Colors of an Occupation.

You know something, I still can't get over it...

However much I try, however much I twist it, turn it upside down, look at it from a thousand angles, I still can't get over it.

I simply can't come to terms with a very simple fact--this Occupation (Zionist American and racist Iranian - and I will never cease repeating it) has managed to turn a modern country, a modern state, a functioning entity, a sovereign nation into a rubble of sectarianism, corruption, theft and murder.

Think about it for a minute...In the space of 5 years, this country has been turned into a disfigured entity, a monster.

Many of you can't see that. I'll tell you why - because in the recesses of your minds, you have this automatic voice like a tape that keeps playing and which says - "Saddam was a dictator, he was a bad man, so yes, it is unfortunate but..."

We really need to get to that voice inside your heads that keeps repeating these injunctions and turns you into parrots, because it is these injunctions that prevent you from fully recognizing how Iraq has been deformed into a grotesque place, and it has become only a place, nothing else, a place of bloodied thorns...

Make no mistake about it. What do you expect from a Woman who has been repeatedly gang raped for over 5 years? Close your eyes and try to imagine any woman you personally know who has been gang raped for 5 years, daily, daily, daily...

What will she look like now ? Can you see her ? I do.

Here was a Woman, who had a mission, a function, laws, a system, a state... Here was a Woman who like the Queen of Sheba commanded an army, an economy, a polity...Here was a great ruler who cared for all her subjects, regardless of their ethnicity, religion or gender...She had a vision. She had a plan. She had a dream...

Here was a Woman, tall and proud, characterized by her perseverance, endurance and dignity, cognizant of Her own history, of Her roots, of Her past battles, Her defeats and Her victories.

Here was a Mother struggling along, "tant bien que mal". Here She was patching up, making ends meet, feeding hers, ingenuously fixing things, rationally prioritizing...Her aim was survival. Yet She still found time to beautify herself, spread her knowledge, culture, art, music and even supporting others during Her hardest times...

Here was a Woman I knew...I once knew. I had met Her, cohabited with Her, lived inside of Her...I embraced Her, loved Her, and She took me to her generous bosom...She took it all, the ugly and the pretty...Until,

They arrived at dawn, just when the Light broke and scattered the night, like golden dust...And they pulled the thick black curtain down, and exploded their fiery projectors...Balls of fire fell like yellow snow flakes, breaking through the thick curtain and showing bits of indigo sky...The earth shuddered and shook, and the Light recoiled back...far back.

And since that day, they took turns, armies of men, colored of mud, and everything else took on their colors, a feces brown mixed with a green, a darkish green the color of mold...

Her the chameleon, turned into a desert lizard, a desert dragon, spitting back...

And Noah's ark sunk...in a flood of blood, engulfing young and old...

And the brown and green turned into a crimson red, rivers, oceans of red...

And She turned into arrows, like poisonous thorns, red, bright red...

Then the bodies multiplied taking on a dark navy blue, a blue black, and blue black colored everything...

She became the endless blue black velvety night. Darkness all over. But Her's was a smooth darkness like a touch of satin...And She is satin to me.

At night, when all was silent, she would scream in the abyss, scream and scream...and during the day She would run from morgue to morgue gathering in more blue black for the following day...picking limbs from streets, heads from ditches, engraved names from pieces of flesh dispersed in markets and alleys...

She'd pick them up and remember. Here is Ali, and this is Omar, and there is Fatima and over there Aisha...and these are the left overs of Hanna and those of Marie...

She picked up them all up, and found more in anonymous mass graves, and She recognized each single one of them...

She would roam the streets, in rags, pick up some more, and beg for food and shelter.

She'd look around the corner and see them all lined up begging with her...

Do you recognize the Woman she has become ? Do you recognize the Woman you have turned her into ? Do you recognize the brown, green, red, blue black Woman.

Do you see the color of excrements, the color of mold, the color of fire and blood, the color of bruised clots, of bloated dead bodies, where life has stopped flowing...Do you ?

Can you see Her ? I can.

And I can't get over the fact that this what You've done to Her. Will never get over it and will never accept it.

I will never accept your colors. Ever.


Painting : Iraqi artist, Jabel Al-Saria, 2006.