بلا شعور

لم أستطع النوم بالآْمس, بقيت’ ساهرا" حتى الخامسة فجرا" أنتظر’ للتأكد من النبأ: قد أعدم وفارقَ الحياة.
أول’ ماقمت بهِ هو أرسال رسالة بالبريد الألكتروني الى فرشته هنأتها بذلك الخبر. أيقنت بعدها أن الوقتَ قد جاوز الثامنة صباحا" في بغداد فبدأت أتصل بالأحبة والأقارب لتهنئتهم بمناسبة العيد, معظم لم يكن يعلم بالخبر اءذ لا كهرباء لديهم.
بعد نوم قصير تابعت’ الأخبار مرة" أخرى وقرأت’ ماكتبه’ الاخرون واخر ماخطرببالي هو الكتابة’عن هذا الموضوع.
خرجت’ لزيارةٍِِ بعض الأقارب وأستوقفني سؤال’ امرأةٍ مسنة:هل كنتَ تحب’ صدام, بعد اجابةٍ سريعةٍ ب(لا) سادني شعورٌ غريب؛صدام؛ في لحظةٍ واحدة مر ببالي ألف شيء : الألم,الجوع, المعاناة, الخوف, الرعب, الفراق,الطائفية , الشعور بالأضطهاد........الخ
هذا الأسم مرتبطٌ بكل مافي حياتي ؛معظم عمري قد قضي في ظل سلطةهذا الرجل وأيُ سلطة!
من أولِ صفحةٍ في أولِ كتابٍ مدرسي الى قلقٍ وترقبٍ عندما يذكر’ هذا الأسم الى هروبٍ ففرحةٍ بأعتقالهِ ثم جدالٌ دام طويلا" عن دورهِ واخلآقياته ثم محاكمةٌ شابها الكثير من الجدل فقرارُ بالأعدام وأخيرا" الأعدام’ نفسه, ماذكر أعلاه يمثل أربع وعشرون عاما" هي عمري كله, كله’ مع هذا الشخص.
عدت الى شقتي أتابع الأخبار وردود الأفعال :الأعلام يصر على أن أربع عشرة محافظة والتي تمثل الشيعة والأكراد تحتفل وأربعٌ تمثل السنة في حالةِ حداد!!
تباينت اراء الناس من غير العراقيين,كثير من العرب حزينون ل(استشهاد!!!) القائد البطل, منظمات حقوق الانسان تستنكر , ليبيا تعلن الحداد,السعودية تستنكر الأعدام في عيد الأضحى,وكن كم مرة استنكروا الم العراقيين وجوعهم في العيد طوال اثني عشر عاما" من الحصار فعلت بنا ما فعلت؟
ماذا عني؟ لماذا أعجز’ عن الشعورِ بشيء ؟ لماذا لست’ سعيدا" ولست’ حزينا"؟ انا بكل بساطة لا أملك أية مشاعرٍ تجاه هذا الموضوع , لا أعلم لماذا ولكني أعجز عن الشعور بشيء وكأنني أصبحت جمادا".
يفزعني هذا الأمر, فمن واجبي أن أفرح لتحقيق العدالة, لرحيل من فعل ما فعل ببلدي وشعبي, لموت من لازلنا ندفع ثمن رعونته وطيشه وحماقاته, ولكني بلا مشاعر, هل هي الغربة قد حولتني الى صنم ؟ هل أنني أضحيتُ امروأ" لا يبالي؟
اني لأعجز عن ايجاد تفسيرٍ لحالتي هذه, اريد أن أجامل من هو سعيد وأعاتب من هو حزين,ولكني أعجز عن القول, فلا شيء في داخلي واضح, وكأنني أضحيت مثل بلدي حائرٌ, ضائعٌ وفي مصيبتي غارق.لا قيمة لما قد كتبت ولا حكمة فيه ولا استنتاج,ولا أعلم لم كتبته , ولكني كتبه وقررت أن أنشره كما هو, وكما أعيشه اللحظة:
بلا شعور

