Welcoming Iraqi Refugees in the City of Brotherly Love

Yesterday (June 21st) I was invited to speak at the first-of-its-kind conference in the City of Brotherly Love. The Philadelphia-held conference was an open-borders event between the newly arrived Iraqi refugees to the Philadelphia area and their new American friends and neighbors.

The conference coincided with the June 20th World Refugee Day and was held by one of Philadelphia’s oldest non-profit organization, the Nationalities Service Center. Since it was founded in 1921, NSC made great achievements in terms of helping refugees from all over the world. It provides legal, social and educational services to immigrants, refugees, limited and/or non-English speakers.

The conference which was called “Welcoming Iraqi Families, Celebrating Iraqi Culture” was a step a great step NSC chose to take in order to build bridges between the American and Iraqi cultures. People from the two countries interacted and shared stories about their homelands. One of the Iraqi refugees, an artist, donated two paintings representing images from his home country, attracting a great admiration by the American Philadelphians who rarely get a chance to see Iraqi art. Others expressed their feelings about finding a new and safe home, and how they lived in their homeland before, during and after the war. Read More...

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Saudi Woman's Rebellion

My Saudi friend Ali has forwarded me a very interesting essay that I thought of sharing with you. As we all know, feminism in Saudi Arabia is locked behind the iron prison bars of the extremist Wahabi clerics and the male-dominant culture that crippled the other half of humanity component.

Nadine al-Bdair, a Saudi author and essayist, wrote an extremely rebellious essay against her country’s religious traditions that imprisoned women behind black abayas and headscarves, the traditions that made women think of themselves as “sinners.”

I translated the essay into English, but I have to say it is more powerful to read in Arabic. It is the best essay I have ever read by a Saudi woman against gender discrimination in her country. My Iraqi friend Zainab, who once wore a headscarf, also wrote about her opinion regarding her decision to take the scarf off when she left the country a few years ago.

I am No Longer Ashamed!
By Nadine al-Bdair

The story started when I was destined to mourning, when they drew the black and forced me to wear it, making the city look even darker.

In her childhood, the young girl did not care about her body because it was a source of smiles. But if she is gets taller, her feminineness becomes a source of a scandal, and all what she has becomes bad and disgrace. She becomes ashamed of her body. Therefore, she helped them wrap it. She covered her mouth, blinded her eyes, hid her fingers in the darkness, and widened the cloth on her chest, waist and legs. Only through the cloth she got hot and suffocated air, that felt exactly like her.
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I became eleven years-old. My voice was a shame.

Women in my family said, “Women’s voice is one of the reasons of her honor. Whenever it gets louder, she is less respected. She has to whisper.”
That means my voice is a sin.

They also said that my looks are sins, and so does my laughter.

They said that the honor of the society lies between the thighs of its women. The men’s honor would be gone with one smile from me. ALL the men’s honor would be gone with the first eye contact I do with a man I like. They said women’s virginity is a source of proverbs.

These were women who told me to be bashful from the requirements of nature. These were women who taught me how to stick my eyes to the floor.

At age fifteen, the Religion [female] teachers who are obsessed with religion stressed that the girls who do not cover their heads in life will be hanged by it in the afterlife.

So my hair became a sin.

Once, a teacher swore that the face of the women was created to have it exclusively enjoyed by the husband. Every woman’s job would be done by surrendering her body to a [husband].

I wish I asked her, “what if I weren’t married?” What should I do with my face, the enjoyment tool that I possess?

I grew up and the mosque imam’s voice made its way to my ears every Friday, distracting me from my studies with his entertaining tales, swearing hundreds of times that a woman’s body is a curse that should be removed from life.

Now all of me is a sin. So why were I created? Is that why they chose the black [dress] for me? To mourn coming to this world as a woman?

How were I convinced to be ashamed and bashful instead of being proud of this universal miracle?

The most important question is when did the woman start being ashamed of her presence?
For me all I know is that they included the woman’s period in religion classes, which I memorized. It mentioned that I have to live several days of every month “dirty.”

