Iraq is Catch-22: I Give Up

I've given up on Iraq in the same way I've given up on Islam.

it was a moment that, taken by itself, is virtually meaningless, but it somehow finally allowed me to realize the relentless build up to the conclusion that was becoming clearer to me everyday as I read more into Iraqi contemporary history, Islamic history, and the methods of Western involvement in the region, and as I talked more with "Iraqis" around me, (that word will forever be in quotations now in this blog).

That moment occurred about a week ago, I was reading an article by Ali al-Dabbagh, spokesman for the government of Iraq, on his personal website, that article is called 'Towards Building A Shia National Identity.' Several sectarian Sunni websites were outraged about it, I was curious for some insights into the personal views of the kind of people inside the Iraqi government, his article was equally sectarian: the text, which I remind you, represents the view of a high official in the united democratic Iraqi government, bitched in the usual shy and sly manner of Shi'i polemics about the continous '14 centuries of terrorism' genocide against the Shia, the murder of 12 Imams by 'them', then this vengeful masturbatory buildup is cut short at the time of release, it then proceeds to navigate means to keep the Shia in power, implying a high degree of religious factionalism. It reminded me of the al-Furat channel in its very early days, when it hasn't yet heard of Public Relations, it pretended that all of Iraq was Hardcore Shia and there were songs to Ayatullah Sistani in every break. I found it hilarious at the time, what did I know.

It was at this historical moment of time that I realized that these people are never going to change, that the hope I was secretly having that those cockroach Islamists would mutate some form of understanding of modern state principles such as co-existence, that the dumbshit Americans would bully them into it somehow. It's obvious that those people are only using 'democracy' as means, never an end. By the way, our freely elected democratic leader issued a law to 'close all nightclubs' in Baghdad recently.

***

I spent my stay in Syria in my aunt's house, who is a pretty active member in the Sunni Islamic Party, the life of that household revolves around one cause entirely, the women are all dressed in drab, terrain-colored titcurtains (jubbas), their knowledge of music is limited to Islamic heartthrobs such as Sami Yusuf, and the television is perpetually tuned to Iqraa'a channel, for an undercover kafir like me, it would've been pretty much eternal damnation if it wasn't for the presence of videogames, (I later learned that they accused me of being a negative influence on the mosque-trekking activities of my male cousins, who took my presence as an excuse to skip the daily Dawn Prayer at the nearby mosque).

So anyway, one day my cousin decides to meet with his friends, who are more active members in the Islamic Party, we are navigating the famous Soq il Hamidiya when one of the ubiquitous pictures of Sayyid Hasan Nasrallah provokes one of the them to instruct me in a hushed, secret-in-the-know tone that the 2006 Israel-Lebanon's true cause was....because a village in Southern Lebanon became Sunni and the Shia and the Jews made it all up to kill all those nawasib. When I politely tell him to suck his own dick and die, the other guys says that al-Askari Shrine was bombed by the Shia themselves, a theory as exquisitely magnificent as saying Osama bin Laden plotted the bombing of the Kaaba, my cousin, who is sectarain but to a less offensive degree, supports me by saying it was the Americans who did it. Remember that all of these people confess to what you know as the 'moderate' form of Sunni Islam in Iraq.
After laborious dialog with two of my cousins, in which I have to circumvent mentalities that still think Sunnis are the majority in Iraq, I finally got them to be reluctantly convinced that secularism is the only way all Iraqis could be truly united by the many common things they have, after a pause, my other cousin relents, "but the only real identity is Islam, Iraq is fake."

This, in a nutshell, sums up the identity of those Islamists, Sunni and Shia, in politics, the Sunni Islamic Party appears more accommodating to the ruling Shia only because it is, like all minorities, is very self-conscious of its weakness as a minority. but its rank-and-file, formed of moderate families such as my own, is as good sectarian people as they come, they are 'moderate' because they don't want to kill the Shia, that doesn't mean they don't hate them.

my aunt, who doesn't even wear hjiab, got a habit of printing out the sort of anti-Shia sectarian fliers and distributes them around...

Don't forget my uncle, whose idea of a reconciliation strategy consists of nuking all the Shia, as he tell me from his comfortable couch.

Of course, this never transpires in public, because two of my uncles got married to Shia before everybody started wearing hijab.

My mother, whom I regarded in my Muslim days as the epitome of what a non-sectarian, cosmopolitan Muslim is having a hard time with me whenever I bug her about my more informed crticisms of some disgusting historical or religious events in Islam, I recently told her that voting for Islamic parties means voting for the division of Iraq, she responded in the same way as my cousins, "It's not because I'm sectarian, it's because I trust them, they're honest [because they're religious]." I said, I'm sure there are pretty decent honest folks in al-Dawa party, would you vote for them? She said "of course not. Their religion is different from ours, to each his own, my boy." To each his own! To each his own piece of the country! what a hypocritical bunch you all are!

Those people will never change their mind, they simply can't, Islam is their raison d'etre. Islam is what made them powerful, it's what gives them purpose, they see how something's wrong, but they try to work some excuses around it, and in the end you will find them voting for those people "they serve True Islam(c)", and then of course there are the annoying people who tell you "Oh, it's politicization of Islam that hurt it so", "Oh, those parties do not represent Islam", until we find that magical version of Islam that all the scholars, dynasties, and ayatollahs have been unable to locate in the past 1400 years (ever since Ali died, or to be more precise, since Umar, who really was the first Arab emperor and colonizer, died), we have to stick with your cute excuse "Ha! Yesterday was different from Today, Ha! The clerics are the ones who get it wrong", it's cameldung, of course, because Islam is an eternal system of government that is fit for all times, even though it thinks comets are divine rockets launched at demons who eavesdrop on God's oval office, and it never separated from politics ; Those people will always find some other Islamist dumbfuck to vote for, because the error is not in the character of a certain person, and in a country where there are two versions of Islam, it's pretty hard to actually act towards people who curse your saints or killed your Imams as your countrymen when you take that sort of shit seriously.

