Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Whom to Believe?

The chaotic and byzantine situation back home made my mind unable to configure or even imagine that there would be a solution at the end of this madness. The news became extremely preternatural that no human mind can even conceive. Besides feeling homesick, I felt what I read the past couple of days in the news was so painful. More destruction, more assassinations and more and more failure. Everything is falling apart.

The political powers’ bravado became so funny that it became a battle of spitting accusations at each other instead of maintaining a sense of camaraderie by uniting the bleeding country. This whole situation left my mind lost, looking for the honest people to save this wounded country. Whom should I believe, I though to myself after reading the crazy news. Everything is messed up now. Yesterday, the Iraqi government issued an arrest warrant against the culture minister accusing him of “terrorism” as Alarabiya sources reported. Asaad al-Hashimi was accused of “plotting” against the two sons of Mithal al-Alousi, a member of the Parliament whose announcement of his visit to Israel created a not-so-few enemies inside the religious-fanatics ruled Parliament, government, and political parties. In response to this arrest warrant, the Congress of the People of Iraq, condemned the arrest warrant and warned the government to avoid "playing with fire" by "fabricating lies to exclude Sunni politicians and officials from the Iraqi arena." The story goes further funnier. Al-Hashimi was not at home when the security forces staged a pre-dawn raid and detained some 40 of his guards. Muhanad al-Essawi, a spokesman for the main Sunni parliamentary bloc, said the minister was being kept in an undisclosed safe place in Baghdad and that Sunni politicians were asking the government to close the case.

O.K. Let’s see. I neither trust the Shiite government nor the People of Iraq Congress. On many occasions, the government proved to Iraqis its loyalty to sectarianism and religious extremism. On the other hand, the Sunni blocs are pretty well known among Iraqis that they have strong bonds with armed insurgents who carried out many attacks in which it is believed they took orders from these parties. So whom should I believe if I don’t even trust any of these sides?

What made me frustrated actually were two things. The first is the minister himself was a mosque preacher! How could you expect a prosperous country if the Prime Minister chooses a preacher to be a culture minister?! What kind of culture, education, or sense of civilization this man has if all he used to do was preaching in a mosque? I don’t doubt that he even brainwashed young men to join Jihad and kill whoever is against his religious views. The other thing is that the Sunni bloc is challenging the government and announcing publicly that they are hiding the minister in a safe place, just like gangs hiding their gangster from the police. Doesn’t saying that by itself is considered breaking the law? If the minister was innocent, why should the Sunni bloc be scared of surrendering him to justice? Or is it because the government is so sectarian that they may execute the minister by drilling him first without trial? Adnan al-Dulaimi, the head of the Sunni bloc told Radio Sawa, “due to the American intervention, the culture minister will leave Iraq and then resign from abroad.”!!!

The only one who is looking at us and laughing now is al-Qaeda. I’m sure that they are sitting on their filthy fat asses holding their balloon-size bellies laughing at what is happening. After these beasts succeeded in killing a not-so-small number of senior tribal sheikhs from Anbar province at the Mansur hotel two days ago, the accusation wars reached a new level. In today’s issue, Azzaman newspaper reported that a group of tribal sheikhs in Anbar accused Nouri al-Maliki of “creating a campaign against the armament of the tribal sheikhs of Anbar which eventually led to the bombing of the Mansur Hotel.” In previous reports, some government officials expressed their fears that after arming the Sunnis against al-Qaeda, these fighters will turn against the Shiite government and plan a coup. Again, whom should we believe?

In the middle of this madness, Iraqi people’s agony has reached its peak. In addition to the daily bombings and killings committed by insurgents and militias against the people, electricity comes for only one hour per day, leaving people endure the120 degrees. The children of Baghdad have become more and more depressed due to the daily ordeal they are facing. This Washington Post article sums up a lot of painful stories. Social activities have almost vanished as my parents and sister told me. All they do now is eat, watch TV, and sleep. They hardly see each other every two or three weeks and sometimes months.

