Three
Years Of Occupation
And Bloodshed
By Baghdad Burning
20 March, 2006
Baghdad Burning
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).