In fact the entire idea of a country means that you have to forget the terrible blood that's been shed between your countrymen, let me ask you this, how could you build any sense of national identity when your countrymen are celebrating their civil war anniversary (Ashoura) passionately every year? To lament the memory of some asshole who unfortunately inherited none of the good qualities of his father except for one : his pompous arrogance, arrogance so huge to think he can stop the birth of an empire by only his name and a bunch of women and children. Do you know why Sunni-Shii tensions go high on Ashura every year, because it's always been this way, they fought over it in 2006 the way they used to fight it in the streets of Abbasid Baghdad, and those hate-mongering Passion Play Ziyarat only serve to remind them of their civil wars, with on side feverishly denying it and the others obsessively trying to prove it, who in France is upset now about the terrible French Wars of Religion? How would Catholic French feel if Protestant Frenchmen would hold an anniversary every year for their martrys?! How is that healthy for a true united nation. Imagine showing The Passion of The Christ all-year long, and taking it very seriously. Since you won't take my words for value here they are on the tongue of the Iraq Info God, Hanna Batatu : "But Islam in Iraq has been more a force of division rather than integration." (p. 17)

and forget secularism, okay I'm told that the Sunni are somehow more 'secular' (and by that, I persume they mean the honor-killing tribes of al-Ramadi, who subscribe to a code of laws even more ancient than Islam), Iraq is a Holy Land for Ali's sake! The marjiya has been established there for several centuries now, I don't think people will just up and say 'fuck it' to Sistani, we're light years away from any mass awakening such as the French Revolution, or any Revolution. Democracy in Iraq will always, always yield those results, if we let people vote, this is what we're going to get, If America truly cares about Iraq, it would have acted to Iraq's democracy the way it acted towards Palestine's democracy, but this theocratic baby is born and raised by Freedom-Loving Uncle Sam, whose biggest friend in the region is the Wahhabi counterpart of backwardness.

So choose democracy, and you get theocracy, which will highlight those differences we could afford to ignore under a secular regime, the Sunnis will never accept it except when they're all but obliterated. What's left? Secular Strongman? been there my friends. This is why modern Iraq was always ruled by injustice, some people will always be forced not to have it their way. It's either this, or true separation.

I'm too angry to be articulate, I'll try to be once I calm down. It seems, inexplicably, that Mister Ghost, my nemesis, has reached conclusions similar to mine, unfortunately, the hateful article he links to is all true.

I got back to listening to Shia masoshistic flagellations recently, they bring me to the edge of crying sometimes, which is pretty ironic considering how much I hate al-Hussein, I just realized that my avatar is dressed in green, my name is Abbas and my blog is called 'Shaqshaqa', I'd probably fake it as a good Shia citizen in our future state.

"O Mahdi, who never forgets his vengeance"
"O Mahdi, we anxiously await the return"
"Don't forgive them, cut off their ancestry"
"For they are the ones who cut off the apostle's"
"He who denies the breaking of the rib inhabits the hellfire!"
-anti-Sunni Shia latmiya (although could be directed at Fadalallah)

يلما تنسى ثارك
ملينا انتظارك
يتأملك يالمنتظر ضلع الوديعة
السيف بيمينك ما تغفى عنك
لا والذي جن و انس صارت تعبده
كوم التكيدك تصلبها بيدك
عالشجرة من اول صنم و الثاني بعده
الأول تصلبه ثارك تطلبه
و تطالب بذاك الفدك و الحق ترده
وللثاني تكصد من عنده تنشد
لمن كسر ضلع الطهر يا غاية عنده
من يبدي الندامة لا تقبل كلامه
هو الذي بيده كسر ضلع الوديعة
لا تغفرلهم اقطع نسلهم
ذوله الذي كطعوا نسل سيد البرية
بارينا رايد حفظ الأماجد
هو الحفظ نسل النبي رغم الاذية
الماضي نعوفه الحاضر نشوفه
جم زاهد بزاهد ترك نهج الرعية
بأسم الديانة يصرح لسانه
وبلا حجج ينكر كسر ضلع الزجية
واليلزم عناده متفيده العبادة
يسكن صقر كلمن نكر ضلع الوديعة

******

NOTE: After accusations of copying entire paragraphs, al-Dabbagh has removed this article, but I found through the Wayback Machine here.

How I Lost Faith In Allah : Christians, Sorry for bombing your infidel asses lol

There is a long draft post in my blog archive called simply 'God', whenever I had some ideas about the subject I'd go and scribble a bit there, it has been there probably since the very beginning, today I decided to go and have a look at it, it is kinda funny and makes no sense, starting with yours truly cluelessly defending the wonderful spiritual fulfillment of God, and then slowly descending into a black rage against all that is holy.

*****

I'm sure that by now that you all know the long and short of exodus of Iraqi Christians, so I'll skip the details, what I am going to focus upon is how religion (and not political religion) is the first enemy of Iraq, and I will draw an example straight from the Iraqi blogosphere: during the massacre, the typically nice Marshmallow26 publishes an honest, hateful, agonized post, it is worth noting several important things about this post, which help us understand the view of many a mainstream Christian:

1. Marshmallow's post is a condemnation of all Muslims. Although she calmed down afterward and started saying that she only wants the cute pokemon-y peaceful Muslims to condemn the zombie Muslims, Marshmallow26 has previously complained about mainstream Muslim harassment of the Christians in Mosul, and one time, when I teased her by impersonating an angry anti-Christian fundie, she didn't get the joke and actually thought I was being serious. All this seems to suggest that deep in her mind, the problem is not new, and can be logically connected to the attitude of the Muslim population at large. This untrusting view is something I have mostly noticed in Christians who are not from Baghdad, in my opinion, the only satisifying explanation to this is demographics: Baghdad's Muslims are not anymore tolerant, but Mosul's Christians are more visible and louder, which would incur the displeasure of Muslims more easily. The configuration of religious hostility in the world is largely determined by the size of religious communities and their visible manifestation in any given religion (in Baghdad, although Christians were threatened and pushed out of their homes, their plight took a backseat to the larger Sunni-Shia war). When some Jihadwatch regulars posted extremely anti-Muslim commentary, Marhsmallow did not engage them in any debate whatsoever, which seems to suggest to me that she is in agreement with at least some of their points.
2. A very strong sense of hostile religious identity. When you get to the bottom of it, Muslims are our enemies. But Marhsmallow has to love her enemies because Jesus tells her so. Then she says that she'd die for Jesus and would not give in to the 'corruptors'.
3. Repeated stressing of the claim to the registered trademark 'Original Iraqi' label applied to Christians, as opposed to the Muslims, who are implicitly accused of being 'occupiers' and 'corruptors'. Ho ho, join the Saffavid-Seljuki origin debate, too bad you're only 3%, no muscle, and as I said, it's all about how much you number.
****
In the comments section, we get to witness the usual apology circus by Muslims,something like 'oh, you got it all wrong, Islam has nothing to do with all this, we're peaceful lol', when A&EIraqi smartly tries to show the error in Marhsmallow's emotional generalization of Muslims with his own generalization of the US Army as a Christian army, Marshmallow misses this point and suddenly adopts a rational mode of thinking.
This illogical adherence to one's specific religion is one of the reasons why I stopped believing in the beauty of God. When my three friends were killed, we had a prayer for them at the university mosques, and then we took their mock coffins and put them side by side at the entrance of the hall, each coffin had a small photo of the person who is supposed to be in it, and I took a long look at the faces, shifting my eyes from one to the other, I could detect no difference whatosever between any one of them, all were very pleasant, polite early-20s Iraqi guys who had been raised each according to his family's religion, yet according to all the three religions these people subscribed to (Sunni, Shia, Christian), only one of them will go to heaven, based of course on what religion will turn out to be the one God really favors. I did not realize it then, but that was the moment when I first started suspecting the idiocy of religion, those people had no hand in choosing their religion, they simply inherited it from their fathers, and they would have a hard time accepting any other faith than theirs, because all religions carry errors and mistakes that cannot be overruled by logic without any significant suspension of disbelief, and what sort of fair justice would be to send two of them to your hell just because they didn't get lucky to follow your chosen creed? and even if they got your moody 'makrama' and got all to heaven because you didn't leave them room to think it through and killed them before they even had the chance to even see a little bit further than their B.Sc. certificate, what about the untold millions of people who simply inherit the religion of their fathers? the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Taoists? Why would they go to hell? Because they didn't think? and what is the chance, once we start to get in logical intra-faith discussions, how many people do you sincerely expect to be convert from their father's faith? very few, people of religion are programmed to tweak every argument in favor of their own religion, they would simply stand against all common sense when criticizing their own religion, but proceed to become philosophers on the spot when it comes to bashing the shit out of the other religions, for really, why would you expect Christians to see the stupidity in beliving that in order to save man, God decided the only way is to enter a woman's vagina and have a son, or for Muslims to be actually convinced that it's somewhat ok for their prophet to have 13 mostly cute chicks (including a preschooler) when Islam only allows four or that their religion spread by conquest, or for Shia to see that the continous abandonment of their Imams by God at times of trouble is something that is in direct contradiction of the supposed relationship between God and his apostles in the Quran, whereby God directly intervenes to prevent the almost imminent death of Jesus. They will simply find workarounds in their books, they would confuse you with highly useless mumbo-jumbo الأحوط وجوبا etc in order to sound knowledgabe, and they would eventually sastify themselves with their answers, in reality, the more you begin to examine religion, and how you would easily find that no system is really perfect, the more angry and confused you become at the major scam God (if any) is pulling on us here. To quote Phillip K Dick on the way religion tries to be grand when it solves absolutely nothing:

