Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84Plough Quarterly • Winter 2017 57 region, and now they have turned on him.” On and on it went, but it was just talk – none of us could do anything about any of it. There was a time when Iraq was an up- and-coming country. It had well-paved roads and modern buildings, plumbing, and other infrastructure and institutions. Watching Arabic movies from the 1960s, the average American would see a recognizably modern society. Family life flourished, women were educated, and the household-based culture thrived, in spite of new philosophies from the West trickling in through those who had studied abroad. The relationship between Christians and Muslims may not have been ideal, but there was no bloodshed. The country has now been set back decades, some might say centuries. The buildings are worn, peeling, and broken. There is uncertainty and doubt about the rebuilding of the old structures, whether material or social. What makes my heart ache even more than the material damage is a particular marker of the disintegration of family life. Where once there was not one nursing home in all of Baghdad (families always took care of their elderly), currently there are at least two, in part because so many young Iraqis have fled the country. This is not merely a matter of a demographic shift; it’s a symptom of a change in mindset that now allows the younger gen- eration to abandon their elders. The land of my ancestors, the land where I was born and where I lived for the first seven years of my life, has been utterly destroyed by wave after wave of violence. Iraq’s people are fatigued, demoralized, and in cultural and economic distress. Even if we are able to drive ISIS out of Iraq, we must encourage our government to think beyond a military outcome. And since America had a hand in bringing about this turn of events, it bears a great responsibility for the work of healing and rebuilding the country. Belonging and Not Belonging Abraham, my ancestor, was living in Ur, in Mesopotamia, when God called him out of the land of his fathers to be a pilgrim and a sojourner until the day when God would give him and his descendants the land of Canaan (now the land of Israel). In the New Testament the life of a Christian is described as a pilgrimage to a new country, our heavenly home. I don’t know how Abraham did it, but I’ve always felt very acutely that I didn’t belong. Perhaps this is why, in recent years, I have not been surprised to see the rise of nationalist movements in the West. Though the details may differ, they are all variations on the same theme: a civilizational crisis rooted in an identity crisis. The West has, to a great extent, rejected its cultural and spiritual patrimony, which was rooted in biblical values. Pair this phenomenon with an influx of immigrants – especially from the Middle East – who for one reason or another are not assimilating to Western political, philosophical, and cultural thought. We don’t need to be political philosophers to understand what we are seeing as we watch one civiliza- tion struggling against another. We feel it existentially. Many of us have begun asking: “Who am I, and who are we as a nation?” These questions of identity lead to questions of nationality. And no one feels this dissonance more deeply than immigrants. An immigrant, particularly one who has crossed a civilizational boundary in addition to a national border, will almost invariably undergo an identity crisis. This is why understanding the mindset of immigrants We must stop trying to style peoples and countries in our image. We are not their Creator.