There is a Hope

I’d like to thank Bent AL-Basrahfor sending me this video , I received it a few days after the match , I knew the results and I was informed that our team had left the champion , yet I reacted as reliving the moment.

I found myself clapping and shouting with people (Hijia, Hijia ), maybe it’s insane to do such a thing, but, I did.

With the second video, I couldn’t control my self, the man that was talking when the lady said “Bahrain has won “I was shocked like him, I passed through horrible feelings when he pronounced, “we’re out” I couldn’t control my tears when the lady started talking about Iraq, yes, she is right, sadness is for everything in Iraq, Iraq is not like that and we are not like that.

I met an elderly lady in a hospital a few days ago, we conversated, then I recognized that her accent is familiar, “Excuse me; where are you from?” I asked, “I’m Iraqi, and I know you’re also Iraqi”, she hasn’t seen Iraq for 32 years, but behaves like someone that has left recently; she hasn’t even met her family since leaving Iraq. However, she was speaking about Iraq with warm emotions, like somebody that has lived there and has experienced the suffering of living there.

I used to think that when we live away for a while we change; it seems that I was mistaken; this love is of a special type which grows up and never stops.


I can appreciate how people feel there; by all the means it’s horrible. We had to suffer a mockery of life instead of living a normal life.
To live without electricity, to live with poor water supply, to suffer the lack of fuel for cars and generators, to be forced to leave our area or watch your neighbors being forced to leave, to receive a threat that you should destroy your life or you’ll loose it, and to hear that somebody you like was killed for no reason, is not a living.

No one can stand such things. It’s like being between life and death, life with sufferance or suffering death. Who stays there might be depressed and start hating everything in his “life”.

When I left Iraq, I thought that I hate everything about it and I would never think about it anymore, I used to see nightmares everyday, flashes of people kidnapping me and killing me were enough to wake me up at midnight.

I used to argue with Firishteh, telling her that she should never think about Iraq, she should hate it; she was always against these ideas.

I felt sorry for her, she still likes it and wishes to go back, and I felt that I had to wake her up, to save her and to clarify how bad it is there.


I was arguing with her once when I got angry and shouted “I lost my whole life there, are you ready to live under the control of turbans? Are you ready to be forced to wear a headscarf? To be deprived from the right of singing or listening to music?”
She replied with one word “Yes” her eyes were filled with insistence and sadness, anger and pain were expressed on her face when she kept saying “are you talking about age? How old am I? When will I go to live there? Should I go when I start using the wheelchair?” I couldn’t reply.
When I thought about it, I realized that she was right, I’m ready to live here, but am I ready to die here?!

Instead of correcting her mentality, my mentality has turned upside down, I started thinking about it, I know how terrible life is there, but, I can’t stop missing it.

I have to admit that living away from home is good, but not for my whole life, everybody needs to learn and earn, yet, we can’t stay away forever.

I’ve been to a cemetery in England, it green like a paradise, yet, I couldn’t imagine myself being buried here; I prefer a hole in our desert, buried beside my people.

The videos above gave me hope, we all love Iraq, we have something which unites us, everybody was sad for the loss, they were blaming the coach and the referee, and no one mentioned the sectors of the players or their origins. Still most Iraqis love Iraq, they love its name, its trees, water and air, they love their dialect their food and their songs, and they love their history and their geography. It’s a type of madness which is obvious even if we try to hide, deny or refuse.

At the moment; I’m not going back, but, one day I will, all that I wish for is to gain something worthy, with which I can help my country, many people had that dream and most of them couldn’t achieve it , yet I have it and I have the hope to go back.


Wherever I go, I have something inside my heart, something I’m indulged with, it makes me suffer, ruins my mood and makes me lost, I wish it stays with me forever, to suffer it is better than living without it , it’s in simple words missing my home;
I miss Iraq