We are Not Sinners

Firishteh (the nice Iraqi woman who I’ve mentioned before) was angry a few weeks ago. When I asked her why, she showed me an e-mail which she had recently received saying that what is going on in our country is only because we are bad people and Allah is punishing us for that. Since that moment I started thinking about this subject, I’ve heard opinions like this one many times before, I started asking myself why do people think like that? Is it the way that people criticize the others instead of criticizing themselves? Is it the sense of inferiority inside us?
The difficult circumstances that Iraq is facing, put people in a quandary, the simple religious rule constitute that good people will be rewarded and the bad ones will be punished. It doesn’t make sense to say that what happens to us is a reward. So people have to choose between what they believe in and the real situation. As far as people are believers, they explained it by blaming the others considering them “sinners”, so we are being punished for their sins.
Firstly, we have to understand that this religious rule is about the other life not this life. In this life people are awarded according to what they do regardless to how good or bad they are. If Allah wants everybody to believe in him, He is able to do so, I believe that the Almighty created us and during this life we are being observed and we will face the Judgment later on. However, as far as I know that Allah is merciful and the almighty judges people as His mercy is greater than His just. So we don’t have the right to predict who is going to be punished or rewarded.
If we look at the Iraqi history in general, we will see that Iraqi people have been suffering along their history. Muslims haven’t lived a good time except the first forty years of the Islamic history and the two years when the fair caliph (Omer bin Abed Al-Aziz) was in power.
For the rest of the Islamic history, the state was so strong but everything was owned by the ruler, his family and the followers. For example Shiites were always being persecuted, monitored, tortured and killed. Tens of revolutions had taken place to liberate people and to stop oppressiveness, however most of them failed. Moreover any scientist, whose ideas were not accepted by caliphs, had to suffer; his books were burnt, and even might be killed.
During the ottoman ‘s period people, especially Iraqis lived in a very bad condition, every few years there was a war with the Iran, obviously Iraq was the front.
If we leave the history and look to our life nowadays, we can see that in the last century Iraqis faced terrible events, many coups, dictatorship, poverty, hunger, bad health, illiteracy, wars and terrorism.
Despite all the criticism to the Iraqis and Iraqi society, we are not the worse in this world. Every society when faced with such terrible events for a long period of time might face changes in the ethical standard. I’ve heard from a friend that Lebanese are considered like mafia in Australia, in addition Black people have their own gangs in many western countries.
I’m not a racist, and I don’t try to criticize other people, the idea behind what I’m saying is Iraqis are not a symbol for badness as many people are describing them. Despite all the bad events in our country, there are many things to be proud of; we still care about each other, think about each other, and help each other when in need. The simple evidence for that is what Shiites did during the problem of Al-Falujah in 2004. They opened their houses to host Sunni families regardless to the difference in sectors or the terrorist attacks against Shiites.
We also have to be proud of many girls and boys who are ready to go to their universities to achieve something, there are many doctors, nurses, teachers, professors, workers and various professions who are doing their jobs to help people despite having to risk their lives. Many of Iraqis were killed, many of them were deported, but they didn’t give up.
Many Iraqis are working outside and Sending money to help their families, many Iraqis are mentioning their country wherever they go, they really care about their country, their nationality and they care about each other.
I’m not suggesting that we are the best. But I’d like to emphasize that we are not the society of saints, yet, we are not sinners.
Once, I was conversing a problem with my friend, I asked him “is it our mistake? Or is it the mistake of fate”. He replied “listen, fate is never mistaken, it judges and sometimes it becomes unfair when it judges”. I strongly believe that fate was unfair with Iraqis.
I had nice dream about my country, I see it like a nice princess and I’m the knight who has the duty to protect- Her-. Suddenly, the dream turned into a nightmare, the knight is wounded, unarmed and helpless while he is facing the enemies who are unmerciful, ethic-less and savages, however, the knight still has the hope of saving the princess, it doesn’t matter if he dies, hundreds of knights will appear after him. I’m not asking my people to help me, I have to help them, all what I implore them is not to hurt the princess. Let’s not oppress our people.
Please, don’t be unfair with Iraqis.

By the way, I’d like to wish my country and everybody in this world a Happy New Year &Happy Eid.

What about Beled?

