frustrated

DAY 3.5

WARNING : I am pissed off, so I may say things I do not mean.
Things have quieted down noticably today, more promising subtitles
abound in all major TV stations...

i have a singlemost frustration which I couldn't keep until a
further post, many many people started beating their chests and
calling it a Civil War from day one, to all these people, and
some of them are some of my best friends, I have the following to
say :

Fuck you.

That's right, Fuck you Zeyad, Fuck you Anarki13, fuck you my
sectarain grandmother, fuck anyone who's done anything to wallow
in the misery of Iraq and incite more hatred, fear and death
amongst the masses, either intentionally or not.
Those blogger friends who have taken to recluse in digging up any
horrible stories and passing them off to anyone who can hear,
glorifiying any negative news they can find, please ignore these
sorry fools, they are just that way...they gravitate to the dark -
thinking it's cool, naturally, that's my stance by default
, but I find this highly inappropriate regarding the circumstance.

For example, Zeyad, a friend of mine and arguably the best Iraqi
blogger out there, has been continously adding oil to the pan by
translating to the world at large gloomy news from a decidedly
miserable website, that website almost specializies in Shiite acts
of massacre against Sunni and its neutrality and objectivity is
highly disputed, all the news Zeyad's been passing are all about
doom and gloom, stop glorifiying the death, Z!...true, shit
happens, but for all I care, all that happened is predicatble and
can be transcended easily. and you should do something about the
name of your blog 'Healing Iraq?', fast.
I'm not saying you should remain calm, but you have a tendency to
exaggerate greatly...

That website (Iraqirabita.org, amongst many others Sunni and
Shiite media) is provoking images of hatred and murder when it is
the last thing we need right now, can't you even spare us a single
act of positive news? I am not for being hypocritical, but
nobody's done anything to tell of the GOOD news happening, and
there are lots of them! At last, Muqtada Al-Sadr guys and the
Association Of Scholars issued a unified statement today, and you
can feel the impact of the deadly violence waning noticably today,
I know Iraq will pass through this, and it will actually be a good
thing in retrospect because people have got a taste of what it's
like of pitting brother against brother and it will bring the
people together.
As for 13, who immediately called it a Civil War and put his head
in the sand, well, dude, please, I know u hate Iraq and everything
but can't u at least have a little faith in yourself? Iraq is
filled with nice intellctual guys, yeah I've come out and dared to
say it. These people will not engage in this folly...

The only blogger I am proud of is 24 Steps To Liberty, his posts encourgaed me a
a great deal, thank you for being there, I will read you more in the future.


I love my country. Shit, I never knew I cared so much.

Sorry about all the fucks dude....don't mean it...just pissed off..

Men In Black...with torn slippers...

For those of u still wanting to continue on the cartoon comments debate, i've posted there, so read. now...

Men In Black....wish Will Smith was here now.

Ahhh...where to start...
Not to look like everyone else, with the before/after askariya mosques, so here goes, i won't talk shit about what happened, so I assume u know the specifics, if not, go read pretty much everybody else, god I'm so sick :

DAY1
It was the normal kinda college day, I was walking with my friend Dobi, who is a shiite from Karbala, when suddenly another shiite from Najaf, Hamchi, comes all concernced, saying'They hit the Hadi shrine in Samaraa'
Depsite his Karbala descent, Hobi is practically an atheist, he shrugs and we walk on, this is also the first time I ever hear of the Hadi shrine...in Samarra? erm...excusez moi, but ce n'est pas sunni territory? what r u saying? Hamchi is deeply into religion and is part of the UIA-related organization in our college, much unlike the Badr horrific acts, Hamchi is probably one of the nicest guys I ever met....he walked away in hurried strides.

