I am stuck with words, a horrible feeling that feeling of being stuck...with words. Yet at the same time that gut feeling, like some stone, a rock lodged in my plexus needs to be dealt with, needs to be narrated, a short story maybe...that won't give it justice.
I do what I can. I am not a passive observer, a detached spectator engaged in some scientific study...even though I try to use "reason", like some safety pad, that will absorb the other's pain....and mine.
I like to consider myself a good listener. I am also curious, not because I want to invade the other's person territory, but because I need a complete picture...this need for a complete picture is crucial for me. I am not sure how, or why, but I find it necessary...maybe by forming this complete picture in my mind, the narrative speaks by itself, effortlessly...like a river, like the Tigris, like the Euphrates...maybe also because I need to take that trip myself, with the narrator, down his and her memory lane, and in the process find mine, so all the pieces may fit into a "rational" whole.
A process of finding meaning, of tying loose ends, of uncovering secrets, lost hopes, vanquished desires and unfinished grief....but also a process of finding amid the pieces -- the resolve, the resilience, the faith...like some invisible thread that has kept it all together, in the realm of ...of Sanity... there is no better word...yes, a Sanity, that in retrospect, becomes a Life philosophy -- an acceptance of Life as it is.
It is only there, in that process of listening and narrating, does one realize, the courage, bravery, fortitude, strength, force, of the ordinary Iraqi. I don't think the word ordinary is befitting but short of a better word, I will keep it.
The very imperfect ordinary Iraqi, who has seen and experienced much, way too much...before 2003, after 2003 and until this very day... the hard times, the very hard times, the losses, the displacement, the separation, the abandonment, the neglect, the exile, the daily struggles, on all levels, plus the violence, an indescribable violence, an indescribable brutality, that has ripped through his being, and etched itself there, like some permanent sign post...yet she still manages, he still manages...to function, to interact, to create, to give, to receive...
We are not talking here of a couple of years period, we are talking decades...and that ordinary Iraqi is no blank virgin slate, she also has her own personal story, way before you appeared in her life...he also has his own "baggage" as you call it in your jargon...suitcases upon suitcase, trunk upon trunk of accumulated life traumas, shocks, losses, bereavement...
You take us for granted and we take ourselves for granted...none of you would have survived sane, none.
None of you would have been able to function...I mean just look at you, over 60 years have elapsed since the 2nd World War and it still comes up in your discussions, yet so much is expected of us, encapsulated in that dirty phrase that you so often repeat --- Get on with it.
Get on with it - if you had gone through a small percentage of what we go through, you would not even get by, let alone get on with it. But you are not what matters, you are trivia - irrelevant. What matters is us and our story...and you only appear in it to confirm what we already know about you. You are the Devil's facilitator, so to speak...at the end of the story, like the Devil himself, you are nothing but a debased creature that rots in Hell. And your role ends there, miserably so.
You story does not interest me, but ours does and it is in these instances, when the story unfolds in its minutest details, that I see that invisible thread keeping it all together...an invisible thread you will never recognize, nor understand...because you simply don't have it in you. An invisible thread that no amount of violence, of losses, of grief can severe, or cut, it is an umbilical cord, it is beyond gut, beyond viscera, beyond mind, beyond logic, something beyond your grasp, beyond your reach...not through invasions, bombs, guns, drones, jets, soldiers, contractors, mercenaries, missionaries, preachers, businessmen, marketeers, traders, politicians, parliaments, councils, committees, NGOs, development, progress, modernity, technology, satellite TV, computers or cell phones...
A something, beyond language, beyond words, that made the ordinary Iraqi in ancient times and that keeps him together today...a something that only an Iraqi can narrate -- an invisible something that gives us resilience and in that resilience we find our resistance.
January 26, 2012
January 17, 2012
Pissing Contests...
I've been reading quite a bit about the politics of "Urination", a series of articles expressing "indignation" at the video that proudly circulated, about some of your brave boys "urinating" on dead corpses of Afghans after being murdered by you.
