| Subject: Talkin' Baghdad: The word on Baghdad Street |
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Date Posted: 00:16:55 04/11/03 Fri
Talkin' Baghdad: The word on Baghdad Street
Joe Quandt, Electronic Iraq
10 April 2003
Jon Rice ("Talkin' Baghdad") and Muhammed, cab driver. (Photo: Joe Quandt)
How does one live with the threat of annihilation -- daily fare to an Iraqi -- taken with the morning's first breath?
The most brutal economic sanctions regime of modern times; a generation of children stunted by malnutrition, at the deadly mercy of treatable diseases; your society reduced to a post-Industrial Age level, by a world that seems callously unable to grasp that you are a human being -- you steel your will, ignore it all, and simply go on.
I have written many articles on Iraq since my return to the U.S. in November 2002, but have not until now thought to let the witnesses speak for themselves.
* * *
Saeed Al-Musawi, Former Iraqi Foreign Minister:
"Our suffering is helping the world to see that the hegemony of one country (the U.S.) over others will return us to the law of the jungle. The U.S. is using the issue of weapons of mass destruction to further their geopolitical interests in the region. (In the end) they will only destabilize the whole region. Those who raise the voice of reason, of love, are so few. They (the U.S. government) should be proud of the you (peace activists)."
An American UNICEF representative (speaking anonymously):
"Schools lack sanitation, desks, windows, heat. There are, on average, 60 students per classroom. Since the implementation of U.N. Resolution 661 (economic sanctions, 1990), there have been no advances in study curriculums. Most schoolbooks are 15 years old and in tatters. More and more items have been placed on hold (by the U.S. and Britain) in the last 3 years. The Iraqi government is not even allowed to purchase food produced in Iraq without approval."
When asked if such purchases would help Iraq's economy, he looks surprised. "The U.S. doesn't want to improve their economy."
Dr. Makki Alwash, medical professor:
"Tell your people that they are responsible for this crime (the sanctions). Why don't we have good water, civilized water? Why? My own wife comes to me with a lump in her breast -- cancer. I am an oncologist -- I can do nothing, there are no treatments I can give her -- and I must watch my own wife die this way.
"Blood bags prohibited, matches...doing operations without anesthetics, 24 bombings near my house (in '91), they bomb the hospital, 40 are killed, the children are crying...Bush says he works for humanity purpose (sic). This is not humanity purpose! You want to liberate Iraq! To liberate, you kill?"
Dr. Abdul-Hameed Yacoub, dean and professor, Al-Mustansiriya University (referring to his team's studies of the effects of depleted uranium weapons used by the U.S. in southern Iraq during the Gulf War):
"DU is a weapon of mass destruction. There has been an increase of 300% in the incidence of cancers in Basra (since the Gulf War). It is the Iraqi curse. In my view, the (American) people are having the facts of this tragedy masked from them by the press. If they knew, they could have more effect on their representatives in Congress. It is your unique job to communicate this message."
Ghazwan Al-Mukhti, sanctions activist, retired medical supply salesperson:
"A generation of highly trained specialists is disappearing (from Iraq, through death and emigration). Criminals have replaced the middle class in Iraq. They start out different from the American criminal element; survival is their only goal. But once that has been attained, their motivation changes to that of the American model.
* * *
There are 45 art galleries in Baghdad, and two more were opening the week I left. Iraqi art is considered the finest in the Middle East -- I met several European collectors while I was there -- but all artists bemoan the fact that they are no longer able to travel and experience first hand what is going on in the rest of the world.
* * *
Nazar Al-Rawi, artist:
"The sanctions are killing our hopes, our life. If you bomb my city, you only bomb my body. But if you kill my life, you kill my future. Iraqis see the world...it is like we're watching a movie that we're not in. The world has put us in a hole. Give us just five years of peace, and we would be beautiful again. You know the three greatest things for an Arab? Some green, some water, and a beautiful face (much laughter)."
Mr. Assim, director of Iraqi Innovation for Plastic Arts:
"Our psychology here is that stopping the arts means stopping life. We run programs for 4 to 6 year old children. Art proves that the human experience is one, all over the world. Yes, there is the bombing, but the Iraqi artist is in his house; he pulls his power from 8,000 years of civilization. If an Iraqi paints something, it is deathless."
Muhammed Ghani Hekmet, world-renowned sculptor:
"They say if you drink from the waters of the Tigris, you will return to Baghdad. (Pause, and a rueful smile) But, if you drink from the Tigris, you will probably get sick."
