,
they depended for their survival on the reaction of the people in
the neighbouring town of Rutba, a hotbed of Baathist activists and
Iraq's Fedayeen fighters, recently bombed by US forces. The men
received, instead of torture and possible death, medical treatment
and hospitality, and were sent back home with only the request that
"the Americans use this lesson of shared humanity to seed more of
it".
Fifteen days into 2010, the same three Americans returned to
Rutba with a peace-movement representative, soldiers who devastated
the area during the war, a documentary filmmaker, and the author.
The hospital and other buildings were rebuilt, and friendships were
formed. This book, fully referenced and with several
black-and-white photographs, tells this remarkable story of
reconciliation and hope.
The style of the book is quirky, consisting of a series of
parallel events occurring in a desert outpost in 2003 and 2010. The
chapters are staggered between those two years: odd-numbered
chapters based in 2003; even-numbered in 2010. It is written at a
colloquial, down-to-earth, almost street-talk level, which gives
the book appeal and warmth.
Throughout, the book is an apologia for the contemporary peace
movement, with vignettes of different activists. It emphasises the
words of St Paul, "Do not be conformed to this world," and, in the
context of war, considers the question: how are we to reconcile the
duty to obey those in authority with the dictate to love one
another?
The Gospel of Rutba has important lessons for us all.
Despite our different backgrounds, ideologies, and beliefs, it
reminds us of "our shared, inherent goodness", and that all of us
"possess the seed of the divine". This book is an interesting read,
and highly recommended.
Dr Simon Ross Valentine is a specialist in Islamic Studies
presently working in Saudi Arabia.