All of you prime and proper people of "conscience" showed indignation, including your Hilarious Clinton, she's always in the habit of hilariously laughing when dead corpses appear on her phone screen. We are told that this "urination" business on dead corpses is not part of your morality nor of your ethics. OK I know you are still trying to figure out what these two words mean - morality and ethics, but then by now, we already know you use words you hardly understand the meaning of.
Frankly speaking, I don't understand why all this indignation, that has suddenly gripped you ?!
And what is this "urination" thing ? Can't you use the real words - after all your boys were pissing on the dead. Is "Urination" supposed to make it more sanitized, more medical like ? Or maybe it is supposed to make it more polite and more acceptable ? No darlings, you were simply pissing on the dead.
Is this a strange habit of yours, pissing on the dead ? Not at all.
I remember when I had the "privilege" of spending some time in England, the English boys at the closing of the pub, where they pissed themselves silly, would engage in pissing contests...who could piss the farthest. They would gather in packs like dogs, and start pissing all over the place, marking territory...How different are you from the dogs ?
My friend had a dog, when her father passed away in his bed, the dog stood still near the dead body guarding it until my friend arrived...the dog is more noble. He knew his territory and his duties...as a dog, but you pride yourselves on being "humans", "free humans"...
So pissing contests are not something so strange to your "culture", it's a male Anglo-Saxon thing, and am sure the "brave" stinks from America must have caught the Anglo-Saxon cultural bug...like some heritage, an inheritance of "values."
Furthermore why all this disconcertment, this bewilderment at "urination"? Did your not "brave" ones piss on the living ?
But of course they did, they did on numerous occasions, I reported it...but I saw no indignation then -- instead I was called a liar, a lunatic.
NO you filthy bastards, am neither a liar nor a lunatic...am truer than a polished diamond.
In July 2008 - I wrote about Ahmad and this is what I had to say :
"Once arrived, they placed them in a corner of a dirty cell and started pissing on their wounded bodies while hysterically laughing. Not contenting themselves with that alone, they (the Americans) brought in a basin used to collect shit from their mobile toilets and emptied it on Ahmad and the other detainees heads"
I was writing about Ahmad in Baghdad...I was writing about the women you tied with their legs apart until you split them in the middle...split loose from their bodies, their souls and their humanity...
I strongly suggest you re-read that post of mine - I called it "Crucified by Freedom."
No need to be so outraged, this is you.
You pissed on the living, on the Crucified, why surprised when pissing on the dead ?
Or should I say "Uri-Nation" ?
All of you prime and proper people of "conscience" showed indignation, including your Hilarious Clinton, she's always in the habit of hilariously laughing when dead corpses appear on her phone screen. We are told that this "urination" business on dead corpses is not part of your morality nor of your ethics. OK I know you are still trying to figure out what these two words mean - morality and ethics, but then by now, we already know you use words you hardly understand the meaning of.
Frankly speaking, I don't understand why all this indignation, that has suddenly gripped you ?!
And what is this "urination" thing ? Can't you use the real words - after all your boys were pissing on the dead. Is "Urination" supposed to make it more sanitized, more medical like ? Or maybe it is supposed to make it more polite and more acceptable ? No darlings, you were simply pissing on the dead.
Is this a strange habit of yours, pissing on the dead ? Not at all.
I remember when I had the "privilege" of spending some time in England, the English boys at the closing of the pub, where they pissed themselves silly, would engage in pissing contests...who could piss the farthest. They would gather in packs like dogs, and start pissing all over the place, marking territory...How different are you from the dogs ?
My friend had a dog, when her father passed away in his bed, the dog stood still near the dead body guarding it until my friend arrived...the dog is more noble. He knew his territory and his duties...as a dog, but you pride yourselves on being "humans", "free humans"...
So pissing contests are not something so strange to your "culture", it's a male Anglo-Saxon thing, and am sure the "brave" stinks from America must have caught the Anglo-Saxon cultural bug...like some heritage, an inheritance of "values."
Furthermore why all this disconcertment, this bewilderment at "urination"? Did your not "brave" ones piss on the living ?
But of course they did, they did on numerous occasions, I reported it...but I saw no indignation then -- instead I was called a liar, a lunatic.
