baghdad Archive - Let me tell you

Hate

Veröffentlicht am 8. Juli 20249. Juli 2024 von RanaSchreib einen Kommentar

On my way home, a priest was standing next to me on the tram. He was talking in an American accent to another man, whom I couldn’t see from where I was sitting.
I didn’t really pay attention to their conversation until I heard the phrase „I worked for the US Army“.
Now their talk had my full attention. From what I heard, it seemed to me that the man behind me had been in the US Army for some time.
A strange feeling came over me and I thought, what if we had met before in a completely different situation. He, flying a plane full of bombs over Iraq, and I, lying in the bad, holding my children as close as I could, praying that the pilot would not drop bombs on us.
My body began to shake, I had to take a deep breath and I turned around to look at his face. I was relieved. He was too young to have fought in 1991 or even 2003.

This short scene brought back a memory and a feeling I hadn’t felt in years.
I remembered a cold March day when I was sitting on the terrace of my in-laws‘ modest village house, washing our clothes in a plastic washtub. My hands were sore from the cold water. I was in a hurry to finish the laundry because my children were playing in the house and I was afraid that the next air raid would start while I was away from them.
There was a distant plane in the sky. But it seemed to be heading for Baghdad. I followed it with my eyes, calculating the distance, if it would change direction, and the time I would need to run inside to my children.
But it kept moving away.
I wondered how the pilot felt. Coming from a country as far away as the United States, knowing nothing about Iraq except what he thought he knew. And it seems that he believed that every single person under his plane deserved to be killed by the bombs he was about to drop.
He may even have believed that he was a hero. Superman in the sky, killing all the bad people with the push of a magic button.
What would he do if he knew us personally? If he had eaten with us at the same table or danced with us to the same music? What would he do if he knew our names, if he played UNO or backgammon with us? Would he still push the button?

What kind of people does he think we are?
Can he even imagine how we suffered during the years of the embargo?
How broken and depressed we were?
Would he go home and tell everyone, „I did so well. You must be proud of me. I killed about 50 Iraqis a day just by flying my plane and pushing a button. I didn’t care who they were or how old they were. They were the evil ones and they deserved death.“
Everyone around him would be impressed, and they might raise a glass and toast his bravery.

I felt hatred, yes, I hated with all the intensity of that word. I hated this man who crossed the world to drop bombs on us, a man who controls our destiny from above, who could kill my children or make them orphans. I wished his plane would burn up in the sky and turn him to ashes before he could drop a single bomb. I wished he would never return to the United States and be celebrated for killing Iraqi people. My weakness before his power filled me with this ugly feeling of hatred. The worst feeling a human being can have for another human being.
I did not have the power he had, but in my mind I wanted to destroy him as much as he could destroy us.
His plane disappeared from view.
My focus returned to the laundry. I missed my washing machine, the electricity, and our home in Baghdad.
I hung the clothes on the ropes hanging between the palm trees and ran into the house where my children were playing. I sat down on the floor and joined them.

The priest and the young US Army man stopped talking about the Army and the Marines and started arguing about the way and their next tourist spot in Vienna. I stuck my headphones in, turned the music on and started writing this story.

Renaming the sunflower

Veröffentlicht am 3. September 20233. September 2023 von RanaSchreib einen Kommentar

To begin my story, you need to know that in Iraq we call the sunflower “Abbad Al-Shams.” Translated to English it means “sun worshiper.”
We ate Abbad Al-Shams seeds, and we used its oil for cooking. We studied the fields of these flowers in Geography, and we learned how to grow them in our gardening classes.
We had no other name for the yellow beauties that bent their heads towards the sun as if they were worshiping it until the day the name has been changed by a presidential decree.

It was after the war of 1991 and during the times of the embargo, poverty, and mass depression when a meeting was broadcasted on TV.
The recording showed the former president Saddam Husain receiving a group of people, mostly men. I do not remember if his guests were representatives from the agricultural or religious field, or maybe they were members of the Revolutionary Command Council.

Anyway, they talked, and their conversation went from politics to religion and ended up with the sunflower.
“Abbad Al-Shams, what a name!” The president said to his fellows.
“Only God can be worshipped, right?”
The guests agreed by clapping and were very enthusiastic about his remark. They continued discussing this topic as if it was the only problem left in Iraq to be solved.

