Shiqaqnifaq and Lot

the recent two posts by Iraqi bloggers describing their experiences at the Jordanian airport has caused a flurry of activity little seen in the Arab blogosphere,the first post was by Omar at Iraq The Model, and the second and more detailed one involves Last of Iraqis as he tries to spend a little vacation there with his wife, both posts revolve around the rejection, but most importantly humilitation, they receive as they spend the day waiting for a flight back in a room Iraqis dub 'the jail' (pictures available at LastIraqis's post, as well as a video on Zeyad's).
This was soon followed by all sorts of reactions from both sides of the British Sykos-Picot divide, in addition to others from the Arab world, ranging everywhere from apologetic to extreme far-right, I have collected the ones I could find here, there might be others:
Arguing for Iraq: Catholic Sunni Shia, Silly Bahraini
Arguing for Jordan: Black Iris( has the most interesting discussions in its comments),
Moey , Bakkouz(now removed).
Balanced: Mkilany , Qwaider,

Interestingly, further research revealed a Jordanian Facebook group called We Hate Iraqis.
Aimed at expelling the '1)smelly, 2)suddenly rich Iraqis 3)who've been less than 10 years in Jordan', I constitutionally violate the 2nd clause, but obviously i am (3) and I am sure as shit smelly, I'm sorry folks but I sweat a lot and your water is scarce. So i thought i'd save it to you and rot for the sake of keeping your natural resources.

All jokes aside, the treatment of Iraqis in Jordanian airport is certainly unacceptable as a lot of Jordanians have pointed out, but some Jordanians (and Iraqis) have quickly descended into a name game, let us look at some of the arguments:

Jordanian: If you don't like it, get out. This happens everywhere...
Iraqis: We're giving you oil for (10, 20, 100) years and this is how you repay us? We built you.
Jordanian: Who killed Saddam Hussein? You bastards! (few Pan-Arab tears shed here)
Iraqi: You traitors! We are all Arab (national pan-Arab anthem plays here, but the happy commercial does not end on good terms...)
Jordanian: Shut up, ya balad al-Shiqaq wa Nifaq (Land of Discord & Hypocrisy, the favorite Arab slander of Iraqis, thank you Mr. Hajaj)
Iraqi: Shut up, Qawm Lot (the infamous anicent butt-sex freaks people of the Prophet Lot, unfortunately situated near the Dead Sea.)

Etc...
The thing is, while abuse of Iraqis in Jordan is an issue, I don't think Iraqis have that much of a right to complain, considering the complaints issued by the blogs i listed above, and the soccer-celebration incident I posted about before, one fact must be emphasized:

a) WE ARE ALL ARAB. and most importantly
b) ARABS BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER ALL THE TIME.

Yes, it's a mighty true shame ; but it's true, if Jordanians were in Iraq, I'm sure we'd kick their asses if they were celebaring the national team winning in our country and causing massive traffic jams we don't need. Maybe if Saddam Hussein was in power, he'd make use of the event to showcase his prowess as a Pan-Arab leader, but the people themselves wouldn't feel that happy, to quote the saying "A crow tells a crow, your face is black."
We're not much better than Jordanians, even before I got into Jordan, I was warned by many friends that Jordanians 'hate our guts', judging from personal experience, my homeland (and all Arabs, as I found out) exaggerate in terms of racism, so while I tried hard to shrug this off, I nevertheless embraced Jordan with a huge feeling of self-conciousness, eventually I found out that you basically can get your way around here pretty much okay in terms of day-to-day interaction if you respect people and be pleasant with them. It's hard to exactly describe the love-hate relationship between Arabs of different countries, but it's best summarized by the Bedouin saying: 'Me and my brother on my cousin, me and my cousin on the enemy.', sure, there are stone-faced racists who will never change the way they think, and it is my regret that I actually managed to make friends with one, but there are a lot of decent and generous people as well, the last time I entered Jordan was September 2006 with my grandparents, for the first time I was nervous because of the many rejection stories I have heard, amazingly, it wasn't me who was the problem but my 84-year old grandfather, who had a FAKE passport, my grandfather's passport was done in Iraq through a connection, who brought it to him with somebody else's fingerprints on it, being a stalwart man of principle, Grandpa insisted that he get a clean passport so he can put his own print on it, sure enough, the passport comes a week later, what we didn't know is that the man who did it (either the connection or the passport officer) had simply ripped the page and replaced it with a new one. Anyway, after being held by intelligence officers for about 15 minutes, they gave him a two-weeks admission notice based on his old age, another thing which might have helped was his serving in the Palestine 1948 war, anyway, my grandfather said that the Jordanian officials were 'very respectful' and a few months later he said that they were 'doing a very good job.' My grandmother, a naturally racist person like many others, stranglely agreed.

There is a sizable amount of unjustified racism and blame, but it's hard for me to point any finger because both sides are equally selective in perceiving each other's *virtues*, and this is my way of trying to show Jordanians that there are some Iraqis like me who are certainly thankful for all that they are doing but equally hopeful that they can accept criticism with an open heart. I know some of the words posted at those blogs are needlessly harsh but I would suppose that under the circumstances they were projected to it's somewhat reasonable, have a bad experience with a country at its borders, you're going to label the whole country altogether...we are not asking to be received by open arms, and we are aware of the economic problems caused by a sizable refugee group, but there are also benefits in exchange for those.

While those words are somehow unrelalistic given the circumstances, but in the larger world, we are all insignificant if we continue to squabble like this. I hope there would be one improbable day when Iraqis, Jordanians, Kuwaitis, Palestinians and all realize that those phony classifications are drawn by a map based on a British-French treaty held in 1916.

A Faith Restored

ANYONE who's been following this blog would have no difficulty finding out that I am as optimistic about Iraq as a dead skunk on the side-road, all the books that I read, all the things I see and hear everyday, from friends, from TV, from parents, all serves to confirm my deductions about the future of the country-to-have-been. You could only imagine my own shock as I found myself trying hard as a I can to resist swelling tears as I was watching the Iraqi team win the semifinal on a penalty shot against South Korea, looking up, I realized something, none of the players were smiling...

They were all crying too.

It was magical, as if they were all thinking the same thing as I am. This is not a regular victory, this is a bittersweet one, a deeper, more meaningful one. To me, that was a 'born-again' movie moment, something which definitely was one of those moments that make life worth living. I did not even care if they won the final, as that moment had singlehadedly convinced me in a very practical manner of something I was dilligently trying to shed my skin away from all this past period : that one can love his country with no strings attached whatsoever - but they did win the final in a historic match.
If you do recall correctly, A similar event presented itself when Iraqi singer Shadha Hasoon won the StarAcademy contest, another event that was trumpeted up our helpless asses as a figure that Iraq was still strong, my reaction was audibly toilety. As a matter of fact, I was not basking alone in my cave of contempt but a great portion of people felt the same way, so why should football, yet another leisure-time concept imported from the infidel West, trigger such emotions? While both singing and football are universal delights, football is too embedded in the national consciousness to be regarded as a 'western import' now, even though some half-brained clerics occasionally try to voice that idea, football has nothing that could be considered as in explicit violation of religious decrees, and it found its die-hard audience as the number 1 sport in most of the world countries, including Iraq.

Here's something interesting: I went out after the game to the commercial Rabia district, where scores of Iraqis gathered shouting and chanting in front of the most popular Iraqi restaurant, Qassim Abu il-Kass, I even shared a bit into the 'mosh-pit' of people jumping up and down and it was all fine for about 10 or 15 minutes, and that's when this black 4x4 came in out of nowhere, somebody was standing on top of it, and he was holding a picture of Saddam Hussein, he was shouting at the top of his voice only for one thing: "our blood, our soul, we sacrifice to you Saddam" (which is hugely ironic, since "we" are still alive and chanting), a few chimed in this, but i believe most did not, and in fact it generated a counter-chant (our blood, our soul, we give to you Iraq), I was revelling with disgust and I really considered hurling a shoe at the picture of the man who was the only one sacrificed so far, but it didn't last long, since the Jordanian security guards came, very angry and rugged, and started dispersing the crowds, they took about a dozen young men for charges ranging from holding the Iraqi flag, talking back, and beating a daff (tambourine like thingie), they may have had a right to disperse us, as the street was a major commercial one and it was clogged bad, but their most violent, uncouth method of doing so was certainly reflective of the solidarity of the Arab nations, and it is really nice if compared to this picture taken in Sweden, where the people there are perhaps 1/10 of the ones in Jordan but the celerbation there was 10 times as bigger, allegedly WITH the help of the police, who closed the place for them (click to enlarge):

Yes, I do realize that probably it may have no effect on the bloodbath back home, and things could be darker than one would ever imagine, but what this thing did for me, and hopefully for many other Iraqis, is that it reminded us that there is indeed something that is common between all of us that is real and genuine, a deep chord that is resonating still inside, whether it was already present and we lost it, or whether we are all hoping for that could transpire practically in the future, in any case, for the first time in my life, I believe in Iraq with conviction, and that is certainly enough.

