Monday, September 12, 2005
Wednesday, September 7th, 2005
Good morning…
What is happening in the Arabic and non-Arabic countries around Iraq these days?
Yesterday, there was some news about a fight in the Saudi city of Al-Dammam that lasted for three days, between the governmental security forces and " some wanted armed persons", as they were called. The fighting ended yesterday by killing 5 armed people, and about 10 deaths and some wounded from the governmental security forces.
The question is: who were those people who were killed?
Why the mystery that surrounds these stories?
Were they nationalist oppositionists against the government?
Why aren't we allowed to know the subject of the conflict between them and the government?
Is there a Saudi parliamentary council who discusses such matters, making the truth known to people inside Saudi Arabia and outside the truth about what is going on?
Why would the western media, and especially the American, make such a fuss about silly, petty subjects, exaggerating about them under the pretext of Human Rights, like the right of Saudi women to drive cars, opening those subjects as public issues for debate and dialogue inside Saudi Arabia and outside, but ignores, and clearly conspires to cover up the stories of the repeated fighting between the government and opposition groups who get killed after armed confrontations that would last for days, and would demolish the houses of the neighborhood around them, their bodies would be burned to cinder, without any useful information that declares what exactly happened?
Who controls and directs us in the Arabic countries?
Do our local governments derive the legitimacy of their survival from their people? Or rather do they derive that legitimacy to survive and remain from America, and its support?
The people in the west think us dumb, ignorant people who hate democracy and freedom…
But whoever lives here sees exactly the opposite….
We are people who have been fighting the darkness and ignorance that our governments want to let us sink in for long years, we struggle for freedom and democracy. Our religion urges us upon freedom, inciting to join the others in taking decisions, urging upon the spirit of unity and collectiveness, and urges us to love justice, and die for it…
Are we backwards people, following a backwards religion, worshiping a strange god, and our doctrines are vicious, stupid, and closed?
That is how the westerners portray us…
And we are the opposite…
We are exactly the opposite….
******************************
In Egypt, an election is taking place today, to elect a new president…
The present president has been in office for more than twenty years…
The country suffers serious economic crises that are difficult to solve, the poor are getting poorer, and there are some rich people who are getting richer, as usual… there is official corruption, as usual, and some hot, debatable topics, like the relations with Israel and how should they be…. The freedom of the political Parties, Union activities, and the other civil society organizations…
This is the first time a multiple-candidate presidential elections were permitted, the government controls the media as usual, and they did all they can to constrain matters for the new candidates, they accepted some and rejected others under many pretexts, and there was a conflict with the Egyptian judiciary to obtain the right to monitor the elections by the civic society organizations.
By GOD, my respect for the Egyptians increased in these difficult conditions as they try the impossible to improve their political life, and to achieve freedom and democracy.
And everybody says that President Mubarak's chance to win the majority of votes is the most likely, and the opposition announced their suspicions about the integrity of the elections since the beginning….
In spite of the people's tiredness, but they participated in all the stages of the election process, to assert their serious wish in change…. that they hadn't lost hope yet, but will keep on trying one time after another, until their wishes would be fulfilled…
It seems that the government's existence law in our countries these days is such: we obtain our force and existence from outside powers who want us to remain, and not from the support or the wishes of our people…
And this election is the game of democracy, nothing more… do not yarn for the existence of true democracy on earth…
I think this is how we have been for tens of years, but in a hidden way…and now, no one would feel ashamed any more…
America talks by the policy of actuality, meaning; in spite of the people's noses, we do what we like…
Isn't this the cowboy mentality, that who doesn't acknowledge the law, thinking himself above it?
And the same story is repeated in countries like Latin America, Africa, and East Asia; in countries dominated by the invisible or evident hands of the American imperialism, where the will of the people is pushed to the margin, their wealth is stolen, and pro- imperialism factions are put in the power seats… the story is clear, repeated, and became boring…
They think they will always win by enforcing the "Actuality" policy on those poor people…
But, as they say, the days will stand between us, and we shall see ….who will remain firm on the ground, and who will fly off, away……
************************************
In Syria, Lebanon, and Iran, there are some questionable, accelerating events. There are some strange hands messing around there too, to change whatever can be changed politically on the ground of reality….