NO you filthy bastards, am neither a liar nor a lunatic...am truer than a polished diamond.
In July 2008 - I wrote about Ahmad and this is what I had to say :
"Once arrived, they placed them in a corner of a dirty cell and started pissing on their wounded bodies while hysterically laughing. Not contenting themselves with that alone, they (the Americans) brought in a basin used to collect shit from their mobile toilets and emptied it on Ahmad and the other detainees heads"
I was writing about Ahmad in Baghdad...I was writing about the women you tied with their legs apart until you split them in the middle...split loose from their bodies, their souls and their humanity...
I strongly suggest you re-read that post of mine - I called it "Crucified by Freedom."
No need to be so outraged, this is you.
You pissed on the living, on the Crucified, why surprised when pissing on the dead ?
Or should I say "Uri-Nation" ?
December 31, 2011
Impasse...
Not a very nice title to start the new year. But an Impasse it is. And it shall remain so.
The deadlock of the Iraqi political process is not a coincidence, nor a mishap, nor wrong strategy, nor miscalculations, the Iraqi impasse is a natural outcome, a planned outcome, a wished outcome.
Failure to understand that, will always lead to a skewed view.
When the Americans invaded Iraq with a sectarian ethnic agenda, they knew in advance that the Shiite parties will have the upper hand, and will always control the political process. When the Americans came forward with bogus figures like Iraq is 60% Shiite, 20% Sunni, 20% Kurd, this ethnic sectarian division was the crux of the agenda. When the Americans encouraged, and extra funded the so-called Iraqi opposition, back during Clinton's era, knowing full well that most of this opposition was exiled in Iran, they knew exactly what the outcome would be. When both Right and Left, when both the Neo-cons like Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush as well as the disgraceful left of Chomsky spoke of some alleged oppression of Shias and Kurds in Iraq, they knew exactly what they were doing...
The Impasse is totally expected, a natural, normal outcome.
What is not normal though, is Iraqi stupidity. A stupidity that still baffles me.
When I heard some Iraqis say back in 2003 : - OK now they got rid of him (Saddam Hussein) let them leave, I used to jump from my chair possessed by the need to slap into sanity.
Why would Americans cross oceans with the largest movement of artillery and men since World War II, just for the love of your Freedom ? How could you have been so stupid and so shortsighted! Did you not read history ?! Did you not read your OWN history ?!
Well your History is being written now, but not by you. And that's a fact you will never be able to escape. Political process, reconciliation all that jargon is useless. You are not the writers of your own History anymore.
Yesterday, in Adhamiya part of the "Soooneee Triangle" (hope you managed to pronounce right by now), there were celebrations to mark the "day of Evacuation", the day we evacuated the American barbarians. Yes we did evacuate them, it did not look this way in your headlines and news captions, but 8 years of Resistance by a small group, a grass root group taught your brave little boys a lesson they will never recover from.
It is normal that we defend our land and our homes against barbarity. If you have any dignity or honor you would have done the same. We are not the slaves of America.
So yesterday in that Sunni neighborhood, which was a stronghold of the Iraqi Resistance, people celebrated, this day of Evacuation. They invited Shias to participate. No one turned up.
The Shias on the other hand celebrated today calling it a "day of Fulfillment".
One calls it EVACUATION, the other calls it FULFILLMENT.
Re-read what I said earlier, the promise by America to the Shiite parties and their supporters has been fulfilled. The promise to Iran has been fulfilled. That is another inescapable fact. But just as we are not slaves of America, we are not slaves of Iran either.
Truth of the matter is that the Silent Majority of Iraqis do NOT want Shiite party rule, nor do they accept Kurdish independence.
Truth of the matter is that the Silent Majority of Iraqis do not care what the sect of the Ruler is Sunni, Shiite or Martian, but they do care not to be ruled by Shiite parties.
This "democratic" theocracy is a stranger to us. We are essentially a secular people, we have intermarried for generations, and you will not be able to reverse that part of our story so easily.
You see, there's something you missed here, you came with an agenda for an Impasse and our refusal for your agenda has become our Resistance.