At the end of this meeting, the sun worshiper lost its name and was renamed to “Zahrat Al Shams” (translated to English “sun flower”).

If this event was observed alone, it could have been funny. To see so many important men in suits and uniforms discussing the “sinful” name of a yellow flower and releasing a decree to rename it.

Now, when I look back and see the big picture, I know that it was not a random event. It was one of many actions set by the government after 1991 to drive the Iraqi society into extreme religiosity.

In Iraq, a country that is the home of more than 5 religions, divided into several confessional groups, religion in the wrong hands is a dangerous weapon.

Keeping the people obedient by connecting the love and fear of God with the submissiveness to the leaders is a path that all Iraqi governments followed and are still following since then.

The sound of silence

Veröffentlicht am 28. November 202228. November 2022 von RanaSchreib einen Kommentar

When I was a child, I often heard my father and his siblings talk about the demonstrations and the strikes they used to join when they were in high school and college. It seemed as if they were talking about a different world. One, that I could not relate to.

They demonstrated against increasing bread prices, against corruption in the government and the high rate of unemployment. It did not stop them that their father had a prominent position in the kingdom that Iraq was at that time. It was only normal for them to go out and express their anger towards the royal family and the government.

For me, these stories felt like parts of a long-gone history. Not more than narratives from our history books at school, where we learned about “some” revolutions that took place in Iraq. They mentioned, among others, the 1920 Iraqi Revolt against the British occupation and the 17^th of July revolution led by the Ba’ath party. The revolution of the 17^th of July 1968 was always described as the final one.

I had a picture in mind of a boiling and angry Iraqi past. But fortunately, I was born at the end of the movie, where all evil was defeated, and “living happily ever after” is the present. Our parents fixed everything for us. We had no reason to go out to the streets and raise our voices. All is great in this country.

Unfortunately, childhood does not last forever, and the veil was lifted slowly. I started seeing fear, oppression and dark clouds covering the sky of Iraq. I saw injustice everywhere, but no sign of anger. The crowds that once condemned the government for the increasing price of bread was silent.

In 1980, a war against our neighbour country, Iran, started. A war, that lasted eight years and ended after the death of a million Iraqis, most of them young men. But no rage was seen. No angry parents asking the leader: “why did you send my son to die?”

Instead, the local television portrayed the families of martyrs as blessed and proud citizens. I remember a musical act named “The mother of the martyred”. It started with a war scene and a woman receiving the coffin of her son. The woman stands silent for a short while, when suddenly she starts ululating and dancing.

I was confused watching her being happy about her martyred son. I asked myself “Why is she not breaking out in tears? Even a cat cries, when losing a kitten. Why should a human mother be ululating over the coffin of her child?”

That musical was a piece of manipulation and provocation. But no one criticised it.

Perhaps the critical voices were in prison or had fled the country.

In 1982, travel was banned for all 13 million Iraqis. The basic human right of free movement was taken away from all the people in the country and again no voices raised against this decision, and no one held a poster with the words: “I don’t agree.”

But who knows, there might have been a sound of anger that never reached our ears?

On the 2^nd of August 1990, after not even two years of peace with Iran, the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait, an Arabic country, a neighbour, a smaller brother.

I was visiting my Austrian grandmother when it happened. I could not believe the international news reports shown on TV. I needed two days to realise it was true and not some misunderstanding. And yes, it was just as bad as it sounded. Nothing could justify the insidious attack. My head was full of question marks “What happened to the Arabic dream we were reading about in school? One big Arab nation from Morocco to Iraq. Where did the words of unity and freedom go? And what about all the slogans that were written all over the country?”

The Iraqi media started a mass brainwashing campaign. Instead of rebelling, people started convincing themselves that it was the right decision to invade Kuwait.

Where was our anger? Why were we hiding it even from ourselves? Why were the parents crying for the loss of their children instead of standing up and saying: “no, enough is enough. No more senseless killing and getting killed”? Why does everybody have this deep fear, that dying from a bomb is easier than going out to the streets and expressing the anger? Questions that stayed unanswered.

And maybe there were voices against the invasion, but they have been silenced before being heard.