“I don’t think that it’s going to be solved, day by day it’s getting worse, frankly; I don’t know what to do”.
It’s very common to hear such words from anyone who lives in Iraq; however, it’s uncommon to hear such thing from “Nasooh”.
That what I’m used to call him “Nasooh” which means advisor. By no means is such personality common in this world.
A young surgeon who is easily recognized by his loud laugh, has a modern mentality and Arabic morals, full of wit and enthusiasm , generous, , optimistic, obese, cares about everybody and thinks about them, moreover; ready to help them. We have been friends for six years now, I consider him more than a friend; he is really my “God Father”.
We used to sit together for hours discussing different matters especially; our county’s problem. He used to tell me a lot about his town “Beled”; how nice it is, how good the people are and how the society is mixed of Sunnis and Shiites living together.
Beled is an agricultural town to the north of Baghdad, It’s characterized by the shrine of “saiyed Mohamed”, the famous Shiite’s imam. People go to this town to visit this shrine.
After 1982 Saddam Hussein ordered to shovel large areas in Beled and ordered to execute 400 of its people after accusing them of being members of AL-Daawa party; some of them were Sunnis.
After being a fully qualified specialist in surgery, Nasooh decided to work in his town as a surgeon in the main hospital there. He wanted to stay away from Baghdad which is unsafe and to live in his town with his family.
In the last year, things started to change, I couldn’t see him anymore, the insurgent have got full control on the way between Baghdad and Beled, they decided to kill any Shiite who use this way. Nasooh was unable to come to Baghdad, he couldn’t meet the girl who he is in love with. He wished he could turn up to say goodbye when I left Iraq, however, this was impossible.
The optimistic guy remained in his town living in peace until a couple of months ago, when Al- mujahedin have laid a siege around Beled and started attacking the town by mortars. Everyday tens of people were killed more than that number were injured and nobody has done anything to help people in Beled. For more than two months, nobody was allowed to get outside of the town, there is a serious problem with the amount of fuel at the moment, shortage in electricity and water supply, and it's not long before starvation will begin.
When I talked to Nasooh in the last time his voice was completely different. I used to consider him a source of optimisms, he was really desperate. “I can’t feel happy while my country is suffering” he said “We’re being massacred by the name of Allah, I’ve read a lot about killers but there is no one like those beasts”. He kept saying “Iraq has lost a lot, as losing has become common and winning has become rare, people here live with desperation”.
Nasooh is the only surgeon in Beled hospital at the moment, he has to do all the surgical operations by himself, sometimes he is being helped by one of his colleagues. However, he is on calls all the time.
Nowadays, to flee outside the country is the only way to live be safe, however, people in Beled are deprived from this opportunity, even university students are unable to attend their classes as nobody dares to leave the town.
I’m praying to Allah asking Him to protect my friend and the people in Beled. But, there is a very big question which I’d like to ask; as many people think that the best solution for our problem is to divide our country into regions according to sectors or ethnicity. What will be the fate of people of Beled, Al-Dujail, and many other regions? What will happen to Sunnis in Basrah or Shiites in Mousel? I know that they’re being killed already, however, are we going to sacrifice the rest?
As a half Sunni and half Shiite person, I feel that there are two spirits inside me, should they fight each other? Which one should I support? Who will win? I’m sure I’ll not. Should I be divided into two halves?
The questions above are eating me up inside, I can’t hate a half of me and if i could which half should it be?

despite the fact that we have to accept loosing nearly everything it doesn’t make loosing my only Godfather any easier…..

They Need our Sympathy

I’ve faced death once before, it was a pretty hard situation. But, frankly I didn’t think about my self or how life is important to me.
The only thing which was terrifying me was what will happen to my mother when she hears that her only son is dead?? How will her life be? I prayed to Allah and I asked the Almighty to make it easy for her.
After the war everybody was worried about their lives, but my mother was worried about the academic year 2003, there was a lot of gossip that there would be no academic year and we could lose that year, eventually we didn’t, we were able to attend our universities. The only thing which terrified my mother was our future.
With the early pictures of Saddam’s crimes, I started thinking not about the victims but about their mothers, how hard was it?? They were not even allowed to mention their sons and daughters.
During the eighties of the last century the price of the black cloth got higher than usual, as most of the Iraqi women had to wear that colour according to the Iraqi tradition during the mourning. Nobody can mention all the awful stories of how mothers are suffering in Iraq, but I remember one of them.
She was lying in her bed, a dark brunet woman dressed in black with a black frock, she looked seventy but she was in her mid-fifties. She was coughing and had a harsh breathing sound, she looked exhausted; however she was a very warm woman, her eyes were giving a very kind look, a look of a “mother”.
After discussing her medical problems and her treatment, we asked her about her life and if she had any problems. Her facial expression was sufficient to understand how terrible her life was, one thing which she mentioned, explained everything” my three sons were killed, I have no body, after killing the last one I couldn’t breath normally” she kept on saying “ however you’re my sons, please, help me to get better”.
After a moment of being quiet, she started reciting their stories, the first one was mugged and killed during the looting after the war, and her second son was a policeman whose station was attacked by terrorists. Her last son was killed in an explosion.
If we listen to the news of our country, we can see that these three events are occurring everyday. However they don’t affect the same family everyday.
Many people might arguer me saying that there are families who had lost five or ten of their members in one occasion, I absolutely agree with them. However, this is not the point behind my story. The main issue which I would like to draw your attention to it is how many Iraqi mothers are suffering now. Who is thinking about them?? Who is going to support them??
Everyday we hear debates about religion and politics, about Sunnis and Shiites , if there was a challenge in speaking, certainly no one could have competed our political and religious leaders .Every Friday , there are hundreds of people with their turbans, most of them are barking from their rostrums trying to convince people that they’re going to heaven and everybody else is going to hell. Thousands of lectures were given about what is right and what is wrong. Millions of dollars were collected to support Al-Mujahedin, to see a larger number of corpses, to hear that we are winning and the others are losing.
But, no one of them tried to do something for the Iraqi mothers who have lost their sons ,no one have said “please stop violence, mothers are suffering” , I’ve never heard about charity organization concerned with helping the violence victims. Can anybody tell me how much did the association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq pay for helping shiyat families or how much did Al-Hakeem paid for helping Sunni families, I don’t even think that they did anything to help people from their own sectors, they’re just trying to prove that they’re patriotic but they are unable to do so.
In western countries, women are doing their best to stop sending their sons to war, they’re not worried about our country, but, they’re worried about their sons, western women don’t need their sons for financial support, as their governments already provide them with sufficient finance when they need so.
Unfortunately, no one do so in my country.
Motherhood was before any religion; however it’s holly in every religion. I don’t know how those religious people deal with their own career, they mention what helps them and they ignore the rest, what will they say to Allah on the Day of Judgment?
Iraqi mothers have been suffering for many years, they bring up their sons to see them being killed for no reason. They need money, they need help, however they don’t ask for such things, they ask for mercy, for sympathy. They need our sympathy

