bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
IRAQ - 'Here is democracy US
style'
Baghdad blues
This week two years ago, while Allied tanks
rumbled into Baghdad, the collapse of Saddam's infamous statue symbolised
the fall of a dictatorship. But have the two intervening years brought
Iraqis freedom? Ploughing through political, social and economic
territory, analysts and first-hand witnesses provide Al-Ahram
Weekly with a balance sheet of the occupation Baghdad blues
"I don't know what has given me the strength to withstand the sight of Baghdad bloodstained and occupied, every day. It's been two years, and every morning I look out of my window overlooking Haifa Street to see the river Tigris bereft of boats and fluttering sails. No longer are young sailors clamouring delightedly across the horizon. Fishing boats are gone too; waterfront restaurants are deserted. The only boats to be seen are US patrols rumbling up and down while US forces keep their vigil at the riverside presidential palaces. Out of the window of my 13th-floor flat, I can see the buildings of the Ministry of Defence, charred and gutted.
"On my way to work I daily pass buildings destroyed by war -- scenes that the occupation has rendered familiar. I cringe at the poverty and hopelessness of homeless children. One midan (square) doubles as a flea market: where the stalls sold old and rusty objects a thriving business has now grown; everything is bought and sold, even the tattered remains of the homeland -- objects looted in 2003, even books and manuscripts taken out of the National Library, once among the largest national libraries in the Arab world. Then the statue of Al- Rasafi, the poet who resisted British occupation and died penniless: doves used to perch on his statue's hand; today there is not one bird; even the seagulls have abandoned the Tigris to the occupation forces.
"One day I meet up with a girlfriend who, having left Baghdad, came back to witness her country 'liberated'; she joins me on my morning walk: Naghm Al-Rawi, an architect who spent ten years abroad. 'While abroad,' she tells me, 'I took no notice of where I lived. I carried Baghdad within me wherever I went. I worked long hours, dreaming of a liberated Iraq. Now, seeing this, I want to leave the country again -- back to the Baghdad that I carried in my heart, it doesn't matter where.'
"The tears swell in her eyes as we walk down Al- Rashid Street. She makes a point of going through familiar stops -- and everything confirms her suspicion that she must go away. Al-Rashid was a street that never slept. Its restaurants and coffeehouses had no doors to them, because they never closed. Now the doors sport modern, expensive- looking locks, a precaution against robbers. But nothing can protect them from raids and abrupt searches. Nowhere is safe from those, not with the occupation and emergency laws.
"Naghm wants to see the central market building -- a hollow shell that, when she last saw it, was a thriving venue full of life, its ground floor turned into a car park. The old house, built 100 years ago in the distinctive Baghdad style, appears. The building, once the residence of key Iraqi and British figures -- still recognisable as the Oriental Music Institute of not so long ago -- is a US base. Across stands the Central Post, a building designed by Iraq's best architect, Rifaat Al-Chadarji. Memory carries me back to 1971, when as a child I enjoyed a children's magazine story about "Baghdad's tallest building", as we stand before the 21- floor edifice, now shell pecked, fire scarred, savaged by looters, surrounded by cement blocks. A sign on the fa�ade reads, 'This building is under police protection.'
"But Naghm wants to see the 10-story building that housed the architectural consultancy offices of the Ministry of Housing, one of Baghdad's most stylish constructions. The sight stops her in her tracks: she wants to stay here alone, to mull over her sorrow, before a building that has been charred and gateless since 9 April 2003. Before I leave, I tell Naghm that the architect I know who left in 1999 to America came back to Iraq to help rebuild it. 'Perhaps she's stronger than me,' she responds, 'seeing Baghdad this
way, living with the insecurity.' But we have no other choice, I argue. With tears in her eyes, she turns away.
"Near the end of Al-Rashid Street, walking by myself, I come to Al-Beit Al-Iraqi (the Iraqi House), an old house turned by Amal Al-Khodeiri into a handicraft and heritage centre. Nothing is left of it except the name. How symbolic that the Iraqi House should have been thus destroyed, burned, looted, surviving only in name. I turn onto Abu Nawwas Street, the lovers' lane of Baghdad. No Iraqi love story used to be complete before the couple walked hand in hand along this street, on the banks of the Tigris, settling in one of its many restaurants. Now it's barred with concrete blocks; squatters live in the restaurants. Young men who wash cars for a living linger on the pavement. Once a treat to the eye, the street looks shrivelled, wrinkled.
"I stop for a brief chat with Haydar, a college student who washes cars for a living in the afternoon. 'Over the last week, I counted over 2,000 concrete blocks in an area less than one-tenth of Baghdad, an area with no institutions of particular importance. Each block requires tonnes of cement to build. These 2,000 blocks could be used to build a housing complex, which would have generated jobs and helped reduce crime. But it seems those who barricade themselves with such blocks came here for one thing only: to see us die every day.'
"In Al-Sadoun Street, the street that runs parallel to Abu Nawwas Street, two demonstrations were approaching Al-Jumhuriya Bridge and heading to the Green Zone, the area in which the Iraqi government offices and the US and UK headquarters are located. One of the two demonstrations wanted relations severed with Jordan, all Arabs expelled from Iraq; the other wanted a government formed. So much for freedom: 'Here is democracy US style,' Moshtaq, another college student, is crying: 'we say what we want, and the officials do as they please.'"
By Nermeen Al-Mufti
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/737/sc1.htm
===
-muslim voice-
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