The 1991 war ended, and it seemed like “peace” prevailed in Baghdad. But the rumours told a different story. There were demonstrations all over the country. People woke up and wanted change. The rumours became louder, and the local media had to react. On TV they called the demonstrators a mob willing to destroy the country.

The whole act soon went from angry people raising their voices against their government to a massacre in which more than one country got involved. Opposing militant groups, stationed in the neighbouring countries took the chance and started arming the angry people.

There was only one rule for the government troops: Killing as many and with any method needed till the crowd is silenced.

The rage ended after tens of thousands were killed, the marshes (Iraq’s largest wetland ecosystem) was almost completely drained, and the marsh Arabs forcefully relocated. The northern regions that were supported by the US, gained a federal government, and were separated from the rest of Iraq.

An extremely brutal video that showed the torturing and killing of the rebels and their families (men, women and even children), was spread among the people, to show what happens to the ones who dare to raise their voices.

It was then that my teenage mind understood that the silence we experienced was not the outcome of disregard or utter satisfaction, it was the result of extreme fear.

Today I know more about what happened back then and what is still happening in Iraq and many other countries.

People will be intimidated when the punishment is by far greater than the crime, when raising your voice does not harm you alone but will harm your family and beloved once, and when getting killed is not the worst thing that could happen to you.

Changing History

Veröffentlicht am 5. März 202217. Mai 2022 von RanaSchreib einen Kommentar

In the middle of the Ukrainian crisis and all that’s happening in the world right now, I keep seeing a lot of parallels with what happened in August 1990. Back when Iraq invaded Kuwait under the leadership of Saddam Hussein.

A large country, economically exhausted, turning the eyes of the world towards it, by invading its much smaller neighbour country.

And although it was no surprise, it was a surprise.

What started as a power show-off turned into an invasion. An invasion like the invasions those same leaders were condemning days before.

To justify the occupation of Kuwait, a long list of reasons was presented: “Kuwait was originally part of Iraq”, “The people of Kuwait wanted to get back to the roots”, “The leaders of Kuwait threatened to ruin Iraq’s economy” and many more reasons.

I was raised in Baghdad since 1980, when I was 6 years old. I got the full Ba’ath education in school. I was a believer. I sang the national songs, I Saluted the flag every Thursday in school and I loved Baba Saddam. But on the 2nd of August 1990 everything changed. All that I believed in, in the provirus 10 years fall apart in few weeks.

After years of praising the Arabic dream of unity, brotherhood and the one united Arab nation from Morocco to Iraq, the Arab leaders started fighting on the media and uncovering all the hidden ugly sides of each other. Almost all were against Iraq, with some exceptions. Manly because of financial dependencies. Simulator to the political situation today. All against Russia except for some few real “good friends”.

Suddenly the leaders of the Arab countries were no longer respected brothers on the Iraqi news. President Hosni Mubarak was Hosni El-Khafif (meaning “loose Hosni”), the King of Saudi Arabia, the custodian of the two holy mosques, toured into the custodian of the Americans and the prince of Kuwait was the sick man who wanted to marry his daughter because he didn’t know her, having to many wives and children to recognise all of them.

One of the defining events, that made me abhor my country’s politics, was, when the teacher asked us to go to the school library, open all the books, deleted the words “county of Kuwait” and replace them by the words “the governorate of Kuwait”. My friend and I argued with the teacher, that we should not change history. The time the book was published it was a country. Even if it is now considered a governorate, it is not a reason to change the past and maybe soon it will be a country again? (We didn’t add: Since the whole world is preparing for the war, to free Kuwait). Our teacher just said: “Stop talking. These are orders from the ministry. Just do it!”. “And use pens. The change must be permanent!”, she added. Our hidden protest was that we used pencils and just crossed out the words with a light line.

For me, and maybe a lot of other Iraqis, the world before the invasion of Kuwait was a totally different one, than the world I woke up to, on that black August morning in 1990.

The latest events have brought back this bitter feeling of disappointment.

I see a lot of similarities but differences too. The similarities in escalating the conflict internationally instead of diplomatic de-escalation. The world starts arming like crazy. The news split the fighting parties into the good guys and the bad guys depending on the channel one is watching. The UN make sanctions that mostly cause the poor to become poorer and the megalomaniac to get crazier. While the US plays the role of the hero that will rescue the world, even though they have poured the most oil into the fire the first place.