"I've been researching solemn theological matters for five years now, much of the Wisdom of the World has passed from the printed page and into my brain, there to be processed and secreted out in the form of more words: words in, words out, and a brain in the middle wearily trying to determine the meaning of it all. The other night I started an article on Indian Philosophy in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the time was 4 AM ; I was exhausted, and there, at the heart of this solemn article, was this: "The Buddhist idealists used various arguments to show that perceptions does not yield knowledge of external objects distinct from the percipient...The external world supposedly consists of a number of different objects, but they can be known as different only because there are different sorts of experiences 'of' them. Yet if the experiences are thus distinguishble, there is no need to hold the superfluous hypothesis of external objects..."
That night I went to bed laughing, I laughed for an hour, I am still laughing, Push philosophy and religion to their ultimate and what do you wind up with? Nothing. Nothing exists. As I said earlier, there is only one way out: seeing it all as ultimately funny."

This would be all fine and dandy if it was pigeonholed in some unimportant category in the life of the general population, but it's effectively killing Iraq, the idea of Iraq as a nation-state where citizens are equal, because religion, all religion, is preferential of a certain group of others, and when you strongly advocate those identities, the others would certainly feel more attached ot theirs, and this is why Iraq, as a nation-state was always ruled by a dictator, those people will never find a way to really accept each other, because the problem is directly in their religion. Religion divides us and makes us hate each other, they all pretend it's all good when they're on public, and this is something that has puzzled me all the time when I see any public gathering, if everybody is so good and caring for Iraq, then who the fuck is doing all this unprecedented killing? Who? it doesn't take a lot to figure out who, just let them go back to their privacy and see them exposed as they really are.
So these Christians, Sunnis, Shia, would fight between themselves all the time, each strongly faithful to their own religion, for why is Marhsmallow's dedication to the martyrdom of Jesus Christ any less brainwashed than any of our own typical Jihadi sympathies? In one way or another, they will keep quarreling between each other, no one will really prevail except through suppression, or separation, and so dies our country, Iraq, irredeemably. Like Phillip K Dick, Seeing it all as funny is indeed the only way out, and this is why I'm going to book a front-seat with some popcorn with extra butter and laugh out as hard as I can at the Death of Iraq, from now on, fuck hope, I'm going to adopt Benjamin, the sarcastic donkey in Animal Farm, as my role model.

Al Pacino is an angry, charming bastard in most of his films, but look at his interview with the Actors Studio and what you'll see is a humble, pathetic nice man. I'm like that. if you meet me in real life, you might find me as a nice and pleasant man, and I don't want to be like Pacino, this is why this blog is called 'Catharsis', because I still don't really know how to become an angry asshole in reality. But, hey, I'm trying, because I can no longer contain this bubbling anger any longer, I cannot wait for the moment when I can live somewhere where I can say, freely and openly, how much I hate Him for being so distant, so unclear, so unrealistic, so dismissing of our intelligence.

P.S. As an example of Baghdadi Christianity, my Christian friend from Baghdad is pretty sure the Kurds did it, to carry the 'plot of the Jews', he solemnly advised me to read "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Another example of how stupidity is spurred by all religions (to be fair, not just religion, but religion has the way of convincing you that other creeds are wrong, evil and bent on mischief ولن ترضى عنك اليهود و لا النصارى حتى تتبع ملتهم), my Catholic Assyrian Christian friend seemed pretty upset about the growth of Evangelicals in Iraq too, who seem to heavily supported by some 'sources'.
----------------
We laugh, but inept is our laughter,

We should weep, and weep sore,

Who are shattered like glass and thereafter

Remolded no more.

Abu al-Alaa al-Ma'ari

في اللاذقية ضجةٌ ما بين أحمد والمسيح
هذا بناقوس يدق وذا بمئـذنة يصيح
كل يعظّم ديـنه ياليت شعري ما الصحيح
دين وكفر وأنباء تقص وفرقان وتوراة وإنجيل
في كل جيل أباطيل ، يدان بها فهل تفرد يوما بالهدى جيل
ضحكنا و كان الضحك منا سفاهة و حق لسكان البرية ان يبكوا
يحطِّمنا ريب الزمان كأننا -- زجاج ولكن لا يُعاد لنا سَبْك
نَزول كما زال أجدادنا ويبقى الزمان على ما ترى (المعري)

