July 02, 2009

Biden And The Political Reconciliation

    According to the news agencies, President Obama assigned his deputy Biden to oversee the political reconciliation in Iraq. The man is

    For the first moment, it looks so normal piece of news especially for those who don not have a clear idea about the Iraqi political situation but since the man is going to oversee the most important point that keeps the unity of Iraq, I was really surprised with the news. In fact, I did not know whether to laugh or cry because a deeper look to the whole issue makes many people wondering like me and asking few simple questions like these 

1- Does President Obama know that Biden is the politician who adopted seriously the idea of dividing Iraq into three parts (Shiite part, Sunni part and Kurdish part) in order to solve all the problems? This ideology gives one idea. The man has no idea about Iraq and its complicated mixed combination. Biden simply thinks that dividing the country will bring peace which is completely wrong because those people who implement the attacks will never stop killing the innocent people in my country. In fact, dividing the country will encourage them and give them the best excuse for more killing and they will keep saying that they target the occupation and its supporters. If President Obama knows about Biden's ideology, then the question is (why him?) I am sure there are many American politicians who can do this important and dangerous mission.

2- By the way, what does (oversee) really mean? To advise? To suggest? To watch or to interfere?

3- I do not know whether President Obama asked his deputy if he knows how many political parties we have in Iraq and what their demands are.

4- Since we are talking about the iraqi political reconciliation, Is the vice president going to discuss the issue with the Iraqi politicians or he will only depend on the American politicians and military commanders in Iraq?  

July 01, 2009

Grease the palm

Recently, most bombs in Baghdad have been caused by booby-trapped motorcycles.

Blocked roads, congestion and expensive fares are reasons made many Iraqis use motorcycles as an easy means for transportation. But for the same reasons, terrorists use motorcycles to carry out their deadly missions: killing Iraqis in markets and public places.

The Iraqi government took a special measure to protect Iraqis: They banned and confiscated motorcycles on the streets of Baghdad !

And as usual, corrupt people, who are spread everywhere Iraq of today, used this as pretext to make money.

My relative, Sami, returned recently after spending one year in Sweden running from the miserable conditions in his neighborhood. The man returned because he wasn't given refugee status in Sweden . On his long trip he lost all his savings. So, like many Iraqis, he bought a motorcycle to save the money that he was spending on taxi fares.

On the day after the explosion that shook Sadr City , killing at least 65, the government decided to ban and confiscate all motorcycles from the streets because the attack was done by a booby-trapped three-wheeled motorcycle.

Sami hadn't heard of this decision. There was no great effort made to inform people of this decision.

So out he went, happy to bypass all the poor car drivers waiting in long queues at checkpoints. Then a traffic police patrol arrested him with his son in the Karrada neighborhood.

It turns out he wasn't the only one arrested. A lot of people had hit the streets with their motorbikes. They didn't know either.

Sami spent more than two hours trying to convince the officers that he hadn’t heard of the ban. Finally, the top-ranking officer came in and asked his men "Did they grease your palm?" … "No, not yet" the policeman answered with a smile.

Sami paid the wages from his job as a bribe to save his motorcycle. And his family went to bed without supper because the police took all his money..

As usual, it is the poor Iraqis who pay the cost for the on-the-spur-of-the-minute decisions made by the Iraqi government. Innocent Iraqis are the quiet victims of corrupt officials.

June 28, 2009

Naive

June 27, 2009

Checkpoint

June 26, 2009

Great Days

During Saddam's reign, Iraqis used to have many celebrations that were holding according to the wishes of the necessity leader at that time "Saddam". Saddam used to give these days shiny names like "Dignity Day", "Chivalry Day", "the Great Victory Day", and "the Day of the Great March". These "Days" were accompanying with instructed celebrations. Iraqis used to participate in these celebrations to avoid problem with Saddam's regime.   

At that time I envied those people who have spontaneous national celebrations. After the occupation "Collapse Day" 2003, I hoped this policy would end and we would start a new life with new policy.      

Recently our new government decided to borrow the policy of naming days from the former regime. Now we have "Pride Day" which is the day of American withdrawal from the cities.  

Unfortunately many of current policies remind me and other Iraqis of former policies. Two weeks ago I attended a meeting for Maliki with the commanders of MOD and MOI. All the details of this meeting took me back to the Saddam's time staring with the speeches that were glorifying Maliki and ending with Maliki's instructions to hold celebrations all over Iraq to show happiness as if Iraqis can not experience happiness without these instructions. Yes, most Iraqis are very happy with the withdrawal of the American forces but they don’t need any instructions that remind them of dark era. Iraqis will be happy if they forget the "Miserable Days".