I searched the word’s meaning in different Arabic dictionaries where I found all synonyms for this word mean “filthy.” I then became ashamed. How could I not when I was the filthy? I am not clean and pure creature.

Then I wandered in the world and saw…

I saw the statues of the ancient gods naked. I saw women’s bodies sculptured in the streets and roads and on the walls of the caves and inside the castles and mansions in a scared way. Everybody mastered art in sculpturing my body which carries that miracle of creation, the symbol of birth, the body that the ancient statue worshipers could not hide their admiration of. They worshipped it and considered it sacred.

I imagined the fate of these statues if they were created in our region. I imagined them destroyed and covered with cloth. I even imagined them as a source of respecting society that respects women’s bodies instead of hiding them.

How the ancient glorified my body and how my people destroyed it!

I won’t take part in this sin. I won’t mourn.

I returned back to my society where men boast their open chests while women boast of how large their dresses cloths are. Even though the logic says that I should cover my body, men should do the same to be ashamed of their bodies, because women’s bodies are more beautiful. Beauty is the thing that should be all over the streets, not the opposite.

I returned back and saw the cloths are the main scale to distinguish between people and be against all human rights. Some meters of cotton are enough to judge on the women wearing it whether she is good or bad. That woman is good because she wrapped herself well. That one is on her way to be good. She still needs to cover her eyes and follow the path of purity. And regarding that one, God keeps away from her, walks and big parts of her chest are shown.
Cotton and silk… These are the scales of manners for us, as long as everything is happening inside and not shown to public.

The first society slap I ever got was when I was in high school whose teachers were extremely religious. I was always shy to go to school because it was decided to put on the Abayas that all students would go to paradise and only me and my other friend would go to hell where we are going to be grilled and our meat would be eaten by beasts.
I envied them because I was not one of them.

One day, one of my classmates asked me to call her boyfriend and tell him about the next meeting’s place because her phone was not working.

“How come you do such a thing and you are the pure and bashful girl who does not even show her hands and feet?” I asked.

“What does that have to do with what I am doing? You are an infidel if you don’t wear a scarf and leave your body open to strangers to see,” she replied.

These are the scales of manners here: as long as things happen secretly. As long as the body is all covered, [you can do whatever you want].
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The same body remains whether inside or outside the fences [of clothes]. What I care about today is the outside, when the man speaks loudly and sings while shaving, by the time we whisper when we pick our brows . We whisper when our bloodshed comes. We hide the best proof of life and its continuation on earth.

Because whispering is a proof of a sin and because I am not a sin, because I am a miracle, I will speak loudly to make humans hear me. I will laugh and unveil my presence to enjoy myself, not a man.

An American journalist once asked me in an interview, “Why do you wear high heels? You don’t need that.”

I told him, “The most thing I like about high heels is that when I walk in a hallway and make my steps movement be heard. People at the end of hallway would stop chatting to know who that high-heel-woman coming. This is the means I use in the environment of a culture that is ashamed of my presence. The culture that considered women’s high heels a disgraceful thing. This is my means to tell them that my body is moving and this movement is making this sound.

blog.bassamsebti@gmail.com

Richard Engel's "War Journal"

More and more frequently since I have started reading books about the Middle East and Iraq I have begun to see how Iraq has been shaped and changed. For the last five years, I read several books. Before those five years, I poured most of my attention on literature, avoiding anything that has to do with politics, especially Saddam’s in order to survive. The books I read were mostly written by journalists who spent quite a long time in Iraq before, during and after the invasion. In this thread, I would like to reflect my opinion about a book I have just finished reading. “War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq” by the newly-promoted NBC reporter Richard Engel.

After reading Shadid’s “Night Draws Near,” Chandrasekaran’s “Emperial Life in the Emerald City,” and Packer’s “The Assassin’s Gate” I thought no other journalist than those three could write about Iraq the way they did. But after reading Engel’s I discovered I was wrong.