*********************************
As for Iraq, the story is more complicated, but still clear…
The aim there is to fragmentize all the nationalistic powers and the Iraqi Parties, thus pushing the country back into the ages of sectarians, creeds, ethnics, and tribes, attempting to drown them in side fights and conflicts, and exaggerating all these, until they would forget their real enemy: the occupation…
As if the program in Iraq says: You fight among your selves, and we shall help you to formulate a constitution that will achieve dissension on the ground of reality, so you would remain busy with endless arguments and conflicts…
As for the occupation, it will build military bases, so as to remain in Iraq indefinitely, and the American investment companies will come to start the real job of sucking the Iraqi wealth; the oil, and others… Long live imperialism and its interests, and down with the Iraqi's right in freedom and independence…
The reality of the condition says: let them fight and conflict, always open up new problems for them, planting those who love the west among them, to divide their ranks and destroy their unity, and the tension will always be present, giving a justification for the occupying forces to remain…
These are the new policies of the west towards our countries; a policy of fragmentize and destruction from the inside, slowly, and with continuous malice……
***************************
There are a lot of theorizers in the American administration who laid down the idea of re-drawing the Iraqi map; geographically and demographically, to make it the democracy model in the region!
What model is this? According to them, they imagine that Iraq can change from a fighting country into a peaceful country, like what happened to Japan after WW2, and would turn into an industrial country, or a center for capitalism in the Middle East and the Arabic region.
By GOD, I don't know how these naïve people think? They imagine that humans are tools in their hands, for them to program as they wish, and to direct where they wish.
They talk freely and confidently of these notions… but for us they are just funny, far away dreams…
Not because the Iraqis hate industry, technology, and peace…but because no one can force the people to forget their past, principles, and convictions in life that easily, to adopt another character, completely different… an imported character from the west…
And where would that change come from?
From a foreign occupation force?
How would people accept such a funny idea?
Like the way the lambs would accept the idea that the wolf is their friend, seeking their interest?
The people who produce these theories in the west are people blinded by the pride of superiority…and the truths as they are on the ground of reality will carry the answer for them one day….
These people think that the people's will is a silly, extinct thing…
But I believe, and a lot of people believe, like me, that the people's will is true, and just…like GOD the Mighty… seen by the believers, denied by the disbelievers…and that is an on going debate, until the day of judgment.
**********************************
I go back to the Saudi model again….
I lived in Saudi Arabia at the beginning of the 1980s; and I saw their life style at that time, the people were pampered and luxurious, they had fancy, latest model cars, women wore gold by the kilos, and used the most expensive French perfumes. The men usually had four wives, they had East Asian servants in almost every house, the salaries were excellent, the income level high, water, electricity, phone lines and services were very good, reaching every village, the public facilities and places were clean and tidy, there were servants everywhere, provided by foreign companies; in the airports, hotels, and public gardens… the families travel to Europe with their servants, spending thousands of dollars yearly in shopping and fun, the men go to casinos and gambling places, and spend some more thousands of dollars…
At that time, I came from Iraq who used to live through the war with Iran, entangled in it by the American government, as usual. Gandhi used to say: If two fish had a fight in the sea, look for Britain for involvement! And we in Iraq can say the same for America, for we saw nothing of her pretty face…she always exposed her ugly face and fangs for us…
Before that, I worked as a volunteer in some Palestinian camps during the Lebanese civil war… then, I came to Saudi Arabia, it was a different, strange environment; no national awareness, no parties, no civil organizations, no Unions, nothing at all… people just eat, drink, get married, and have as much fun in life as they can…
Then, I went with my relative many times to places they call: "the base", I didn't understand what they were, we used to visit good, respectable Saudi ladies, and we spoke about our families and children. They were the wives of the military officials there, then I discovered that it was the American military base in the South, in the "Khameese Masheet" area where I used to live…
It was another world…..