The big difference now is the fact that this time the villain is the mighty leader of Russia and not the leader of Iraq. When Saddam threatened to destroy the world, the world knew exactly what he possessed and how efficient it was. An Austrian, working for a German company in Iraq once said: “We can sell to Iraq every weapon we want, as long as it is missing some bolts, if you know what I mean!”. While Putin’s threat, of making the world see what it had never seen before, is real. Especially if 30 countries led by the USA would try to free Ukraine with a military act.

To mention here is that, when the US invaded Iraq with false reasons and committed one war crime after the other, Bush jr. was not represented by the media as the bad guy. No sanctions were made on the US, no boarders or airspaces were closed, and the international criminal court will never charge him.

I had a relative who used to say: “same, same but different!”. Maybe this brings it to the point.

Parken leicht gemacht

Veröffentlicht am 25. Juli 20204. August 2020 von RanaSchreib einen Kommentar

Seit Juli 2003 lebe ich in Wien. Davor habe ich für 24 Jahre in Bagdad gelebt. Es ist also nicht schwer zu verstehen, dass ich bei den unterschiedlichsten Situationen Vergleiche zwischen den zwei Städten ziehe.

So denke ich mir oft „In Bagdad wäre das nie passiert“ oder „Es geht uns so gut in Wien“ aber auch „das ist ja genau wie in Bagdad“

Ein Bespiel für so eine Situation ist das Einparken.

Ich fahre sehr selten mit dem Auto in Wien. Man braucht es nicht wirklich und ich hasse es einzuparken. Ich weiß, heutzutage gibt es tolle Autos die das selbst erledigen, aber das Privileg so ein Auto zu fahren hatte noch nicht.

So war es einmal in Bagdad, kurz nach dem ich den Führerschein machte, dass ich beim Versuch eine Parklücke anzupeilen total verzweifelt bin.

Drei Passanten hatten sich schon aufgestellt, um mir Anweisungen zu geben. Der einer schrie mir zu: „Lenke stark nach rechts ein!“, der andere rief: „Lenke im stehen und fahre dann langsam los.“

Ich war ziemlich verwirrt und konnte bald nicht mal rechts von links unterscheiden, da öffnete einer von ihnen die Autotür und sagte: „Steig‘ aus Schwester, ich parke es für dich ein!“

Er hat das Steuer übernommen, das Auto in drei Sekunden abgestellt und mir den Schlüssel übergeben. Er war mein Retter in der Not und ich war ihm endlos dankbar.

Beim Einparken in Wien, fehlen mir oft diese freiwilligen Parklotsen. Da habe ich eher so ein Gefühl, dass manche still und neugierig zuschauen, um mit sich selbst zu wetten ob die Frau da am Steuer es schaffen wird oder nicht.

About Djabbar

Veröffentlicht am 24. Februar 201924. Februar 2019 von RanaSchreib einen Kommentar

When I went to the first grade of elementary school, we had a driver who drove me almost every day to school and back. It wasn’t uncommon to have a driver in Baghdad’s early 80s, since most of the families had one car for driving to work and had to arrange a driver who had a car or a school bus for their children.

The name of our driver was Djabbar. Djabbar was in his early twenties. He was very kind, friendly and one of the most patient people I have ever known. I know he was patient, because I used to ask him question after question the second I got into the car until I got out. Questions like: „What’s that building?“, „How do you make the car go faster?“ or „What’s the name of your grandmother?“ and he answered and explained everything instead of telling me to shut up and just let him drive in peace. The car rides with him were like additional school lessons.

At the age of 6 I thought all the people in the world lived the way l did. I thought they all had a house, a car, plenty of food to eat and enough clothes in their wardrobes.

It was Djabbars stories, about his family, the way they lived and his daily struggles, that opened my eyes to a different side of life. Once he told me that his parents could not buy meat every day and that he was fed up with eggplants, potatoes and zucchinis. I asked him: „Why don’t you just buy enough meat to cook every day?“ he laughed and started to teach me about money, monthly salaries and prices. It was basically a math lesson. Way better than anything I’ve ever learned at school. He explained to me how much he earned by driving and how much he was able to spend on food. He told me that his father worked hard to pay the rent, that his mother was an illiterate housewife and that his two younger siblings were still in school. He was not at all complaining or trying to make me feel sorry for him, he was just explaining the facts. Suddenly money had a meaning to me and prices were not just numbers written on things. Those numbers made a big difference: the bigger they were the less people could afford the goods they were on. I didn’t know the word „affordable“ but I understood its meaning.

