Wednesday, June 09,2004; Baghdad, Iraq

It has been exactly three weeks since my arrival in Baghdad from Montreal. This is my journal of the day and of the accumulation of all the stimuli, thoughts and contemplations I have been experiencing since day 1.

7:50am: Awoke from slumber
8:15am: I heard a loud explosion while getting ready to go to the Workshop about Gender and Women’s Participation in Iraqi Society.
8:35am: Left to go to Mansour Architects’ Hall, from my home in Ameriya.

On the way there, we found ourselves stuck in a traffic jam so tight that there seemed to been no way that the street would be open anytime soon. Still in  Ameriya, we realized that the traffic was caused by the explosion we heard earlier in the morning. As we were waiting, helicopters started circling the area; we assume looking for the criminals who had caused the explosion. We changed our direction and took another route to our destination, knowing that if we had left twenty minutes earlier, we would have been one of causalities.

Every explosion heard around the city is the sound of death. The knowledge of the loss of lives travels with the sound of the boom… the knowledge that innocent people just died in the most violent way possible by being in the wrong place and the wrong time.

Whether it is an American soldier on duty, whether it is a 16 year old Iraqi boy selling cigarettes to survive, whether it is a 50 year old taxi driver that has traveled that route 10,000 times in his life, whether it is a father taking his children to school, or an American or International contractor on his way to a site, or a truck driver that decided to take the job of driving supplies to American bases to make more money… they were affected directly by the mindless violence of political opinions trying to make a point.

At the end of the day, what is the point? The violence is escalating, death tolls are escalating, fear is escalating, rage is escalating, American security is escalating but the security for the people of Iraq trying their best to survive has reached an indescribable negative status. One does not know if they will return to their home at the end of their day.

Every single Iraqi has at least one direct family member or relative or friend that has either been killed by a car bomb or RPG fired by the Iraqi Muqawama, or an American gun or bomb responding to those attacks.

Every single Iraqi feels the sense of fear every time they leave their homes, worried that they might be kidnapped by the gangs that have made a business of crime, or get robbed for the few Dinars they have by the lawless delinquents running the streets.

At home during the long hours of the night, the invasive hums of the Blackhawk helicopters flying over their houses aren’t the reason they are alert and sleepless. The fear that their house will be broken into by thieves is something that every Iraqi deals with on a nightly basis, with their ears working overtime for the sounds of glass breaking or a shotgun being triggered.

Shots heard during the night can be either those that are fired by the watch-guard on their street or those of a possible burglar… Every Iraqi has a handgun, a shotgun or a machine gun, either to use in a crime or to protect themselves against one.

Waking up in the morning is a blessing every day.

9:12-2:15pm: Attended the third day of the Workshop for Trainers in the Field of Gender dealing with “Gender, Concept, and its Role in Improving Woman, Family, and Society Performance”

Within all the chaos happening around us, there is a workshop that is organized by an NGO named Life for Relief and Development (www.lifeusa.org), which I am currently volunteering for, and Sharq Institute for Human Development. They deal with all the humanitarian problems currently and previously in Iraq, including Women’s Rights and Children’s rights.

In this hall, you will find 34 Iraqi’s, comprised of 17 conservative covered women, 4 reformed covered women, 2 women in full Abaya, the traditional Iraqi cover, 10 reformed non-covered women, and 3 men. The diversity of ideologies and principles ranged from the hardcore feminist, to the hardcore Islamist, to the Islamist feminist, to the simple concerned housewife. They are all there to discuss and learn about the Iraqi Woman’s role in their society, and how it can be improved.

The diversity of the room cannot be described in ideology or dress code. All the women are educated, and many have a Masters degree and quite a handful have Doctorate degrees. They are Pharmacists, Dentists, Political Scientists, Artists, Intellectuals, Teachers, Architects, and Engineers, from all ages and all backgrounds. The tone in that room was neither political nor religious; its aim was to reach understanding on a very important issue that brought all these
people together. The woman who led the workshop was a Professor by the name of Dr. Hana’a Abdul Ghaffar Al Sameraey, a cultured and intelligent Iraqi woman.