NOTE: This seminal Zeyad post includes a lot of pictures about worldwide Iraqi celebrations , the ones in Jordan feature the Saddam picture i was talking about as well as a hazy YouTube video of the Jordanian security episode.

Voices of Iraq

Voices of Iraq is an earlier documentary that follows a concept that was supposedly creative then, because of the recent development of the insurgency in April 2004, foreigners could not escape the confines of the Green Zone anymore ; undeterred, the filmmakers got 150 cheap video cameras and distributed them all over Iraq, and then retrieving them a few months back to begin a gruelling editing process that culminates in a film that sports the tag: 'Filmed and directed by the people of Iraq.' this approach proved to be indeed an inventive path to the final product so much so that the film was preserved by the national board as a distinguished work, it is even mentioned for that merit in the Wikipedia. Few filmmakers would concede to such a lack of creative control over their output, their only true input in the film aside from the editing process (which plays a big role in the final feel and storytelling nevertheless) is choreographing the documentary progress with newsheadlines by which the world-at-large identified Iraq at that given moment, which by then involved Falluja and Abu Gharib, it's quite a minor revelation that indicates how little you know about the 'warzone' you read about in the paper and what it really felt like at the time. Being mid-2004 when things weren't so bad, the film carries a tone of cautious but troubled optimism, the first thing that strikes you about the movie is its dynamics: this is not a somber flick (Iraq in Fragments) nor does it try to be one (My Country, My Country) - absolutely no grand truths are revealed in the overall course of the movie ; even though the picture continously reminds us of the atrocities of Saddam Hussein, it never feels like a grim condemnation : The general tone is basically fun as Iraqi hip-hop music serves as a light backdrop against which no person captures the screen for more than a few moments, most of those interviewed are as casual and flippant as in any home video and some of those moments were hugely entertaining for me: the film begins with an immensely lovable six-year-old girl from Falluja who tells the story of the American attack on Falluja with the cheery mannerism of Elmo ; a disarming symbol of a city that become synonymous with violence, a 50-years-old member of the now-notorious Iraqi police sings an Italian opera in the mess hall, a 12 year old emerges wet from the Tigris while the filmmaker comments on his big ass transitions into an exploding car bomb in Sadr City, an insightful look at the Kurdish annual re-enactment which bizarrely mirrors the Shia cememoration of the Battle Of Kerbala as an elderly man tells a story of a Kurdish woman giving birth aboard a military truck, and a dodgy man recounts the tale of how he and his compatriots allegedly tried to assassinte Uday Hussein back in 1996, this is just a small proportion of the extraordinarily diverse out in display in this caustic ride in the place which currently is the most dangerous spot on God's Earth. Of course, with 150 inexperienced cameramen in a war-torn third world country, that means you have to be satisified with 90 minutes of shakiness which ironically only adds up to the level of realism and detail, i'm not obsessed about a film getting it real, but this was really fun to watch, especially in the abundance of energetic scenes it contains, whether they're children squandering for attention or a mass of frightened people in a car bomb accident. Voices of Iraq is the sort of movie that doesn't want to move you or shake your whole belief system, it's an entertaining, simple ride where even the most tragic points are rendered like a neutral progression of life, it is an accurate reprensentation of the Iraqi people from the day-to-day perspective at the time...and besides, what is not to recommend about a film which surprisingly features two women you were previously romantically involved with?

HIGHS: Simple fun, accurate reprensetation of social diversity, focused and never meandering.
LOWS: One or two lines of the translation are inaccurate, a little too much focus on the horrors of Saddam slightly deterrs the MTV vibe.
FINAL RATING: Four and a half members out of a possible five of the heavy metal band Accrasscida, who are almost in every fucking Iraq documentary that I review, here's a stereotype for you: Filmmaker wanna make Iraq look cool for folks back home to see? Show the local heavy metal band. Me cool. Me play guitar. wow.

My Country, My Country

This was one of the two Iraqi documentaries that were nominated for the Best Documentary Award at the last Oscars (both lost for Global Warming), it revolves around Dr. Riyadh, a member of the Sunni Islamic Party which was one of the few, if not the only, Sunni fronts that supported entering the first elections held in January 2005 ( only to pull out at the last minute), following him around as he treks between his home in now-notorious Adhamiya, the charity medical clinic there, and his stint as he tries to rally votes for himself as the Baghdad governorate candidate for the Islamic Party. This central story is told in juxtaposition with a subplot about the efforts of UN officials and other MNF officials as they try to set up said elections, mostly shot indoors in conference halls and private contractor rooms. While Iraq For Sale was a dull talking-heads information piece, this one is the capture-them-unawares personal setting, watching it again for this review turned up some pretty unexpected gems of normal Iraqis captured amidst their daily life: a scene of Dr. Riyadh's wife and daughter trying to kill flies completely oblivious to a raging battle outside, a Najaf woman who complaints that her husband spends all his time with Muqtada al-Sadr, Kurdish men in a car talking about the evils of Arab Patriotism, a visit to the notorious Abu Gharib camps, and a very disturbing segment of a family friend who accidentally metions that he asked Americans for help retrieving his kidnapped son while he does not realize that the kidnappers are still on the phone. It all sounds pretty exciting here, but that was not what I felt the first time I watched, personal documentaries like this are made or broken by the human being you're going to spend those 90 minutes with, and Dr. Riyadh isn't really star material, forget the 'this is real wihout glitz' approach ; the Dr. is a sullen, featureless man who is serious and morbid most of the time, while the monotonus Kadhum al-Sahir soundtrack tries hard to convince you there is something sad in front of your eyes, Dr. Riyadh's desk employee mannerisms shines most boringly in the breadth of the film, even when trying to promote himself in upcoming elections with patients and neighbors in an amusingly low-key election campaign, fortunately the home-video segments are somewhat lively, with a wife who is skeptical about her husband's political aspirations and daughters who are constantly on the tease. Also, as compared to Iraq in Fragments, the artistic vision of the filmmaker: the soundtrack, which is just one song repeated, sounds more forced than coloring, nothing like the gloomy soundscapes of James Longley in Fragments which truly underscores the despair in the characters eyes. The series of official conferences leading up to the elections wind up being filler instead of adding depth, so by the anti-climactic end of the film where the party pulls out of the elections rendering all of the film's point mute and Dr. Riyadh standing in the hallway while his wife and daughters tease him, you are left not sure what it is all about. My Country has a good story and a handful of powerful scenes which are lost between lackluster presentation and wavering storytelling.

Click here to download My Country, My Country (torrent, requires free subscription to site)

PROS: Some interesting scenes of Iraqi experiences during the war.
CONS: Boring hero, unfocused storytelling, soundtrack hell.
ROTTEN TOMATOES: 85% Fresh Rating
KONFUSED RATING: 3 scenes of Dr. Riyadh sulkingly driving his car around Baghdad out of a possible five.

Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers

We start off our Iraqi documentaries fest with the most impersonal of the lot, the very sober and direct Iraq for Sale, made by Robert Greenwald and financed through an online petition which racketed up 750,000$.The real drive behind this documentary was not anything related to the subject matter itself, but just something explicitly tailored to get the democrats more votes in the Mid-term Nov '06 elections). The movie is a blatant condemnation of the exploitations and mistreatment of five large-scale no-bid corporations working in Iraq with the US army including the infamous Blackwater, Haillburton, CACI, TITAN and KBR. The documentary provides witnesses through interviewing families of deceased US soldiers and Iraqi detainees tortured at Abu Gharib, both report that those private companies played a big role in the killing of the former by malpractices and inadequate supplies, and the torture of the latter. While certainly bundled with a load of insight and information, what annoyed me about this movie is the fact that it's a totally drab piece of cold facts, an orthodox news report that tries hard to maintain a neutral tone for 90 mintues when it's anything but ; Okay, you could argue that i'm the wrong person to review this movie as I'm looking for IRAQI documentaries featuring IRAQIS (who appear only to repeat the same shocking details of the Abu Gharib prison in 2004 ) and it indeed has a right to regard information as its main source of inspiration, but it does drag on without any witty moments or pacing (Fahreneheit 9/11 comes to mind) to coat its subject matter for the less-interested general audience like myself, and it's not helping at all that it is not made by a neutral party, which somehow subdues its shock moments, and there are a lot of them, I mean the way this movie reads, it's like those companies are evil beyond redemption in every possible way, from causing the deaths of private contractors in Falluja by supplying bad armor and staff to completely botching the daily food ration. It'd make entities who just want to make the USA look bad like al-Jazeera spray shorts, which is why I saw it yesterday on it. Recommended only for those really interested about the topic. To Put it simply, all the human testimonies on the that appear on this movie serve as mouthpieces exploited for the harvest of information the filmmakers need to get across: Republicans Suck, Vote Democrats. The audience didn't need that much persuasion of course, as its opinion was already decided. For Iraqis like myself, I am quite confident that both sides don't care about us, and would lie their way to hell to get their forbidden fruits, so I couldn't give a shit about either.

