For almost a week, I’ve been having horrible nightmares. I don’t sleep well due to the situation that is getting worse day after day. Yesterday, my day off, I woke up at 8 a.m. as I couldn’t sleep longer. I didn’t have breakfast, because I wasn’t in a good mood. I just had my daily mug of black Iraqi tea. My mother insisted that I have breakfast because by that I am hurting my health and myself. I realized I am making my family worried and there is no need to increase their pain. I had to pretend I am fine. I decided to have breakfast with her and my father. Our discussion was like any discussion inside an Iraqi family everyday, the current situation in the country. The main subject was the terrorist Iraqi woman who tried to blow up herself in the Amman hotel attacks.
After that, I went to my room, of course, to check emails and news. Nothing interesting or new I found. So I preferred to read some articles and blog entries. The most interesting entry I am enjoying now is 24 Step to Liberty’s journal visit to the United States. I find it interesting because it has to do with my forthcoming trip. I am trying to see how people behaved with him, being an Arab and Iraqi visiting a country hurt by extreme Arab terrorism in Sept. 2001. This is one of the things that preoccupied me. I am thinking over and over, what will these people think of this coming strange Arab man, what will they think when they see me in the streets? What would they say about me? “A terrorist?” or “A Muslim?”, or “just a normal Arab?”…
Now, Iraqis are being bothered wherever they go just because they are Iraqis. I don’t know what happened to us? In the past, specifically in the seventies, Iraqis were the most respected Arab people, my father always says to me. He visited many western countries, including England where he finished his education. Iraqis were the most educated of the Arabs. They were always debating like politicians in many subjects and were always convincing. Most of the students in University of Leeds, where my father studied, liked the Iraqi students who were always on the top along with their British colleagues.
Remembering what my father said and what is happening at the mean time made me understand that this no longer exists. For more than 30 years, the Baath Party governors in Iraq distorted this reputation. Instead of sending Iraqi students to share knowledge with international students, the criminal tyrants sent them to battles in a long war against Iran, Kuwait, and finally America and Britain.
Definitely, I am so lucky to get this chance to go abroad and it wouldn’t have been done without my friend J who did her best to make me take part in a journalism fellowship and see the editors of the paper I am working with. Sometimes I feel guilty; I see my friends who are government employees and how their aim to study abroad is very difficult due to the absence of the chances that may take them there and the bad material status. A., my friend, has been contacting dozens of organizations and universities in Europe to have a scholarship in a college specialized in agriculture, the degree he had in Baghdad University, but in vain. He is getting nothing.
After 7 p.m., I went out to see my friends whom I haven’t seen for almost a week being busy most of the time. They were very happy to see me. As usual, we gathered in A’s house where we had our two apples-flavored Hookah. This time, their discussion was about how they can save money at the time their salaries are terrible. I couldn’t intervene. My situation is different. Because I work with a western media, I am paid well. They are government employees whose salary doesn’t exceed $100, enough only for transportation and buying clothes. I also felt I am lucky and sad at the same time. As young men, we should have the best time in our lives. But the opposite is happening here. We are spending the best time in our lives in wars, battles, violence, killings, assassinations, and depression which made us think over and over and eventually will get tired of this because there is no solution, and even if there is a solution, it would take a very long time.
As usual, this morning, I woke up having a new nightmare… It was me walking in a dark street returning to my house which was dark and my 2-months old niece was crying out of this darkness. I woke up shaking. I endure anything in my life except except seeing my niece crying out of fear. I thanked God it wasn’t real. I took a shower, had breakfast and left to work to begin a new Baghdadi day, a day full of adventures and stories.
After that, I went to my room, of course, to check emails and news. Nothing interesting or new I found. So I preferred to read some articles and blog entries. The most interesting entry I am enjoying now is 24 Step to Liberty’s journal visit to the United States. I find it interesting because it has to do with my forthcoming trip. I am trying to see how people behaved with him, being an Arab and Iraqi visiting a country hurt by extreme Arab terrorism in Sept. 2001. This is one of the things that preoccupied me. I am thinking over and over, what will these people think of this coming strange Arab man, what will they think when they see me in the streets? What would they say about me? “A terrorist?” or “A Muslim?”, or “just a normal Arab?”…
Now, Iraqis are being bothered wherever they go just because they are Iraqis. I don’t know what happened to us? In the past, specifically in the seventies, Iraqis were the most respected Arab people, my father always says to me. He visited many western countries, including England where he finished his education. Iraqis were the most educated of the Arabs. They were always debating like politicians in many subjects and were always convincing. Most of the students in University of Leeds, where my father studied, liked the Iraqi students who were always on the top along with their British colleagues.
Remembering what my father said and what is happening at the mean time made me understand that this no longer exists. For more than 30 years, the Baath Party governors in Iraq distorted this reputation. Instead of sending Iraqi students to share knowledge with international students, the criminal tyrants sent them to battles in a long war against Iran, Kuwait, and finally America and Britain.
Definitely, I am so lucky to get this chance to go abroad and it wouldn’t have been done without my friend J who did her best to make me take part in a journalism fellowship and see the editors of the paper I am working with. Sometimes I feel guilty; I see my friends who are government employees and how their aim to study abroad is very difficult due to the absence of the chances that may take them there and the bad material status. A., my friend, has been contacting dozens of organizations and universities in Europe to have a scholarship in a college specialized in agriculture, the degree he had in Baghdad University, but in vain. He is getting nothing.
After 7 p.m., I went out to see my friends whom I haven’t seen for almost a week being busy most of the time. They were very happy to see me. As usual, we gathered in A’s house where we had our two apples-flavored Hookah. This time, their discussion was about how they can save money at the time their salaries are terrible. I couldn’t intervene. My situation is different. Because I work with a western media, I am paid well. They are government employees whose salary doesn’t exceed $100, enough only for transportation and buying clothes. I also felt I am lucky and sad at the same time. As young men, we should have the best time in our lives. But the opposite is happening here. We are spending the best time in our lives in wars, battles, violence, killings, assassinations, and depression which made us think over and over and eventually will get tired of this because there is no solution, and even if there is a solution, it would take a very long time.
As usual, this morning, I woke up having a new nightmare… It was me walking in a dark street returning to my house which was dark and my 2-months old niece was crying out of this darkness. I woke up shaking. I endure anything in my life except except seeing my niece crying out of fear. I thanked God it wasn’t real. I took a shower, had breakfast and left to work to begin a new Baghdadi day, a day full of adventures and stories.