The thing I enjoyed the most was when he talked about driving. He loved driving. He explained everything in the car to me.

I watched him from the back seat and he pointed at the pedals: „See, when you want the car to go faster, you step on the accelerator. If you want to slow down you have to step on the brake pedal.“, „with the steering wheel you can change the cars direction, when you turn it to the left the front wheels do too!“
I asked him about an orange button on the side of the dashboard and he said: „If the back window is misted you have to press this button. It’s a heater. Do you see the narrow lines on the rear windows? They’re wires that get hot, thus warm the window and make the fog disappear.
We even fixed a puncture together one day. He let me lift the car with the jack and I felt as strong as hulk. That day I came home with black hands and I told my mother proudly: „I changed a flat tire.“

After almost a 6 months going to school with Djabbar I „theoretically“ knew how to drive. A knowledge that helped me 6 years later, when my sister started driving and I showed her where to turn on the car lights and the „anti-mist-button“.

Once he was telling me about his grandmother who used to make mats, hand fans and brooms from palm leaves for them. I couldn’t imagine what he meant. So the next day he took some leaves from a small palm tree that was growing in front of my school and braided a tiny mat, while he was waiting for me. He gave it to me and I used it as a mat for my Barbie.It was almost spring when he picked me up from school with a big smile on his face. As soon as I sat in the car he told me that he was getting engaged and that he was very happy and excited about it. He said his fiancée was very pretty and had just graduated from the teaching institute and was waiting to be assigned as a teacher for an elementary school. I felt happy for him and tried to picture his wedding. I was hoping that he would invite me.

The following days he always talked about the wedding preparations. He would live in his parents‘ house. He painted out his room with a friend and his mother sold an old piece of jewelry, that she had kept for this day, to buy him a bed and a cupboard. Everything was set for his wedding. The school year was almost over and summer spread out its heat all over Baghdad.

On one Saturday morning I left the house with the school bag on my back and headed to the car. But Djabbar and his light green Toyota Corona weren’t there, instead there was a white car with an elderly looking man standing outside the car and talking to my father.

When my father saw me coming he said: „This is Khudaier. From now on he will take you to school“.
I felt upset and asked: „Why? Where is Djabbar?“
My father opened the car door for me and said: „He was sent to the front!“

I sat in the back of the car, thinking of my father’s words „He was sent to the front“. I knew what he meant. Djabarr was gone; he was recruited to be on the front fighting against Iran in a war he hadn’t chosen. I never heard from him again. I always hoped that he came back safely and got married to that beautiful teacher.

After that day my drives to school were silent.

The Name of the Father and the Son

Veröffentlicht am 9. Dezember 20189. April 2020 von RanaSchreib einen Kommentar

George Bush senior passed away on Friday the 30th of November 2018, at the age of 94.

That was the first headline I read last Saturday morning, when I was checking the news on my mobile phone. I looked at his picture and automatically said: „May God take him in his mercy.“ This is a common phrase we use in Arabic when someone dies. But as it came out of my lips, I thought to myself: „Would I take him in my mercy?“

Bush (no matter senior or junior) is a name that, to me, will always be associated with embargo, war, destruction, bombing, no electricity, fear and so on, in other words, an endless list of very dark memories.

I would never deny that the invasion of Kuwait was a crime in its entire means, but the embargo and the wars on Iraq that followed weren’t any less of a crime. And they proved that diplomacy and good offices, unfortunately, fail in resolving critical problems.
If wars were given grades for their badness level, the „Operation Desert Storm“ would deserve an „A“ with an extra plus for the bombing of „Amiriyah shelter“ and the „highways of death“ the massacre of the withdrawing soldiers.

It is scary that some people on earth may gain such an enormous power in their lifetime that gives them the mightiness to act like Gods. In a way that a single decision they take could mean misery and death for millions.