Anyway, things continued normally for the time being, I laughed so hard that day my belly still hurts. what a stupid fool.
Until it was time to leave college...
Considering that we live in the overly Sunni district Adhamiya, several of my friends decided to stay in college today, not risking going back, I chose to go back nevertheless, better today while I can...
I rode off in several mass transit lines, all the time hammered by calls from concerned parents and relatives, not all of them neccessarily in this country. My father was the worst, he looked deeply distressed as if cursing the day he let me stay in Iraq, his voice held a tone of introvert emotion....he asked me when will exams end and when could I come to Jordan...I calmed him down in a nonchalant voice, loving his concern for me but unable to react accordingly inside a suffocating Kia.
Things were quite normal outside, except for an extra checkpoint at Sunni Bayaa, but Mansoor, Bab El Ma'dham et all did not show me anything of the horrible confusion my parents/relatives were talking about. When I reached Adhamiya, the roads were blocked in a fashion similar to that of Ashoora's celebration day roadblocks, but everything was calm and orderly, the soldiers were not demeaning or threatening in any way, as a matter of fact, they were instructing people how to find differnet routes back home. I had to walk home, I picked up my dinner on the way back home. It was placid. thankfully...You only needed to watch the TV to see the horrible news unfolding from every direction, countless mosques burned and Imams killed, people dead on the streets...
the day progressed less than tolerably...
Past midnight, there were voices outside and sounds of footsteps, mistaking it for the long-sought thieves who steal the power wires of the local generators every other five days or so, I hurried to the window, only to find several plainclothes men with rifles and Klashinkov roaming the area, After a hazy confusion, I understood, those were neighbors out in the street to warn and defend the area should any Badr militia try to go through here.
I didn't go outside anyplace today, I feel gutted and tired the same way I got out of bed. My hair is getting long too.
So far, nothing has really happened in our area, wait a minute...just now....I can hear intense gunshots to the south, there seems to be two sides, one near me, the other distant, as if replying...the sounds have subsided after a full minute.
phone call....a family friend, asking me if everything's okay....i okayed him, feeling the general tension and very much not liking it.
well, that's pretty much all that's going on. General tension awaiting for things to resolve, gunshots every now and then, and horrible news on TV and the Internet, 111 dead!So far, nothing has happened in our area, but everybody's on their toes.

DAY 2

Today was a Friday, but guessing by the curfew I expected little to no sermons today, official hoopla was to 'deny preachers the right to inflame things up and to prevent gatherigs' I don't dig the government, but that was cool. I stayed home, supposedly reading for an indefinite exam, but actually watching tragedy after tragedy on TV. 47 bodies were found in Nahrawan, laying side by side like their babies. big bearded dirty blood-soaked babies.The curfew was supposed to end till 4, but it got extended till next day.
Events have culminated in the emergence of the 'men in black with torn slippers driving pickups', who are purpotedly Mahdi's army, but Moqtada Sadr denied their allegiance, the Men in Black have took numerous mosques around the capital, anyway, district-wise, these dudes tried to enter our district through Al-Noman's hospital, and were warded off, they also tried to take over the two nearby mosques, Sideeq and Assaaf, but about 30 something neighbors received them in their underwear with a heavy dose of AK-47 spray bulleting...I got a call in the middle of the night, It was Habeeb, a neighbor friend.

'Hey kiddo'

'Hey Habeeb, something happened?'

'Naw, just bored, standing outside here with my Noss Akhmaas [AK-47], wondered if you could come and join us?'

I never fired anything in my life, nor do I intend to

'I've got nothing but my dick in my hands...plus, I gotta read, ward off the bogeymen for me'

'Thought so'

'Can't believe u carrying it, shoot a bullet for me'

'Shut the fuck up'
I looked outside to take a peek, basically, all the assorted kids of the neighborhood, after The nighttime prayer, the lights are intentionely turned low, and the warzone officialy assimilates its shape. Five roof snipers, about 10 people on the streets, all the while smoking and laughing, probably watching porn on mobile phones too... Where are we headed? I don't know, but I'm hoping Habeeb stays with two legs this evening.

To quote the old Iraqi moral, I pissed and went to bed.