What looks like our Impasse, is in fact yours.
The deadlock of the Iraqi political process is not a coincidence, nor a mishap, nor wrong strategy, nor miscalculations, the Iraqi impasse is a natural outcome, a planned outcome, a wished outcome.
Failure to understand that, will always lead to a skewed view.
When the Americans invaded Iraq with a sectarian ethnic agenda, they knew in advance that the Shiite parties will have the upper hand, and will always control the political process. When the Americans came forward with bogus figures like Iraq is 60% Shiite, 20% Sunni, 20% Kurd, this ethnic sectarian division was the crux of the agenda. When the Americans encouraged, and extra funded the so-called Iraqi opposition, back during Clinton's era, knowing full well that most of this opposition was exiled in Iran, they knew exactly what the outcome would be. When both Right and Left, when both the Neo-cons like Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush as well as the disgraceful left of Chomsky spoke of some alleged oppression of Shias and Kurds in Iraq, they knew exactly what they were doing...
The Impasse is totally expected, a natural, normal outcome.
What is not normal though, is Iraqi stupidity. A stupidity that still baffles me.
When I heard some Iraqis say back in 2003 : - OK now they got rid of him (Saddam Hussein) let them leave, I used to jump from my chair possessed by the need to slap into sanity.
Why would Americans cross oceans with the largest movement of artillery and men since World War II, just for the love of your Freedom ? How could you have been so stupid and so shortsighted! Did you not read history ?! Did you not read your OWN history ?!
Well your History is being written now, but not by you. And that's a fact you will never be able to escape. Political process, reconciliation all that jargon is useless. You are not the writers of your own History anymore.
Yesterday, in Adhamiya part of the "Soooneee Triangle" (hope you managed to pronounce right by now), there were celebrations to mark the "day of Evacuation", the day we evacuated the American barbarians. Yes we did evacuate them, it did not look this way in your headlines and news captions, but 8 years of Resistance by a small group, a grass root group taught your brave little boys a lesson they will never recover from.
It is normal that we defend our land and our homes against barbarity. If you have any dignity or honor you would have done the same. We are not the slaves of America.
So yesterday in that Sunni neighborhood, which was a stronghold of the Iraqi Resistance, people celebrated, this day of Evacuation. They invited Shias to participate. No one turned up.
The Shias on the other hand celebrated today calling it a "day of Fulfillment".
One calls it EVACUATION, the other calls it FULFILLMENT.
Re-read what I said earlier, the promise by America to the Shiite parties and their supporters has been fulfilled. The promise to Iran has been fulfilled. That is another inescapable fact. But just as we are not slaves of America, we are not slaves of Iran either.
Truth of the matter is that the Silent Majority of Iraqis do NOT want Shiite party rule, nor do they accept Kurdish independence.
Truth of the matter is that the Silent Majority of Iraqis do not care what the sect of the Ruler is Sunni, Shiite or Martian, but they do care not to be ruled by Shiite parties.
This "democratic" theocracy is a stranger to us. We are essentially a secular people, we have intermarried for generations, and you will not be able to reverse that part of our story so easily.
You see, there's something you missed here, you came with an agenda for an Impasse and our refusal for your agenda has become our Resistance.
What looks like our Impasse, is in fact yours.
December 29, 2011
Intentions...
There is no such thing as Forgiveness.
Forgiveness is a handy word you invented...so you can get away with it. There is first Justice be done, followed by Forgiveness.
I am aware of all the proponents for Forgiveness...they are usually Predators. For, who will ask for Forgiveness but one ?!
Had it been a one time off, an independent case, a singled out case , a something out of the ordinary...I would have forgiven.
After all, humans are known to err...imperfect beings that they are.
But...
But, this is not a one off, nor an exception, this is a repetitive pattern, a repetitive pattern I have learned by heart (by the way that says much about your creativity or lack thereof...)
How can you forgive a repetitive pattern ?
Repetition means a deliberate repetitive Intention.
When someone intends --- you have to equal that power of intention...
Politics is all about interests, but it is also about intentions.