She guided our discussions about numerous issues and topics, including gender roles in contemporary Iraqi society, both in the private and public sphere, and presented exercises that aimed to deconstruct the existence of these roles and the stereotypes that accompany them through questioning and discourse. The political, economic, social and religious context was never left out of the dialogue, and the focus was not on the past and its injustices, but how to correct them and better the situation in today’s and tomorrow’s Iraqi women.

The role of the woman in the New Iraq is necessary in order to bring up the status of our country, economically, socially, culturally, and politically. The way that a country treats their women is reflective of their development, of their ideologies and their laws. The urgency of the matter is core, since Iraq has reached emergency status in all levels of life, and it is in the hands of the Women of Iraq to take power in the cultural, social and economic branches of their communities in order to lift the status quo and teach other women to teach their children about matters that affect them directly and help change it for future generations of women and men.

Having the opportunity to be part of this community of strong, influential, intellectual, educated and diverse group of Iraqi women has crossed off any preceding opinions or ideas I had about the condition of women in my homeland, and replaced them with a sense of truth and hope, and the knowledge that I am not alone in my thoughts and beliefs. Being the youngest one of them all, I realized how much hope they have in the generations after them, and how much of a role I need to play for my peers and the generations coming after me. The respect that I have for these women escalated with each day of the Workshop, and I felt indebted to their presence and their strong voices as an Iraqi woman myself.

2:30-4:00pm: Visited the Contemporary Visual Arts Society of Iraq, in Mansour.

One of the women at the Workshop, an artist by the name of Ronak Aziz, had invited my mother and me to visit the CVAS (www.iraqiartists.org), where she is a member and an employee. This society, the first of its kind since the end Saddam’s Ba’ath Regime, which had monopolized the Iraqi Art community, is the home more than 300 professional artists from all over Iraq, regardless of social status and class.

These artists have been given the opportunity, through word of mouth, to expose their work as Iraqi artists in the exhibitions that the CVAS organizes indiscriminately, in order to give a voice to the artists that have been practicing unrecognized for the past 35 years.

Ghassan, the Administrating Manager there briefed us on the organization, telling us how they started out in a burnt room damaged by the war, which they painted and fixed up into their first office in April 2003. Since then, they have held over 8 exhibitions, a postering campaign called “Art Makes our Future” around Baghdad, as well as children’s drawing workshops in Falluja and Sadr City, despite the eminent danger. He told us that over 3,000 children came to those workshops over they days, and they soon expanded their workshops to Abu Ghraib and Ramadi. He showed us some of the paintings that were shown in the last exhibition “The World Through Iraqi Eyes” held in Qasr Al Mu’tamarat, one of Saddam’s glorious palaces that is now the headquarters for NGO’s, both Iraqi and International. The paintings that really blew my mind were all by a group of men from Basra. The materials they used were simple, ranging from burlap to cardboard and fabric, but the paintings were representative of a nation, and the language was universal.

Being there made me realize that there are people that are willing and able to put together the pieces of a broken Iraq through Visual Art, and encourage the production of culture through the eyes and hands of the Iraqi Artist. Believe it or not, each painting was selling for only 100 USD…

4:15pm: On our way back home, we pass by the scene of the explosion from the morning. The wreckage is still burning seven hours later…

The Coalition has a habit of cleaning up the mess as soon as it happens, to clear the roads as quickly as possible, and to remove all reminders of their losses, for reasons political and human. The only thing left is the remaining burning parts of the vehicle, which we found out was a truck, traveling with US tanks for protection, that was transporting supplies that were being taken to the Airport, one of the major US bases in Baghdad.

That is a regular occurrence in Baghdad… anything that is for the American’s or from the American’s or associated with America is exploded or shot at by the handful of criminals that call themselves the opposition. Who knows how many innocent Iraqi’s were killed by their glorious effort against the American Occupation.