Now playing: فريق الكندي - تقسيم قانون - لقد فتنتني إفرنجية - لا صبر لي

Saddam: The Arab Hope By Way of Stalin

Whenever I read one of those interviews which highlight the more progressive side of Saddam Hussein, there is a deep sense of frustration at what might have had happened had things been more forthcoming : had Saddam been less of a megalomaniac and had not the Islamist tide turned its ugly head in ; true, Iraq was built on sectarian foundations, and it's eventual for him to be part of the sectarian composition of politics in the end, but Saddam was largely interested in his own tribe for loyalty before his own sect. This great interview with Said K. Aburish, previously linked by our sectarian friend Iraqi Mojo, perhaps offers one of the more interesting profiles of Saddam Hussein : a brutal dictator who wouldn't "hesitate to kill 50% of the Iraqi population to bring Iraq into the 20th century," and most interestingly a schizophrenic who simultaneoulsy thinks in tribal and modernist fashions.
Everything makes sense in this interview, Aburish, a Palestinian who surprisingly has no misgivings about what Saddam Hussein really is, paints him as a cruel Machievllian but in a somewhat apologetic tone, as if he was in many times forced to adopt the path that he had taken, and because in the end his cause is to bring Iraq "into the 20th century."
Many people around the world are saying that for Iraq to survive it should be led by a secular modernist, but that does not seem to be necessarily achievable except by crushing the horrid religious factions squabbling all over Iraq, i.e what you need is a strongman who favors the nation-state (as opposed to religion) like the ones US employ all around the Middle East. Saddam Hussein was all of that, the problem for the United States is that Saddam Hussein was not your average Jordanian or Egyptian ruler, he was an ambitious workaholic who actually wanted to change the status-quo and make a name out of himself as the leader of a self-reliant Arab superstate, and this is why they kept him busy with equally ambitious Khomeini and destroyed both countries in the process, if anything, this interview exposes beautifully the criminal role the United States played many times when dealing with Saddam, such as the several measures they implemented to curtail him after the Iran war ended, as well as helping to stop the 1991 Uprising against him from actually happening, Aburish makes sense when he says that the United States viewed Saddam as a necessary evil because without him Iraq would disintegrate, which is what's slowly happening right now. Aburish also makes a correct distinction between the Arab and Iraqi perspectives of Saddam, the former, knowing but certainly less affected by his genocides view him first as the anti-Western imperalist, while Iraqis the other way around.
While Aburish states that Saddam had no real ideology, it seems to me that the greatest problem is just that, that Saddam came to represent the Pan-Arab ideology, the problem with the latter is that it is a secular version of Sunni Islam, the two share the ultra-nationalistic outlook with the major battles, the brave heroes and the conquest, and when it comes to dealing with extraneous entities, such as Shia, whose version of Arab history is one of oppression and injustice, or non-Arab Kurds, the Pan-Arabists employ a simple solution, forcefully impose their ideology without really trying to integrate those different sects into a meaningful entity, this is what Karfan means when he says that al-Assad managed to convince Alawite Syrians that they're bad Muslims, or the huge Baathist literature which stresses the fictionalized differentiation between 'Good Jaffari Shiism' and Saffavid Shiism (which really means all of Shiism). Saddam came to start his Arab leader project from a country that is barely Arab, and yet sometimes when I read about the Saddam of the 70s, the one of progress and modernization, the one I never saw, it looks like a fairytale dream to me that we would've been much better off than coming to terms with our fragile existence as a true nation-state. One of two ugly things seem to be more likely to happen than true democracy after Saddam:

1. Iraq ceases to exist as sectarian and ethnic realities unfold.
2. Religious parties will rule for a very long time.

It's curious to see what America is really going to do with Iraq, at the expense of millions of deported and dead Iraqis, and the death of Iraq itself, as for us Iraqis, as we look around the only remotely successful in our region are the sellout rich ones who are aligned to the West, yet this sort of prosperity is artificial (how many people told you Dubai has no soul?) and contains not a slight amount of humility, but it seems to be the best course for Iraq right now, we've had enough wars, we just want to live and if we get lucky enough and get an isolationist secular dictator who defeats all these Islamist bugs and is quite content at being a stooge, we just might. Our dream of having a truly intrinsic, genuinely patriotic leadership seems elusive for the moment. And of course, America will sell us out the moment we do not conform to its own interests, but for the moment we seem to share goals and on the long run there seems to be no other way.
Go Alusi Go.

The Russians have voted their mass-murderer Stalin the number two Russian of all time, and only 28% see him as a bad person (49% positive).

What Every John and Lucy Should Know About Mithal al-Alusi

by Ibn al-Hawazin Aboosi

LAST WEEK

I barely have time to settle in my seat at the annoyingly plush Pastiche Café before Sayyid Hayder al-Khoei, taking a puff from his peppermint-orange nargeela, asks me concernedly whether I have seen the bravura in the Iraqi parliament-of-sorts concerning al-Alusi's visit to Israel. I'm sure all of you have heard the long and short of Al-Alusi's sin, for the hermits on the moon it suffices to say that Mr. Alusi made a stop at Jewtown, came back to Muslms-R-Us and got an expected upheaval culminating in a revocation of diplomatic immunity.

It is pretty amazing that there still exists a person in Iraq such as al-Alusi, who can have the admiration of such sectarian-ly disparate people such as me and Mr. al-Khoei, if we were to play strictly by the rules of modern-day new-fangled democratic Iraq™, then I hail from the devoutly Saddamist Adhamiya, he the grandson of a late Shi'i World Leader ; we have every reason to poison each other's nargeelas while smiling smugly for the cameras, and even though I could be described as something of a new convert to irreligiousness, Sayyid Haider is very conservative [and married, at 20! good luck!] granted, both of us are decidedly secular, and pretty much share a similar view regarding almost everything political ; However, I have seen many supposedly levelheaded people who eventually went with the tide and embraced the sectarian identity they felt they had to choose, too many, in fact, which caused the current confessional parliament to be installed in place. I myself have made that mistake and voted for the Sunni 618 bloc back in 2005, if you remember correctly, I was too afraid and felt nobody is speaking about those horrible Badr murders, except Harith al-Dhari, with such heroes becoming sectarian is eventual, and it's a hard thing to truly shed sectarianism, it took the death of my friends to truly realize its folly.