You Americans did not harbor the best of intentions towards us. You were in fact ILL intentioned (maybe that word does not exist, so there you have it now) ILL-intentioned.
When they wish you ill...if your body is weak...you will become ill...the Iraq body was weakened...over 13 years of sanctions debilitated the sick man till his death...
This was Your intention.
There is nothing to debate here, nothing to argue.
I spit on your condolences cards, your funeral attendance. I look at your attention, your intentions...
And I see it today.
Forgiveness is a handy word you invented...so you can get away with it. There is first Justice be done, followed by Forgiveness.
I am aware of all the proponents for Forgiveness...they are usually Predators. For, who will ask for Forgiveness but one ?!
Had it been a one time off, an independent case, a singled out case , a something out of the ordinary...I would have forgiven.
After all, humans are known to err...imperfect beings that they are.
But...
But, this is not a one off, nor an exception, this is a repetitive pattern, a repetitive pattern I have learned by heart (by the way that says much about your creativity or lack thereof...)
How can you forgive a repetitive pattern ?
Repetition means a deliberate repetitive Intention.
When someone intends --- you have to equal that power of intention...
Politics is all about interests, but it is also about intentions.
You Americans did not harbor the best of intentions towards us. You were in fact ILL intentioned (maybe that word does not exist, so there you have it now) ILL-intentioned.
When they wish you ill...if your body is weak...you will become ill...the Iraq body was weakened...over 13 years of sanctions debilitated the sick man till his death...
This was Your intention.
There is nothing to debate here, nothing to argue.
I spit on your condolences cards, your funeral attendance. I look at your attention, your intentions...
And I see it today.
December 25, 2011
Lost....Lost Homes.
Women are peculiar beings...whoever, whatever they are...they are always attached to home.
Our home is our shell, our protection...the men may come and they may go, but our homes are our shelter...you take away our homes, you strip us naked...
Many of us Iraqi women have been stripped naked that way, some of us even more, a full striptease...until we ended up in brothels...
Most people don't understand...most people are stupid, make no mistake about the human race...very few of these fuckers are worthy of respect or consideration...they will only understand when they lose a home...until then, don't count on neither - nor their empathy, nor their understanding.
Specially don't count on empathy from those in the "first world", they are too polluted, these are people cut off from the most basics...they are far gone - down. Forget them.
Truth is -- don't count on anyone...take stock of your losses, all of them..all of them...if need be, ruthlessly strip yourself from the grief...and count...keep counting...
Turn that grief into the real thing...into an accounting exercise. Your language does not count no more...the language of grief, of feelings, of emotions, of sentiments, mean shit...you need to learn a new language...the language of accounting, of adding up figures...of even out...
This is the language they understand...speak to them in the language they understand.
You may never recover your home, your protective shell, but at least you would have learned a new language. You have been taught a new language for well over 9 years now... Speak it. And speak it well.
Our home is our shell, our protection...the men may come and they may go, but our homes are our shelter...you take away our homes, you strip us naked...
Many of us Iraqi women have been stripped naked that way, some of us even more, a full striptease...until we ended up in brothels...
Most people don't understand...most people are stupid, make no mistake about the human race...very few of these fuckers are worthy of respect or consideration...they will only understand when they lose a home...until then, don't count on neither - nor their empathy, nor their understanding.
Specially don't count on empathy from those in the "first world", they are too polluted, these are people cut off from the most basics...they are far gone - down. Forget them.
Truth is -- don't count on anyone...take stock of your losses, all of them..all of them...if need be, ruthlessly strip yourself from the grief...and count...keep counting...
Turn that grief into the real thing...into an accounting exercise. Your language does not count no more...the language of grief, of feelings, of emotions, of sentiments, mean shit...you need to learn a new language...the language of accounting, of adding up figures...of even out...
This is the language they understand...speak to them in the language they understand.
You may never recover your home, your protective shell, but at least you would have learned a new language. You have been taught a new language for well over 9 years now... Speak it. And speak it well.
December 17, 2011
A New Iraq.