After six years Iraqis are still waiting for the "Achievement Day" when the successive governments provide them with the necessary services.

Hopes for Normal Life

    Since the US  invasion in 2003, Iraqis life had changed a lot. We starteddoing things they didn't useto like not leaving homes at night and watching the news carefully to have a clear idea about the security situation but we also stopped doing many things.

    One of the traditions that we gave up and especially during the sectarian violence wave in 2005,2006 and 2007 was the public parties which are hold near the house of any iraqi bridegroom.

    I attended tens of these parties for people I knew and even for ones I don't know. With the start of music, none of us stay on his chair. Everyone start dancing and singing.

    With the start of the sectarian violence, making such public parties was the craziest thing to do. I still remember my wedding party which was inside our house. I called many friends and told them not to come to the party and we can meet later because my neighborhood was a battle Field.

    Last Wednesday, I was doing my prayers when I heard a strange sound. OMG. It looks like the sound of music. When I finished my prayers, I went out quickly and I was really surprised with the scene.

    For the first time since 2003, I saw more than 200 young men gathered in our street. The first song was more than enough for them to start the crazy modern dancing which I find very odd.

    I went back home feeling happy not for the dancing but for our life which started the path back to be normal hopefully.

June 20, 2009

Rights of vermin

As If We Need An Extra Problem

    Since I was nine years old, Iraq has been living in a big circle of troubles started with the Iraqi Iranian war and didn't end with the collapse of Saddam regime. In fact, new problems came up to surface after the complete absence of law for more than three years since 2003.

   One of the most dangerous problems that we face today in Iraq is the spread of chaos and adopting it as the main principle and base for many many kinds of business. One of the forms of chaos is the unusual spread of the car dealerships everywhere in Baghdad. These dealerships caused different problems to Iraqis starting from occupying any possible space and never ending with filling Iraq with huge numbers of used cars that fill our old designed street that can not stand these increasing numbers.

    The government should do real procedures to stop this chaos because the absence of order and law makes our life more difficult adding more pain and suffering to our life which is already full with pain and troubles.

June 16, 2009

Aborted attempt at protest

With what Iraq endured over the last four decades, sometime I feel we deserve what happens to us because we are a weak people we cannot even show our protests with our facial expressions.

Today on my way to work, an event occurred that happens every day in Iraq. The road was suddenly blocked, and no one knew why. As usual, the solders deployed in the roads aimed their weapons towards the crowd.

Today was different for me because I tried to take an unusual action. I tried to read the expressions on the faces waiting in cars around me. I mean, the anger or protest on the faces of those who were forced to wait inside their cars for 15 minutes without any known reasons. In general, the delays are caused by an Iraqi politician of 'the new Iraq' leaving his stronghold.

But the faces were glad as if they were happy with what was happening. Some of them were chatting with each other, and some were listening to music on radio stations--listening to love songs while the gangs of soldiers were aiming their weapons at their cheerful faces.

At this moment I tried to do something to wake them up. I wanted to honk the horn to show a sign of protest to those who were carrying their weapons towards us. But I hesitated. I couldn’t make this trivial sign of protest. I felt afraid of such action because I was waiting a volunteer hero who would lead my anger, my revolution.

But he didn’t show up.

Here in Iraq we always wait for this hero, but it is useless to wait because, according to a verse from the Koran, God doesn't change the condition of people if they don’t change themselves first.

And we are so weak to change ourselves and defeat our fears or make any sign of protest--even honking the horn of the car to show anger.

   I think our wait will be long for the hero who will take our hands and walk us to the safe land.

June 12, 2009

There are other important things than a referendum

    We received an official email says that the spokesman of the Iraqi government declared allocating 99,5 million US dollars for the referendum about the Iraqi American Security Agreement.

    I know such a referendum is so important because Iraqis should say their opinion about such an important agreement but I believe this referendum can be implemented with the coming election in the 31st of January 2010 by adding a small field at the bottom of the electing paper with two small squares for the two options, yes or no because99,5 million US dollars is a very big sum and I really dont know why such a referendum needs this huge amount of money because it is not an electoral campaign. Also I'm sure the 99,5 $ US can be spent for more important projects like building new hospitals, new schools, water projects or even building some small housing complexes for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who don't have even one room to live in. This money can be used for more useful and important thing than just a referendum.

    Spending money in such a way gives only one message. Iraqi is not run until now by professional people which is a very serious mistake. We live in a world that is moved by money. If we keep spending money is such a careless way, we will never join the developed world. We will stay a third world country or even less.