DAY 3
I couldn't stand staying in home much longer, things were realtively calmer today on TV. everyone with a turban agreed on national unity, but there was an explosion in a Karbala market...what the hell. My hair was very long, I went to Habeeb, who insisted that we go to the nearby mosque to pray before we head to the barbershop.The small mosque was crowded at the low-traffic prayer of Noon, amazing! but one needs little to wonder, often in times of struggle people turn to religion.
We headed out to the barbershop, the streets were ghastly and serene, by the time we reached the shop, it was closed, 75% of the market was closed, save for a few shops whose owners live nearby.
I returned, we spent the daytime on the street, the street was narrowed down with palm tree logs that would force any car to slow down...we sat on the log and traded war stories...
'15 Badr people have infilitrated Adhamiya''People in red Opel stopped and started firing yesterday, that's the mess u heard late at night'etc etc...
So far, the only people happy with the situation are the little kids, facing empty streets, they set up small soccer fields and kicked the living out of each other, they were all happy like chipmunks.
I looked at their happiness and felt the pristine carelessness of it, savoring the moment and wishing I could live forever as a kid who don't give a shit. It's a shame, It's a real shame what's going on, but I think things can be contained after all, as long as we keep the faith, in ourselves.
Curfew's been extended too, so no college tomorrow, Yay...on second note...Yay?

Hey....Right now, Sadr dudes and Sunni dudes are gathering in Abu Haneefa, working out a unified statement. hope it's not the usual condemnation gibberish.

Yesterday, I was sick and afraid, but today things have got quieter and I got thinking, although people have died, and mosques were torn, the situation has been boiling up for two years and it had to come to a point like this..despite the many extremists and stupid folks in this coutnry, the majority, Sunni and Shiite, know what's good for them and they won't shut up. Mahdi's army or not, these people will be vanquished....Sunni and Shiite people have come together and rebuilt Qibaa mosque and prayed noon together, always be optimistic, not stupidly so, but keep the faith in yourself and your people. Some media are scaring the shit out of me, but I will ignore them.

I can't wait for these days to finish, and they will finish, because afterwards Sunni/Shiite will be closer...

Kid

Comment On Past Post

This was a normal unimportant comment but it got too long, i thought i'd put it here...

GRANDPA DAILY QUOTE :
'Dog son of a dog' -About Rumsfeld.


Gee folks...that's like the largest comment sections i ever got...

Anonymous...I wholeheartedly disagree with you, listen, your line of thinking can be followed, but I think it's somewhat incorrect because you assume that religion is treated similarly by all the folks involved, the key is not the comparison of reaction towards religious offence, but comparing reactions towards SENSITIVE topics. Difference between insults towards Mohammed and other religions is that Mohammed guys tend to take their religion much more seriously than Jesus and Moses guys, cuz that's just the way they are! Other things, such as the holocaust, face similar, if not proposterous, reactions from the Western world...I can only stare in wonder at the 3-year prison sentence given out to British historian Irving for simply DENYING the holocaust...very simple example of western double-standards, put that in your pipe and smoke it.

The evolution of violence in the demonstrations is very natural, unfortunate, true, but is a complete rational offspring of the political backdrop - I am against the violence itself, but I like the enthusiasm.
Freedom of speech is a beautiful thing, Dayez, and in a perfect world, I totally agree with you 100%, but there are subtle levels in the matter, for example :
This guy in our neighborhood, we don't like him a lot, matter of fact,one of his cousins had outright problems with one of us and nearly killed the sucker, so one day we're standing in front of his house in our regular corner when all of a sudden his hot mom comes out to water the garden, and voila, quite accidentally we see her things that should not be seen, now, considering that we kinda hate the dude, and considering that his mom is so fucking hot, so we spread the word around, calling his mom an intentional whore-under-the-blanket...
Now if the dude would react like u want, he would either ignore us, or try to talk reason with us, yes my mom wears short skirts, yes, folks, please, don't make a big thing, it's her thing, everybody has a thing, sil vous plait, oui, fuck me in the ass? yes?!?? Dude, i can't even complete that line of thought!

All this happens while we still draw naked pictures of her on the walls, and talk about how she begs for it everyday by exposing exclusive parts from the balcony...Put yourself in the dude's place, how many days would say would the guy wait before he dishes out the AK-47 for target practice? See what I mean...
some things are sensitive, very very sensitive, if these things are not sensitive to you, you should consider their sensitivity to other folks - Religion is not much of a topic in the West, except in the catholic circles, and maybe because of the ultra-violent things done in the name of the church, or maybe because of the Da Vinci Code...but It is serious here, DEAD serious.