WHY I LIKE AL-ALUSI

There are many secular Iraqi politicians in the vein of al-Alusi, but none of them seem to appeal to such a diverse margin of Iraqis as al-Alusi, I do believe it largely has to do with one thing alone: he has guts and showmanship. Al-Alusi blasts Arab dictators with unwavering condemnation and disgust at their despotism and double-standards, he doesn’t hold a thread of reverence for Saddam Hussein, and he never ignores his crimes disrespectfully in the vein of virtually all Sunni politicians. Yet this hostility does not seem to be fueled by racist anti-Arab orientations in the vein of certain Shi'i polemics, but more because of the backwardness of those systems of government. He is straightforward, dashing and explicit. Just look at his party title "The Iraqi Ummah Party", the choice of phrase is significant because nobody dares to voice the view that Iraq as a 'nation' (Ummah) by itself in such a flamboyant manner, basically, no Arab country ever uses the phrase 'Ummah' except when it describes the Arab Nation, the Arab countries are mere 'republics' or 'states', parts of the whole, and this is yet another substantial portion of al-Alusi's maxims, the underlying suggestion in his party's title is that Iraqi Ummah is something quite separate from the Arabic Ummah, an uneasy thing to sell (other examples include Phoenician Lebanon and Pharaonic Egypt). But what sets al-Alusi's Ataturkian ambitions aside is that he doesn't seem to have much stock to invest in all those theories that attempt to link Sumerians to modern-day Iraqi Arabs, which often has very hostile anti-Arab connotations, again , al-Alusi seem to be driven in that direction out of practicality ; Skipping questions regarding the validity of an "Iraqi identity", al-Alusi embraces it unquestioningly and by embracing Iraq as the foremost homeland, he seeks to follow a program that can successfully reflect the desires of the entire spectrum of "Iraqis", bypassing Sunni and Shi'i identification and for the first time truly treating everyone equally ; it doesn't take a while to figure out that undertaking the mission of building a truly stable Iraqi identity where religion occupies second place is not necessarily in the interest of the tyrannical Sunni Arab countries that surround it, who have helped fuel the sectarian war alongside Shi'i Iran, all sides would not benefit from a strong non-aligned Iraq rising from the ashes. Therefore, Al-Alusi's only reasonable partner is the West. His unnecessary showmanship in visiting Israel publicly seems to solely convey this explicit fuck-you approach to Pan-Arabism and Pan-Sectarianism, he says this to Iraqis: I am of a different breed.

ARAB UNITY

This approach is appealing, while I identify as an Arab, and have nothing personal against fellow Arabs, but the interference of Arabs in Iraq has always been misguided and negative, completely oblivious to what Iraqis want, and is as harmful as Iranian interference.

This Mithal al-Alusi stint led me thinking a lot about the proper position and identity we must have, between Iraq, the Arabs, Palestine and America. Until very recently, I had a soft spot for Arab Unity, but on thinking it over I've come to the conclusion that its best we worry about forming an Iraqi identity first before pondering ideas of what is in the interest of "Arabs". The idea of childishly integrating vast countries together with vastly different economic, cultural and religious values seems only to have much weight in sentimentality.

On the other hand, a shot at an "Iraqi" identity, however muddled and baseless historically that identity is, is quite possible. Indeed, it is known that Iraqi Shia and Palestinians share a mutual hatred, but are Sunni Iraqis any more loving of other Sunni countries? I've never met an Iraqi Sunni who identified with non-Iraqi Arabs more than he identified with his Shi'i countrymen. If anything, the similarities between Sunni and Shi'i Iraqis suggest it to be more doable than, say, a union between Sunni Jordan and Sunni Palestine.

REACTIONS AROUND THE WEB:

Hardcore Baathist Iraqirabita.org launched a petition to 'revoke the Iraqi nationality from Dirtbag Mithal', out of 5226 readers, only 432 have signed.

SIIC's unofficial news agency Burathanews.com was naturally scathing. Publishing opinion pieces and articles against al-Alusi.

Saudi-based liberal website Elaph has an interesting 4-part eyewitness account that praises al-Alusi's overall goals but includes several important criticisms, describing him as willing to impose democracy and the concept of an "Iraqi nation" by force and describing the people around him as opportunists. Most commentators favored al-Alusi.

Commentators on al-Arabiya.net's news item regarding al-Alusi's stunt was overwhelmingly and surprisingly positive, predictably, the ones who were negative were either Arabs or ultra-fundies. Maybe there is hope after all.

Angry Arab provides a great rude example of why Arabs could be harmful to Iraq, he predictably looks at Mithal al-Alusi, who he probably has never heard of before, through the prism of Palestine ; This one-dimension worldview can wear off quicker than you might imagine, what might be good for Palestine doesn't necessarily translate to be good for Iraq, and after all, the Iraqi problem is by and large unrelated to the actions of Western entities, which is why Arabs are having a hard time tackling it, all America did is bring it all to the surface.

Secular website Kitabat.com launched an uncharacteristically mouth-frothing campaign against the parliament, descending to a comedic vocabulary so typical of Baathists as personified by al-Sahaf. There were some anti-Alusi articles thrown in for good measure, but there is a great article contributed by German-based Iraqi politician Dhiaa al-Shakarchi, a former Dawa member who resigned from the party having seen the horrors of [political] Islamism, he is currently a secular Muslim, and he manages to sum up my feelings very eloquently:

Yes, perhaps I do not interact with the Palestinian cause as an Islamic cause, I view it as Palestinian first, humanitarian second, and perhaps Arab third.

Yet as we sympathize with the rights of the Palestinian people, we condemn as Iraqis the inexplicable support by radical Arab and Islamist Palestinian movements and its popular bases to the enemies and murderers of the Iraqi people, starting from Saddam and his sons and ending with al-Zarqawi and al-Qaeda. We also condemn the Iranian interference in the Iraqi, Palestinian and Lebanese affairs, and we would not exaggerate should we say that Iran played the most corrosive part in Iraq's destruction, but that does not make other regional and international sides innocent. The foremost international partner would naturally involve condemning fatal US mistakes in Iraq, but I would not look at America as an enemy, in fact I support a friendship that maintains the sovereignty and security of Iraq's democratic project to protect it against Iran's corrosive action and the radicalized factions of Islamists and those with a sectarian political agenda, but if it is clear to us that there is an American conspiracy against the aspirations of Iraqi people then we must surely adopt an entirely different position, albeit balancing the strength of our national convictions with political realities at hand.

As of Mithal al-Alusi's recent visit to Israel, one must say that the man managed, through unparalleled courage to present through his media appearances a political discourse with an effective and distinct national flavor, especially with his equally damning condemnations of Sunni sectarian terrorists and Shii sectarian agents. However, this does not mean we support his visit to Israel, an action that is surely a horrible political mistake committed without the slightest reasonable justification.

Perhaps the man had certain calculations we are unaware of, and it is not unlikely that the predictable uproar swings from the political fall from grace everyone is betting on to a sizable popular base in his favor, especially if we take into consideration that the figures who attacked al-Alusi in parliament are disliked by a great majority of Iraqis, as they are the figureheads of political powers that seek to establish sectarian politics and are often accused of being complicit with Iran. Thus many Iraqis who reject those political powers might support al-Alusi against those forces as an exhibition of their disappointment.

Sotaliraq.com publishes the results of a poll that might confirm some of the things al-Shakarchi talked about:

Do you think parliament must remove immunity from any Iraqi MP that visited or shook hands with an Israeli official? (No 76%, Yes 24%)

Should Iraq fight Israel in place of Arabs and Palestinians? (No 90% Yes 10%)

There are three Facebook groups in support of al-Alusi, the largest has members in the 500+ 750 apx, which is impressive considering Iraqis slow apprecation of Facebook. (it was 500 two days ago)

****

One can definitely be skeptical about al-Alusi, in the end of the day one can say so much without really having to do something. And the enormity of realizing that identifying with Iraq might necessitate an isolationist policy is not something easy to accomplish. However, taken at face value, al-Alusi seems to promise something, he is undertaking a great risk with what he's doing and he has already lost two sons in the process. He has my full support.