Click here to WATCH the documentary on Google Video.

GOOD: Insightful information on the purpose and function of private corporations in the war
CONS: Shockers all outdated, unbalanced, subjective approach raises credibility concerns, very impersonal, no iraqis.
ROTTEN TOMATOES RATINGS: 20 red tomato reviews out of 20, 100% FreshTomato rating.
KONFUSED KID RATING: One Abu Gharib detainee's choked penis out of a possible five.

Konfused Kid Presents The Iraqi Documentaries Series

I have several ideas for a series of posts that involve a particular topic which you can find on the sidebar of my blog, I'm still not through yet with Ali al-Wardi, but today, Hometown Baghdad posted its last episode, and so I am going to introduce a teaser about my new series, i will finish it up and then return to Ali al-Wardi's Season 2 (groan).

The Iraqi Documentaries series is about reviewing half a dozen documentaries about Iraq I have seen so far, I have already reviewed two of them before, one here on my blog and the other for another publication, but now that I have seen more documentaries I have a bigger picture and my opinions may have different, the documentaries in question are arranged in the order I saw them:

1. Iraq in Fragments (shot 2004, released 2006, nominated for Oscar '07) by James Langley
2. I Know I'm Not Alone (shot 2003) by Political musician Michael Franti
3. My Country, My Country (shot 2004-2005, also nominated for Oscar '07) by Laura Poitras
4. Voices of Iraq (2004) by the people of Iraq
5. Hometown Baghdad (2006, Chat The Planet)
and maybe Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, although i'm not really interested in anything not directly involving Iraqi people.

This is just too much...

http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/3247/CBS_News_Scoops_Baghdad_Orphanage_Shocker

God is listening.

I briefly interrupt my Ali al-Wardi postings to proclaim something that I realized while I was chatting yesterday with a friend, god exists, because:

A. I say so
B. We were talking about Azuz's lung cancer. My friend, a Christian doctor of high calibre, said that he'd give Azuz four months, as you know and I vaguely knew, cancer is extremely difficult if it is discovered later, this is especially true for lung cancer, and Wikipedia says that the 5-year survival rate for lung cancer patients is 14%. As you would lovingly noticed, I put Abdilaziz al-Hakim's name first on my God's Dead Pool on the right, miracle? Allah be praised. To celebrate this, I have decorated Azuz's name in yellow, much to the disdain of my sectarain friend, Shaqawa.

If indeed al-Hakim bites one last cigarette and goes in search for his lost brother, this would create a very vague power vaccum at Badr/SIIC/UIA, first, Hakim Jr, a smiling dude who looks a lot like high-school homosexual cannon fodder, is highly unqualified for this task, there are a lot of hawks at SCIRI, sorry, SIIC so while they cannot risk not crowning Uday, I'm sorry, Ammar's hand because the heavyweight clerical Hakim name means unquestioning public approval, my guess is that he would be a puppet in the hands of someone much more agile. Hadi al-Amiri, head of Badr Corps, is butch, and there's also one of the most wicked faces i ever saw, Jalal al-Din al-Sagheer. One can never forget somebody like Big Bear-double Adil Abdulmahdi, so it's a very interesting issue. Anyway, I am going to pray now. oh God, look at the rest of the list, NEXT NEXT NEXT!

Ali al-Wardi 3: Intercession

Some of the foundations of religious faith at that time were based on intercession, meaning that when people claim to hold to the prophet’s companions or household, then it does not mean following their way of life, but to get their intercession on judgement day. People believed that life is mortal, and is not worthy of human interest but must one must tend to the afterlife instead, most importantly by performing religious duties on one hand and to get the intercession of those favored by God on the other. As for morals and good treatment and so forth then they are not important as all sins in their regard may be forgiven by the intercessors whom God loves extremely. It is clear that this principle of ‘intercession’ has roots in the composition of the governing state in old times, people are used to see that the person who is close to the sultan is able to save someone’s neck or grant rewards, this was reflected on their religious faith. This also explains many contradictory social patterns in Ottoman-era Iraq as the people (government and commons) were extremely focused on rebuilding shrines and mosques at times where oppression and thievery was common between people, as the government oppresses people who oppress each other, all believing in a seat of heaven once the intercessors speak their words.

One of the most controversial cases in Sunni-Shiite debates is the succession of Prophet Mohammed, any researcher looking into the case through modern objective lenses will feel that the case is one of the far past and has no exclusive relationship to the present, Iraqis opinion was different, as they believe the person who succeded the prophet will be their intercessor and could rescue him from damnation.

The foundations of intercessions is common in all major religions in one form or another, but we could argue that its effects are subdued earlier on, as people pour their interest in performing righteous deeds more than indirect intercession, however as time takes its course people revert to their old social pattern, immersed in life and far away from religion, they find themselves drowning in sins and has no hope for salvation unless by a guided figure who will be their ticket to God. They do not ask God directly, for their example is the one of a criminal being led to the court, finding no other solution but to seek a ‘middle man’, so he dedicates his effort to this ‘middle man’, thinking that his heart must soften and be moved by dignity to come to his aid, people extend this principle to what happens before the afterlife as well, when someone is ill, had a relative dead, is in heavy debt, or is surrounded by plague, they would hurry to a shrine of a saint or imam and would cry and beseech him. They rarely address God himself, for he is like the Sultan who is unreachable due to his high esteem and regard.

Hasan Kibreet:

The story of Hasan Kibreet is a very fitting example for the social values dominant at those times, Kibreet was a shaqi in al-Kadhimiya district of Baghdad who lived at late Ottoman, early-British period. The many tales people weave around him depict him as a bloodthirsty butcher of the sort that kills a man and then walks in his funeral the next day, others relate incidents which could only be interpreted as sadistic, as he takes pleasure in bloodshed and pain, when he participated wit the Mujahideen in al-Sha’eeba incidents during World War I he would not only kill enemy soldiers but would decapitate them and bring their heads to clerics who were with the Mujahideen, who were sickened by his deed and would reproach him without any effect.

Someone asked Kibreet about the number of his victims and how he shall face his creator, he said that he killed a lot of people but he is hoping for the intercession of Fatima al-Zahraa, saying that one day while he went with a number of Baghdad shaqis to rob rich houses there, he passed the Sheikh Ma’roof cemetery in Kadhimiya, and he heard the sound of a pleading girl who is crying for Fatima al-Zahraa’s mercy, Kibreet realized that she was about to be raped while still a virgin, so he decided to add one more victim to his list for ‘Fatima al-Zahraa’, killing him and returning the girl to her parents safely. It is highly likely that Kibreet died while being certain that he will get that intercession, and many people of Iraq are still following his footsteps, killing, looting and assaulting, and then doing something by which they seek the intercession of a saintly figure close to God.

They are not to blame, as they are forced to do this due to their conditions, as they have grown up with the morals of Jahiliya, and have taken a custom to it and cannot deviate from it, on the other hand, they fear the punishment of God and hellfire, so they must reach a solace to pacify the catch-22.

Tob Abu Khuzama:

After Ottoman Sultan Murad re-liberated Baghdad from the hands of Iranian Saffavids in 1638, he left one of his heavy cannons to be put at the gate of the fortress, the cannon grew in the eyes of Baghdad’s peasants, Sunnis in particular, to hold something of a sanitly essence by which people are blessed and myths are spun around. The cannon was named ‘Tob Abu Khuzama’, allegedly because there was a small crack at its rim which legend has it that the cannon was at heavens when Baghdad was being laid siege to, and that God ordered Gabriel to descend to Earth to aid Sultan Murad to liberate Baghdad, so Gabriel descended, leading it by the rim. Other legends speak of the pattern of fish on its sides, saying that they stuck to the cannon while it crossed the ‘sea of power’ in its heavenly descent, and that the cannon picked up dirt and transformed it into bombs by the will of God. Other stories mention that Sultan Murad once became angry at the cannon and struck it by his fist, causing the crack as a testament to his physical strength. Another story talk about the cannon itself becoming angry (perhaps by the Sultan’s punch), so it hurled itself in the Tigris which forced Murad to pull it from its rim.

