Modern-Day Martyr

ON A COLD AND DRIZZLY day in Ottawa last fall, representatives of various Canadian government and non-government organizations, including Amnesty International, Oxfam Canada and the Canadian Council for International Cooperation, huddled on the banks of the Ottawa River to pay tribute to a woman described as a modern-day martyr.
Standing beside a permanent monument believed to be the first national memorial in the world recognizing the contributions of those who work in the field of international development and humanitarian assistance, the group remembered 59-year-old Margaret Hassan as a humble and compassionate woman who placed the needs of others before her own.
The ceremony in Ottawa honouring the Irish-born director of CARE International in Iraq was not unlike those held in other locations around the world following reports that she was shot by militants who abducted her in Baghdad on 19 October.
Some day, in a peaceful Iraq, there will be a monument of Margaret Hassan in the entranceway of one of the paediatric clinics she loved, said John Watson, the president of CARE Canada. And beside it, he added, his voice cracking, a mother will tell to a child not yet born, the story of the remarkable life of Margaret Hassan. And what a story it will be!

Love for Iraq

Born into a Catholic family in Dublin, Ireland, Margaret Fitzsimons fell in love and married an Iraqi, Tahseen Hassan, in 1972. Then she fell in love with Iraq itself and its people. She remained in the troubled country before, during and after the invasion by US-led forces, ignoring concerns about her own safety, and continuing to do as she had done for over 25 years - provide humanitarian relief to the most needy Iraqis.
She lived in Iraq through three wars, a punishing sanctions regime and a period of occupation, said Watson. She did what she could to help poor Iraqis through these difficult times, and became a talented humanitarian professional along the way. Her first thought was always for her staff and the poor Iraqis they helped, especially the mothers and children, he said.
Also at the service, CARE Canada board member, Dr. Patricia Close, vice-chairperson of the Canadian International Trade Tribunal, assured the crowd - many of them care-givers themselves - that the ideals that Hassan stood for will continue to inspire our own lives and strengthen our resolve to continue serving those in need around the world.
Until a videotape by her captors, showing her weeping and pleading for her life, was broadcast around the world, few in the international community knew of Margaret Hassan, the selfless woman who was known in the streets and slums of Baghdad as Madame Margaret. But the senseless, slow and cruel death of a woman who had devoted her life in the service of the poor and oppressed catapulted her name and her humanitarian efforts to the far reaches of the world.
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, said in his homily at a Requiem Mass for Hassan in December that it seemed to him and to many others that Margaret Hassan lived out the Beatitudes of the Gospel. How powerfully these speak to us of Margaret - gentle, private, brave, loving, and compassionate, he said. She was a peacemaker in a time of seemingly endless wars; she hungered and thirsted for justice for the Iraqi people; she was persecuted - brutally slain - because she was working in the cause of right. It is because she lived those beatitudes that we can be in some way reassured and comforted.

Life-long Catholic

The Cardinal also said of Hassan, who remained a Catholic all her life, that she will always be remembered by the poor people of Iraq, and also by people around the world, because she has become a symbol of goodness in a world crying out for goodness.
Referring to her as a martyr, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor said he used the word advisedly. The word 'martyr' means 'witness'. Margaret witnessed, in both her life and her death, to the act of loving, he said.
At the Ottawa memorial service, the CARE Canada president - who knew Hassan personally - observed that she probably would have been embarrassed to find us having a ceremony in her honour. She always played down her role. If so, she would certainly have been embarrassed to learn that on 1 January she was awarded the most prestigious honour awarded by her birth country of Ireland, the Tipperary Peace Prize, for her charity work in Iraq.
The Tipperary Peace Convention said the honour salutes the extraordinary life of a Dublin-born aid worker, and described her as a woman who paid the ultimate price for her dedication to the poor and vulnerable in Iraq. She showed extraordinary courage, tenacity and commitment in her concern for those who were living in the most difficult of circumstances, the
Convention said.
In being awarded the Tipperary Peace Prize, Margaret Hassan joined a small, elite group of people known throughout the world that includes Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela, former US president Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev, former leader of the now-defunct Soviet Union.
The global response to her death - a bloody and brutal act committed by vengeful hostage-takers when their demands were unmet - evolved from one of shock and outrage to a celebration of the life of a woman who, in the words of Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor at the Requiem Mass, has become a symbol of goodness in a world crying out for goodness.
Perhaps a simple tribute in the order of service said it best of Margaret Hassan and the life she lived: The world needs more people like this lady.