The blog, especially the anonymous blog, is a powerful tool against information control and oppression in the 21st century. It allows anyone with access to the Internet to forgo the hyper-controlled media channels of a war zone and find an outlet for their stories. This is especially important when a people are marginalized and demonized in order to have a less controversial war effort, as the various forces with war interests turn the Iraqi people into an ‘uncivilized’ abstraction from the complex and modern united society that existed before the US invasion. The blog selections below represent a small part of the untold story of Iraq. Many of you are familiar with Riverbend, but it is time to revisit her again, lest we forget. As a 24-year old woman myself, writer/computer geek, I haven't really been the same since discovering her story this week. I hope that anyone who hasn't read her blog before reads it, if only to better understand the people whose lives are now very much a part of our own.
I've presented some of the passages I felt bore re-reading, including some insights that Riverbend had on how the Sunni Shi'a "divide" was created by the US troop invasion, and perhaps intentionally by the powers that be to weaken the unity of the population. Today the hatred is real and deep, but perhaps it didn't always have to be that way.
Sunday, August 17, 2003
The Beginning...
So this is the beginning for me, I guess. I never thought I'd start my own weblog... All I could think, every time I wanted to start one was "but who will read it?" I guess I've got nothing to lose... but I'm warning you- expect a lot of complaining and ranting. I looked for a 'rantlog' but this is the best Google came up with. A little bit about myself: I'm female, Iraqi and 24. I survived the war. That's all you need to know. It's all that matters these days anyway.
Right away Riverbend begins to express her, understandable, anger and frustration with the American occupation:
The other way to wake up [than from the heat], is to be jolted into reality with the sound of a gun-shot, explosion or yelling. You sit up, horrified and panicked, any dream or nightmare shattered to oblivion. What can it be? A burglar? A gang of looters? An attack? A bomb? Or maybe it's just an American midnight raid?
Immediately there is a negative reaction from some members of the American public to her blog (a resistance to an Iraqi voice? Resistance to humanizing an ‘enemy’? Would humanization force guilt and circumspection? Why does ignorance breed contempt?), something which she returns to later on as well:
Monday, August 18, 2003
You know what really bugs me about posting on the internet, chat rooms or message boards? The first reaction (usually from Americans) is "You're lying, you're not Iraqi". Why am I not Iraqi, well because a. I have internet access (Iraqis have no internet), b. I know how to use the internet (Iraqis don't know what computers are) and c. Iraqis don't know how to speak English (I must be a Liberal). All that shouldn't bother me, but it does. I see the troops in the streets and think, "So that's what they thought of us before they occupied us... that may be what they think of us now." How is it that we're seen as another Afghanistan?
Another recognition of disconnect between reality and the American public’s perception. It’s psyops for both sets of peoples, as it is well established at this point that propaganda campaignswere at full force in the United States:
Today a child was killed in Anbar... no more than 10 years old, maybe 11. Does anyone hear of that? Does it matter anymore? Do they show that on Fox News or CNN? He was killed during an American raid- no one knows why.... Things are getting stolen too- gold, watches, money (dollars)... That's not to say ALL the troops steal- that's unfair. It's like saying all of Iraq was out there looting. know, I know- someone is saying, "You ungrateful Iraqis! They are doing this for YOU... the raids are for YOU!" But the truth is, the raids only accomplish one thing: they act as a constant reminder that we are under occupation, we are not independent, we are not free, we are not liberated. We are no longer safe in our own homes- everything now belongs to someone else. I can't see the future at this point, or maybe I don't choose to see it.
After a barrage of negative and positive mail, the criticism mostly coming from "people watching Fox news," Riverbend attempts to reach out and try to explain her perspective in Setting the Record Straight:
I don’t hate Americans, contrary to what many people seem to believe.... Although I hate the American military presence in Iraq in its current form, I don’t even hate the American troops... or wait, sometimes I do.
She goes on to list the reasons she is angry, the random raids, the invasion, etc. attempting to explain why she is frustrated, but then also illustrates that she feels bad for our troops as well, knowing they want to go home. In response to people’s comments that, "not one single American soldier deserves to die for you," she says, "I completely agree. No one deserves to die for me or for anyone else."
Saturday, August 23, 2003
We've Only Just Begun...
Females can no longer leave their homes alone. Each time I go out, E. and either a father, uncle or cousin has to accompany me. It feels like we’ve gone back 50 years ever since the beginning of the occupation..... The situation is incredibly frustrating to females who work or go to college.... Before the war, around 50% of the college students were females, and over 50% of the working force was composed of women. Not so anymore. We are seeing an increase of fundamentalism in Iraq which is terrifying.