Those legends escalated into saintly proportions, women would bless their children by it, and would swear by it and hold promises near it, custom has it that the newborn in Baghdad is brought at his 7^th day, circled around the cannon, and have his head inserted inside the cannon three times, this continued until it was moved to the war museum prior to World War II, people forgot it and its saintly essence, not so long ago, the cannon was returned to al-Madyaan square, and is today an artifact without any divine value. (Konfused Kid - It was pulled out after 2003 by bandits who probably tried to make good use of its copper)

In conclusion, We cannot understand religious rites in Iraq and other similar societies unless we understand how prevalent and far-reaching the principle of intercession is in the hearts of people, people would deny this sometimes but they are still under sway unconsciously, for without that they would feel astray.

Konfused Kid: I had no intention to translate the passages regarding intercession as most of them were related to a principle which I felt wasn’t relevant to modern times, at least not as powerful as al-Wardi envisions it to be here , but after re-reading it casts very illuminating lights on the contradictory values of religion in Iraqis, it could explain how people who are supposed to be devout can go about their daily life while knowing that they have shed so much blood and destruction. Today, the principle of intercession has faded from the forefront of Sunnis, who claim to ‘ask God alone’. Perhaps influenced by Wahaabism, anyway, it is clear from al-Wardi that a few centuries Sunnis were just as attached to intercession as Shiites. Ironically, Saddam Hussein carried out many of the practices pointed at by al-Wardi here, I cannot remember how many gigantic mosques has he built in the last years of his reign.

Ali al-Wardi: Social Glimpses...Part II

Iraqi Moral Values:

Iraqis in the Ottoman period were closer to Bedouin values than Islamic values, due to the control of the ‘Bedouin tide’ on them, there is a stark difference between the values of Bedouins and Islam, in a nutshell, Bedouin values glorify racism, vengeance, looting, killing women to wash away shame and so forth, while Islam condemns all that and considers it banned. Nevertheless, those values were common in the Ottoman period as many people glorified the man who shakes the ground when he walks and who robs houses at night out of manhood, describing him as a ‘lion’, ‘nightman’ or ‘tribe’s pride’.

Those Bedouin tides have always encompassed the Iraqi society at one time or another, in a continuous ebb and flow as Iraq is adjacent one of the world’s greatest Bedouin foundation deserts without any natural barriers separating the two. Bedouin tribes were always ready to enter Iraq and live there, seizing opportunity at times of chaos and wars and famine, or when the government is weak and culture is ripped apart. Bedouin tribes then control Iraqi roads, threatening cities and villages, urging civilians to pick up arms to defend themselves, and in the process spreading values of vengeance, racism and invasion. It appears to me that the most recent Bedouin tide which engulfed Iraq in the Ottoman priod was more severe than any one that preceded it, as Iraqi society never witnessed an era where Bedouin values so dominated as this one. I could bring the following as reasons:

1. The Ottoman conquest came after a series of Mongul conquests in which no civil government to promote trade and encourage production and irrigation was established, one of the darkest passages of Iraqi history and the lowest of civilization. Post-Abbasid governments were first interested in conquest and taxes instead of reconstruction and order, city dwellers were forced to take shelter in Bedouin and tribal ruggedness as a reaction to save money and soul.
2. The Ottoman State was past its prosperity and power and started showing signs of stagnation and decay at the time when it seized Iraq in the 16^th Century. It was not supposed to stay alive afterwards for a long time but what kept it so was what became known as the ‘Eastern Affair’, as major powers such as Britain and France were interested in keeping the Ottoman State balanced between life and death so it does not die without their having a proper agreement on how to distribute its wealth. As a result, Iraq suffered under a long era of governmental decay and cultural backwardness, which prompted Bedouin tribes to rule supreme.
3. Ottoman state was preoccupied with its continuous war with Iran, which allowed tribes to do as they please in Iraq. The state itself used the tribes sometimes in its war against Iran, those tribes are known to fight not for any patriotic or religious motive but only for the bounty and to gain rewards that enable dominance on nearby tribes, wide areas of Iraq thus is under the control of Tribal sheikhs ruling according to Bedouin custom.
4. Diseases filled Iraq at the Ottoman period once every 10 years, an important factor in crystallizing Bedouin tides and destroying civilizations.

Cities and Tribes

There are two social patterns that lay evidence to the extremity of the Bedouin tide in the Ottoman era ; the sparse population and the high ratio of tribes per cities. Mid-19^th century Iraq’s population was somewhere close to 1-1.25 million, a very small number as compared to Abbasid Iraq, where the population of Baghdad alone is more than all of Ottoman Iraq. (KK – currently, Baghdad is 6 million, the population of all of Jordan, and Iraq is 28) Tribes in the Ottoman era where three quarters of all of Iraq, some were Bedouin and others were farmers, but all held tribal identification and customs fiercely in their hearts, they looked at all governments as hostile, regardless of being Turkish or Iranian, tribes would aid the victorious and loot the vanquished, regardless of their ideology differences.

On the other hand, city dwellers had three levels of social identification as opposed to the sole tribal one. First of all comes the neighborhood or district against all other neighborhoods in his city, as it comes to be a synonym for the tribe for Bedouins, this local identification would expand to what we could the ‘city’ identification, when the city is threatened under a common ailment. The third level is sectarian, such as when a sectarian case is raised or a state of one of the two sects comes to invade, the citizens then forget all their district and city identifications and pour their attention on that, to quote the Bedouin saying: “Me and my brother on our cousin, and me and our cousin on the stranger.” Hereby, it is clear that sectarianism is another level of social awareness, and is not based on religion or care for it.

The Phenomenon of ‘Shaqawa’

One of the most important social aspects that hint at the Bedouin tide is the ‘shaqawa’, which gives us a clear insight on the values and composition of the Iraqi society.

A “shaqi”, legally speaking, is a criminal who loots houses and imposes ‘taxes’ on the rich. Socially however, he is a hero by which the neighborhood takes pride, he does not disobey the dominant local customs – often a rich, noble guardian of his neighbors, and is keen to observe the rights of ‘the common bread and salt’, his criminal behavior is directed both at the government and at those who do not encompass his identification. Many a bloody battle has been fought at night between the Shaqi and the governmental soldiers, as his status in the eyes of the people increases with the increasing number of victims and battles, if he enters prison, it is a medal on his chest, if he is killed ; a funeral comes out to mourn the ‘great’ man. (Konfused Kid – I have often wondered how come the criminals are always loved, this seems to be universal somewhat in humans, Natural Born Killers, anyone?)

The ratio of shaqis to normal population was very few per district, in spite of their small numbers, they exemplified the social standards with clarity. Their small numbers is a result of the rare qualities one must have to be the shaqi : Courage, physical prowess, weapon efficiency, a stout heart and a dashing spirit. If one person gets lucky and have all this, and then gets to be luckier by surviving a few bloody battles, then his reputation will soar in his neighborhood, eventually adopting all the manners of the confident protector and champion, with a certain ‘walk’ and ‘talk’. Most boys in the neighborhood look up to him as a role model, wishing to be like him when they listen to their fathers and relatives speak copiously, most of those boys will never be like him as explained earlier, which could lead them to suffer immense psychological complexes like the ones which troubled Khalaf bin Ameen.

Khalaf bin Ameen:

Khalaf bin Ameen lived at late-Ottoman period, Baghdadis still chuckle at his anecdotes, all revolving about him being an ugly, cowardly person wishing all the time to be a shaqi to be looked at, he had holstered two big guns which he never uses unless he is absolutely certain that the danger has passed completely. He would spin tales of the most intricate detail about his adventures of looting, mudering and robbing, most of which attributed to himself naturally, if a big heist is attempted, Khalaf would go to people asking whether his name was included in the list of the accused, laying birth to the famous saying: “Didn’t they mention the name of your uncle?”, he would try to confess for crimes he did not commit to attempt and enter jail, but the governor would obstinately release him every time, leading him to come about complaining about the unjust governor who releases the criminals and imprisons the ‘innocents’. Most people, like Khalaf, loved to pompously pose as shaqis, bin Ameen was alone in the spotlight because he exaggerated himself to the point of mockery. A lot of people still carry that trait, and if their hearts are exposed to the masses then we would see many Khalaf bin Ameens. Dr. Mustafa Juwad traces the traditions of Shaqawa to those of the ‘Ayareen’ and ‘Shuttar’ who dominated Baghdad at the Abassid, while the comparison is valid, there is a huge difference; a Shaqi works alone while Ayareen and Shuttar were groups that resembled military soldiers at times and unions at others, and my personal judgement is that the ‘Ayareen’ represented the revolution of the poor over the rich as a result of the aristocracy that grew in the civilized Baghdad at the time, the rich capital of a far-reaching empire. Historians say that when ayareens and bandits would intercept tribes they would justify this by taking their right of ‘zakat’, of which merchants deprived them. This social condition is undoubtedly different from the Ottoman-era Baghdad, people had nothing near an ‘aristocratic’ segregation at the time, it was replaced by an identification with their tribes or neighborhoods, the rich man in a neighborhood would open his doors for everyone in his neighborhood without discrimination, they would swiftly come to his aid in battles and fights. This is more apparent in countryside than ciites, as the sheikh in the countryside would not be arrogant and would not distinguish his clothes, food, or residence to a great degree, he is always at the service of his tribesmen, and they are his loyal soldiers and trustees. This is another sign of the domination of Bedouin tides, as people in general do not adapt to aristocratic denominations until they become civilized and start to feel that money is the vein of life, in Bedouin culture, money is appreciated only in the extent that it embellishes and develops their identity, while the Ottoman governor sole interest was in collecting as much tax money as possible to send to Istanbul, and if anything is left then it is his share, if he thought of building then this will be exclusive to mosques and religious schools, for he, as all people, believe in the principles of intercession.

