- It has been three years since the beginning of the war
that marked the end of Iraq's independence. Three years of occupation and
bloodshed.
-
- Spring should be about renewal and rebirth. For Iraqis,
spring has been about reliving painful memories and preparing for future
disasters. In many ways, this year is like 2003 prior to the war when we
were stocking up on fuel, water, food and first aid supplies and medications.
We're doing it again this year but now we don't discuss what we're stocking
up for. Bombs and B-52's are so much easier to face than other possibilities.
-
- I don't think anyone imagined three years ago that things
could be quite this bad today. The last few weeks have been ridden with
tension. I'm so tired of it all- we're all tired.
-
- Three years and the electricity is worse than ever. The
security situation has gone from bad to worse. The country feels like it's
on the brink of chaos once more- but a pre-planned, pre-fabricated chaos
being led by religious militias and zealots.
-
- School, college and work have been on again, off again
affairs. It seems for every two days of work/school, there are five days
of sitting at home waiting for the situation to improve. Right now college
and school are on hold because the "arba3eeniya" or the "40th
Day" is coming up- more black and green flags, mobs of men in black
and latmiyas. We were told the children should try going back to school
next Wednesday. I say "try" because prior to the much-awaited
parliamentary meeting a couple of days ago, schools were out. After the
Samarra mosque bombing, schools were out. The children have been at home
this year more than they've been in school.
-
- I'm especially worried about the Arba3eeniya this year.
I'm worried we'll see more of what happened to the Askari mosque in Samarra.
Most Iraqis seem to agree that the whole thing was set up by those who
had most to gain by driving Iraqis apart.
-
- I'm sitting here trying to think what makes this year,
2006, so much worse than 2005 or 2004. It's not the outward differences-
things such as electricity, water, dilapidated buildings, broken streets
and ugly concrete security walls. Those things are disturbing, but they
are fixable. Iraqis have proved again and again that countries can be rebuilt.
No- it's not the obvious that fills us with foreboding.
-
- The real fear is the mentality of so many people lately-
the rift that seems to have worked it's way through the very heart of the
country, dividing people. It's disheartening to talk to acquaintances-
sophisticated, civilized people- and hear how Sunnis are like this, and
Shia are like that To watch people pick up their things to move to "Sunni
neighborhoods" or "Shia neighborhoods". How did this happen?
-
- I read constantly analyses mostly written by foreigners
or Iraqis who've been abroad for decades talking about how there was always
a divide between Sunnis and Shia in Iraq (which, ironically, only becomes
apparent when you're not actually living amongst Iraqis they claim) but
how under a dictator, nobody saw it or nobody wanted to see it. That is
simply not true- if there was a divide, it was between the fanatics on
both ends. The extreme Shia and extreme Sunnis. Most people simply didn't
go around making friends or socializing with neighbors based on their sect.
People didn't care- you could ask that question, but everyone would look
at you like you were silly and rude.
-
- I remember as a child, during a visit, I was playing
outside with one of the neighbors children. Amal was exactly my age- we
were even born in the same month, only three days apart. We were laughing
at a silly joke and suddenly she turned and asked coyly, "Are you
Sanafir or Shanakil?" I stood there, puzzled. 'Sanafir' is the Arabic
word for "Smurfs" and 'Shanakil" is the Arabic word for
"Snorks". I didn't understand why she was asking me if I was
a Smurf or a Snork. Apparently, it was an indirect way to ask whether I
was Sunni (Sanafir) or Shia (Shanakil).
-
- "What???" I asked, half smiling. She laughed
and asked me whether I prayed with my hands to my sides or folded against
my stomach. I shrugged, not very interested and a little bit ashamed to
admit that I still didn't really know how to pray properly, at the tender
age of 10.
-
- Later that evening, I sat at my aunt's house and remember
to ask my mother whether we were Smurfs or Snorks. She gave me the same
blank look I had given Amal. "Mama- do we pray like THIS or like THIS?!"
I got up and did both prayer positions. My mother's eyes cleared and she
shook her head and rolled her eyes at my aunt, "Why are you asking?
Who wants to know?" I explained how Amal, our Shanakil neighbor, had
asked me earlier that day. "Well tell Amal we're not Shanakil and
we're not Sanafir- we're Muslims- there's no difference."
-
- It was years later before I learned that half the family
were Sanafir, and the other half were Shanakil, but nobody cared. We didn't
sit around during family reunions or family dinners and argue Sunni Islam
or Shia Islam. The family didn't care about how this cousin prayed with
his hands at his side and that one prayed with her hands folded across
her stomach. Many Iraqis of my generation have that attitude. We were brought
up to believe that people who discriminated in any way- positively or negatively-
based on sect or ethnicity were backward, uneducated and uncivilized.
-
- The thing most worrisome about the situation now, is
that discrimination based on sect has become so commonplace. For the average
educated Iraqi in Baghdad, there is still scorn for all the Sunni/Shia
talk. Sadly though, people are being pushed into claiming to be this or
that because political parties are promoting it with every speech and every
newspaper- the whole 'us' / 'them'. We read constantly about how 'We Sunnis
should unite with our Shia brothers' or how 'We Shia should forgive our
Sunni brothers' (note how us Sunni and Shia sisters don't really fit into
either equation at this point). Politicians and religious figures seem
to forget at the end of the day that we're all simply Iraqis.
-
- And what role are the occupiers playing in all of this?
It's very convenient for them, I believe. It's all very good if Iraqis
are abducting and killing each other- then they can be the neutral foreign
party trying to promote peace and understanding between people who, up
until the occupation, were very peaceful and understanding.
-
- Three years after the war, and we've managed to move
backwards in a visible way, and in a not so visible way.
-
- In the last weeks alone, thousands have died in senseless
violence and the American and Iraqi army bomb Samarra as I write this.
The sad thing isn't the air raid, which is one of hundreds of air raids
we've seen in three years- it's the resignation in the people. They sit
in their homes in Samarra because there's no where to go. Before, we'd
get refugees in Baghdad and surrounding areas Now, Baghdadis themselves
are looking for ways out of the city out of the country. The typical Iraqi
dream has become to find some safe haven abroad.
-
- Three years later and the nightmares of bombings and
of shock and awe have evolved into another sort of nightmare. The difference
between now and then was that three years ago, we were still worrying about
material things- possessions, houses, cars, electricity, water, fuel It's
difficult to define what worries us most now. Even the most cynical war
critics couldn't imagine the country being this bad three years after the
war... Allah yistur min il rab3a (God protect us from the fourth year).
-
- http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
|
