Rejoice and Grief

By the time Iraqis were rejoicing the victorious winning of the Asian Cup, Sameer’s mother, my cousin, was in her worst shapes. She sat grieving at the Baghdad Morgue waiting for the curfew to be lifted to take her teenage son to burial.

A 17-year-old teenager, Sameer died doing a noble thing, helping his wounded neighbors and friends to ambulances after a massive car bomb ripped off most of the buildings surrounding his house in Karrada, wounding and killing most of his neighbors and friends, and leaving a three-story apartment building on fire.

My father received the news after one in the morning. Abbas, my other cousin and the uncle of the slain Sameer, sobbed on the phone, telling my father how it all happened.

It was a normal Thursday afternoon in Karrada, a neighborhood in Baghdad where hundreds of displaced people found a shelter. Karrada is also known of being a shopping attraction to many Baghdadis. Men’s and women’s wear, jewelry shops, and restaurants are among the many other grocery stores. Sameer and his friends were standing in front of their house drinking some soda to ease the 120 F heat roaming the electricity-absent city. Not too far from them, a car bomb rushed to the market area across the street from his house, exploded and cut people into pieces. Instead of running away from the fire and the second possible attack, Sameer rushed to the fire hurricane. Carrying people with his own skinny arms, his father said he didn’t feel their weight. As strong as superman, his utmost effort was to save as much people as he could. While doing so, his cell phone rang. It was from his terrified father who was in another neighborhood. He was relieved to hear his son’s voice, but alas how short that was. He begged him to leave the area, but Sameer refused. “I can’t. There are people dying in front of me. I have to take them to the hospital or the ambulance,” he said while crying.

Then, a roar. Gunshot and sirens coming from the Iraqi troops accompanied by the Americans. People grew more scared expecting another car bomb would target both American and Iraqi troops and the civilians who were helping evacuate the 130 wounded. As they arrived, both armies were doing nothing except cordoning the area. Angry relatives of the dead and the wounded started screaming at the troops asking them to leave, accusing them for being the indirect reason that led the country to this state of chaos and mayhem. The US troops left without arguing with the angry mob, but Iraqi troops descended from their vehicles and started fighting with those who lost their relatives. Then, one Iraqi soldier opened fire on the mob killing whoever was standing in front of him. Sameer was one of them. A bullet came right in the center of his heart. The wounded child whom Sameer was carrying fell from his arms, and Sameer fell dead over him.

In the middle of the chaos and the pools of blood and the plumes of smoke, Sameer was carried by another neighbor not to the hospital, but to the morgue instead. On his way there, he called my cousin and her husband telling them how a small bullet took their son’s life. Grief took his way to their small house.

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Sameer was a very friendly young man. His parents struggled painfully to make him continue studying at school. Like many other families who suffered during the 12-year embargo, his family was categorized as the worst. His father, a government employee received a $1.5 per month salary, which was not enough to buy eggs. His mother quit her job and became a tailor to earn more money to help her husband afford living. Life was harder than everyone expected. Money wasn’t enough at all. They had to sell their house and everything in it, except the carpet where the five family members slept on. For years, they almost had nothing decent to eat. Even the food ration which was agreed between Saddam and the United Nations, was not enough for a big family like theirs. Sameer and his three brothers had to quit school. They worked for years as clerks, waiters and many other jobs where they were able to restore what the family sold. They also saved some money to school. Returning back to school was a very happy event in the family. The boys graduated from colleges, except Sameer who was only 17 before he died. It was only one year a head of him to enter college.

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As I was watching the soccer match live on the internet, I couldn't but think of Sameer and his grieving mother. He was a huge fan of soccer. I thought of him when our team won, and never forgot how his body was still at the morgue when the referee announced the end of the game.

Goodbye Sameer. We’ll miss you a lot. We’ll miss your smiling face when always won backgammon. We’ll always remember your earlier struggle and your heroism that will pave the road of martyrdom and greatness of all Iraqis who sacrificed themselves to help our country.