Yussra Al-Abaddi, artist:
"When you open your front door in one of the old Baghdad neighborhoods, you can see right into the house across the street, and you see yourself in that house, and you know that you are all one people, everywhere."
* * *
They stand silently near you, or pull a chair over in front of you, put their hand lightly on your arm, sit down next to you, and you know that this next conversation will be real, from the heart.
* * *
Butra Alameaza, baggage claims director at Queen Alia Airport, Amman, Jordan:
"We also hear about this plan of the Americans (to divide Iraq into 3 sections and connect central Iraq, including Baghdad, to Jordan). But I'm not surprised that the American people have never heard of this. When I was in school in Kansas, no one in my class knew where Jordan was. The Americans don't know too much about the world, do they?
"This plan, I don't know...the Iraqis are very difficult to control. But Jordan is always caught in the middle. Bush will make an offer of cheap oil to (Jordanian) King Abdullah maybe. We have many problems now. We depend on the tourists in Jordan but September 11 hurt us too...people are afraid to travel in the Middle East."
Sattar, cross-border chauffeur:
"In these times, the people are moving closer to Islam. The imams are telling the people that they must change their way of living. We see the crime rate going down, more (Muslims) are coming to the mosque each week. But the people understand that an invading army will never have their interests at heart. I am sure they will fight."
When this father of three is asked what he will do if war comes, he is gravely quiet. Then, staring off down the road, he says, "I don't like to think about it."
Diar, waiter (speaking of the Gulf War):
"At night, my aunt is taking a shower (sic). I am studying for my examination. Then we hear loud thunder, and all of us get panicked. My aunt is crying, 'They are bombing, they are bombing!' We put the lights out and stay quiet till morning; we can't sleep. After the next morning, we went to see where a house was bombed. Two families, all gone. Then things are worse and worse. I had to leave the school. We were worried about my uncle. We heard the news that he was taken prisoner. 42 days we were suffering from this, really panicked, because we were only children. (Pause) Today the most common word on the street is about bombing. I am not afraid for myself; I only care about the children. OK, I lived 25 years, I had a good life..."
Seifeddin Fares, Palestinian bus companion:
"America is different from all the world. They cannot understand what it means to have no country, to know that you cannot go to see your brothers and sisters if they are in a different country, to know that you have no rights...because you are a man without a place."
* * *
Peace activists: Now, more than ever, activists going to Iraq must each confront the rational human fear of death, and then step beyond it, each in his or her own manner.
* * *
Henry Williamson, peace activist and 3-tour Vietnam War veteran, medical corps:
"If they (American planes) start bombing, open the windows so they don't shatter, and run for the middle of the hotel. If it sounds like a bang, it's still far away; if it's more like a crack, it's local. Any closer, you won't hear it. The shock will go right through you, but start thinking about what you can do to help others. That'll get you focusing again. Then be patient. It will stop."
Jon Rice, peace activist, Voices in the Wilderness:
"I was to report to the Marine Corps Officer's School (in 1967), but by then I had become involved with the peace movement. The simplest label for me is 'conscientious objector in the Viet Nam era'. When I was in the Marine Corps, I said to myself, 'What if I die? What for? What have I got to show for it?' My trip to Baghdad was done on behalf of my love of my country. I still consider myself a patriot, willing to risk my life for my country, but not by killing people. If I die now (in Baghdad), they'll say, 'He died fightin' for peace'.
Then, thoughtfully, he says, "I consider this (international anti-war activism) just the opening skirmish in the War on Greed."
* * *
One day, Henry Williamson and I were walking down Saddoun St. when he suddenly grabbed my arm: "Hey, did you see those jets yesterday?"
A number of fighter planes had gone very low over midtown Baghdad the day before, almost close enough to see the numbers on their wings. I was standing in a cafe window, my favorite cheap lunching spot, with a clear view of the street. The jarring whoosh of the jets had elicited split second jerks of the head from everyone within sight. Then, just as quickly, they returned to their business. Visually, it was as though someone had pulled the plug out of the TV, then stuck it back in.
"Yeah," I said, still a bit zooed by the experience, "were those ours or theirs?"
"Theirs, I think," Henry answered. We simultaneously stopped walking, turned to look into each other's eyes, trying to ascertain what the hell we had been meant by the words "theirs" and "ours." Then we both cracked up, seeing how things stood: Long weeks after our arrival in Iraq, we had clearly lost track of who "we" and "they" might actually be.
Joe Quandt spent the month of October 2002 in Iraq with a "Voices in the Wilderness" peace delegation.
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