NYTimes article on Iraqi National Folklore Group

The NY Times has an extensive article on the handful of dancers making up Iraq's still-extant National Dance Troupe. You can read the entire article for the next two weeks or so at "On Dangerous Footing in Iraq, Where Dancing Is a Courageous Act". Highly recommended; we here in the West sometimes forget....well, we forget a lot of things, I reckon. Things like:

[...]one of its members, Bushra Yousif, 21, a petite woman with delicate features who has been with the group for six years, received a note at home warning her to leave within 48 hours. A bullet was included in the envelope.She was probably singled out because of her profession, she said, but she will continue to attend rehearsals every day. She loves dancing too much, she said describing it as the highest form of art to "deliver a message through your body."

"Dying for this group would be like being martyred," she said, adding that it is a risk she accepts.

Dying for your art. How did we come to this? How did a country come to such a horrific proposition?

Be clear -- it is not the United States trying to kill artists. As much as our adventure in Iraq allowed this situation to fester and boil, it is native and nearly extremist elements at the core of this crisis. The artists, the doctors, the makers of things and the sharp in mind, are the future of Iraq as a peaceful, multi-cultural, and deep democratic society, one that respects all of it's people, not just the ones cowed into submission*. As they go to ground, or outright leave Iraq, the country falls further and further in the laps of those who eschew reasoned discourse for religious discord. Every attempt to pressure, or worse, kill such people is on more step on the way to a Islamic theocracy born of fear for the future.

And, for once, I have no idea how to stop it, no bromides as to a resolution. I'm still looking for a paddle for this creek...

* And yes, I use that word for both it's meanings in this context.