Sunday, August 24, 2003
Will Work for Food...
Over 65% of the Iraqi population is unemployed. The reason for this is because Bremer made some horrible decisions. The first major decision he made was to dissolve the Iraqi army. That may make sense in Washington, but here, we were left speechless. Now there are over 400,000 trained, armed men with families that need to be fed.... You can see perplexity and anger in their stance, their walk, their whole demeanor. Bremer also dissolved the Ministry of Information and the Ministry of Defense. No matter what the excuses, these ministries were full of ordinary people with ordinary jobs- accountants, janitors, secretaries, engineers, journalists, technicians, operators... these people are now jobless....
I’m a computer science graduate. Before the war, I was working in an Iraqi database/software company located in Baghdad as a programmer/network administrator (yes, yes... a geek). It was tedious, it was back-breaking, it was geeky and it was... wonderful....
What I’m trying to say is that no matter what anyone heard, females in Iraq were a lot better off than females in other parts of the Arab world (and some parts of the Western world- we had equal salaries!). We made up over 50% of the working force. We were doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, professors, deans, architects, programmers, and more. We came and went as we pleased. We wore what we wanted (within the boundaries of the social restrictions of a conservative society)....
[After being told that there was no work and women shouldn’t be out] I cried bitterly all the way home- cried for my job, cried for my future and cried for the torn streets, damaged buildings and crumbling people.
Riverbend then relayed this distressing tale:
I’m one of the lucky ones... I’m not important. I’m not vital. Over a month ago, a prominent electrical engineer (one of the smartest females in the country) named Henna Aziz was assassinated in front of her family- two daughters and her husband. She was threatened by some fundamentalists from Badir’s Army and told to stay at home because she was a woman, she shouldn’t be in charge. She refused- the country needed her expertise to get things functioning- she was brilliant. She would not and could not stay at home. They came to her house one evening: men with machine-guns, broke in and opened fire. She lost her life- she wasn’t the first, she won’t be the last.
There were several passages revealing interesting things about the reality and unreality of the ethnic divides between Sunnis and Shi’a in Iraq starting with:
Let's Play Musical Chairs...
The nine-member rotating presidency is a failure at first sight. It’s also a failure at second, third, fourth... and ninth sight. The members of the rotating presidency, composed of 4 Shi’a Muslims, 2 Sunni Muslims and 2 Kurds, were selected on a basis of ethnicity and religion. It is a way of further dividing the Iraqi population. It is adding confusion to chaos and disorder. Just the concept of an ethnically and religiously selected council to run the country is repulsive. Are people supposed to take sides according to their ethnicity or religion? How, nine months down the line, are they going to select one president... or will we always have 9 presidents to govern the country? Does every faction of the Iraqi population need a separate representative? If they do, then why weren’t the Christians represented? Why weren’t the Turkomen represented? Would two more members to add to the nine really have made that big a difference?
This insight, back in August 2003, was exactly correct of course, as differences in the Iraqi government have solidified along ethnic lines. Eventually, in the 2006 entries, this division became a reality on the ground. Riverbend suggests that this was a divide and conquer tactic.
The first thing the 25-member Governing Council did to alienate itself from the people was the fatal decision to make April 9 the new Iraqi National Day. April 9, 2003 was a nightmare beyond anyone’s power to describe.
A fake liberation holiday?
One of Riverbend’s disturbing and revealing insights was the look into how reconstruction was being handled.
The Promise and the Threat
The Myth: Iraqis, prior to occupation, lived in little beige tents set up on the sides of little dirt roads all over Baghdad. The men and boys would ride to school on their camels, donkeys and goats. Girls and women sat at home, in black burkas, making bread and taking care of 10-12 children.
The Truth: Iraqis lived in houses with running water and electricity. Thousands of them own computers. Millions own VCRs and VCDs. Iraq has sophisticated bridges, recreational centers, clubs, restaurants, shops, universities, schools, etc.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that most people choose to ignore the little prefix ‘re’ in the words ‘rebuild’ and ‘reconstruct’. For your information, ‘re’ is of Latin origin and generally means ‘again’ or ‘anew’.
She then goes on to explain one of the reasons why the United States has spent so much money trying to rebuild Iraq, and where that money is really going, and importantly where it is not:
Listen to this little anecdote. One of my cousins works in a prominent engineering company in Baghdad- we’ll call the company H. This company is well-known for designing and building bridges all over Iraq. My cousin, a structural engineer, is a bridge freak. He spends hours talking about pillars and trusses and steel structures to anyone who’ll listen.