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

Great Job Lions of Mesopotamia

Congratulations to the Lions of Mesopotamia for winning the Asian Cup. You did not let us down. You brought a smile and joy to our hearts, and took the pain out of our chests even if it was for one day.

3asho isood il Iraq

Below are two video clips taken by my friends when they took the streets celebrating the soccer victory. Despite the daily horrors, people defeated their fear and celebrated for the first time since the war started.

BBC Award for the Ambassador of the Iraqi and Arab Song

Congratulations to Kadhum al-Sahir. As the presenter said, “if we stop listening to our politicians and listen to our musicians more, we could have world peace.”

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

Letter to Iraq

Dear Iraq,

It hasn’t been a long time since I talked to you, but I love you so much that I can’t forget you even for a second. I’ve been dreaming a lot about you. I’ve been dreaming about your and my Baghdad. Do you remember how peaceful and beautiful it was?

I’ve been watching and following your news since I last saw you a year ago. I feel your pain and mayhem. I hear your cries with every car bomb explodes. I feel your heart aching with every woman crying, every child sobbing for his dead parents, and every elderly watching what he built collapse in front of him.

I don’t want to blame you, Iraq. But have you seen how your “friends” treated you and your people? Have you seen what these Jordanians did to you and your people? Do you remember how you treated them when they came to your land? Do you see how humiliated your sons and daughters have become in their lands? Do you see how they return the favor? Aren’t these Jordanians the same people whom you gave electricity and oil for free? I have to tell you that I knew they would betray us, but couldn’t do anything about it. Have you seen how they welcomed your women? Your mothers, who endured what no human being endured. Can you imagine your mother sleeping in the street like this? Have you read the news today? They don’t want you anymore. They don’t want your people. They held a conference to ask countries take your people out of their land. Is that how they say thank you to you? You were terrorized by their son Zarqawi and now they say their security is threatened because of your people. They knew he would destroy them if he stayed there, so they sent him to kill you to make him busy killing your people, not theirs. I am sure you know all of this, but I wanted to let it out of my chest.

I am sorry Iraq that no one of those who led you kept your greatness. I remember the tyrant that ruled your land. I remember everything he did against us. I remember how the world gathered to topple him. I remember how they came with no plans. Do you still think they did it to help you and break your chains? I told you, but you didn’t listen to me. I told you that their goal is to get rid of the tyrant who threatened them and they did but instead of liberating you, they brought you new tyrants instead. Do you see the result? I know you are helpless like I am, but please endure me. Do you see the thugs who came back from exile? They replaced the tyrant, but what kind of tyrants are they? They are multiple, religious, extreme, hateful, revenge-seekers, and illiterate. There used to be one tyrant and now there are hundreds. Your people used to fear one, today they fear every one. I feel so bad they are hurting you like this, Iraq. I feel disgusted when I see them fighting for positions every day. I feel sick when I read the news saying this bloc threatened that bloc and this bloc threatened to withdraw… I have had enough. But what can you do if the “superpower” is supporting them by all means? Of course, this is happening on your land, because they don’t listen to you and your people. They listen to their interests only.

Oh Iraq, there are so many things I want to tell you about, but my heart is full of pain. But I want you to know one thing. I love you. I love you to death. Don’t ever think of this twice. No matter how hard my life is, you are still my love. You are still my roots. You are still my everything. You are where I was born, where I was raised, where I learned what love means. When you become stronger, remember all those who hurt you and don’t forgive them. Don’t let them exploit you like they did before. I am sure you’ll be back, even if it is not in my lifetime.

Your son,

Treasure of Baghdad.

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

Another Candle Blown Out

They were all gathering around the wooden table. It was loaded with my favorite chocolate cake, decorated with 26 candles. There were two trifle bowls, my favorite orange sherbet, two big bottles of Pepsi, and 7-up and a framed picture of me smiling. My niece and her cousins crowned in front of the cake. My sister, her in-laws, and my father gathered around the children-cocooned table singing “happy birthday to you” in both English and Arabic. I was watching from a distance, a far distance, thousands of miles away, through a video web camera. I was celebrating my birthday with them watching them, listening to them uttering the birthday song and blowing out the candles for me.