The Principle of Intercession will be the focus of the next post.

Ali al-Wardi: Social Glimpses of the History of Modern Iraq

Ali al-Wardi is often considered the 'Godfather' of Iraqi sociology, A secular-styled writer of Shiite lineage, al-Wardi has written what many considered to be the definitive books on the history of Iraq and the psychology of its unfortunate inhabitants. His neutrality, which rejected both Marxist communism and Pan-Arab nationalism (the two major sparring factions at the time) put him at great troubles. I have long searched for his books and by a stroke of luck managed to find them online. I have been reading in this book 'Glimpses' for quite a while, in the following series of posts I am going to translate what I felt is relevant and crucial for those who want to understand why is this going on in Iraq. This book was published in 1951, but it didn't take it long for me to be dumbfounded by how little we progressed, and how much we stepped back. Take a look and see for yourself. al-Wardi, like my least favorite bloggers Iraq The Model unfortunately agree with me, is a must-read for anyone who even thinks of breaking it into understanding Iraq. This is for all the people who think 'Iraq' is still related to those distant civillizations we like to trumpet every now and other: The Sumerians, Babylonians, Akkadains, even our own Islamic civillizations of Kufa, and Harun al-Rashid's Abbasid Baghdad, have nothing to do with the Ottoman-Saffavid foundations this bastard Iraq was built upon.



Ali al-Wardi,
Glimpes in the Social History of Modern Iraq
Published in 1951.

To study Iraqi society, an interest which I have become fascinated by for quite a substantial amount of time, I realized that I cannot understand society at present unless I understand the conditions by which it passed in its past decades, as each event must have left an impact, large or small, on the current behavior and thinking of people.

I would also like to point out a dilemma which always plagued me enormously in previous books, the question of neutrality and objectivity. Many delicate subjects will be discussed in this book regarding the viewpoints of many Iraqis, and those people are quite taken to view history the same way one would view a multi-faceted pyramid, as each group focuses on one side while omitting the others altogether.

Social Hypnosis

Iraqis are not different from other human beings, to be subjective is a natural human trait that could be weak or strong according to circumstances, a person undergoes in his social life a hypnosis that we could call ‘social hypnosis’, as society exerts on man since early childhood various impulses in values, morals, beliefs, and social considerations and by so puts man’s thinking in certain moulds that are hard to break. Thus, a person born in a certain environment is usually personified by the environment’s religious, political and emotional definitions. He believes that he took up those patterns by his own free will and choice while not realizing that he is merely the making of his own social environment.

Hypnosis can affect human beings to a degree that he could see white as black or to think that a particularly repulsive odor is quite pleasant.

Iran and Shiism

It is a common mistake to think that Shiism began in Iran, as all modern historical research shows us that it started in Iraq and then extended into Iran. Scholars agree that Iranians were Sunnis until the advent of the 16^th century, with the emergence of the Saffavid state. Prior to that, Shiites were not few in numbers there, but were only in a few cities. At the Saffavid era, Asfahan became the capital of the state and the center of Shiite learning, after the collapse of the state that center moved into the Iraqi city Kerbala and remained there until the end of the 18^th century, where it relocated into Najaf and settled there, apparently for good. (Konfused Kid- not really, Qom is now a rival center that is just as powerful as Najaf.)

What we wish to extract from all this is that Iran, after becoming Shiite, began affecting the Iraqi society considerably, as ties between the Iranians and Iraqi Shiites grew by the days. Therefore, a unique social condition was established in Iraq, The majority of Iraq’s population were Shiite Arab while their scholars were Iranians. Iranian students come into Iraq to take lessons in Najaf or Kerbala, some return home and some stay. It is only natural that those who stay remain connected to their homeland, bringing influence of any political and religious disputes back home, the disputes between clerics in Iran would spread in Iraq this way, going as far as affecting the general population, such examples are the cases of the Tinbak in 1890, and the Mashrootiya in 1906, and many others. This unique condition would have been unimportant had Iraq been a part of the Iranian state, but destiny had it that Iraq becomes part of the Ottoman state, so the Iraqi society had a very severe identity crisis, as its government was linked to Turkey while the majority of the population was linked to Iran.

Sectarain Escalations:

Ottoman State has appeared in Turkey since the 7^th Hijri century, but it expanded Westward first towards Europe, and never headed East towards Iraq and other Arab states before the emergence of the Saffavid state in Iran, ever since then Iraq becomes the grounds for violent clashes between the Iranian and Ottoman states, something that will last for three centuries. From here the famous Iraqi saying: “be nil ajam wil room balwa ibtilayna” (Between the Ajam (Persians) and Room (Turks) we fell into tragedy), this ‘balwa’ in Iraq came because the Iranian State adopted Shiism as a slogan while the Ottoman picked up Sunnism, escalating sectarian tensions in Iraq unbearably. Sectarain tensions existed in Iraq since early Islam, as Abbasid-era Baghdad witnessed battles between Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods in which many were killed, houses were burned, and religious places violated. The clash reached its apex only when Iraq became between the rock of the Persians and the hard place of the Ottomans, as the talk of the town for Iraqis consisted merely of the news of the two states, with each sect beseeching God to grant victory to their compatriots. Iraqis knew nothing then of modern political ideas such as patriotism, nationalism or independences. All that filled their thinking was religious sentiments represented by sectarian extremism. By this, they did not consider Iranians or Turks as foreigners who sought to occupy the land and its wealth, but as a protector of the sect and a rescuer of the subjects. This view was widespread until very recent times, an example of this is the veneration given to a canon known as ‘Tob Abu Khuzama’, this canon was brought by Ottoman Sultan Murad the Fourth to liberate Baghdad, and then left it there. The population used to bless with the canon and its flag in spite of it just being a tool to ‘occupy’ Iraq and ‘colonize’ it according to modern-day standards.

Sectarain war, on its outward appearance, is based on the clash between those who adhere to the prophet’s household and those who adhere to his companions. As a matter of fact, both Ottoman and Iranian states were both similar in being as far as possible from the principles of both the Prophet’s household and companions. Both were in the vein of traditional imperialist countries which bore little resemblance to the Islamic State witnessed in the days of the Prophet and his Rashidun Caliphs. Ottoman-era Iraqis knew nothing of this, as all that was important to them as that the state be of their sect, so their Imams shrines are venerated and their religious practices and festivities are taken proper care of, the state then is free to do as it pleases as its affairs does not concern them and they believe it is of little concern to their religion.

Continued.

Iraqi Refugees Real Number In Jordan

the Jordanian government signed an argeement with a Norwegian NGO, FAFO,to conduct a survey to estimate the actual number of Iraqi refugees in Jordan, the results are expected to be published next month, after fieldwork has been finished in April and May, according to the website of the NGO.

Usually, any story involving Iraqi refugees you read will tell you that there are about 750,000 Iraqis in Jordan and 1.5 million in Syria.

However, a source from the Norwegian NGO just told me that the initial results seem to indicate that the total number is much lower, almost half of that estimate in here (Jordan). With the strict rules applied by the government on Iraqis entering Jordan, as well as the high cost of living and inability to find work or residency, I don't find it surprising that the estimate is lower, but it's such a huge difference that I am still willing to wait for the official results.

Arabs Created The First Reality Show In History

Who is your dream girl? Not the name you casually toss after a period of thinking when someone asks you the question, but the one you never tell anyone about and you do all your secret weird fetishes with in your dreams? Do you have her in your mental image? Nicole Kidman? Okay. Focus. Close your eyes, now, imagine you just managed to have the best of impressions on her on a dream date...and you're going back to her apartment. Now, instead of Nicole taking off all her clothes and doing unprintable things, she tells you to hang on, goes to the kitchen, closes the door, then after 10 minutes, she comes back smiling with a warm glass of milk, sits near you, and tells you to 'drink it', you are doing all you can for keeping that glossy vibe going, but there's something un-sexual about her smile, more caring than loving, anyway you do not hesitate as you drink the unavoidable milk and tells her it is so delicious,

"MMMMMM! Very different! is this the milk of some special goat?"

and, Nicole says, unflinched: "Special goat all right, this is my breast milk."