The book is a must read for every American or non-American who wants to know what went wrong and what happened as a result of that.

One of my graduation presents was a Borders Bookstore gift card. Instead of buying something that might be forgotten pretty soon, I decided to buy a book. When I went to Borders, I found many interesting titles attracting my attention like a desperate child grabbing his father’s sleeves to buy him candy. On the shelf of the ‘Memoirs and Biographies’ sat ‘War Journal,’ shining with a crystal clear picture of Richard Engel. The young American reporter was standing in what I believe the area facing al-Hamra hotel where his NBC’s office was located, the same place where a truck suicide bomber destroyed part of the hotel and the collapsed the surrounding apartment buildings. Because I stood on that particular spot before and after it was destroyed, my eyes couldn’t resist gazing at the picture. I wasn’t looking at Engel, more than on the destroyed building and the three children playing behind him among the rubble and the concrete barriers that were smartly hidden by the photographer.

In the photo, Engels eyes gave me several impressions. I am kind of a mind a look ‘reader.’ I judge on people when I see how they react to something through their look. You can lie or do a certain gesture, but your eyes can never lie. Engels’ eyes gave me two impressions: one of a ‘cocky’ reporter who stayed long enough to understand what Iraq and Iraqis are really like in the war. The other was that of someone fatigued, stressed out, and kind of sad.

I let my fingers leaf through the pages of the book until my eyes impeded, catching something that summed up what I and many other Iraqi bloggers had been talking about regarding the elections in Iraq. “Millions [of Iraqis] did in fact turn out,” Engel wrote. “but they weren’t embracing democracy. They were just following orders…” he added. That very statement made decide to buy the book, even though it cost more than the value of the gift card.

I was curious to know why he gave such a statement that most pro-war Americans would slam him for!

The book’s title made me buy it too in order to see his own perspective and how he felt as a reporter and a human being in covering the war. After all, I was one. But my case was kind of different. I was watching the war as an Iraqi and a journalist. I saw my country destroyed in front of my eyes.

Engel’s first two chapters were not emotional as you would expect in reading a journal or a memoir. It was more like analytical statements in a history book, not in a journal. But when I moved on in reading the rest of the book I found out that the flow of the events and the way they are described in connection to his own feeling was more interesting than I expected it to be. I think the first ‘boring’ chapters were actually preparing me, the reader, to see how things happened. Eventually, I understood why it appeared to be so. I might be wrong, but I think there was a reason.

The book starts with the scene where he was covering Saddam’s capture like a rat in a hole. I bet I don’t need to describe how that happened, because if you don’t know how it happened, we have a problem. The chapter was detailed, well backgrounded and to the point, but it had no emotion. But the moment you leap to the third chapter, things start to move a little more interesting. Engel connects his work life, including his bureau and staff members with what was happening around them in the to be war-torn Baghdad.

We all know sequence of the events that happened since the invasion, I hope. Engel makes sure you DO know. He does that by a very clear timeline sequence of one event that led to the other like a chain reaction. He starts it with the fact that the Sunnis discovering they were no longer the men-in-power and how in contrary to that Shiites WERE in fact the ones to be in charge. He writes about it in extensive details starting from the Governing Council ending with the consequences of the “Iranian-monitored” and “American-backed” elections.

Engel continues writing by mentioning that how the Sunnis became frustrated, knowing that the Shiites were going to win in the elections because they were the majority. So they decided to boycott and turn to insurgency where bloodthirsty al-Qaeda was waiting for a chance to impose its terror power in Iraq. Who else other than the Shiite “infidels” deserves to be attacked the most? As a result, Shiite militiamen did not stand still and started attacking back. In the middle innocent people died from both sects died, of course.