Tears fell over my sister’s cheeks as she wished me a happy birthday. She wanted to hug me, but it was impossible. I was a small tearing face in a small web cam box on a computer screen. She made me cry as well feeling the reality of ghurba [being away from home] that made me realize how too far the distance is between me and them. Then my twenty-two-months-old niece showed up in front of the camera clapping and singing “Habibi, to youuuuuuu,” what she could utter from the “happy birthday to you” that she heard from the others in English. I wanted to extend my arms through the webcam and grab her and hug her, but couldn’t but speak to her and give her a big kiss through the cam. Thanks to technology that made me at least celebrate my birthday with them, even though it was through a video conference.

Then I called my mother. Taking a break from the hell that immortally settled in Baghdad, she went to Syria. She was very happy to hear my voice, but I was happier to have her bless on this very day, the day when she brought me to life, the day she celebrated every year, the day where she and my father gave me the best present ever, their love and warmth. Before she hung up, she wished me a happy birthday but the words were falling with tears. I begged her not to cry, but it was too much for her to do so. They were tears of happiness and sadness. They were tears mixed with happiness of my safety and success at school, but they were tears expressing how miserable our situation has become and how everyone ended up in a different place. She couldn’t continue and handed the phone over to my aunt whom I could tell was crying too along with my other aunts whom insurgents robbed their life by displacing all of them.

It was hard, really hard. But it meant the whole world to me, seeing our family bonds immortal, celebrating, smiling, crying, singing, and going on with life in the worst time humanity is going through. The will is still there. The happiness can be restored. Future can be bright as long as this will still exists. Otherwise, we can prepare our coffins today and stop hoping. Life is tasteless without this beautiful mixture of tears and smiles.

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

Watch This

Deserted City

It’s two in the morning. I can’t sleep even though my eyes are hardly open. Cocooned in the darkness of my room, and enveloped by my blanket, I recalled the images I saw on Nabil’s blog a few days ago. They beset me like a murderous ghost in a series of horror flick. I forced my eyes to close.

I got up from the bed and hurried to the computer. A click after a click on the pictures, I found myself shouting “no”. Not this neighborhood, not my childhood, not my memories. The streets which once embraced people with warmth are empty and deserted today. The restaurants that I barely recognized in the pictures became like empty boxes along side the concrete barriers and the destroyed sidewalks. I clicked the video. It was worse than the photos. I felt walking with Nabil in the streets but with my heart bleeding for every stone in the street. I walked and recalled how I walked in this very street before with Ahmed, Safaa, Sameem, and Ali. I passed by Ibn Farhood restaurant and the coffee shop where I smoked Hookah and played backgammon and dominos with my friends. I barely recognized them.

I forced my fingers to close the webpage. It was a click, but what about the sideshow playing in my mind? What fingers can close that window? Then a rush of other stories and memories came running. I recalled how I woke up today on Khalid’s murder. I recalled how my entire spine chilled when I read the news. Memories of murdered people I knew came running like a thunderstorm. Lightning and thunder. A Shock. A bright light that almost burned my eyes pupils. Alan’s image with him preparing the hookah on the referendum eve, my neighbor Yasir offering me a ride to work a day before he was murdered on the highway, my friend’s mother asking us to be careful a few days before her chest was shredded with shrapnel and my father’s neighbor carrying his one-year-old granddaughter a few weeks before he was kidnapped and shot to death.

I closed my eyes, talked to them one by one and thanked them with tears pouring from my both eyes like the Tigris and Euphrates. They stood smiling. I thanked them for their bravery and sacrifice. I thanked them for their courage. I thanked them for paving our roads with martyrdom. I promised them that I will never let them down. I promised them I will go on and let the world know how generous they were to us with their lives.

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

Privilege

It must have been a privilege that I spent post-2003 summers in Iraq with extreme heat without electricity. I didn’t know that even suffering is considered a privilege sometimes. I arrived in Washington DC this morning and was shocked to see how people reacted against the “heat wave” that strikes the northeast part of the United States.