Hope has almost vanished. How can we hope that things get better if there are such people ruling us? How can we hope security comes back if American leaders announce that the Iraqi troops are incapable of taking over security after four years of training? I was asked a lot about what’s the right thing to do to take Iraq at least to its situation before the war. My answer is change the corrupt government and parliament, call for new elections, ask people to elect individuals-not slates, or blow it up and bring a new just tyrant-funny ha?!-who uses extreme power and oppression against outlaws and execute them in the middle of the streets to make them lessons to anyone who thinks of hurting any civilian.

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

Friday, June 22, 2007

My Country


powered by ODEO

Dalida – My beautiful Country

A sweet word, two more for my beautiful country
A sweet song, two more for my country
my hope was always, my country
To return to you, and always be near you.

All those memories from the past
I still remember them, my country
My heart is filled with your stories
I still remember them, my country
My first love was in my country
She is impossible to forget
What happened to those old days before
Before I left you?

We used to say it’s impossible to be apart
Each tear that falls here to my cheek
Is filled with hope of us being together
On the shores of your sea of love.


A sweet word, two more for my beautiful country
A sweet song, two more for my country
my hope was always, my country
To return to you, and always be near you.

What happended to my sweet heart, my country?
She was away from me, my country,
Every time I sing, I think about her
Tell me sweetheart, where are you leaving me?
We’ll sing this beautiful melody together
How beautiful “My Country” is in a song

A sweet word, two more for my beautiful country
A sweet song, two more for my country
my hope was always, my country
To return to you, and always be near you.


baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

Monday, June 18, 2007

Despair

Iraq, which once was one of the strongest countries in the region, became the world’s second most unstable country in the world. Alas! Is that what we have expected? Is that what the war brought?

With the sixty percent of Baghdad under the control of terrorists and militias, the people’s suffering became more severe. My parents are completely hopeless, my sister said she doesn’t know what’s her daughter’s future will be, and my brother-in-law doesn’t know whether he’ll come back home in one piece after going back from work. My only remaining friend there said his mother was caught in crossfire and was wounded in her leg, which left them with absolute despair of any ray of improvement in the near future.

Finally, a friend of mine sent me a group of pictures of al-Jami’a neighborhood where dead bodies and burned cars become the new decoration of the former cosmopolitan, fancy neighborhood.

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com









Thursday, June 14, 2007

Lil' Bush!


OK! I have been laughing out loud for about five minutes now. I have just watched an episode of a Comedy Central cartoon TV show called “Lil’ Bush” on Youtube. Before I moved to the new house where I have a digital cable TV channels, I didn’t hear of this show. All the similar sarcastic cartoon shows I could enjoy in my old apartment were “South Park” and “The Simpsons.”

When I saw the first episode of Lil’ Bush, I couldn’t control myself from laughing like a mad man. Seriously, the characters are amazingly and accurately well-put. Donick Cary, who created this show, did a fantastic job in bringing the exact image of the current US administration headed by Bush. God job man, good job.

Lil' Bush takes place in an alternate reality version of modern times, where George H.W. Bush is president and George W. Bush ("Lil' Bush" on the show) as well as other major modern politicians (many of them members of real-life George W. Bush's staff) are all children attending Beltway Elementary School. Issues the current Bush Administration is involved in---for example, the Iraq War---are transferred to the elder Bush, but feature the younger Bush interacting with them in various ways.

Yesterday’s episode was about how Lil’ Bush’s group goes to Iraq so that he brings his father the best gift ever on Father’s day. In this episode, many expressions Lil’ Bush uses match what he and his group do in reality. The funniest part is when the episode starts with Lil Bush is flipping through the TV channels and all he can hear is the bad news coming form Iraq. His father then interrupts him and takes the remote control and barks “You kids are not supposed to watch anything but Fox News.” After that Lil' Bush meets up with his friends whom he calls “gang”, indeed, they decide to disguise themselves and join the U.S. army to go to Iraq. After they join the army, Bush, oops I mean Lil Bush, says “Let’s go to Eyrakstan.” When the “gang” reaches Baghdad, they walk in the streets surrounded by destroyed buildings. As they reach the Green Zone, they see an entirely different world with Halliburton employees jump over hills of golden coins and then walk into Saddam’s former palaces. Then Condi asks Lil’ Bush to kidnap and Iraqi child and take him to his father as a Father’s day present. He asks his father to adopt the child to bring “good news” to the Americans! For their bad luck, Lil Bush’s younger brother kills the adopted child “by mistake”!