CHALLENGE OF THE DAY (IRAQIS only):

In Da Vinci Code, Jacques Saunere writes out a complex code to his granddaughter before he dies, the code involves the reverred Fibonacci sequenece (pronounced Phi-bo-na-chi), to understand what this sequence really is about, close the door, make sure no one is around, and read the following word out loud :

Fibonaccni


L8erz
Ever Wisecracking Kiddo

Mohammed vs Laudrup

The year is 1992, I am a small kid, about 7 years old, I am frantically on my way back home, I get out from the car and leave my parents wondering in their seats....shit shit shit, I gotta get there on time...it can't be true, the bell is already ringing in my mind's eye, grandma opens, I push her aside and go over to the TV set...

and by the lordy Allah it's true, oh my Allah! it can't be!

Denmark has scored the second!
It was 1992 Euro Cup finals, Germany vs Denmark, I was a real German at the time, they exerted a much more attractive halo than the boring USA dudes who always win.
some dude named Marc Laudrup scored twice, it was my first encounter with the Danes, and it left a permanent childhood scar that forever haunted me...
so there, I told ya! u keep shutting me up but I told u and u won't listen...Denmark is the devil! Told u, for ten years I been tellin' ya....they are no use, there is no use....and now it's been done, now it's broke and ain't nobody's gonna do something about all the shit...

I wake up, go to the fridge, do a sleepy-eye makeshift inspection, and voila, there in the treacherous corner of the first drawer....what the?
An almost depelted package of Danish butter Lurpak...
Blood and sugar pressures went to the devil immediately...this is outrage! This is blasphemous, how can a Danish product survive in our god-abiding, muslim household...La, and a thousand La...I took out the cursed vile from the refrigerator and recalimed the appliance in the name of Islam.
I whipped out a knife, and with a ear-piercing 'Allahu Akbar' that startled my half-deaf gradnma I charged, cutting up the cursed butter into slices, frantically, I spread that on bread and added the nice aftertouch of strawberry blood - munching up the dreaded work of Satan quickly into oblivion, my mission to eradicate the evil conspiracy off the face of the planet was a resounding success!

Burp.

Seriously now,
I've already talked this at New York Times, my attitude was that of regret over the the Muslim reaction but with a somewhat Arabian pride - not the usual look-how-stupid-we-are stance taken by secular thinkers. Unforuntaely, I gave the Times the luxury to edit as they please, I was a wee lad, couldn't believe it, so they shelved up the Arab pride aspects - and so I felt I had to re-write my mind.
Some blogging friends of mine have already pointed out that them people who cry foul cuz the prophet's drawn are irrelevant cuz he's already been done a thousand times are a little missing the point, and so are other friends who for some unknown reason think the fuss is cuz Danish people did it are WAAY missing it...
not to sound like I'm full-of-myself selling-crap-for-cake pipe-mouth but here's my 2 cents :
First off, the publishing act in itself got the heat because of THE TIMING. The timing is critical, always, think Nirvana's Nevermind or Michael Jackko'S thriller - hitting the world at the right hour on the zeitgeist clock...
and what better timing to create a chaos when relations between Muslims and the West are constantly muddy after Septemebr 2001, the unspoken public Image of Islam has finally bared its ugliness out in the open -
Now, listen, just shut up and listen a minute before u go burning embassies and churches, it is natural somehow that this feast of uncovery would manifest itself in a country as removed from the affair as Denmark, had this occured in US or Uk, it probably wouldn't have seen the light of day cuz these people are knee-deep in shit with Islam already, they know it hurts the public image and wouldn't tolerate that kind of stuff. It's only common sense that this Western perspective of Islam would be more visible on the parts of world that are a little more ignorant of the sensitivty of such subjects and didn't forsee the true enormity nor concept of what is afoot - good ole Danes are probably the most tolerant of the lot and didn't munch about with Islamic jihaad, so they let loose what is a general overview of Islam not in Denmark but the West in general, in the same way that the cartoons aren't about Mohammed explicitly but really describes Muslims objectively, but u have to have it in a box so u can point ur finger at it, and Denmark unwittingly reaped what they sow.
I have always disliked collective judgement 'All mosul people are cheap'....'all Kuwait are Moslem Jews'....blah blah blah...So right now it's 'All danish are Islam-haters' the cartoons more or less is the indirect product of Al-Qaeda's battles with the West; the violent un-tolerant ideas they presented to the world as Islam, when u're sitting around at the best country in the world living the American Life, and some maniac kabooms a plane to ur favorite trade tower in the name of Islam and Muhammed, would u expect urself to understand the more tolerant aspects of the religion, aspects which hasn't affected u in any way or to fear and hate the gun-toting bearded dude who appears on TV and threatens to eradicate all ur life away for no particular reason of YOUR own doing?
Don't call ur friend for this one.
and so the rest of the Moslem world hung its collective world like it always did and let Bin Laden do the talking, then there's always these people :