Engel did an amazing job in describing one of the scariest nightmares Iraq had ever gone through. Ibrahim Jaafari, the “elected” Prime Minister of Iraq. He compared him to his competitor at the time, Ayad Allawi, who was liked by many Iraqis for his strong personality. By nature, we Iraqis do not like sissies, soft spoken, and delicate leaders. Jaafari was that kind of a ‘leader.’ The best part written about Jaafari was that when a Kurdish politician told Engel, “You can’t get answers from him. All he does is he talks philosophy.” Engel wrote, “Iraq didn’t need a philosopher. It needed a leader.” I totally agree.

When you keep reading, you could definitely tell how things were declining from bad to worse to the worst. Engel does it in a very clear and simple way, unlike many books that were written about Iraq. He does it like a story, unlike his first chapters. His tone of writing changes that sometimes I feel that he actually wrote those exact words in a notebook. He mentioned that he kept a video journal. So that might be it.

By 2006, Engels tone could be barely recognized the same. He writes in details how he didn’t care less when he saw dead, rotten and burned bodies and destroyed buildings. I read that part and remembered how I had the exact same feeling when I was there working for the Washington Post. But I left in mid 2006 and came to the U.S. to pursue a Master’s degree. I had nightmares. I jumped every time I heard thunder or ambulance sirens. It took me two years to heal, that’s if I am healed. But the other day I was in Washington DC and something happened that made reconsider knowing myself, my old self. One evening when I was coming back from the Metro station to my friends place, I happened to witness something terrible. I was with a friend of mine when I heard people screaming and gathering to see what happened on the first floor of the station. I peered and saw a young athletic man in blue shirt and brown pants lying on the floor bleeding from his head while he was motionless. There was a young blond woman weeping and screaming next to him while other people were calling for ambulance. I saw the man lying on his back (his head was facing the ceiling), but he seemed he was still alive since his abdomen was moving up and down.. When I saw the man the first time, I didn't have the "normal" feeling I had in Baghdad two years ago. This time, I felt really normal. I was shocked like everybody in the station. I had this horrible feeling of a man dying in front of me. If I were in Iraq, I would have moved on and might not even think about for more than a minute, but that incident haunted me. It was a sad incident but it made me realize that I am finally "recovered." I have my senses back. I felt like a normal person again. It was such a strange feeling I never expected.

I wonder how long it’s going to take Engel to “recover.” War is always ugly. It affects the core of your soul, no matter how strong you are.

The best time to read is when you travel, I believe. I went to Washington D.C. again, volunteering to help The List Project and Upwardly Global with their career summit they held for Iraqi professionals who were resettled in the United States recently after receiving death threats back home. I took the cheap, 15-dollar Chinatown bus to get there. On the way, I was still reading the book and was in the final chapters of it. Engels tone became even sadder. He recalled and described stories that no human being could ever endure seeing. Stories that not even people would watch in horror movies. The collapse, the control of the outlaws, the segregation, the displacement and the monstrous way of killing people. He talked about orphans, his own employees’ self destruction, and mostly HIS own destruction: his divorce.

At the end Engel meets with his country’s ill-famed president. He shoots his words and facts in the best interview with Bush I have ever read. Bush admits to Engel that the war was more like a personal decision than a long-range strategy for the Middle East. "I know people are saying we should have left things the way they were,” Bush tells Engel. “but I changed after 9/11. I had to act. I don't care if it created more enemies. I had to act."

As a result to that action, more than 4 million Iraqis became refugees, hundreds of thousands died, more than 4,000 American soldiers lost their lives in vague-aimed war and hatred against the American nation increased because of that ‘war on terror.’ But who cares? The president didn’t for sure. He had to act!

blog.bassamsebti@gmail.com

A New, Changing World

Nearly seven years ago, the world stood still. Two towers were making their way down, collapsing metal, glass, and most importantly innocent people. Two hijackers made that happen, destroying not only the lives of three thousand people, but also hundreds of thousands across the Atlantic Ocean. Since then, the map of the world changed, not geographically but politically.

The United States launched its “War on Terror,” making Jihadi terrorists’ dream come true: a declared, open war on Muslim lands face-to-face. The war had become even fiercer and bloodier. It cost the world its shape, dignity, and peace.