The road is completely burnt by the explosion, black with the reminder of the dead of the day. The US Army Hummers and Tanks are all gone, except for a few traveling down the same road on their way to the airport. Maybe one of the soldiers in those tanks lost a friend… Sometimes we forget that these soldiers on duty are human too, which is easy when they point their AK-47’s at you with their fingers on the trigger when they pass you on the highway. They always travel in groups, and the helicopters always fly in two’s, military strategies in a war zone, I guess. When they pass you on the highway or on the road, they drive in a straight line on either lane, and you are obliged to stay on the other lane and drive ridiculously slow until they are gone so they know that you
are not a threat. My cousin, a doctor doing her practice at a hospital in Baghdad, told me of a night when they had an influx of young men who were shot at by American soldiers because their minibus was driving too fast while passing US tanks and the driver apparently had no breaks… many died and the rest came into the hospital with bullet wounds. How do you judge in such a case?

I realize more and more how little opinions count, and how unimportant they are in such a chaotic mess that is Iraq. I’ve learnt to take the facts (?) as they are, and to refrain from concluding anything… When I used to watch the news in the comfort of my home in Montreal, Canada, it was so easy to formulate a theory about what is going on in my country… being here in the present, I am discovering that Iraqi’s are the last to know what is really going on in their own Tarma (frontyard). The population is too caught up in relearning how to live in fear after those few months when things seemed hopeful and the future seemed positive.

My cousins tell me that in the few months after the war, the soldiers would walk on the street, go into internet café’s, and wait in line at the Sa3a Restaurant behind the regular folk on Shari’ 14 Ramadan Street in Mansour, the downtown district. They’d talk to them, smile, flirt with them…
I only saw one soldier on foot patrol, a young guy who I was too nervous to ask his name because of the shock of seeing an armed US soldier in front of the house that my mother was raised in. My cousins and I were sitting in the garden in the late evening, chatting and laughing away, when we suddenly saw an American Soldier’s helmet peer over the fence and a white face with blue eyes smile. Everyone got super excited and the kids ran out to the street to get a good look at this person… I ran in to get my camera and went out to greet him with my little cousins. The intensity of the moment made me forget my English to the point where I couldn’t say more than “Can I get a picture with you?”! So the picture was taken, the guy was nice and respectful and wished us a Good Evening in Arabic – Masa’a Al Khair- and he went back to his fellow troops and tank. His name was Private Loftin, as I saw from his name tag on his shirt after I downloaded the picture and contemplated the humanity in his face. He is probably a young boy from Oklahoma or I don’t know which state, who wore jeans and a t-shirt and smoked pot with his friends before becoming an American Soldier in Iraq. I wonder how he feels being here… I still regret not asking
more questions.

Friday, June 11, 2004; Baghdad, Iraq

5:30am: Awoken by the sounds of machine gun fire, a whole round, and the boom of a tank shooting back. Silence.

I ran to the window to see what was going on, out of mindless curiosity, before my mother and father ran into my room and pulled me away… My father told me that I should never run to the window in such situations, and to go under my bed next time. My heart was beating fast from angst, and I realized my utter stupidity.

What I understood from the pattern of the fire was that it was a group of Iraqi Muqawama shooting at a tank on the highway leading to the airport (which is just up the street). The tank therefore responded with their own fire, I assume killing the men who shot at them.

My nature is to want to know all and see all, to be there amongst the action. As soon as I arrive back home after being out, I want to leave again. I don’t like the feeling that I am missing anything, and I realize that Baghdad is really not the place to activate this characteristic. When a tank passes by on the highway, I don’t want to slow down and change lanes, I want to continue in their direction, to see what they’re doing, where they’re going, who they are, what the plan is. After all, they’re in my country, right? It’s funny, because as civilians, and I am guessing even as an American soldier, we don’t really know what the military is doing in Baghdad.

I mean that literally when I say it. What are they really doing here? Not in the philosophic sense of it, but in the sense that when I see a Blackhawk flying over me, I wonder where they were and where they’re going and why. There is no sense of contact between the soldiers and the civilians, so the only contact becomes that of violence and attack.