Other episodes I have just watched are posted on Youtube. One of them is called “Nuked” in which Lil Bush appears having fun using his father’s nuclear weapons machine to destroy his Lil’ enemies who include Lil’ Saddam! In other episodes, Lil’ Bush appears kind of stupid at school, especially in religion and sports in which he doesn’t recognize which is the basketball and which is the basket! Also in one episode, Lil’ Bush mocks God and dismisses him by force from his house as the entire family watch him do that. The funniest part is that God appears very angry at Lil’ Bush telling him that he is “distorting everything.”

My favorite character in the whole show is Lil’ Condi. She doesn’t really appear evil like she does in reality. She looks pretty nice and smiley all the time, but her schemes and plots with the “gang” are well-put. Though Lil’ Bush’s character is phenomenal, Lil’ Cheney’s character is the funniest in the show. He appears as someone who doesn’t know how to speak words and all he can do is make some noise like “wawawawa”! I am even laughing as I am writing this.

Man! This cartoon is the funniest show I’ve ever seen. I thought that no satirical cartoon will be better than South Park, but I was wrong. This one is the funniest by all means.

Finally, I really want to congratulate Americans for having this wonderful democracy and freedom of speech that does not differentiate between a president or a citizen when creating problems and disasters. Satire is the best form of freedom of speech in my opinion. I loved it when Jonathan Swift wrote his “Gulliver’s Travels,” and I loved it more when I watched “Lil Bush."

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

An Iron Mask or a Seclusion?

The email I received from one of my friend yesterday included pictures of women in Iran being harassed by the religious police in the latest crackdown aimed at making women abide by Iran's Islamic dress code. Thousands of women have been warned and hundreds arrested for wearing overly loose hijab or excessively tight coats.

When the campaign was launched a few weeks ago, most of the western news organizations hurried to report it. I read most of the articles the BBC news website published along with comments from Iranian women about how hard for them was to be arrested, interrogated and humiliated in the middle of the day by a policewomen who God knows if she can run or pull her gun from under her black Abaya that wraps her from head to toe.

For many reasons, I am a person who does not believe in the headscarf at all, even though it was clearly mentioned in the Holy Quran as a “must” for women to adhere to wearing it. Maybe because I am kind of secular, maybe because I was raised like this, or maybe because that’s how Baghdad used to look like before the new Islamic revolution that took over the country as part of the country’s latest liberation, which I consider the liberation of Iraq from secularism to strict Islamic fanaticism.

I know that many conservative Muslims will hate me as they read the above paragraph, even before finishing reading the entry which they may not even finish. But let me continue. The headscarf issue for me has two faces: either belief or imprisonment. When a Muslim woman wears the headscarf out of complete belief in her religion and God’s will, she gets my utmost respect and I take a bow for her desire to wear it. I respect people who adhere to their beliefs even though they know others don’t. On the other hand, when I see a woman being forced to wear the scarf, I feel disgusted and sick. Why? Why should they do something they don’t believe in?

Some people say that forcing a woman to wear the scarf is a way to carry out God’s orders. But did they ask themselves if this enforcement makes these women close to God or even love him? Is it really the scarf that is making Muslim women “Good Muslims”? In our society, there are good women wearing the scarf and there are bad women who are sluts and pimps [one of them was a classmate in my undergrad school] wearing it too. There are unveiled women who have full respect and love to their religion and God, and there are unveiled women who are sluts and pimps. So does forcing the woman to wear a scarf change her status from a “bad Muslim woman” to a “good Muslim woman”? Do they really think that faith in God will change if a woman wears a scarf?