Bush had called America’s friends and allies join with all those who want peace and security. “We stand together to win the war against terrorism,” he said. But did those whom he called for stood together with him against the enemies of peace? Understandably, they did. They supported the war in Afghanistan against the Taliban repressive and backwards regime, a war I strongly supported for there is nothing in the world is worse than being ruled by religious fanatic regimes. The war then was one of the very first things that changed the world we had lived in. Then came the unexpected Iraq war.

The unprepared Iraq war and the malfunctions that accompanied its poor plans (that’s if there were any plans) had changed the world into even a worse shape than it used to be. Thousands of Jihadis entering Iraq, the start of insurgency, the civil war, the tyrant’s execution… etc. During the five-years of the ongoing war, this small part of the world called Iraq changed. Forever. It broke like a mug. Many people tried to glue it back, but in vain. Even if we glued it again, would it look the same? I don’t think so.

The civil war changed the formerly mixed Baghdad and turned it into a city of segregated neighborhoods manned by concrete walls, worse than that in Palestine. The country as a whole is no longer the same. Each province is now called by its people’s ethnicity, religion or sect. Politics became random. Democracy is achieved, but in a wrong way. Instead of depending on the educated elite, the Americans backed and installed a sectarian electoral system, that is of voting for sects and ethnicities instead of professionals and good leaders. That, of course, changed the Iraqi politics world. It became separated more than united, spoiling the people’s sacrifice when they went to polling centers.

America itself changed. Maybe dramatically! There is a big divide between the country’s divided politicians and people. The war made thousands of Americans go to a war that had nothing to do with the day the world stood still. America’s image in front of the world changed as well. The world realized that what they see in Hollywood movies is not similar to what is happening in reality. American politics now changed as well. Diplomatic relations are no longer the same. Oil prices are soaring high. Food has become so expensive that in some countries like Egypt people died while fighting to get some pieces of bread. (Of course, this news did not make its way to the Americans because Mubarrak is the good ol’ friend of the Americans and Israelis. So to hell with Egyptians) Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran and many other countries have fallen in this huge political earthquake that plagued the world. Earth is spinning, but faster than we realize. Its horrific speedy change is affecting everyone everywhere.

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Despite all disasters, wars, and hatred among the earth’s population, there is still a tunnel that is leading to another different direction. We are driving in it and taking benefit out of it without noticing how fast it has improved our life styles and how easier (in one way or another) it has become to live, work, and even socialize. Technology is that wide and long tunnel. It’s rapid, ongoing development has made it impossible for us to live like our parents and grandparents lived decades ago. I can’t even imagine how my grandfather did not have a computer like the one I’m using now.

The world is moving forward shaping earth flatly, metaphorically speaking. For instance in his international bestseller “The World is Flat,” Thomas Friedman analyzed the progress of globalization. In the book, he suggests the world is "flat" in the sense that globalization has leveled the competitive playing fields between industrial and emerging market countries. In his opinion, this flattening is a product of a convergence of personal computer with fiber-optic micro cable with the rise of work flow software.

This globalization and technology has made it even easier for others to live and even survive. Science and medicine have become even better. It’s even progressing as you are reading this sentence. There are doctors and scientists who are using this rapid development in technology as a main tool in finding many ways to cure patients.

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“Now that we know better, let’s live better” is a sentence I read once and was stuck in my mind. Knowing is living. That’s why I chose to change my blog’s name and direction. In order to better understand the world better, I thought of not only concentrating on issues related to Iraq but also those from different spots on earth of which I come across as well. Sharing opinions respectfully is the best way to make this mission succeed. The world is improving, but it also decaying and collapsing and it’s in our hands to prevent that from happening, or at least try.

Every individual and human being on earth has been affected by the world’s change. Our lives are no longer the same. Mine for instance has been marked with wars, sanctions, blood, displacement, and suffering but it’s been also marked with success. The world I knew in my childhood years was different than that of my teenage years. Now, it is entirely different from those two. My world is a new world. Our world is a new world.

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