**********



One time when we were crashing at a friend's house, late at 1 AM, calling random girl numbers, he told us that the best way to get rid of a crush that is ruining your life is to picture the targeted hatta having an unglamorous big dump with all the appropriate sound effects, I suspect the guy was a fecalphilliac, but his method worked anyway for a while until things became more grossy than any episode of South Park involving Mr. Hankey The Christmas Poo. However, I think Dr. Izzat Attiyeh of the Oral narration department in al-Azhar university may have just provided us with the best solution.

"Dr. Izzat Attiyah, head of Oral Narration department in the university of Religion Fundamentals in al-Azhar university, dropped a bomb when he allowed women in a working environment to breastfeed their male co-workers, to prevent prohibited presence of them both together alone in a locked room whose door is opened by only one of them. Attiyah confirmed to al-Arabiya.net that "Breastfeeding the Adult" consists of five breastfeeds, and it permits presence together alone but does not prevent marriage, and the woman can take off her veil in front of her breast-fed co-worker, demanding of course that the feed be documented."

This method is brilliant!!! I tried all the women I can think of and I could not think of trying to make love to any one of them after they will offer me a glass of warm milk that is nurtured motherly from their loving chests.

If that is not enough for you, try this for size:
It is a known fact that Iraqis invented the wheel, code of laws, arabs invented mathematics, algebra, the zero, without which you could not buy anything as simple as Britney's Spears fart in a container off e-Bay, the internet-shopping site which I am sure we played a hand in creating but the Jews took all the credit as always, and of course, that William Harvey chap did not discover the blood circulation system, but he ripped it off from our very-proud-diaper-head Ibn al-Nafis. If that is not enough truth that we can kick your asses any minte we can, infidels, then know this...we are the ones who have created the first format of a reality show in the history of mankind way back in the early 7th century. You think Jackass is novelty? Fear Factor? Har. You are so backward:

"The Grand Mufti of Egypt, Ali Jum'aa, defended his edict regarding the prophet's urine, in which he stated that the companions of the prophet used to take blessings with it, by saying that the prophet is pure as the whole, on the outside and the inside, and even in his refuse, adding that this is the overall census of all the prominent Islamic scholars."

Wow! Vote for your favorite candidate today, who will be dropped off today's show? who will not be able to pass the urine test? Is it young Ali Talib, gruff'n'loud Umar Khattab, or old'n'soft Bakr Quhafa? SMS 2034 Fastlink, 2035 Umnia.

(upbeat music)


The thing I've always liked about my religion is that it supposedly draws a striking line to attaching any divinity to the personality of the prophet through non-negotiable Quranic verses "Mohammed is but a messenger, and messengers before him are many...", or any other saints, as opposed to Christianity for example, or the Shiite sect of Islam, however statements like the ones made by the mufti, highlighted in such a problematic fashion at this advanced age, makes us both prone to glorifiying the prophet as a semi-divine being the ways Sufis do, or looking like complete brainwipes in front of the modern world. They are both wrong and unnecessary.

As for the breastfeeding thing, all jokes aside, since this subject has issues which might be considered outrageous, I feel it is necessary to give you a more serious commentary on the subject, a lot of the articles I read in response were mere outrage without proper background or knowledge, like Anarki-13 for example, I researched all I could find on the topic and found the following:
Prof. Izzat Attiya is not a sex fiend as some (a lot) of people have said, his proof on the matter was thus: all the Sunni scholars, prophet companions, and wives of the prophet except Aisha, prohibit breastfeeding after the child becomes over two years. The scholars cite a number of evidence from both Quran and oral prophet narration, unnecessary to include for the sake of brevity, Aisha, however says that it is okay to breastfeed a man after that in certain instances. For proof, she relates this narration: "Sahla bint Suhail came to the prophet, and told him: O Prophet of God, I see unease in the face of Abu Hudhaifa (her husband) when Salim enters while I am present, the prophet said: Breastfeed him. She said: How, and he is old of age? The Prophet smiled and said: I know that he is."
Salim was an enslaved child of Abu Hudhaifa during war, Islam prohibits adoption, so his relation to Abu Hudhaifa's household therefore became as foreign as any man to any family when he grows up. By breastfeeding him, she becomes his mother-in-breastfeeding, this type of relationship allows a woman to uncover her hair with someone and to be alone with him. It forbids her to marry him, too. The other wives of the prophets disagreed with Aisha over this particular instance, saying that it may have been a particular case that is not fit to be a general rule, in any case, the breastfeeding narration is solely narrated by Aisha, it is worth mentioning that nobody knows for sure how old Salim really was in the narration, he might have been 4 or five, also, if you look rationally at the laws of Islam, which places severe restrictions on women's dress and what things she must expose, it is almost unthinkable that what is meant by 'breastfeeding' is actual delicious nipple-sucking, scholars say that she gives him her milk in a glass or container. This particular narration was the subject of minor controversy for a long time. During my days of Sunni-Shiite crusade, I found that it is often used by Shiites to slander Aisha, the prophet's wife who is the narrator, it is also used by Christians every now and then. The problem is not in the narration itself, an obscure text that was not practiced by other companions or wives of the prophet, and rejected by almost all of the Sunni scholars. It is in the inappropriate manner the edict was handled by Prof. Attiya, who did not comprehend the enormous impact of such a carefree edict, issued in circumstances different to today's both socially incompatible and globally uncomprehending standards, I mean for God's sake, just open the door of your solitary work environment and the problem will end! This also applies to the other preposterous edict by the Mufti of Egypt, as where is the prophet's urine now so that this fuss be made over it? Overall, it's lame. It's not important, and there are a lot more important subjects to tackle than this tits-and-piss biz. It is funny, really, how much do they focus on such trivialities! Look at this brilliant caricature which I stole from my favorite site of late, and translated by moi:


Anyway, I think after all I could use all this to my advantage, by a stroke of luck, I got an unofficial job interview tomorrow, I am really excited, not for the prospect of landing a job so soon but for all the titties I am gonna jihad-suck on, so help me god.

CCNA and dating in Jordan

I was busy studying for my CCNA finals which I finished this week, I got 987 out of 1000. Naturally, this absence resulted in a lot of ideas for this blog, which might prove somewhat different. Anyway, I am a Cisco Certified Network Associate now, thank you ladies, all I have to do is find a job now. Getting a job in Jordan is highly difficult for Iraqis, as is everything else. On other personal news, I was interviewed for getting a 'G' passport about one week ago, I am supposed to get it next month. I have heard so much about this mythical document, so I wonder what will happen if I got it, maybe things will never be the same again. Also, I never knew I was that striking, two weeks ago, my dentist's Palestinian secretary started flirting with me, I wasn't used to it and she wasn't that cute. I met an Iraqi girl living in Jordan online, and three days later we hung out on a 'date', she was very strange - first she was one year older than me, and second she took me to all those empty places where I could do whatever I felt like if I wanted to, and third her style of dress was very conservative. After the date, she came online and said: 'what do u think if someone like you was 'engaged' to someone like me. Unfortunately she wasn't that cute either and her shameless begging for it made me disrespect her in no small amount, I kept turning her down for three times and she still calls me every once in a while. To top it off, I was waiting at the bus stop the other day for a bus at 7:30 PM in a cloudy cold evening with another man. After 10 minutes the dude, who was dressed neatly and had shaved his head, started pacing to and fro around me, in the end he offered me a cigarette and then said politely in an Iraqi accent: 'Want a job?'
I paused. 'What kind of job, friend?'
He paused. 'Come up to my appartment with me and I will tell you everything in an hour's time.'
Huh? What the hell? 'Why don't u you just tell me here friend.'
'I know what you mean' at this point some white car drove up to him, and he was prepared to get inside it, polite and slender as only non-heterosexual Iraqis can be, he continued 'but you won't understand what I am talking about and why I can't tell you right here until you meet my supervisor.'
I didn't know orgies had supervisors. Hey, I got a CCNA, maybe I can be your orgy's IT manager. 'No thank you', for a moment, a fleeting impulse that craved a break from the daily routine and sought adventure told me to go ride with him and see what happens, but the dude was too big for me and I don't think I could have outsmarted him or outfought him if things turn prissypants - and he might have had other means for which I am no match.
Iraqis also make fun of Jordan as 'Lot's People', as a slander because homosexuality is supposedly persistent around here, and also because maybe I think the anicent city of Lot is there, anyway, it is a little bit depressing and telling that the first gay man I meet in Jordan is a well-fed Iraqi.

Adhamiya Wall Paintings?