I hated it when most of the women in my family were forced to wear the scarf fearing the religious militias and insurgents who are in full control of most parts of the country. Most, if not all, of them were unveiled before the war. However, their devotion and respect to God and Islam was in its utmost level. They were good representatives of the modest Islam which never forced them to do something they were not convinced of. Did that make them bad and made the veiled pimp in my college better than them? Of course not. One of my aunts did not cover her head since she was born. She insisted on not wearing it. One day, she was caught by the extremists in her neighborhood who displaced her eventually. As she was parking her car in the garage, they threw a threatening letter to her, ordering her wear the headscarf, otherwise they will kill her and mutilate her body and make it a lesson to every woman who does not cover her head. Eventually, she surrendered to wearing it, but you know what? She is wearing it out of fear of death, not out of belief. She said she feels she is covering her head with an iron mask, not a piece of cloth. She would cry every time she puts it on. Do you think God is satisfied now? I hope the answer is no! Otherwise, I don’t know what to say.

On the other hand, secular extremism is not accepted as well. If a woman wants to put on a scarf and cover head, why should I object? She believes in it just like I don’t. I am free to do what I want and she is free to do so. The events against women with headscarves in countries like in Tunisia, Turkey and France are as extreme and bad as what the insurgents and militias are doing against unveiled women. What does it mean to prohibit headscarfed women from entering a school or go to work? That's totally unfair. It also makes me sit. Is Turkey happy with the Muslim girls killing themselves because they are not allowed to school unless they unveil themselves? You may think I am contradicting myself, but I am not. I am with secularism with religious freedom like the kind of secularism we had before the war where women in Iraq could freely walk the busy streets without a scarf or a male escort, and stay out late at outdoor cafes with their families, sometimes until two or three in the morning.

In today’s world, there are no balanced scales. There are extremism in both secularism and Islamism. The question is that how we, human beings, become able to differentiate and make things balanced, and whether we are going to be able to do so.

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Flying Like a Sea Gull

This all began on a very long plane ride, from the East Coast to the West, when I was glued in my seat waiting to finally settle my feet on California’s land. I let the seatbelt surround my abdomen. The plane’s tiers started rolling. I laid back on my uncomfortable seat feeling the pressure in my ears as the plane made its way to the air. All of a sudden, I started having an eccentric feeling. I felt the day was September 11th and that I was flying from Boston to New York City. My heart started pounding as I recalled the TV images and voices of the people calling 911 on the plane as they were heading to their unforeseen destination. The plane started flying higher letting my heart beats increase like an arrow heading to its bull’s eye. On planes, I frequently thought of Iraq and all the beautiful memories I shared with my family and friends, but on that day my mind never gave up the idea of being in the shoes of those whose lives were about to be terminated on a plane.

Although the plane was flying higher, my mind couldn’t but recall hearing the sound of the flight attendant talking to the dispatcher. “Oh my God! We are flying low. Oh my God! Very low very low. Oh my God Oh my Go…” silence followed. When I heard the real voice of this flight attendant vanishing before finishing the word “God” on a History Channel documentary, I kept thinking what if I were there? I never stopped thinking about that attack which changed the entire world since it happened.

To avoid this baroque feeling that followed me like a beastly predator, I took out “Snow”, the book I brought with me to read on the plane. Fortunately, the beautiful writing style and the engaging narrative of Orhan Pamuk made me forget about that bizarre feeling I had. I kept reading constantly until I let my eyes beg me to sleep where my mind went back home with a going-back-home dream.

When I left Washington DC, the weather was burning and the humidity felt like a soldier covering his detainee’s head with a plastic bag preventing him from breathing cool air. Allergies was my companion. I had to go to a CVS pharmacy earlier to get a day medicine. However and for my good luck, the weather in Orange County where we flew to was great. A little cloudy, but very nice with temperature not higher than 70 degrees during the day which stopped my nose from sneezing without taking a pill of the allergy medicine I have bought earlier.

Orange County was such a magnificent place to visit. It was a very good introduction for me to see the West Coast. Two of my friends and I flew from Washington DC to attend a wedding of one of our best friends whose tremendous support of me was a milestone in my way of the Writing field.

