Three Years...
It has been three years since the beginning of the war that
marked the end of Iraq’s independence. Three years of occupation and
bloodshed.
Spring should be about renewal and rebirth. For Iraqis, spring has been
about reliving painful memories and preparing for future disasters. In many
ways, this year is like 2003 prior to the war when we were stocking up on
fuel, water, food and first aid supplies and medications. We're doing it
again this year but now we don't discuss what we're stocking up for. Bombs
and B-52's are so much easier to face than other possibilities.
I don’t think anyone imagined three years ago that things could be quite
this bad today. The last few weeks have been ridden with tension. I’m so
tired of it all- we’re all tired.
Three years and the electricity is worse than ever. The security situation
has gone from bad to worse. The country feels like it’s on the brink of
chaos once more- but a pre-planned, pre-fabricated chaos being led by
religious militias and zealots.
School, college and work have been on again, off again affairs. It seems for
every two days of work/school, there are five days of sitting at home
waiting for the situation to improve. Right now college and school are on
hold because the “arba3eeniya” or the “40th Day” is coming up- more black
and green flags, mobs of men in black and latmiyas. We were told the
children should try going back to school next Wednesday. I say “try” because
prior to the much-awaited parliamentary meeting a couple of days ago,
schools were out. After the Samarra mosque bombing, schools were out. The
children have been at home this year more than they’ve been in school.
I’m especially worried about the Arba3eeniya this year. I’m worried we’ll
see more of what happened to the Askari mosque in Samarra. Most Iraqis seem
to agree that the whole thing was set up by those who had most to gain by
driving Iraqis apart.
I’m sitting here trying to think what makes this year, 2006, so much worse
than 2005 or 2004. It’s not the outward differences- things such as
electricity, water, dilapidated buildings, broken streets and ugly concrete
security walls. Those things are disturbing, but they are fixable. Iraqis
have proved again and again that countries can be rebuilt. No- it’s not the
obvious that fills us with foreboding.
The real fear is the mentality of so many people lately- the rift that seems
to have worked it’s way through the very heart of the country, dividing
people. It’s disheartening to talk to acquaintances- sophisticated,
civilized people- and hear how Sunnis are like this, and Shia are like that…
To watch people pick up their things to move to “Sunni neighborhoods” or
“Shia neighborhoods”. How did this happen?
I read constantly analyses mostly written by foreigners or Iraqis who’ve
been abroad for decades talking about how there was always a divide between
Sunnis and Shia in Iraq (which, ironically, only becomes apparent when
you're not actually living amongst Iraqis they claim)… but how under a
dictator, nobody saw it or nobody wanted to see it. That is simply not true-
if there was a divide, it was between the fanatics on both ends. The extreme
Shia and extreme Sunnis. Most people simply didn’t go around making friends
or socializing with neighbors based on their sect. People didn't care- you
could ask that question, but everyone would look at you like you were silly
and rude.
I remember as a child, during a visit, I was playing outside with one of the
neighbors children. Amal was exactly my age- we were even born in the same
month, only three days apart. We were laughing at a silly joke and suddenly
she turned and asked coyly, “Are you Sanafir or Shanakil?” I stood there,
puzzled. ‘Sanafir’ is the Arabic word for “Smurfs” and ‘Shanakil” is the
Arabic word for “Snorks”. I didn’t understand why she was asking me if I was
a Smurf or a Snork. Apparently, it was an indirect way to ask whether I was
Sunni (Sanafir) or Shia (Shanakil).
“What???” I asked, half smiling. She laughed and asked me whether I prayed
with my hands to my sides or folded against my stomach. I shrugged, not very
interested and a little bit ashamed to admit that I still didn’t really know
how to pray properly, at the tender age of 10.
Later that evening, I sat at my aunt’s house and remember to ask my mother
whether we were Smurfs or Snorks. She gave me the same blank look I had
given Amal. “Mama- do we pray like THIS or like THIS?!” I got up and did
both prayer positions. My mother’s eyes cleared and she shook her head and
rolled her eyes at my aunt, “Why are you asking? Who wants to know?” I
explained how Amal, our Shanakil neighbor, had asked me earlier that day.
“Well tell Amal we’re not Shanakil and we’re not Sanafir- we’re Muslims-
there’s no difference.”
It was years later before I learned that half the family were Sanafir, and
the other half were Shanakil, but nobody cared. We didn’t sit around during
family reunions or family dinners and argue Sunni Islam or Shia Islam. The
family didn’t care about how this cousin prayed with his hands at his side
and that one prayed with her hands folded across her stomach. Many Iraqis of
my generation have that attitude. We were brought up to believe that people
who discriminated in any way- positively or negatively- based on sect or
ethnicity were backward, uneducated and uncivilized.
The thing most worrisome about the situation now, is that discrimination
based on sect has become so commonplace. For the average educated Iraqi in
Baghdad, there is still scorn for all the Sunni/Shia talk. Sadly though,
people are being pushed into claiming to be this or that because political
parties are promoting it with every speech and every newspaper- the whole
‘us’ / ‘them’. We read constantly about how ‘We Sunnis should unite with our
Shia brothers…’ or how ‘We Shia should forgive our Sunni brothers…’ (note
how us Sunni and Shia sisters don’t really fit into either equation at this
point). Politicians and religious figures seem to forget at the end of the
day that we’re all simply Iraqis.
And what role are the occupiers playing in all of this? It’s very convenient
for them, I believe. It’s all very good if Iraqis are abducting and killing
each other- then they can be the neutral foreign party trying to promote
peace and understanding between people who, up until the occupation, were
very peaceful and understanding.
Three years after the war, and we’ve managed to move backwards in a visible
way, and in a not so visible way.
In the last weeks alone, thousands have died in senseless violence and the
American and Iraqi army bomb Samarra as I write this. The sad thing isn’t
the air raid, which is one of hundreds of air raids we’ve seen in three
years- it’s the resignation in the people. They sit in their homes in
Samarra because there’s no where to go. Before, we’d get refugees in Baghdad
and surrounding areas… Now, Baghdadis themselves are looking for ways out of
the city… out of the country. The typical Iraqi dream has become to find
some safe haven abroad.
Three years later and the nightmares of bombings and of shock and awe have
evolved into another sort of nightmare. The difference between now and then
was that three years ago, we were still worrying about material things-
possessions, houses, cars, electricity, water, fuel… It’s difficult to
define what worries us most now. Even the most cynical war critics couldn't
imagine the country being this bad three years after the war... Allah yistur
min il rab3a (God protect us from the fourth year).