It was the 17th of January 1991, when Bush senior spoke his word and the war on Iraq started. After the dramatic events, since we woke up in the morning of the 2^nd of August 1990, to find out that our troops have walked in to Kuwait and changed our status among the nations, to the most hated country on earth, the final act (as we thought at that time) started. And while most of the world watched the famous night camera recording on TV, showing a scene that looked more like fireworks than the actual hell it was, the Iraqi people were being targeted by those „firework“.

I’ll never forget that night. We woke up to the sound of bombing and shooting all around, the sirens didn’t stop crying and the dark night sky was filled with smoke and fire. Realizing that the promised war had started, we gathered in one room and sat stuck to one another. I was shivering from head to toe, covered in a thick blanket and praying to God not to be struck by next rocket. Fortunately my family and I survived, but a lot of people, who weren’t as lucky, lost their lives during this war. That day covered Iraq in a veil of poverty, destruction and death that it is still trying to get rid of.

War is always the wrong choice. There is nothing like a „good war“ and a „bad war“. Even if the first statement of Bush was: „As I report to you air attacks are on their way against military targets in Iraq.“ We all know today that the fire that fell from the sky burned a lot more than just military targets.

These thoughts and memories occupied my mind that whole day, as I kept seeing the headlines of Bush‘s death everywhere and the words of condolences that were spoken out for him. Then shortly before going to bed, I saw a post on Instagram, picturing the Kuwait towers lit up with the American flag and a portrait of Bush. It was subtitled with the words: „In memory of George W. Bush. Hero of freedom.“
An aspect that didn’t come to my mind earlier that day. But yes, of course, he must be a hero in Kuwait: he freed the country. It’s their right to celebrate him. My villain is their hero. Just two sides of one coin.

What a strange world I’m living in. Being responsible for crimes, such as the horrible death of more than 400 civilians (mostly women and children) in the „Amiriyah shelter“, does not mean a person won’t be honored and celebrated as a hero.

Well, I guess he doesn’t really need my mercy to rest in peace.

Big Picture

Veröffentlicht am 21. Januar 201827. Januar 2018 von Rana2 Kommentare

Sometimes things happen that you do not understand immediately but suddenly, maybe years later, a piece of the big life puzzle comes to you and everything starts to make sense.

On a Friday morning, when I was about nine years old, I was experimenting with my cassette recorder. I had a blank tape inside and went around the house trying to catch different sounds. In the garden I recorded the sound of the birds and the cats, I went to the kitchen and recorded my mother and grandmother talking about their plans for lunch and then I went to the living room, where my grandfather was sitting with Amo Kamal (Amo is Arabic for uncle), a relative of us, and I recorded their discussion. I didn’t really bother listening to them, their talk was boring for me. Filling my blank tape was my only concern.

I rewound the tape and went to the kitchen to make my mother and grandmother listen to it, but they didn’t pay attention to me, so I went to the living room to present my creative work to my grandfather and his guest. I told them with a big smile on my face: „Look what I did and you didn’t even notice.“ I played the tape and they listened for a short while. I was still smiling proudly but they didn’t laugh, they didn’t even smile, instead they seemed to get angry, especially Amo Kamal. His face turned red, and he almost yelled at me: „You cannot record people’s conversations. Delete this immediately.“ He turned to my grandfather saying: „She could get us in serious trouble. They could put us in jail. Tell her to delete it now.“

My grandfather spoke in a calmer tone but he was very firm: „Delete this now and don’t ever record people while they are talking again. This could end badly.“
„What’s wrong with them?“ I thought „I just wanted to be funny,“ I felt really annoyed because they did not understand my joke. „Fun spoilers“ I thought and deleted their part of the recording. I left the living room and went to my room feeling upset and somehow ashamed about what happed. I couldn’t understand the reason for their strange reaction.

Unfortunately, I grew up to learn that the world is more than just an endless playground. I started hearing stories of people who went to jail or even lost their lives because someone recorded them while they were criticizing the situation in the country or the government.

One of the easiest and most common ways to control people in surveillance states is to make them control each other. When trust and solidarity are kept to a minimum, mass protests and organized oppositions are very unlikely to happen. Eliminating „dangerous“ individuals is much easier than facing the crowd, especially in times before the internet, mobile technology and social media.