Recently, the muqawama has been shooting the main electricity generators in certain areas, I’m guessing to lower the morale of the citizens… which can lead to many things. The electricity has been a major problem for Iraqi’s since the sanctions, but it has become much worse since the last war, if I dare say it, Operation Iraqi Freedom. For example, yesterday in the Karrada, they didn’t have national electricity (AKA Wataneeya) from 7am until 6pm the next day, almost 36 hours. The Iraqi’s have made innovations, though… on the commercial district in Karrada, you will find thousands of generators, medium-large sized electricity generators (muwalida) for home/office use

Some of them run on petrol, some on diesel. There is always at least one house in each neighborhood that invests in a heavy duty generator, and charges their neighbors a certain amount to supply them with electricity when the wataneeya is off. There is a mess of wires running from each home to the generator, a wire for each house.

Some people also have used the technique of putting a wire connecting their house to the street pole that brings electricity to the next street. Each street has their own “khat” (line) of electricity, and when one street loses their wataneeya, (which comes on in 2 hour intervals, sometimes 3), the next street gets the wataneeya. So the “Chatal” method means that you are “chatal-ling” on the next streets electricity. You’re not allowed to do that, really, but no one cares. Many people use it… sometimes the baladeeya disconnects you when they discover your wire, but you just connect it again.

Here’s a joke my 10 year old cousin told me: An Iraqi that was living outside Iraq comes back and emotionally starts kissing the ground saying “Watanee, Watanee…..”, and he turns around and kisses the street pole and says “Watanee, Watanee…”… so a dude turns to him and tells him “La, yaba, hay moo wataneeya, hay muwalida!”

Since the end of SadDamn’s ‘defeat’, satellites are now found in practically every home. During his regime, he had illegalized the purchase and use of satellite dishes, the dictator that he was, so once he was over and done with, the “Free Iraq” not only permitted but encouraged the sale of satellite dishes!

So now, after having only 4 TV stations, all owned and controlled by the “royal family”, Iraqi’s now have over 1000 channels to choose from. Most people have Nilesat, Arabsat, and Hotbird, which offer a wide array of news channels, fashion channels, music channels, education channels, and –hold your breath- about 12 different porn channels to choose from on the Hotbird sat.

I guess this is what they thought bringing ‘freedom’ to Iraqi’s entailed.

I actually watched the uncencored version of 50 cent’s P.I.M.P. video in BAGHDAD. Twilight zone, indeed.

The best channel, in my opinion, is the Sharqiyah channel, an Iraqi channel that is the most interesting channel available for Iraqi’s. They are A-political, and as far as I feel, unbiased. They actually go out on the streets of Iraq and just film random places, conversations, people and situations, in a very “documentary film” style. A lot of their programs have to do with “culturing” the Iraqi population, showing us old and new documentaries about famous Iraqi poets, such as Bader Shaker Al Sayyab, and musicians, such as an Iraqi all-female group called Ishtar, made up of 4 young Iraqi girls who play their own instruments, from Oud to Qanun. I’ve watched feminist programs (well, feminist in my mind because it promotes the power of the Strong Iraqi Woman. You go girl!)... I’ve watched numerous documentaries about Iraqi hospitals, kind of like those TLC emergency-room reality shows, but in Iraq! Crazy. Also, they’ve just gotta throw in those cheesy but hilarious Iraqi comedies, with that insane Iraqi humour that makes you roll on the floor in laughter because you SO know that you/your mother/your father/your neighbor/your grandmother is exactly like one of those extreme characters.

All in all, it’s a really positive way of culturing and educating a society that has been refused the luxury of non-SadDamned TV … in hip-hop lingo, its “mad conscious”.

June 17, 2004; Baghdad, Iraq

3:00am: Karrada.

Went to sleep on the satih (rooftop) with my aunt and uncle.

My mother used to tell me how they used to sleep on the sati7 as children, and how the summer breeze would make the nakhlat (palm trees) dance.

