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.