As I was walking on my way to meet with one of my best friends, I noticed how people were absolutely scared as if real war has reached their country. Although I was wearing a short and a T-Shirt, I felt warm, but didn’t feel hot. Heat in Iraq with no electricity in the last four years taught me that this "heat" is nothing compared to what I am experiencing here. I kept walking and looked at the people who looked pale unable to endure this weather. I recalled how I slept on mattresses on the floor and sometimes on the floor itself to cool my body. I recalled how I went to work everyday and arrived there on time even though I didn’t get enough sleep. I recalled my niece, 8 months then, crying as she suffered the heat like millions of other babies in her age. I recalled my mother whom every time I call I hear the sound of the handy fan she is using due to the absence of electricity. I even recalled the ACs which we considered part of the antiques we collect and put in the house.

This very day, most Americans in the northeast are complaining about this heat which actually hasn’t reached 100 degrees whereas in Iraq it is about 120 degrees. Many people left comments on news websites that reported the “heat wave” complaining about how hard it is to endure this heat and how American local governments should have done more to help people reduce the heat by the time the local governments like the one here in DC did their bests to help people by installing cooling centers for them where people could sit in a cool place and drink something cold for free before they finish their way to work or wherever their destination is.

So, to my friends the Americans, please stop for a second as you walk complaining in the heat and remember that there is a country thousands of miles away was affected by a war that your administration started that resulted in a complete destruction to infrastructure, leaving people enduring 120 F degrees of heat with no electricity, no water and even no fuel to run the private generators. Remember them while you drink the cold bottled water and enjoy the AC’s cool air. Remember them as you read the articles about the “heat wave” on the internet. See how much temperature is in Baghdad at night and how much it will become during the day! Compare and see if it is worth it to complain about something millions of people wish to get at least 15 percent of what you have and what they already had before. Thinking about others is more constructive than complaining about something others lost since 2003. When we all think about each other, we wouldn’t fall in the trap of the wide gap which is increasing day by day in this crazy world.

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

Fiasco

When it comes to education in Iraq, I always stand up to defend it. It is because of what I have studied in Iraq, I’m here America. It isn’t an ephemeral thing. It is the basis, the milestone, and the right road that I dogged.

When I first started working as a graduate assistant at the university where I am pursuing my Master’s degree in Writing Studies here in Philadelphia in fall 2006, I encountered a kind of American stereotypical incident. Answering some questions that my boss was asking, I was shocked when she asked me how I made it to come and study in the US when “education in Iraq wasn’t good.” The question left me in absolute shock. I didn’t see that coming from an educator! I told her the story of my education and how I, a young man who went through three wars and twelve-year sanctions, made it well to reach this level.

Although it had its flaws, education in Iraq wasn’t terrible. On the contrary, it was sturdy. Starting from elementary school and ending with college, I had received a well-built education with the help of my parents and the people surrounding me.

Since I was born in 1980, I lived almost my entire life under Saddam’s tyranny and abuse which reached educators before anyone else. However, most of my teachers whose salary didn’t exceed 3000 ID [$1.5] per month, thanks to the sanctions, did not give up. On the contrary, they gave us their utmost efforts to keep up the education distinguished than anything else. Education was free in Iraq, and that was a huge thing compared to education in many other countries where parents strive to save some money for their kids to go to school. Teachers were friendly and firm. And curricula were good to prepare students for their college lives.

The sanctions period wasn’t easy at all. The families’ income deteriorated like a snowball falling from the top of a mountain. The monthly salaries were hardly enough for one day food. But people remained persistent to continue their education by working and studying at the same time. Yes, there was no internet, but there were public and school libraries that were helpful in one way or another. Text books were distributed for free to students, and the entire education in the state schools was free.

I consider myself lucky that I could work, study, and get as much benefit as I could from my High School and college teachers in a time where safety wasn't hard to find if we knew how to pursue it, but the struggle and the tower of education which we protected for years is collapsing. The new generation is facing a grave danger of losing the most precious weapon of life, education.