Kid : Look at these embassies burning! They're loonies!Grandma: Why is that? They get what they deserve! those heathens, insulting our religion like this...Kid : Well i'm with the demonstrations and all, but what about the violence?Grandma: Things get out of hand...u know...too much spirit...Kid : What about the church bombings here?Grandma : That's Jew's work...like the Sep 2001....
welcome to the way life works presented by A Muslim...Jews Jews jews...Tom & Jerry? Arab & Jew! Adil Imam? Jew...Michael Jackson? Jew....Ur slipper cut off? Jew did it while u sleeping....

Aha! Eureka, we solved it! then u get these clueless Danish dudes who want to do the book about Islam, he can't find a cartoonist, so he tests the freespeech, in this rational gleeful offensive way Westerners often do.
The act was stupid, the insults intended, but perhaps innocent in not knowning how offensive! they could've did a vague Muslim caricature but they had to go and pick on the prophet himself! I believe in freedom of speech and all that, but this is kicking waay below the belt dude, Jyllands-Posten itself declined to publish Jesus-related material, citing its likely to create 'unfavorable tension'....and why can nobody diss the holocaust then? ha? answer me this?....fuckin' double-standards...
The acts of bombings, protests and embassy fires have cemented the fact that Muslims in general are intolerant and barbaric on such religious matters, and probably on all matters. In my opinion, what was needed was a reaction of dignity, a reaction that showed ur offender how small and meaningless was his childish purposes were...I'm all for the economic sanction...it's effective, suave and wouldn't hurt anybody in the physical sense, unfortunately, that is all apeshit in a nation of short-tempered history.
But i can't deny another thing....
U know...I watch these marches, and I feel it, THE PRIDE, the dangerous pride, of the ancient nation....that we can do something, we ain't as scattered, fat and torn as we have always thought we are, the force of reaction was fierce and admirable - i know it was wrong, but it was enjoyable in a sick kind of way, it's really weird, it's like when this one time Ahmedinijad was barking on the TV about not giving in to USA ways, and there's my grandpa saying :
'I like that motherfucker'
Grandpa! Why u painter, poet, Iraqi military ambassador at USA in the sixties, Sunni colonel...why would u say such a thing?
'Cuz he ain't afraid of the West'
and that's just right! he put it perfectly, the march, Ahmedinijad and even Bin Laden all cast a glint of sick, incorrect pride in the heart of every true Moslem no matter how much he tells u he condmens these vile acts, cuz we are born and raised on lost glory and the true embodiment of Islam, nevermind the nuke or the misguided Jihad, i'm talking about my own star-spangled banner, these are the only people who put up a fight when everybody's else is in bed with the powers that be.

There is nothing wrong with that pride, but the fault is in that so far there is no outlet for it except by being an outlaw.

And therefore, urgent need is now for another facet of that pride, a facet that is both morally and politically correct - the moderate Islam rising up to counter-act the four years of Islam extremism has done to deform its name.
The cartoons are a blessing in disguise, Islam has a golden opportunity now to present its moderate, forgiving core to the masses at large, at its real heart - Islam is more about free debate and forgiveness. Both the cartoons and Bin Laden are the work of extremists on either sides of the factions, extremists who try to widen the gap between cultures.
The prophet has been routinely kicked and spit upon in his early days, but he was patient, he was patient, he never did what u all did now...witness this quran verse : 'O unbelievers, I do not worship that which u worship...u have your religion and I have mine', nobody cares about it now cuz it promotes freedom of religion and that's incompatible with the common Islam idea in the west...Islam needs to abandon the sword and beard and wear the suit and tie, like Kurt Cobain once said : 'Infiltrate the system, then rot from within'

This post was more hard-hearted and cynical originally, but I watched Amro Khalid's two-centing the topic yesterday and I am ashamed to tell all my rock'n'roll-mentality brothers that tears actually streamed down my face...Islam's a beautiful thing....it's so sad what's going on...