The New Iraq is a pathetic non entity of a nothing...a mediocre product of a new world order...a country that can't tell what is what, who is who, which is which...a country where every moron becomes a spokesman for something he understands nothing about...and behind all this facade of verbal diarrhea, the diarrhea of Freedom and Democracy, lies an autocratic rule, run by Shiite parties and Shiite militias where black chadors and black flags adorn every street, every neighborhood, where not one poster, but thousands of posters are plastered on every corner, the same faces, the same turbans, the same titles....titles, all forged titles, forged diplomas,
forged ministries, forged identities, forged history, forged...
The new Iraq is a forgery...a fraud...a FRAUD, a fraudulent experiment, a fraud of conscience, a fraud of morality...a make believe, a lie...
Not the BBC, nor the CBS, nor the ABC will tell you any of that...they are there to sell you the final product, the experiment...the drug of Democracy...the FDA approved for consumption.
Iraq is a ravaged country, right down to its very fiber...all the rest is make up...the make up over scars of a savage makeover...the dabbing of eye shadows, creamy foundations and rosy blushers over a deformed face...a last minute dab in front of world projectors...
A Savagery, a barbarity that is now embedded in me...like one of your embedded reporters...like one of your experts, like one of your specialists... I carry that savagery everywhere I go...a flag, a symbol, a second skin...a new me...a new Iraq.
forged ministries, forged identities, forged history, forged...
The new Iraq is a forgery...a fraud...a FRAUD, a fraudulent experiment, a fraud of conscience, a fraud of morality...a make believe, a lie...
Not the BBC, nor the CBS, nor the ABC will tell you any of that...they are there to sell you the final product, the experiment...the drug of Democracy...the FDA approved for consumption.
Iraq is a ravaged country, right down to its very fiber...all the rest is make up...the make up over scars of a savage makeover...the dabbing of eye shadows, creamy foundations and rosy blushers over a deformed face...a last minute dab in front of world projectors...
A Savagery, a barbarity that is now embedded in me...like one of your embedded reporters...like one of your experts, like one of your specialists... I carry that savagery everywhere I go...a flag, a symbol, a second skin...a new me...a new Iraq.
December 11, 2011
Persistence behind Shadows...
I am constantly confronted with people's shadows...it is usually a mix of light and obscurity, and at times, most of the time - just pure obscurity. Seeing through the obscurity is not easy...it takes much focus, much senses, much intuition -- to feel your way through...
Painstakingly so.
If anything or anyone has been shrouded in much obscurity, it is Iraq. Not Palestine, not Syria, not Libya, not Egypt, not Yemen, not Tunisia, not Bahrain...not anywhere, but Iraq.
At least with the others, if it is any consolation, even though it is not, the faces have names, some story one can write about, a location one can refer to...in our case, we remain anonymous, faceless, nameless, history-less.
Iraq is the Haggar, the slave woman that no one pays attention to. Let her run and fend for herself...let her seek and beseech...she is nothing but a slave woman.
The cover up is still thick, a dense veil, a black Chador...hiding the Truth, the Reality.
It does not matter anymore how many posts I write denouncing, exposing, nor does it matter anymore what I say or don't say ---there's a consensus out there, a final verdict - Iraq is a done deal, let's move on...
And what if I don't want to move on ? And what if I wish to remain stuck because not all is said, because not all is exposed ? What then ?
Am told it is no longer important...am told there are Springs awaiting us.
The reader is always on the lookout for a new story, another piece of meat, to consume...I have no more stories, my stories are repetitive and in their repetitiveness they have a message, that you never digested...that you never really swallowed...that you have never bitten into...
I want to bring back Iraq to the very forefront, yes, to the very forefront of the battlefield.
For me there are no troops withdrawing, for me there is no pull out...the imprints are there. The soldiers boots are there, the debris are there. You will not efface that, just like that, simply put, in between deadlines.
I will not move on. I refuse to move on. I am adamant in staying put, picketing deadlines and checkpoints...I am adamant in the face of Shadows. I am adamant in the face of Silence. I am adamant in the face of willful Forgetfulness.
I am stubborn, I stick to it, I stick to what I love, even if what I love has become a Shadow of itself.