BAGHDAD, al-ADHAMIYA: Several artists used the wall built around al-Adhamiya city by US forces as a canvas for their paintings. My grandfather will be proud.
Beautiful. and creative, I like it.
UPDATE:My gut insisted for a second that it was weird that those painting would spring up in the land of Baathies and al-Qaeda, who as I hear are killing people for sins such as wearing shorts or smoking cigarettes, what about drawing infidel art, anonymous dude commented here saying it's in Sa3doon Street, while his report is unverified it makes more common sense to me there than Adhamiya. Adhamiya is a rough neighborhood with a mentality that shuns art (and this kind of art is usually negliglble for most Iraqis anyway).

The Answer

Pro-Withdrawal are people who are either:
1. Baathists remembering the good old days,
2. al-Qaeda lusting for a new state,
3. Common Arab and Iraqi people who simply follow Islamic Rule of Thumb regarding the matter: America Bad, America Go Away
4. sectarain Sunnis who hate to see Shia in power and consider them worse than Jews,
5. Sectarain Shiite who wants to have it all
6. or hopeless pessimists who see no use in them staying and just wanting them to leave and get the civil war out in the open, their theory is as this:

As you all know, the occupation is the source of all problems, their existence attracts violence and complicates matters, when America goes away, al-Qaeda will follow, because al-Qaeda is an alien product and it follows America wherever it is, there might be a civil war but it will not last as those who came with the Americans will go out with them and the Iraqi people can choose a true patriotic hero.

I really cannot follow the logic behind this. Yes the occupation MIGHT be problematic, but this is simply mere excuses for wanting to restore things back to where they were. If USA leaves, al-Qaeda will never leave because it has the Shia to kill and it has a very lovely Islamic State of Iraq. The Resistance (lol) will step up their efforts to reclaim what is rightfully theirs, and with the great possibility of all-out proxy war, it just can take years and years as I know very well that Iraqis on their own won't accept compromise. This will take years to solve until everybody realizes how much deep in blood we're swimming. Most likely outcome is a very artificial state that is all but divided in the real sense. Bloggers like this are Riverbend, who was already against the occupation from the beginning but was trying hard all the way to look without prejudice, Jarrar family, who are Palestinians and therefore instantly worship Saddam.


Anti-Withdrawal are

1. Normal Iraqis who are afraid of possible worsening of the condition
2. People who still believe in freedom and democracy, those are a very tiny minority

Things can go much, much worse. As I outlined above, this theory has more common sense, but all in all it's also laborious and slow and I don't think the US public can stomach it any longer, it's getting a lot like Vietnam and we all know what that means in US consciousness.

All in all, it's a very confusing scene. People, both Iraqi and American, are growing extremely pessimistic, whatever happens, there is a huge possibility that we will be back to zero and more than that, a tyrannical regime(s) firmly in place and feeding on sectarain sentiments on either side, I don't miss Saddam's times, as there was no color to life then and nobody was happy, even though they do not admit it right now, and I will not fix wrong by wrong no matter what, don't you wish it were just like the movies, where the bad guys could be identified just by a look, it is not like this all. Whatever happens, Iraq's chance of recovery is incredibly slim, maybe it's just best to let the troops out and let the war begins, cuz we're all so very tired.

Satricial Iraq Statistics

I have found a great Arabic Wiki called Beidipedia (lit. Eggepedia) about the Middle East in general but is predominantly focused upon Iraq, its approach is to present satricial items in the traditional neutral news/encyclopedia approach a la The Onion. Their entry for Saddam Hussein is largely comprised of the blog post I wrote about him a while ago in Arabic (they even added the bits I wrote by myself about (Imam Izzat al-Abid) whoever you are, thank you), I've added to the few sites I list on the sidebar, which I consider as must-reads. I have also added the WikiIraq site which aims at being a more traditional source about all things Iraqi.
This is from their entry about Iraq (abridged):

IRAQ
Anthem: By Blood, By Soul, We Protect The Green Zone
Population: 25 million - (1 million x (this year - 2004))
Militas: None
Police: Local, National, International, Border, Baghdad Thieves Organization
Administrative Divisions: Sistanistan, Mes'oodistan, Armedcarstan
Constitution: Descended by Bremer and believed in by Iraqis
Capital: Erbil, Falluja, Najaf
Language: Disputed
Sects:
The majority of Iraqis are Shiite by 100%, the rest are Sunnis (apx. 100%), and there are other majorites such as Kurds and Kuldo-Assyrian-Syrian-Canaanines who follow Shafi'a Christian beliefs.
History: Iraq is the cradle of civillization, and Shish Kebab, and also have produced several prominent torture techniques against enemies of the prophet's household Nawasib and the grandchildren of al-Alqami Rawafidh, the latter prefer to use electric drills while Nawasibs prefer halal slaughter. Some of the most prominent historical and cultural practices of Iraqis include:

* Applauding Americans
* Applauding tryants
* Sending armed cars to their neighbors, breaking the world record consecutively in that category
*Voting in StarAcademy
*Insisting upon the unity of Sunnis and Shiites


The tone of the site varies from all-out satire such as the above and more elaborate commentary, it rigorously defends the famous Iraqi singer Saadi El Hilli against the barrage of homosexual jokes involving him for 20 years now, nevertheless, the site is steeped in pessimism against everything in the Arab world, my cup of tea and my kind of thing indeed. Great read, great site, i'm in heavens right now.


UPDATE (10 mintes later):
I can't stop laughing, tears are flowing down my eyes, if you can read Arabic, then this is a must, the entry about al-Hajajj was hilarious!

While Shaving...

No past and no tomorrow, all that you love will be carried away, why the hell am I feeling so angry for no reason, an anger that sometimes fades away when I'm having the great time of my life those days, laughing around with my brother and sister but it seems to be forever coming back, summoned from a hollow engraving deep down inside - like a bathroom that always smells vaguely of shit no matter how hard you wash it, mostly I feel it when I am walking alone in the empty streets, when there's nothing else to distract me from its morbid pulse, always there, silently starting, always feeling on the edge of explosion and facing it but never able to actually claim him, what I need is the reason, the pretext, the catalyst, looking at old college photographs don't help and it doesn't make me cry. I felt chronic, somewhat tired with my self-mocking apathy, I wasn't feeling this bad when I was in Iraq, an irony that is oddly similar to immediately hearing your grandmother loudly snoring after a huge IED explosion. Oddly detached, yet still there, composing my thoughts, the bathroom still seems vaguely of shit no matter how hard you wash it. I snort, trying to figure out what should I do with my facial hair this day and at the same trying to remember which al-Arabiya broadcaster I was sleeping with in yesterday's dream. No past and no tomorrow, every minute of your life counts, even those in bathrooms that suggest feces every minute, every second. Iraq is lost, down the toilet and up the ass. all that you love will be carried away, stephen king kept telling me yesterday, maybe i should finish that Fallout game and try to call it a day, the motherfucker Chou Seung whatshis face...eeeee....the media keep insisting that he's a monster but really all they want to say is how much we're loving it, sinister! bloody! horrible! and deep down they're squirming with joy, something is finally happening! no more bored scoops about the confused sons of dead sluts, what a bunch of losers we all are, i love the iraq war because it made you notice me, it's all about the attention and who gets it, how much we love the death and destruction, from what movie was this line from? Waking Life! and who was the girl? was it Suhair al-Qaysi? the Iraqi anchor with the chubby face or the pale blond one that always looks she just had sex, Suhair Murtadha? it's all lost. They're building al-Adhamiya zoo for al-Qaeda to walk around and France is choosing the new president, I decided on a small chin beard and began shaving...my mother didn't smell anything but why do I keep smelling it? perhaps it's the mental image in my brain, whatever it is, Maysoon Azzam! Maysoon Azzam! Maysoon Azzam! I felt happy at this silly little completion of yesteday's dream, a mental orgasm. I left the bathroom and got out.

Virginia Gunman Chou Plays

Here's the first one, basically a 13 year old fighting with his stepfather, Richard McBeef
and here's the second one: Mr. Brownstone.

Sarafiya Bridge

Yes, I'm angry, no time to be suave anymore. al-Sarafiya bridge is demolished. This is exorcism of some demons. not a real post, if u don't like it, fuck you.

Before I heard of what happened, I was watching an interview with a very disturbed individual, Mr. Mohammed al-Faydhi, the reason is that he is very disturbed is that he represents the Association of Muslim Armed Cars, better known as Muslim Scholars.
Some people get their fix when they bash America, but that's getting kinda stale in my opinion, and others just love throwing their feces eastward at the yellow-winds of the Persian Saffavids, but my personal venegance is against those fucking assholes who still shout those empty slogans such as 'Resistance', or 'Jihad'. Very arrogant, stubborn people without any vision for the future, all they care about is 'getting the occupation what', and then what? then what you motherfucker?!? THen what Khalid Jarrar?!? then what? The reason I was getting my teeth together was his explanation for the Muslim Gays position on al-Qaeda.