Indeed… there’s something so calming and so universal when you’re up there. Maybe because you can see the stars wrapped around the sky, never ending and limitless. Maybe because the palm trees are so huge and powerful that they look like you can speak to them… Maybe because the color of the sky is a bluish purple indigo that even a picture can’t capture. Maybe because you feel like everything around you has a story… everything around you is older than any person that you know. Maybe because it’s Baghdad.

4:00am: Reminded of the glory of what surrounds us by the Fajr Athan, call to prayer.

5:30am: Awoken by the sound of 5 consecutive blasts, presumably by RPG’s and tanks responding to each other. We pack our pillows and move back inside the house. Reminded that we are indeed in Baghdad, and that it ain’t that glorious these days…

1:00pm: I woke up again, finally, to find out that there were 2 major explosions, one in Mansour and the other one next to Al Muthanna Airport.

Damn. So many people lost their lives in the worst possible way… Most of the people who died were men waiting in line to apply to join the Iraqi Army. More than 30 deaths, and over 120 wounded. What the fuck?!

They are saying that its Saudi’s and other Arabs coming in to Baghdad, “terrorists” if I may say so… even though the word was conditioned to me through the Western Media Machine, I have to admit that it’s become the worst self-fulfilling prophecy for Arab Muslims.

It makes me question just what the hell is going on in the world right now. People here have told me that during SadDamn’s time there was no HOPE.

Now they feel like there is hope for the future… they know it will take a while, but they feel like its coming. They see what is happening right now with the car bombs and the resistance “just a phase, like any political change in history, there were moments of instability and resistance. Look at Germany and Japan”.

I was having a conversation with an undisclosed person, who was telling me that if she was in America, she would vote for Bush again. BUT WHY?

“Because whoever takes Saddamn to the gutter gets put on my head.” (but they were the ones who put him there, and they were the ones who took him away)

Even though during Saddamn’s time there was no AMAL (hope), right now there is no AMAN (security). How much of a price is that to pay? The question gets thrown around daily… whether consciously or without realizing. I asked them which war was the worst. Iran… they said. So many people died in that war, 3al fathee… for no reason.

But they’ve never experienced such insecurity, as they are now. The death is so random, it’s simply being at the wrong place at the wrong time, and nothing is predictable. Most people stay home if they have nothing to do, and the shabab (teens, young adults), like me, don’t go out much because of the situation. If they do go out, they’re back home by 10pm.

What kind of life is that?? I am grateful more and more now that I am in Baghdad that I have a place to go back to that doesn’t contain or restrain me. Iraq has a long way to go… I remember seeing the pictures of my parent’s generation in University back in the 70’s. It seems like another world. Everyone was rocking their best gear, mini skirts, long hair, and bellbottoms, dressed to the nines just to go to class. Baghdad’s gone back, back, back. Way back. Most of the girls now wear Hijab. Those who don’t usually get grilled by both men and women. I opt for a sheyla sometimes when I know I’ll stick out. Islam has become a major part of life here, and a considerable amount of people have become more religious. I wonder then, how will democracy work out if it brings secularism back?

Iraq has become such a mess, politically, socially and economically. Iraq has become the experiment of the century.

June 27, 2004; Baghdad, Iraq

I thought this time would never come. It’s the three day countdown to the 30th June deadline. Does this mean that we are actually going to be free yet AGAIN? What does free mean anyway? What’s liberation? What was Operation Iraqi Freedom? What is Operation Enduring Freedom? What is the Iraqi Muqawama (resistance)?

Well, I have to admit that there’s a very different dynamic now that Mr. SadDamn isn’t big brother no mo’, but the new step-brothers are proving to be real assholes. If Iraq is a woman, then damn, she’s got some serious history of domestic violence, physical and emotional abuse, and some major ‘insecurity’ issues, if you know what I’m saying.