'We have made you into different nations and cultures so that you may know and learn from each other'- Holy Quran

Unpublished NY Post #2 : Comments on Zeyad's Nightmares Post

My mother and 10-year-old brother are standing in the beginning of a busy street, i watch them from a distance, my mother leaves my brother standing behind a corner and goes shopping for something, as soon as she leaves, and as if on cue...an american helicopter whizzes above, and immediately a masked guy with an RPG appears out of nowhere, crouches and fires, I watch all this and I swear I know what will happen next, it is said that every bullet has a name on it, and sometimes u know, God pours some of Nostradamus in you and u see exactly what will happen next.
the rocket flies a short distance upward before the wind pushes it exactly to where my brother stands. I watch all this, frozen by tension and fear despite my precognition, but when the explosion happens, I scream and run to where my little brother was standing, these goddamn bastards, why my little brother? WHY WHY WHy...the most innocent, most beautiful, most loved person in all our family, i pick him up, his neck is severly holed, and is oozing a dark red blood...nobody on the street offers to help me, they have all run for their own lives and is regarding the security of their own loved ones...i lose touch of everything and run home, in wide, panicked steps...all the time looking at my brother : his eyes looking nowhere, coughing a little in sheepish innocence and oozing unbelievable amounts of dark red blood...it all happens very fluidly, as if it's meant to happen or as if i'm in some faded-out movie, i feel like i am running in a world made of jelly, while i hurry home, not knowning why...hoping he will survive, i feel a strange love inside me, i never told you how much I loved u, Mohammed, I'm so sorry, so so sorry...please forgive me....please...i keep on running until our house begins to appear...Mohammed, forgive me....
I wake up.
It's 01 midnight.I close my eyes, it's blackI open my eyes, still black, i flick the light switch in self-parody, as expected:
Still stupid darkness.
i've read Zeyad's post and i think it's a little too grandiose, this is very probably because Zeyad had gotten too involved in the warzone due to his travels, combined with his individual psycho-draft, but i, a more run-of-the-mill college students, have had no dreams of that sort, thankfully.
until the day before i read it, which i was when i had the dream mentioned above.
(shivers)
I remember very little of my dreams, they were nothing out of the ordinary - usually a meaningless mixture of random evetns, plus two recurring dreams of coming to school with an unexpected final exam and having to take a crap with the bathroom door locked.
But yesterday was different, dreams are the mirror of a human being, and maybe it's my increasing interest in politics that has instigated this particuallar dream-
here is a comparison of my dream to a dream i had in Saddam time:

PRE-SADDAM :

I am a little primary school kid, i wake up, dress and go to school...only to find out that today is Judgment Day...people from everywhere are going to my primary school, i meet my teacher on the way, who asks anxiously: Did you pray? Did you pray?
I take a praying position on the street ; it's too late...the bell is ringing.I reach school and take my place in the uniformed queue, a tall dark man in a white suit talks in the microphone, i subconsciously identify him as God, this is what he says in emotionless formality of a mandatory Ba'ath Party speech:
'Good morning, everyone, today is Judgment Day...Long live Saddam, our great leader' everybody cheers.

I wake up, dress and go to school....

this is a simplisitic Iraqi muslim kid's paranoia: there is nothing to fear on Earth, so what remains is a fear of Judgement day, with the primary school representing the center of the world. The image of Saddam : so secluded, strengthened, and haloed in the viewpoint of the people that it's hard to conceive anything ON EARTH could be above the haze he has created, even God. It's a childish nod to the validity of the visions of novels such as 1984, Animal Farm or Brave New World.A stable, secure realm - unhappy, but stable.
My last-night dream is exclusively on Earth as i know it...perhaps some personal touhces : the distance from family, the unexpressed sentimentality of a lying cynic, but other than that : it's very much representative of the general chaos, hopelessness and apathy that prevails, people are helpless, and really, nobody really cares about you but yourself. This is what i have found out a few while back when Haji Amir died. These two dreams could be a metaphorical comparison of Pre & Post Saddam.

Forgive the blasephmy, it was unintentional.

Sorry.