"Our position is clear, we support everyone who is against the American occupation but we condemn all the murders of innocent Iraqis, al-Qaeda entered at the beginning and did some very honourable deeds against the Americans, but afterwards they were infiltrated by people who began targeting innocent Iraqis."

Koss Ummak Ya Ibn al Sharmoota. So if a person kills 100 Iraqis and then kills 1 American then he should be lauded, this is the same reasoning which I used to hear from the Badrists and the Sadrists back in the day. Oh Yes, we are good people with honest deeds but we are infiltrated by some minority that does not represent us, as we represent the will of the Iraqi people. then do something about it, you Dickless Diaperhead...I just wish that you all will join the fate of that sadistic motherfucker right now where they're piling the molten lava that they could muster in his glorious netherend in the nether-realm.
And then a friend came and told me about Sarafiya Bridge - and as I saw the picture of that great strucutre on which I tread upon many days of my life, I just couldn't take it anymore. I'm really afraid of what might happen if structures I really care such as Imam Ali in Najaf or Abu Haneefa in Adhamiya are destroyed, now I can understand how Shiites felt when al-Askari was destoryed, it's horrible, just horrible i tell you, I pictured myself wearning the same armed belt, the same grenades and going around here to find where the fuck does that sick fuck Harith al-Dhari lives so I can just give him the taste of his medicine once and FOR ALL. What use is us? All we do is just sit around and do nothing as our country is destroyed by those pigs, those monkeys, those apes, Remember why I was so pissed off about that Star Academy bimbo? Because when al-Askari shrine happened I was really optimistic about the Sunnis and Shiite finally proving to the world that it doesn't matter like I always thought it doesn't, I was optimistic about all the joint prayers and I cursed fellow bloggers but then again I was proven how little do I know! So when I watched those 7 million asses voting and lauding it as some big deal I get a serene sense of Deja Vu, Fuck you Shada Hasson and fuck all the gay 7 million Iraqis who think you mean something...I'm beyond hate, beyond insanity now, beyond everything.

300

"It's basically a propaganda where Batman kicks al-Qaeda's ass" - creator of 300 comic Frank Miller, about his next Batman comic
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300 is a good movie technically speaking, I just wanted to clear that beforehand.

Now, Yuck.
That was my initial gut reaction as me and ExZombie, who seemed to like it, walked out of the Century Cinema, of course, it is partly due to the horrible abominations sold nearby as innocent hamburgers, but it was mostly because of Zack Snyder's big-screen abomination.
300 is the sort of film where you should walk in with your brain shut off and your eyes turned all the way up - revelling at the unforgiving bloody carnage like an al-Qaeda extremist as the first scene, which depicts how Spartans discovered natural selection by killing any weak babies around, gives you a hint at the comic-book mentality of what's coming up next, and it's a real guilty pleasure to caress your violence id as the visuals are a sight to behold, unfortunately you can't enjoy this wholeheartedly when every once in a while a phrase like 'ushering a new generation as we, protectors of freedom and democracy' against the 'darkness of mysticism and barabarism from the east' or 'let every brave warrior who came hither here, or in the NEXT CENTURIES, remember us, remember us, for what we stood for, and never underestimate the enemy...', and then there's the whole senate subplot....I did actually take the trouble to download the comic to see the differences, and the Senate bit exists nowhere - as King Leonidas prepares to go to war against the will of the gods, there is an intense political battle back home spearheaded by his loving wife against some sneaky dude called Theoden, so we get a fleeting passage of drama in which Nancy Pelosi....i'm sorry, Theoden, if you wanna look at it this way, accuses the Queen of being a traitor and not to reinforce the King Leoniads, in the end, the Queen can't stand it and simply whacks her trusty dagger in Pelosi's gut like somebody's wet dream, I kinda liked Clinton better, at least he jerked off to regular dames like the rest of us.

Another persistent theme is the mocking of religion, often the bread-and-butter of Hollywood, like Troy, where the Gods are mercilessly mocked, going as far as depicting that King Priam of Troy's only mistake was reliance on Apollo, highly contrary to Homer's intentions - 300 is very unkind to the Greek's Allahs and Jesuses, portraying their priests as decadent, half-men half-peanut butter creatures who live off touching the butts of poor oracles, and playing little gods over the population, this however, exists in the original comic-book.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers tried too much to hammer their pro-Bush foreign policy lest that walking-braindeath fanbase would get it that it ruined the setpieces for me, so much so that i wound up not remembering any, and don't get me wrong, i like that sort of film, I held about a gallon of pee all the way throughout Apocalypto for fear of missing a single bit of Aztec action and I didn't really feel it was racist in any sort, the difference, of course, is that the Aztecs are long gone - the Persians and their 'mysticism' (Islam?) are still around. However, it did make a fan of Frank Miller out of me, while I couldn't stand to read his 300 comic book, I went and downloaded his version of Batman, and so far, it's good stuff.

In the end, great visuals, great two-dimensional comic-book sensibilities, but shameless, god-awful propaganda, if you can stomach that, then go ahead by all means.

Daughter of My Ass

"Palestine is now a map on the breasts of hookers."
- Nizzar Qabbani

The above quote really sums up my whole feelings about this Bint-il-Rafidain ordeal, how countries today are mere slogans that are not really very different from corporate sponsorship.
I must say that it is with a feeling of pure and utter disgust that I feel I have to include such cotton-candy corporate whoredom show on my blog. and this contempt is now only compounded by the recent manufactured event of having the winner of the show, an Iraqi of Moroccan mother who's spent almost all of her life in France, to win the show and be trumpeted as the symbol of Iraq's unity. I could almost feel the blobs of vomit boiling up right now.

Zeyad's blog says that about 7 milllions inside IRAQ ALONE voted for her, that is a ratio of one out of four Iraqis but let us not forget that you can vote multiple times and some nerdy geeks finished whole prepaid cards on this travesty - I am against this show for several reasons, first, while she has a pretty good operatic voice that could do some classic 60s songs beautifully - it's a show that has that stupid consumerism Diva-worshipping crap that I, as an anti-mainstream, anti-establihsment rock fan, feel horribly insulted by - pre-packaged starlettes and the show is in the end not about talent, but actually about the boy-girl mixture which tingles repressed feelings in the Arab community, and most importantly, national bias.

Okay, regardless of my own feelings about the show, I have no problems with her winning, or of the people who voted, but my beef is with all that thing about her becoming a national symbol.

Sir Nir Rosen has an interesting paragraph on his seminal 'Civil War Anatomy' that I feel is fitting for the occasion:

I first visited Adhamiya on April 18, 2003, to see the triumphal return to Abu Hanifa of Dr. Ahmad Kubeisi, Iraq’s most famous living Sunni theologian, the mosque was covered in banners. On top of its walls young men held ones proclaiming “One Iraq, one people,” “No to America,” “We reject foreign control,” “Sunnis are Shias and Shias are Sunnis; we are all one,” “All the believers are brothers,” “Leave our country; we want peace.” Demonstrators chanted, “No to America, no to Saddam. Our revolution is Islamic!”

In 2003 Kubeisi’s followers held joint demonstrations and joint prayers with radical Shia movements such as Muqtada’s. Their message was “maku farq” there is no difference” between Sunnis and Shias: “We are all Muslims.” But they were protesting too much, and behind the stentorian insistence that they were united was the fear that they were not, and the knowledge of what would happen should this secret become known.

Yes, we are too much afraid, and we only graze and polish our external image to prove to our dear Arab brothers how much strong we are, while inside our houses and ourselves, therein lies the roots of separation, of hatred and of discord, planted deep within, we are afraid to go deep there and solve them, instead, hey, here's that snotty lady that looks like a beautiful pig swagging around on that show, she is Iraqi, so let's give her a help....Iraqis have gone and done it yet again, proving how pathetic they really are, when we continue to insist on such frail people as symbols for our unity, then that really means that we have a huge fucking problem. We did it last year when some folks began pointing at the abominable show 'The Government, or He's Dead' as a show where Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds can laugh at together - The show was a huge failure, terrible script, terrible puns, looks over content, just about every mistake there ever is, and here we laud it yet again as the solution to the failure of those childish politicians, even the title of that show was stolen from a hugely successful and funny satire-show that's done by another civil war-candidate country, the Lebanese "Basmat Watan" which can also be translated into two far more biting meanings: "Smiles of a Country" and "Yet, the country's dead". ًًWe can't do ANYTHING right. What good did this victory do for a mother who lost her son, or a family who lost their house. I can't believe our stupidity! I don't think any air-headed nation, even America, would do such a stupid thing when their country is being demolished and tattered piece by piece, this is not a time for celebration, it's a time of mourning. Don't cry all day, but still, respect the lost souls.