The Baathist Model in Iraq and Syria

This time I stayed in Syria for half a month, unlike the previous 3-day stint two months earlier, which was basically a poor attempt at a booze-and-booty adventure in the vein of hypocritical Middle Eastern men, this trip was like Will Smith, very G-rated, family-oriented and fun. I found it extremely refreshing and got to spend half as much money as the first.

"Syria is a beautiful country." This is the first line Riverbend wrote in her last blogpost, of course, she quickly followed it by: "at least, I think it is." The addition is necessary because Syria is not beautiful in the modernized sense of Western civilization, its streets are dirty, the electricity cuts off an hour everyday, and autocracy assures you of its dominance in every inch of the streets. Riverbend attempts to explain her impression by saying that as an Iraqi she persumes she'd take safety and security as beautiful no matter what, but I feel this analysis to be in error*. 'Amman is significanly more pretty, chic and advanced in services and architecture than Damascus, but, in the words of an Algerian reporter I met last year "it has no soul", Damascus has loads of cultural (old city) historical(Umyyads) and natural soul(Qasiyoon), but most importantly, it resembles pre-war Iraq almost unbelievably.

Which brings us to the main point: the extra time allowed me to ponder a comparison I've tried to make ever since my first trip to Syria, to count the similarities between Baathist Syria and Baathist Iraq.

###########	Iraq	Syria
Independence	1932	1947
Flag (Longest Surviving)
Population	29 million - ([this year] – 2003) x 1 million)	19.4 million
Ruling Party	وحدة مرية اشترا كبة	وحدة مرية اشترا كبة
State Constitution	20% Sunni rules 60% Shia, Other minorities favor the 'secular' rule of the minority against the Islamic tendencies of the majority.	10% Alawi rules 74% Sunni, other minorities act the same as Iraq's.
Demographics	Shii (Imami), Sunni, Kurds, Turkmen, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Armenians, Mandaeans, Yazidis, Shabak.	Sunni, "Shii" Alawi, Shii Imami, Shii Ismaili, Druze, Kurds, Turkmen, Assyrians, Armenians.
Things That Make 9/11 Look Silly	Halabja (3,000) (Sunni Arabs vs Kurds) 91 Uprising (180,000) (Sunni vs Shia) Anfal (50,000)* (Sunni Arabs vs Kurds)	Hama (25,000) (Shia vs Sunni)
Government Sponsored Edutainment	Abu Gharib Prisons	Tadmur
Claims To Fame	Sumer, Babylon, Nineveh, Wheel, Writing, Saladin.	Oldest City In World, Ebla, ermm...?!?
Caliphates	Baghdad, Capital of Abbasid Caliphate	Damascus, Capital of Umayyad Caliphate

Death Counts are listed at their maximum for both Iraq and Syria, the 91 Uprising figure is from the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry.

The most interesting part of this comparison to me is the sectarian model of government, theoretically, the model is almost identical, both countries have a minority that rules under secular guises a majority it is historically hostile to. But the regime in Syria has been relatively much more cautious and gentle in its treatment of the majority, the reluctant diplomacy of the Syrian regime in comparison to the uncompromising Iraqi brutality is a trait that exhibits itself almost everywhere you look, even in the respective heads of state, as noted by US ambassador April Glaspie. So how could we explain this? Is it just a difference of temperament between Syrians and Iraqis?

Perhaps it plays an effect, but I think an important factor lies in the identity of the dominant minority sect in either country. The orthodox faction, the Sunnis, are 85-90% of the Muslim World, and so when they ruled in Iraq they assumed a supremacy that was historically natural. All the education books (history, and religion) we studied in elementary schools were 100% Sunni, sometimes even implicitly molded to counter Shia arguments (a chapter about the strong relationship between Ali and Umar, for example) The Sunnis stubbornly refused to accept the majority percentage of Shia in Iraq, before Iraq became independent, it was always ruled, except for brief interruptions, by Sunnis. So when push comes to shove with the rise of Shi'i Islamic movements as part of the general religious awakening in the whole Muslim world, the Sunni government found no qualms in entirely suppressing all religious Shia practices. The Shia, historically and religiously attuned to suppression and tyrannical rule, did not act against this ban with the veracity one would expect from a majority oppressed in its own homeland.

and so it is only natural that the Nusayri pseudo-Shia Alawi regime in Syria would manifest its Shia identity in Syria somewhat cautiously. To the Alawis, who are a very small minority who lived in the mountains and are considered extremists by Shia themselves, this moment of rule is historically without precedent. (the magnitude of such an accomplishment can be felt when imagining Saudi Arabia ruled by its minority Shia, or Iran by its minority Sunni) and so, education in Syria remains, as this excellent report shows, traditional, rigid, and entirely Sunni. Sunni worship is accommodated graciously, even after the Muslim Brotherhood Hama revolution and was never really made to feel actively threatened or assaulted full-on, in fact, the report goes so far as to say that Alawis have traded their religion for political power, effectively becoming Orthodox Sunnis, attempting a process of integration in the pan-Arab identity which is closely intertwined with Sunni Islam (read it).But I don't really think that they've abandoned their religion entirely, instead, they are coy in pushing up their own version ; for a 10% minority, they are ubiquitous, pictures of Bashar al-Assad and Hasan Nasrallah together are a no-brainer and are visible everywhere, hell, I even saw pictures of Khomeini and Khamenei together with the words 'Leaders of the Nation' plastered next to a clothes shop, something I haven't ever seen in Iraq. When I went to help the Ba'ath Party neighborhood official who owned the apartment of my relatives install Yahoo Messenger on his computer, the first thing I saw inside his house was a large poster of Nasrallah, at the corner of the street, I encounter a young man with 'Ya Ali' tattoed on his arm, many Iranians walk the streets, Shia books are sold side-by-side next to Sunni ones in the street, Kiosks turn on Shia sermons freely...the references are endless.

The question presents itself, if for some reason America decided to do to Syria what it did for Iraq, would they end up with the same results? Would the minority, supported by an unbreakable relationship with Iran, cause the same havoc the smug, historically confident minority in Iraq did? Or would they turn back to their mountains in acceptance of their historical outcast status vis-a-vis the majority Sunni and forget about it? I don't know, maybe, but it's too costly to find out, and Iraq is the biggest proof of that.

===================================

*("to be in error"?!? fuck, I'm getting too scholarly. Here's an extra fuck to balance it out: fuck. That's three fucks, and with the last one it's four, all hail Fred Durst for this lame joke.)

Religious Holidays

The number of Shiite holidays in Iraq has now reached 111 days per year, reflecting the growing sense of religious freedom and political power associated with the Shia faith in Iraq today. Shiite holidays now put Iraqi security forces on alert for 30% of the year. [more...]