After I had lunch with my friend the groom at Saint Regis hotel, I returned to my hotel in Dana Point. I changed and quickly ran to the Doheney Beach by myself. The sight of the ocean in front of me with people lined up along the shore like a necklace surrounding the neck of a beautiful lady took my breath away. I sat on top of a huge rock and let my heart and soul fly with the sea gulls above the huge tent-like waves. The cool breeze chilled my entire spine and reminded me with a similar sight I and most Iraqis used to enjoy before the war. Habbaniya resort was one of Iraq’s major resorts with its artificial lake, five-star hotel, along-shore-villas, night clubs, swimming pools, and amusement park. Recalling all these sights, I felt a shiver followed by a sigh and a hope that one day things there return to be as good as they used to be.

I left the rock and started walking towards the ocean. As I went closer, I felt bittersweet happiness. I was happy with enjoying the sight peacefully, but at the same time I felt the survivor guilt that always reminds me with my family and friends and their daily ordeal. My feet were walking me, letting the ocean’s water cuddle them as they dig their way on the wet sand, stepping on empty oyster shells. I felt I could walk there forever, maybe until the last breath in my lungs which have just abandoned tobacco. However, I didn’t think of committing suicide or anything crazy. Our existence is an eye blink. Why, then, should a man chase down his life? I stared at the wave coming towards me as fast as a mother running towards her son after twenty years of separation. Even though it was huge, I felt it was peaceful. The sound of the gulls and the waves hugging each other towards the shore was the most halcyon sight I’ve ever loved.

At the wedding, big shot journalists, writers, publishers, and book agents were in the top of the list of the invited people. Talking with them about my future plans was something that I’ve never expected to happen one day. I don’t even recall I had such dreams. Though the war had its cost on us, it still left one road open for lucky people like me. I talked about my future writing plans and the Ph.D. degree that I want to pursue after the Master’s. I was encouraged a lot when big writers offered to help me read and perhaps publish some of the future bulky writing projects.

After the JFK Airport breaking news was broadcasted on all America’s new TV networks, I realized why I had a weird feeling at the plane on my way to California. I am not a spiritual person, but when I feel uncomfortable I know that there must be something wrong. I tracked the news as they came out on TV with the live broadcast of news conferences and all the details about the planners of the foiled terrorist attack which had it happen, it might have killed thousands of innocent people, not only Americans but many other people from different nationalities that happened to be there.

I wasn’t surprised when I heard the news, but I was left with a feeling of disgust and anxiety even though I know that we-Muslim Arab young men- are being already monitored by America’s FBI and CIA. I expected that we would be annoyed at the airport by security. I wouldn’t mind, to be honest. I don’t blame them for doing so, but that does not mean it would not be annoying and sometimes degrading. But for the better safety of everyone traveling, I believe they have the right to do their best to secure the airports from any suspicious activity. In all cases, I decided not to spoil my beautiful vacation with overreacting. I had nothing to be afraid of.

Going back to DC, I flew from Santa Ana. At the airport, intensive security was very obvious. For my good luck, nothing happened to me. I checked in electronically, got my boarding pass and headed towards the security zone where I was searched like all people around me. As I boarded on the plane, I had a feeling of safety despite America’s the precarious feeling then. I didn’t feel the time fly by as I spent most of it reading on the plane getting half way through the almost five-hundred-page book I was reading.

After spending the night in DC with my friends, I left the city in the morning heading back to Philadelphia. I took the China Town bus, $15 better than $90 for the boring, slow and bad service of Amtrak. The way to Philly was amazing, passing by all the beautiful natural areas of Baltimore and Delaware. As we reached the outskirts of Philly, the shiny blue skyscrapers of the city craned my eyes. I had a great feeling of going back “home”. I don’t know if I could call Philly “home” yet, but I definitely had an amazing feeling of relief. No place replaces Baghdad, of course, but inside me, the City of Brotherly Love became an important part of my new life. It helped me survive, defeat fear, and go on in living joyfully in America’s ancient and most famous historical spot where democracy, freedom, and new life were born.

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com