She’s living in the dark, has phobias of loud noises, suffers from hot flashes, and has a tendency to trust bad, bad people. Not to forget that she’s had quite a few “light at the end of the tunnel” moments, preceded by feelings of shock and awe. Her children are hungry, and they’re angry too. Her husband is broke because his brother won’t allow him to partner with the rich business man that is in town, threatening him with death if he does. The rich business man has a bad way of doing business, not a good rep with past ‘clients’, and always suspects his partners of “evil-doing”. Anyways, all the men in her town have guns, and they’re all angry. Who’s got the biggest gun? The rich business man, of course.

Anyways, so yesterday, the  26th of June, was probably the worst day that I’ve had here in Baghdad so far. By only 9am, my uncle had counted about 16 explosions, and that’s only the audible ones. Explosions rocked my area and its surroundings the entire day. By nighttime, I could have sworn it was war all over again, and was expecting to hear some breaking news that would prove the fragility of the day. Well, Al Jazeera, BBC, Alarabiya, and even yahoo news didn’t report on anything out of the ordinary… I wonder how many people died?

There’s so much that goes on here that never gets reported, for many reasons, I suppose. I guess the Americans don’t want to look like they’ve fucked up, and that the Arabs don’t want to hear that they’ve got a whole clan of violent “brothers” that make them look really bad to the news watching public. Just my input.

A family friend was picking someone up from the airport at about 9:30 am, and was at the main checkpoint before entering the airport (which you’re not allowed to enter, so you basically park your car and wait for whoever you’re picking up to be brought to the checkpoint from the actual airport). It’s a US checkpoint, by the way.

As he was asking one of the soldiers where to wait, about 4 mortars landed ahead of them by a few hundred meters. He said he saw 2 soldiers basically fly away, presumably to that “light at the end of the tunnel” we talked about earlier.

So, chaos broke out, and the soldiers all ran into the bunker, reserved for US soldiers/citizens only. So he ran into a pit on the side of the road, and waited a bit, until running back to his car and speeding back to a non-American-soldier-zone. I think the Muqawama took a day off today… it was strangely quiet in my ‘hood. Or maybe they went through all their weapons yesterday.

We were given a general warning not to leave our homes if we don’t have to until the 30th is over and done with. The city was still bustling, though… Now, we’re all holding our breath until the big day comes. There was word on the street that the looters are going back into business on those 3 days leading up to “Freedom” (you gotta give what you take! – quoting George Micheal). If any of you have any requests for whatever is remaining that hasn’t been looted already, send me an email. I think I can hook up a bidet or a door handle that hasn’t been stolen yet, special from Iraq!!! The commodity of the day…Maybe I can sell it on E-bay?

Despite all this pessimism, I am starting to get really emotional moments, knowing that I’m going to be leaving Baghdad in less than 2 weeks. There’s something about this place that, despite all the criminals that run the streets, the overflowing sewers all over the city roads,

the rude awakenings of explosions and machine gun rounds, driving in the traffic-light-less packed streets, the scorching AC-less heat, the showers with either no water or boiling hot water, the inability to move around freely, the M-16’s that are indiscriminately pointed in your faces by American soldiers sitting on top of their tanks and hummers, being in the same lane or radius as a tank/hummer fearing that you may get blown up in the name of ‘resistance’, the news that yet another person you know either directly or indirectly got kidnapped, or finding out that your neighbor got robbed at gunpoint… my obsession for Baghdad has not lost a single spark.

Being in Baghdad in what they say is the “worst period in Iraq’s saga” only makes me love it more, knowing that there is still culture, history, and eager children that are all still there, somewhere amongst the shrapnel and dirt.

The palm trees, the symbol of this ancient land, have just given us a new batch of green dates, that should be ripe by August. “Akhar 3ashra min Aab ti7rig il bismar bil baab wit nazil il artab…” (translation: “the last 10 days of August burns the nail in the door, and brings down the dates to the floor”- it never sounds as good in English!)

There’s nothing like being in your “country”, knowing that your lineage goes back endless generations on that particular land… it releases a feeling of extreme emotion and love that I’ve never felt anywhere else. Maybe its even a sense of ‘belonging’, even though, socially, I am a thousand times more Iraqi in Canada than I am in Iraq.