كم صدام في تاريخ الأمة العربية المجيدة

منسي الطيب
عرب تايمز
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
كاتب عراقي مقيم في الولايات المتحدة
Email: mansialtaib@yahoo.com
كم صدام في تاريخ الأمة العربية المجيدة

لم يكن (صدام بن أبيه) ، بظلمه وجوره وطغيانه ، حالة استثنائية فريدة من نوعها في تأريخ العرب والمسلمين ، بقدر ما كان كغيره من الأقزام المتفرعنة امتدادا حتميا لمن سبقه من الخلفاء والحكام والقادة العرب الذين أصبحوا في ما بعد سُنة وشريعة أعراب متبعة لمن بعدهم من اللقطاء المتكررين بنطف آبائهم المقذوفة في رحم الزمان المغتصَب.

يؤكد علماء الإجتماع الغربيون على ان الإنسان بن بيئته. وصدام لم يكن كذلك فحسب ، بل كان إبن تأريخ عربي قذر مزيف ومزور ومقلوب ومكتوب بدماء الضحايا ليجعل منهم ظالمين ومن قتلتهم مظلومين ومغبونين ومفترى عليهم!

كثيرا ما سألت نفسي هذا السؤال: ماذا كنت سأفعل لو كنت مكان صدام؟ وكنت كلما أعدت السؤال على نفسي ، يكون الجواب نفسه في كل مرة ، وهو اني سأقتل وأذبح وأعذب البشر وأدمر البلدان وأحرق الشعوب وسأفعل أكثر مما فعله صدام بنفسه وبشعبه وبأمته العربية المهزومة مادام هناك من يصفق لي ويبرر جرائمي الوحشية للعالم!

وإذا كان صدام قد اختبأ في حفرة من حفر المخازي والعار -- التي لا تليق حتى بجرذ أجرب -- هاربا من قدره فإني سأختبأ في حفرة أقذر وأحقر من حفرته ، ليس خوفا من عدوي أو فرارا من قدري لكن هربا من انتمائي لهكذا أمة عربية مريضة ترى في الجبناء أبطالا ورموزا قومية ودينية.

ومَن يحاول أن يسأل نفسه هذا السؤال وتكون إجابته مختلفة عن إجابتي ، فليحمد ربه -- أيا كان هذا الرب – لأن السائل لم يكن عربيا مثلي!
لماذا؟

قد يختلف اثنان من الأعراب حول شخصية عربية وقائد اسلامي مثل خالد بن الوليد. سيّما إذا كان المختلف الأول سنيّا يرى في خالد القائد والمجاهد وسيف الله المسلول في ميادين الذبح والسلخ واغتصاب النساء. وكان المختلف الثاني شيعيا تعوّد على الظلم والإضطهاد واللطم والبكاء واتقن فنون التقية التي يتجنب بها شر أخيه المختلف الأول في نظرته الى خالد وأمثاله من عشاق الدماء.

لكن ، ماذا لو كان خالد بن الوليد شيعيا؟

أكيد انه سيصبح سبأي مجوسي بن متعة وسيجرده التأريخ السني العربي الرخيص من السيف الذي حباه الله به لقطع رقاب البشر ، وسيجد الشيعي -- في المقابل -- لخالد ألف نص ديني يبرر له إجرامه وإرهابه وطبخه لرؤوس أعداءه في قدور الطعام ، وسيكون اغتصاب خالد بن الوليد للسيدة (ليلى) في نفس اليوم الذي قتل فيه خالد زوجها الصحابي (مالك بن نويرة) أمامها نوع من انواع المتعة المحللة في القران!

المسلم الشيعي لا يختلف كثيرا عن المسلم السني في نظرته إلى الرمز والقائد العربي الجبان بقدر ما يختلف معه في كيفية انتهاز الفرصة -- التي دائما ما يفشل فيها الشيعي -- والجلوس على عرش السلطان واستغلال كل النصوص الدينية المقدسة لصالحه الشخصي ، وحكومة اللصوص العراقية الحالية خير دليل على ذلك ، إذ ان هذه الحكومة قد وعدت العالم مجبرة بديمقراطية عراقية نموذجية تكون الأولى من نوعها في تاريخ العرب والمسلمين؟ ولا أعرف من أين كانت ستستمد هذه الحكومة تعاليم وقوانين ديمقراطيتها وهي عربية إسلامية ليس في تاريخ عروبتها الطويل من الرموز ما هو أهون في الإجرام والإرهاب من خالد والحجاج والرشيد والسفاح وصدام وغيرهم؟ وبالتالي أثبتت هذه الحكومة للعالم أنها ليست قادرة إلا على الهدم بدلا من البناء والعمران والسرقة بدلا من ارجاع حقوق المظلومين وتعويضهم، وإذلال الشعب العراقي أكثر من إذلاله في عهد الديكتاتورية السابق.

وإذا كان الشعب العراقي في السابق مظلوما ومضطهدا ومحروما من حقوقه ، فالآن مظلومية هذا الشعب أكبر وأضطهاده أكثر ونصيب حرمانه أوفر ، ولا أدري مَن هو المسؤول الحقيقي الأول عن هذا كله؟ هل هي أمريكا التي أرادت عن قصد للشعب العراقي أن يجرّب الحكم الشيعي الفاشل بعدما جرب حكم السني المستبد لأكثر من ألف وأربعمائة سنة هجرية فأورث العباد ثقافة الحزن المؤبد واللطم السنوي وسايكيلوجية الثارات المرفرفة براياتها على أعمدة الكهرباء المقطوعة منذ سنين؟

الإثنان ، الشيعي والسني ، لا يصلحان للحكم ماداما ينهلان تعاليمهما الديمقراطية المقدسة من بئر عتيق واحد ، هو بئر زمزم الذي حفره أبوهما ابراهيم الخليل الذي وُلِد في مدينة الناصرية العراقية وترك عائلته المسلمة في مكة السعودية ليذهب الى مدينة الخليل في فلسطين بعائلته اليهودية الثانية ليصبح بعد ذلك أبا دينيا لأكبر ثلاث ديانات سماوية إرهابية متناحرة في سبيل الله ، والضحية تكون دائما الشعوب المضطهدة المبتلية بتأريخ سخيف لا يمجد إلا الطغاة والقتلة والصداميين.
وكم صدام في تاريخ الأمة العربية المجيدة؟!

Baghdad Muralists Resist Push for Sectarian Themes

To coincide with this recent Yahoo news story (below), I decided to upload all the mural photos I could find, they're not as easy to find as before, the fifth one is my favorite.

(click to enlarge any picture)

BAGHDAD - It's art ornamenting life: murals of soothing landscapes and historical heroes covering the blast walls that are now as much a part of Baghdad's cityscape as date palms and desert dust. The idea took off last year when Iraqi aid groups sought to provide work for young artists — and offer a bit of hope and a splash of color to a city whose signature hue is oatmeal brown.

But fully rising above Iraq's sectarian suspicions has proved a challenge.