As May was drawing to a close, his manager told him that someone from the CPA wanted the company to estimate the building costs of replacing the New Diyala Bridge on the South East end of Baghdad. He got his team together, they went out and assessed the damage, decided it wasn’t too extensive, but it would be costly. They did the necessary tests and analyses (mumblings about soil composition and water depth, expansion joints and girders) and came up with a number they tentatively put forward- $300,000. This included new plans and designs, raw materials (quite cheap in Iraq), labor, contractors, travel expenses, etc.
Let’s pretend my cousin is a dolt. Let’s pretend he hasn’t been working with bridges for over 17 years. Let’s pretend he didn’t work on replacing at least 20 of the 133 bridges damaged during the first Gulf War. Let’s pretend he’s wrong and the cost of rebuilding this bridge is four times the number they estimated- let’s pretend it will actually cost $1,200,000. Let’s just use our imagination.
A week later, the New Diyala Bridge contract was given to an American company. This particular company estimated the cost of rebuilding the bridge would be around- brace yourselves- $50,000,000!!
Something you should know about Iraq: we have over 130,000 engineers. More than half of these engineers are structural engineers and architects. Thousands of them were trained outside of Iraq in Germany, Japan, America....
So instead of bringing in thousands of foreign companies that are going to want billions of dollars, why aren’t the Iraqi engineers, electricians and laborers being taken advantage of? Thousands of people who have no work would love to be able to rebuild Iraq... no one is being given a chance.
American contractors being used rather than qualified Iraqis compounds the unemployment in Iraq, and scurrilously wastes American tax payer money. Riverbend goes on to drive the point home:
I always say this war is about oil. It is. But it is also about huge corporations that are going to make billions off of reconstructing what was damaged during this war. Can you say Haliburton? (Which, by the way, got the very first contracts to replace the damaged oil infrastructure and put out ‘oil fires’ way back in April).
Saturday, August 30, 2003
Road Trip
Being out in the streets is like being caught in a tornado. You have to be alert and ready for anything every moment. I sat in the backseat, squinting into the sun, trying to determine if a particular face was that of a looter, or abductor or just another angry countryman. I craned my neck looking at the blue SUV, trying to remember if it had been behind us for the last kilometer or longer. I held my breath nervously every time the cousin slowed down the car because of traffic, willing the cars in front of us to get a move on.
In the following years, Riverbend grows less and less optimistic that life will ever return to any kind of normalcy.
Monday, March 29, 2004
Tales from Abu Ghraib...
On a cold night in November, M., her mother, and four brothers had been sleeping when their door suddenly came crashing down during the early hours of the morning. The scene that followed was one of chaos and confusion... screaming, shouting, cursing, pushing and pulling followed. The family were all gathered into the living room and the four sons- one of them only 15- were dragged away with bags over their heads.... M.'s mother was hysterical by then- he was her dead husband and why were they taking away her sons? What had they done? They were supporting the resistance, came the answer through the interpreter.
How were they supporting the resistance, their mother wanted to know? "You are contributing large sums of money to terrorists." The interpreter explained. The troops had received an anonymous tip that M.'s family were giving funds to support attacks on the troops.
It was useless trying to explain that the family didn't have any 'funds'- ever since two of her sons lost their jobs at a factory that had closed down after the war, the family had been living off of the little money they got from a 'kushuk' or little shop that sold cigarettes, biscuits and candy to people in the neighborhood. They barely made enough to cover the cost of food! Nothing mattered. The mother and daughter were also taken away, with bags over their heads.
In Abu Ghraib, they were seperated and M. suspected that her mother was taken to another prison outside of Baghdad. A couple of terrible months later- after witnessing several beatings and the rape of a male prisoner by one of the jailors- in mid-January, M. was suddenly set free and taken to her uncle's home where she found her youngest brother waiting for her... her mother was still in Abu Ghraib but they weren't sure about her three brothers.
M. and her uncle later learned that a certain neighbor had made the false accusation against her family. The neighbor's 20-year-old son was still bitter over a fight he had several years ago with one of M.'s brothers. All he had to do was contact a certain translator who worked for the troops and give M.'s address. It was that easy.
Re: Torture.
Saturday, March 20, 2004
The War on Terror...
And where are we now, a year from the war? Sure- we own satellite dishes and the more prosperous own mobile phones... but where are we really? Where are the majority?
We're trying to fight against the extremism that seems to be upon us like a black wave; we're wondering, on an hourly basis, how long it will take for some semblance of normality to creep back into our lives; we're hoping and praying against civil war...
We're watching with disbelief as American troops roam the streets of our towns and cities and break violently into our homes... we're watching with anger as the completely useless Puppet Council sits giving out fat contracts to foreigners and getting richer by the day- the same people who cared so little for their country, that they begged Bush and his cronies to wage a war that cost thousands of lives and is certain to cost thousands more.