The beacon of democracy......The beacon of horror

“Iraq will be an oasis of democracy”, this was the American promise to the world.
I remember these few weeks before the invasion, I was living in Baghdad. People were optimistic; they were desperate to see the moment of being free from Saddam and his regime. They had a dream of living in a democratic free country.
Be able to speak and travel, able to live a respectable life, to have a dish satellite at home, and to be able to see what’s is going on in the world were the simple hopes of most of the Iraqis.
My opinion of the situation at that”glorious” time was different, I was worried about my country and its future, I was thinking about the “civil war”;
Will it happen?? Will my people kill each other? These questions were haunting me. I tried to argue with my friends and relatives who used to say;” never mind, Iraqis will never kill each other, we will have the democracy, we will live in peace and comfort”.
The last week of the war was very hard for me; I was doing my voluntary work in the causality unit of AL-Yarmook hospital. I had never had such hard experience before, hundreds of corpses and a lot of injured people, some of them were civilians.
I heard some of the victims’ relatives shouting “is this the democracy?!!” I remember one family which was completely destroyed by the Americans”sorry it was a mistake”. The head of the family who was and elderly man used to live in AL-Amil region in Baghdad, his two sons Ahmed and Ali were killed, his daughter Israa was injured so as his little son Hussein.
He was sitting near the main entrance of the hospital calling his sons by names, however no response was received. When we asked his relatives how it happened, they told us that it was a small “stray” American rocket fell on the roof of the house “by mistake”.
Within a couple of days, Baghdad was invaded, the “Great leader” ran away leaving his statue and his followers, I have to admit it; silent tears were running down my face at that moment.
During the next few weeks there was a complete chaos, looting, mugging, and a new type of crimes for the Iraqi society: rape. “Where are our liberators??” ”why don’t they stop this chaos??” people used to ask these questions, actually the only strategic point which was protected by the American troops was the ministry of oil!!
Any way, people were optimistic; all the Iraqis who had to live for a long time outside the country were able to see their families again. Everybody was talking about Iraq and how united we are, and nothing can destroy our unity. I became optimistic also; I had that dream of reconstructing my country. The feeling of joy and happiness peaked when we saw the “rat” being captured in his hole. ”The criminal will be punished”.
Gradually, the things were going from bad to worse, long queues in front of each petrol station, the of feeling of insecurity while walking along the street, mugging and unsolved crimes.
Day by day, everything was getting more complicated; The American started facing real problems which were out of their expectations; the insurgents which some people used to call them “The Iraqi resistance”, the horror came back again.
Academic people and professionals were persecuted, they had to flee in order to save their lives, and many of those who didn’t run away were killed. Car bombs and suicidal attacks in any crowded place became common. Iraqi oil export was badly affected.
People’s expectations turned into desperation, and their believes in the “American paradise” started to vanish.
Nowadays, three and half years after the “liberation”, Iraqi people are living in a turmoil, more than half a million of my people have been killed, thousands of Iraqi families left their houses under threat, two million Iraqis have left the country to live somewhere else since 2003, Iraqi universities are going to be closed because of the lack of the staff and the loss of security .Militias are controlling the streets and the sectarian mentality is ruling our life. Hundreds of people are being kidnapped to be tortured and killed; everyday tens of corpses are thrown into the streets.
These are the “American achievements” in this short period of time.
They have liberated nobody, but destroyed everything; the” oasis of democracy” turned out to be “bloody swamp”.
Unfortunately, instead of being the beacon of democracy, my country has become the beacon of horror