Going through the daily fear of being kidnapped or killed, Iraq’s students and educators are going through a prosecution and humiliation committed by the fusty crimes of the militias and insurgents and the fiasco that marked every action the government does.

After the multiple explosions against university students, the beheadings and executions of teachers in Anbar and the triangle of death, Azzaman newspaper reported a heart-wrenching article of how this year’s central exams have been marred by the theft of exam questions papers. The paper added that some militiamen are reported to have barged into exam halls and forced teachers to dictate the answers to certain students whom they wish to tempt to be loyal to them after they finish their exams.

The ghost of terror and minute-by-minute fear became ubiquitous. It became part of Iraqi students’ lives and minds whenever they open a book to study or go to school. The enemies of education have increased. We had one enemy yesterday, and today we have hundreds of thousands of enemies who want to destroy the seeds of a bright future that we are seeing dying in front of us everyday. The question is what should we do to stop this? How could people continue going to schools if schools and exam halls were not protected by the government? Isn’t it official now to consider what the government is doing a fiasco? A complete one?

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com

Fake Your Sect to Fool Militias

© No Terror. info

Iraqi Sunni youths have started an electronic campaign to protect themselves from Shiite militias. Faking faith to fool death squads is not a new phenomenon. It started after the increased reprisal killings in the aftermath of the al-Qaeda’s terrorists bombed the Holy Shrine in Sammara when Shiites militias stormed houses and streets and kidnapped and killed innocent Sunni people to avenge the bombing. The campaign included an extensive instructional email that contained instructions to Sunni people of how to dissemble themselves like Shiites so that in case they are kidnapped, militias release them believing they are Shiites.

Below is the translation of the email that has been forwarded to many Iraqi youths, including Shiites like myself.

It has been clear to many people that hundreds if not thousands are held hostages and were tortured according to their Sunni identity in different parts of Iraq. We have received confirmed information from people who were released after they were kidnapped “by mistake” because they were Shiites that many of the hostages were interrogated to identify whether they were Sunnis or Shiites. They were killed according to that.

The main questions which you might be asked are as follows:
1- What’s your sect?
2- What’s your surname?
3- Who are the 12 Imams? Count them.
4- Questions about religious ceremonies.

Thus, we advice you to do the following:

1- Practice disguising yourself as another person with a fake ID with a different surname. (Fake IDs are available at Mraidi Market), especially if your name is Omar or Othman or your surname is Dulaimi or Janabi, or your birthplace was in a Sunni majority areas.
2- Memorize the names of 12 [Shiite] Imams as listed at the bottom of the letter and carry a turba [a piece of clay in which Shiite Muslims use during prayers] in your pocket if you can.
3- Learn how to pray like Shiites.
4- Keep more than one turba [a round prayer tablet made from clay gathered in the holy cities] in your house clearly, and put a green or black flags on the roof of your house if needed.
5- In your house, keep a poster of Imam Hussein. You can buy it in Mutanabi Street in Baghdad.
6- Keep a copy of the “al-Sahifa al-Sijjadiya” in your houses, and read some of its moving prayers.
7- Keep a Latmiya in your cell phone.
8- Learn how to curse Yazeed and Mu’awiya and Bani Umaiya [early Sunni caliphs hated by the Shiites]
9- Wear or keep black clothes, especially during ceremonies that require wearing them.
10- Learn the Shiites ceremonies like the deaths of the Imams, their birthdates and the joy of Zahraa.
11- It’s OK to say that you are Sunni who switched to Shiisim.
12- Practice these things well and don’t forget to pray in Husseiniya or a Shiite mosque. All mosques are for God.

Be ware that Sunnis and Shiites are not enemies. Some ignorant who were tempted by evil plans want to spread hatred in Iraq. Remember that the occupation and their allies are the only ones to get benefit out of tearing the Iraqi society that was brotherly united since a thousand years ago.

Remember that your life is in danger. So don’t be careless. Allah is the only protector and He is the most merciful.

baghdadtreasure@gmail.com