Back then, I didn’t connect these stories with the reaction of my grandfather and Amo Kamal, since I didn’t really like to remember that embarrassing situation. But not too many years ago, I was talking with my mother and we remembered Amo Kamal. He was always talking with my grandfather about the bad conditions, the ongoing war, the latest scandals of the politicians, how everything is getting worse and how the prices are rising rapidly.

I recall one conversation they had very often: Amu Kamal would say: „The prices are crazy, and no one is doing anything about it.“ My grandfather would reply: „Yes, that’s so true. Before, the cost of one orange was one fills. That meant I could have bought 1000 oranges for one Dinar.“ Amo Kamal would add: „And today one kilo of oranges is about 3 Dinars and that’s not more than 5 oranges.“ At that point my grandfather would take a deep breath and say a Turkish proverb he used a lot to explain his anger on times: „To what times we stayed!“

Only then the puzzle was complete, and the big picture appeared. I realized what made them so upset. I recorded them talking about the deplorable conditions in the country. A tape like that, if put in the wrong hands, could have brought them behind bars. My „funny“ sound constellation was actually an evidence against them.

I felt sorry but it was too late to apologize. Both of them died before having to witness that the price for one kilo of oranges has reached 1000 Dinar in the Iraq of today.

The best of both worlds

Veröffentlicht am 4. Dezember 201721. Dezember 2018 von Rana2 Kommentare

In the 1980s, there were a lot of foreigners living and working in Iraq. I’m sure it was just the same back in the 70s and before but I can only tell what I remember and my memories of Iraq start with the beginning of 1980.

Anyway….
Since my Austrian mother worked at the West German School in Baghdad, we knew a lot of people from the German speaking community that included German as well as Austrian and Swiss citizens. I had a lot of friends my age and I loved spending time with them at their european styled company complexes. Hanging out with them just felt like being at my grandparents’ place in Austria. I would spend the whole day playing, speaking German and eating German food and sweets.

As any group of people living abroad they arranged their lifestyle in Baghdad to be as close as possible to the life they were used to back home. For example, they knew where to get good fresh pork meat, or even where to hunt wild pigs, ducks and anything else the Iraqi countryside would offer. Moreover, and because at that time the Iraqi market only offered high quality but very restricted number of goods, some companies spoiled their employees by enabling them to order all kinds of European food once or twice a year. We were lucky enough to take advantage of this offer, when my mother was working for one of those companies. The yummy orders would reach Baghdad in big refrigerated „Bofrost“ trucks.

There even was a lovely German lady pastor working in Baghdad. She held the first and last thanksgiving mass (in German „Erntedankmesse“) I ever attended. In my family we used to celebrate Easter and Christmas in addition to the Islamic feasts but never thanksgiving. Being thankful for the harvest of the year is really something everyone living on fertile ground should do. When the mass started people of different nationalities and religions filled the church. They sat side by side listing to the German prayers that, for sure, a lot of them didn’t understand. At one point the door opened and the little children from the German kindergarten walked in singing while heading to the altar. They carried baskets full of local Iraqi fruit and vegetables crowned with fresh yellow dates. A lovely sight that gave those present goose bumps. At the end of the ceremony, the fruit and vegetables were spread among the people.

My favorite event of the year was definatly the German school’s Christmas market.
The preparations started very early. The first signs of Christmas were the smell of gingerbread that the kindergarten kids baked with a lot of joy and the notes handed out to the parents asking them to collect material for handcrafts. As soon as the school staff had enough material, a month of creative work started. Big boxes would be filled with delicious jars of jam with beautiful toppers, handmade greeting cards, knitted stuff, macramé work, Christmas cookies, cakes and almost everything one can find on a traditional Christmas market in Europe.

When the wooden stalls, decorated with colored crepe paper, were set up in the school yard and filled with all the beautiful things, the Christmas bells rang and the fun began. Soon the place was full of people talking, eating, buying stuff and enjoying the European Christmas atmosphere in the middle of Baghdad. The highlight of the evening was the announcement of the tombola winners, where the first price usually was a flight for two, sponsored by Lufthansa.

The last German Christmas market in Baghdad must have been in the winter of 1989. When all the foreigners left the country, after the invasion of Kuwait by the Iraqi troupes on the 2nd of August 1990, and the bells rang announcing a new era. An era of embargo, war and slow downfall.