You will not get away with it. Not yesterday, not today, not tomorrow, not after the famous deadline for a "withdrawal"...your good conscience Coitus Interruptus, when we are to swallow the morning after pill...abort monsters before they are due...outside delivery rooms of labour pangs ...the new birth pangs of your New World Order...of your new Middle East...that you are for ever trying to invent and re-invent...
A bit of democracy here and there, toilet paper publications and congresses for the good abiding Arab/Muslim.
Lulling us with religion, handpicked scholars and "open minded" preachers, shoving band aids on our wounds...like some comedian being ushered on a stage, at gun point - make them smile and laugh - he is ordered.
No, and a thousand No's. Iraq is not a clown.
I have seen way too many lives broken, I have seen way too much grief to become the good Arab, to become the acceptable audience that you hope for.
I am the dirty agent, that belongs to no one...I just do it for Truth, for Fun...yes Fun...I love it when an irrelevant voice like mine, an inconsequential one, goes at it again and again, in the monotonous repetitiveness of a story too often told...
I don't care, if it falls on deaf ears, I don't care if it is just a whisper, a murmur...all I know is that it is a voice from behind the Shadows...it is real, it is here and it will not let go.
Painstakingly so.
If anything or anyone has been shrouded in much obscurity, it is Iraq. Not Palestine, not Syria, not Libya, not Egypt, not Yemen, not Tunisia, not Bahrain...not anywhere, but Iraq.
At least with the others, if it is any consolation, even though it is not, the faces have names, some story one can write about, a location one can refer to...in our case, we remain anonymous, faceless, nameless, history-less.
Iraq is the Haggar, the slave woman that no one pays attention to. Let her run and fend for herself...let her seek and beseech...she is nothing but a slave woman.
The cover up is still thick, a dense veil, a black Chador...hiding the Truth, the Reality.
It does not matter anymore how many posts I write denouncing, exposing, nor does it matter anymore what I say or don't say ---there's a consensus out there, a final verdict - Iraq is a done deal, let's move on...
And what if I don't want to move on ? And what if I wish to remain stuck because not all is said, because not all is exposed ? What then ?
Am told it is no longer important...am told there are Springs awaiting us.
The reader is always on the lookout for a new story, another piece of meat, to consume...I have no more stories, my stories are repetitive and in their repetitiveness they have a message, that you never digested...that you never really swallowed...that you have never bitten into...
I want to bring back Iraq to the very forefront, yes, to the very forefront of the battlefield.
For me there are no troops withdrawing, for me there is no pull out...the imprints are there. The soldiers boots are there, the debris are there. You will not efface that, just like that, simply put, in between deadlines.
I will not move on. I refuse to move on. I am adamant in staying put, picketing deadlines and checkpoints...I am adamant in the face of Shadows. I am adamant in the face of Silence. I am adamant in the face of willful Forgetfulness.
I am stubborn, I stick to it, I stick to what I love, even if what I love has become a Shadow of itself.
You will not get away with it. Not yesterday, not today, not tomorrow, not after the famous deadline for a "withdrawal"...your good conscience Coitus Interruptus, when we are to swallow the morning after pill...abort monsters before they are due...outside delivery rooms of labour pangs ...the new birth pangs of your New World Order...of your new Middle East...that you are for ever trying to invent and re-invent...
A bit of democracy here and there, toilet paper publications and congresses for the good abiding Arab/Muslim.
Lulling us with religion, handpicked scholars and "open minded" preachers, shoving band aids on our wounds...like some comedian being ushered on a stage, at gun point - make them smile and laugh - he is ordered.
No, and a thousand No's. Iraq is not a clown.
I have seen way too many lives broken, I have seen way too much grief to become the good Arab, to become the acceptable audience that you hope for.
I am the dirty agent, that belongs to no one...I just do it for Truth, for Fun...yes Fun...I love it when an irrelevant voice like mine, an inconsequential one, goes at it again and again, in the monotonous repetitiveness of a story too often told...
I don't care, if it falls on deaf ears, I don't care if it is just a whisper, a murmur...all I know is that it is a voice from behind the Shadows...it is real, it is here and it will not let go.
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