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Two Years...
We've completed two years since the beginning of the war. These last two years have felt like two decades, but I can remember the war itself like it was yesterday....
What followed was almost a month of heavy bombing. That chaotic night became the intro to endless chaotic days and long, sleepless nights. You get to a point during extended air-raids where you lose track of the days. You lose track of time. The week stops being Friday, Saturday, Sunday, etc. The days stop being about hours. You begin to measure time with the number of bombs that fell, the number of minutes the terror lasted and the number of times you wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of gunfire and explosions.
We try to put it out of our heads, but it comes back anyway. We sit around sometimes, when there’s no electricity, or when we’re gathered for lunch or dinner and someone will say, "Remember two years ago when..." Remember when they bombed Mansur, a residential area... When they started burning the cars in the streets with Apaches... When they hit the airport with that bomb that lit up half of the city... When the American tanks started rolling into Baghdad...?
Remember when the fear was still fresh- and the terror was relatively new- and it was possible to be shocked and awed in Iraq?
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Uncertainty...
E. was sitting at the other end of the living room, taking apart a radio he later wouldn’t be able to put back together. I called him over with the words, "Come here and read this- I’m sure I misunderstood..." He stood in front of the television and watched the words about corpses and Americans and puppets scroll by and when the news item I was watching for appeared, I jumped up and pointed. E. and I read it in silence and E. looked as confused as I was feeling.
The line said:
وزارة الدفاع تدعو المواطنين الى عدم الانصياع لاوامر دوريات الجيش والشرطة الليلية اذا لم تكن برفقة قوات التحالف العاملة في تلك المنطقة
The translation:
"The Ministry of Defense requests that civilians do not comply with the orders of the army or police on nightly patrols unless they are accompanied by coalition forces working in that area."
The following post details what Riverbend had noticed way back in 2003: that the divide between Sunni and Shi’a was becoming a political 'hot-button' issue, whereas before it has been dormant. She wonders whether it was an intentional occurance.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
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.
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.
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.... 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....
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.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
When All Else Fails...
Once again... The timing of all of this [Saddam’s execution] is impeccable- two days before [US] congressional elections. And if you don’t see it, then I’m sorry, you’re stupid. Let’s see how many times Bush milks this as a ‘success’ in his coming speeches.
A final note. I just read somewhere that some of the families of dead American soldiers are visiting the Iraqi north to see ‘what their sons and daughters died for’. If that’s the goal of the visit, then, "Ladies and gentlemen- to your right is the Iraqi Ministry of Oil, to your left is the Dawry refinery... Each of you get this, a gift bag containing a 3 by 3 color poster of Al Sayid Muqtada Al Sadr (Long May He Live And Prosper), an Ayatollah Sistani t-shirt and a map of Iran, to scale, redrawn with the Islamic Republic of South Iraq. Also... Hey you! You- the female in the back- is that a lock of hair I see? Cover it up or stay home."
And that is what they died for.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
The Great Wall of Segregation...
The Wall is the latest effort to further break Iraqi society apart. Promoting and supporting civil war isn't enough, apparently- Iraqis have generally proven to be more tenacious and tolerant than their mullahs, ayatollahs, and Vichy leaders. It's time for America to physically divide and conquer- like Berlin before the wall came down or Palestine today. This way, they can continue chasing Sunnis out of "Shia areas" and Shia out of "Sunni areas".
I remember Baghdad before the war- one could live anywhere. We didn't know what our neighbors were- we didn't care. No one asked about religion or sect. No one bothered with what was considered a trivial topic: are you Sunni or Shia? You only asked something like that if you were uncouth and backward. Our lives revolve around it now. Our existence depends on hiding it or highlighting it- depending on the group of masked men who stop you or raid your home in the middle of the night.
On a personal note, we've finally decided to leave. I guess I've known we would be leaving for a while now. We discussed it as a family dozens of times. At first, someone would suggest it tentatively because, it was just a preposterous idea- leaving ones home and extended family- leaving ones country- and to what? To where?
The problem is that we don't even know if we'll ever see this stuff again. We don't know if whatever we leave, including the house, will be available when and if we come back. There are moments when the injustice of having to leave your country, simply because an imbecile got it into his head to invade it, is overwhelming. It is unfair that in order to survive and live normally, we have to leave our home and what remains of family and friends... And to what?
It's difficult to decide which is more frightening- car bombs and militias, or having to leave everything you know and love....
To read more of Riverbend's blog, visit the archives here.
Peace to all.