Many members in the founding group of artists are putting down their brushes to protest requests from neighborhood councils to depict politically charged sectarian themes such as Sunni shrines in Sunni districts or Shiite saints in Shiite areas.

"We'd rather refuse the work than do that," said Ali Saleem Badran, one of the original crew of muralists in the Jamaat al-Jidaar, or the Wall Group. "That is not what this work is supposed to say."

But that is what Baghdad has become: a quilt of Sunni and Shiite enclaves after years of sectarian killings and threats. While some displaced families are crossing the lines and returning to their old neighborhoods as violence ebbs, the capital may never fully regain its place as a true mixing ground for Iraq's religious and ethnic groups.

The mural project began in early 2007 when Iraqi civic groups approached aspiring and student artists, including Badran who was then in his last year of art school.

Hundreds of concrete slabs — each about 12-by-6-feet and designed to shield against car bombs and other threats — were gradually turned into an open air art gallery meant to boost spirits and kindle optimism.

It's a bit like the Baghdad version of other acts of art in the face of adversity, such as the New Deal-funded murals during the Depression or the tangle of messages and figures on the western face of the Berlin Wall.

But rumbles started a few months ago, Badran said, when the program was transferred from loose government oversight to neighborhood councils that began suggesting sectarian images.

Many of the original artists have refused to take part. Local dabblers have often taken up the slack with less refined — but still potent — references to either Sunni or Shiite roots.

"They want to take an idea that was supposed to unite the city and express the things that divide us," said Badran, now a professor at the Fine Arts College in northern Baghdad.

City officials have tried to clamp down on overt sectarian symbols, but watching over the miles of blast walls borders on impossible. The best they can do is appeal for reconciliation.

"This is the year of reconstruction. This is the year of building," said Tahseen al-Sheikhly, civilian spokesman for Baghdad security operations.

For now, most of the paintings on blast walls are apolitical, portraying themes on the region's past as Mesopotamia, the Sumarian and Assyrian cultures, Baghdad's place as an intellectual heart of the medieval Islamic world.

Others show the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and ziggurats, the terraced temple towers that once dotted the Mesopotamian valley.

Still others depict stylized scenes from Arab myths and literature — Scheherazad's tales is a favorite subject — or wild nature like galloping Arabian horses or boats on the Tigris River.

Remarkably, none of the murals appears to have suffered any significant vandalism or the type of graffiti seen on naked blast walls, such as the scrawled slogans and advertisements for businesses hidden behind the concrete barriers.

One barber tried to lure customers with a ditty that rhymes in Arabic: "Jump and you will find me."

The hands-off aura around the murals could be fear of the Iraqi security patrols or America's aerial surveillance. Badran likes to think it's respect.

"People know these murals represent a kind of hope," he said. "So why would they ruin them? That's like saying they don't want things to improve."

Qasim Sabti, who runs one of Baghdad's best-known art galleries, said he encouraged about 20 young artists to join the mural effort in the early stages, and he denounces the attempt to push sectarian images.

"It is absolutely rejected by any respectful artist," Sabti said. "We, as a community of artists, refuse this."

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This is the barber graffiti, it's really clever:

In comparison, here's some other apartheid wall murals, this is Dansky's, a British artist on the Palestinian-Israeli wall:

كيفما تكونوا يول عليكم

I think the reason July in Iraq has had so many revolutions is because it's so insanely hot that it drives people ape-crazy. Just look at this, now I don't know what these guys did to the Iraqis at the time, but I'd bet it'd be only a fraction of what Saddam and his boys did, so you can imagine the pulp he'd have been if THIS is the fate of the comparatively-civil Hashemites and their minister al-Said, the only thing that escaped Saddam Sahil Carnival was...the presence of the Americans, and to top it off, the lucky bastard had a fantastic execution he could only dream of thanks to sectarian stupidity. These are from Zeyad's, but he was a gentleman at the time and did not publish them in the post itself, linking to an outside source while warning you that they are gruesome, I'm posting them full-on, you need to see this and appreciate the work of God's creation, it's nice to know the world isn't so nice.
Looking at this, I must say that Saddam was indeed a product of his environment.

Lebanon Crisis Shows Hues of Iraq

"What we have done here is basically what we did in the 1980s. We picked a group of Western-oriented Lebanese political actors whom we liked because they kind of looked like us and talked like us," he said. "We decided to array them against people who have real street cred; the results then were disastrous, and I think the results now are proving to be very bad."

Accrassicauda has come a long way from the wannabe posers that they were in their pre-2003 gigs, they are pissed off, hungry, and are plugging their anger in the music, it shows.

While I'm not really interested outside of novelty value, I do respect their dedication, their growing professionalism and their new hair.

Cockburn

A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.

UPDATE: Crocker responds.

Ode to Zai

More and more Iraqi heavy metal is grac(z)ing the web, I wouldn't really post about it except that most recently videos of who I called early in my blog "Iraqi Metal Supernode" Saad Zai are popping up all over YouTube.

Saad Zai (which rhymes with Steve Vai) was a man of slim build who looked many years younger than his age, like most Assyrians he was nice and friendly, but there was something about him, while he usually smiles politely and responded to jokes in kind, I've never seen him break into sincere laughter, suggesting some sort of morose attitude to the world in general, my impression of him was the cliched nice and naive Christian padded with a peculiar strand of streetwise Iraqi cynicism that he seemed to have picked up to make him pass as more than cursorily nice, most of his jokes (all in deadpan) were pretty original and witty , producing a somewhat interesting blend of character. He was universally admired, but I must admit that my time with him wasn't really something I'd remember fondly, and I don't think he'd remember me either, except for my scowl. The reason for said scowl is that after having taught myself guitar from the internet for the first seven months or so I decided to get a few lessons out of him, so I'd go over his messy shop which always looked like it was hit by an RPG (sadly, it was really hit by an RPG a few months after I left Iraq, but our man - who has renal failure - miraculously emerged from the rubble.) I'd go in confident in my abilities and he would give me crap about how I would make a "fine beggar" احسن مكدي with my hand position, and I would return home, unconvinced and frustrated, after a long time, of course, I realized that he was right. Some people (well, Anarki-13) have said that Zai is the best guitarist in the Middle East, see for yourself:
These terrible recordings depressingly eclipse his talent, and they are a fitting representation of what Iraqi Heavy Metal looked like: a messy, uncertain haze.

Fur Elise

Original Track:


Spiritual


Bach

There's also some other interesting Iraqi guitar videos on YouTube, here's a guy I know vaguley playing Canon Rock.
More interestingly, here's a beautiful Iraqi girl playing beautiful Iraqi folklore on classical guitar.
You may also want to check out the group Sumer, which is composed of Scandinavian singers singing Iraqi folk songs, directed by an Iraqi musician named Talal, the result is quite amazing.
I'm composing a list on the sidebar for all the Iraqi guitar I find on YouTube, it's going to be up soon.