It was the combination of cultural events, friendships with locals, gatherings and even love stories that made life in that very different country more than just bearable for the foreign communities. Most of them truly loved living in Iraq and appreciate that the country (in spite of the ongoing war with Iran at that time) was stable, had a strong economy, the citizens were extremely foreigner-friendly and it offered endless interesting historical and natural locations to visite. I miss those times, when I had the best of both worlds on one spot.

I’m not saying, Iraq was perfect then but it was good and had the potential to change towards the better. Sadly the modern history of Iraq showed that things can rapedly change from good to bad and that whenever we say: „It definitely can’t get worse!“ Destiny replies by saying: „Yes, it can.“

Photograph Prohibited

Veröffentlicht am 1. Juli 20172. Juli 2017 von Rana4 Kommentare

Although satellites were up in the sky since the sixties and it was known that observation satellites can identify a coin lying on the ground, the „Photograph Prohibited“ sign, or as we called it “no photo” sign, was a popular one in Iraq. No government building was so unimportant that it wouldn’t deserve its own sign. But the most confusing thing about the no-photo-policy was that even if the sign wasn’t there, taking a photo in a public place could make a suspect out of you in a second. One click, and you would find yourself accused of crimes like: damaging the image of the country, espionage or threatening the national security.

Most people affected by this law, besides the foreigners, were the students of architecture.

One of those students was my sister. I remember the day she and her colleague came home from a visit to Kadhumiya. They were exhausted and upset but also had to laugh a lot while telling my mother and me what an adventures day they had.

They were working on a project for college about modernizing the part of Baghdad they choose. Their choice fell on Kadhumiya, the part of the city with the golden Mosque, which holds the shrine of the Imam Musa Al-Kadhuim, the nearby bazar and the surrounding old residential area.

Aware of the laws, the college used to provide its students with a photographing and data gathering permission for the research and documentation part of such assignments.

Armed with the permission paper they walked through the bazar heading to the mosque, stopping here and there to take photos. My sister had a big canon reflex camera, with a giant zoom. Alone the zoom was enough reason to make her a suspect of espionage. On top of that was their outfit that didn’t really help to appease their suspicious appearance. They wore T-Shirts, Jeans and trainers and over it black traditional Abayas. The Abayas were borrowed and it was obviously for the way they wore it, trying hard to keep them on the heads and shoulders, that they were not familiar with wearing an Abaya.

Well, it didn’t take long. Soon, a man, he said he was a security officer, appeared and told them: „What on earth are you doing here? Don’t you know that it is strictly forbidden to take photos in this area?“

The young ladies tried to explain to him that they are students working on a project and showed him the permission they had from the college. But no matter what they said, the man was unimpressed and he insisted to take them to the main office to clear the matter. He asked them to get into his car, but my sister and her friend refused, since they couldn’t be sure of his identity as a secret service officer. He could be lying just to make them go with him.

The man tried to persuade them to join him in a taxi, but they made it clear that they will not go in any kind of car with him. They suggested walking but he said it was too far to go on foot. Almost losing his patience he had the glorious idea to stop a passing by horse carriage and asked them to get in. They finally agreed. At the end it is easier to jump out from a moving carriage then from a car in motion.

Few minutes later they arrived at a small official building. It had a sign saying „District Security Office“ at the entrance. They went in and he asked them to wait in the lobby. It took him a while before he came back an asked the girls to follow him to his supervisor’s office. Their hearts were beating strongly, and their stomachs ached while they walked behind him. They entered the office were a middle-aged man was sitting behind the desk.

He was looking at the college permission lying in front of him, then raised his eyes and gazed at them with a serious expression on his face. He asked them some questions about their project and their studies. He started to tell them how important the national security was and what harm could be caused by photographing sensitive places.

After a long speech, the supervisor, who seemed more open minded than his employee, handed them their permission and wished them good luck for their project. But before they stepped out of his office, he told them with a hardly noticeable smile on this face: „Girls, you are like my daughters, take this advice from me: don’t go around making photos of the city. There are a lot of people out there who could use them to harm our country.”

You can imagine how happy and relieved my mother and I were, hearing that this story ended in such a harmless way.