Houses, streets, gardens, residential, and commercial buildings designed evidently in the western style…
I never understood what those bases were, and why they were there…
Now, I recall the memory, and laugh at my naivety and unawareness at the time…
Perhaps at the naivety and unawareness of us all…
Those bases were perhaps used to raid Iraq for times and times….
Now, if I were to go and live in Saudi Arabia, would I go and visit the base, and my friends there?
Would I look at them as neutral locations populated by the families of military personnel?
Am I the same, as I was twenty years or more before?
Or rather, am I the same as I was before Iraq was occupied?
Do I look at the west and America by the same naïve, wondering vision before the war serial against us started: Do they like us, or hate us? Do they really come to our countries to help and develop, as they claim in their media, or just to divide us, break our national unity, then steal our wealth to finance their countries, and develop it?
As for us here, we only reap a bitter fruit from them…..
**************************************
When I was in Saudi Arabia those days, I used to tell myself: these people couldn't rebel one day against the rule of religion and the tribe, which are well rooted in the country for a decade or more…
They live peacefully, they eat, sleep, and think of no others… the government gives its citizens unique distinctions, for the Saudi citizen has the right to guarantee any non-Saudi person, (an Arab or a foreigner), and that alone gives the Saudi citizen a comfortable way of life, and an excellent income without much effort… any investor must have a Saudi partner…and thus, the investor or the non-Saudi resident lives under the mercy and the moods of the Saudi citizen, perhaps he would turn out to be a just, honest, well-bred person, or, alas, he might turn out to be unjust, a lier, or an opportunist, so he would devour the rights of strangers, and kick them out of the country, and the government is on the side of its citizens in all conditions, applying programs like: terminating the employment of any non-Saudi employee if a Saudi with the same specialization applied for the job.
At that time I told everybody: By GOD I wish Iraq had such laws to protect the Iraqis and pamper them, but the laws in Iraq don't give the Iraqis any more rights than the others…..
**********************************************
After the Iraq-Kuwait war in 1991, things started to change in Saudi Arabia; America forced Saudi Arabia and the other Arab countries to accept the principle of the Coalition, and the war on Iraq…there were a lot of the wise men in the nation who called for the necessity of an Arabic-Arabic solution to the problem, but America pushed in the direction of a western interference, and the nationalization of the crises…
The war on Iraq took place, and somehow it depleted the Saudi economy… and so, things changed…
The economic crises started; a reduction of the salaries and privileges of the Saudi and non- Saudi employees, the poor and needy emerged in the society, and beggars were seen in traffic light locations in the streets…
Some criticism against the government inside Saudi Arabia and outside started to appear, along with the opposition inside and abroad, against some economic, social, and political issues…
Saudi Arabia is an excellent place for investment; there are factories for food, electrical, construction materials products, and others, and most of these factories are foreign, with a Saudi license.
The cars inside Saudi Arabia are mostly big, fancy American cars, with custom made specifications, especially manufactured for them… so, the country is an excellent market to sell the American products…
And in the beginning of the latest war on Iraq in 2003, America started to pull its armies out of Saudi Arabia, considering that country an unsafe area… so they transferred the military command center to Qatar, Al-Aideed base, and commanded the war on Iraq from there…
The question is: Why weren't the Saudi people controlled to accept the concept of the American existence, even after tens of years of their residing safely among Saudis? Why did movements that resemble a resistance start appearing inside Saudi Arabia now?
Are they a bunch of outlaws, as the media is trying to make us understand, or are they the beginning of a new age in the region? An age that rejects the west, and its reckless policies against the people's wills??
************************************
So, what did they expect from the Iraqis?
The history of the Iraqis has no luxury, and no pampering…their history is full of confrontations and clashes with the Ottoman occupiers, then the British occupiers, then various national governments, but the people continued their rebellion from time to time….
And even if they seem silent sometimes, they comprehend exactly what is going on around them, and they are very difficult to fool… Saddam Hussein tried to wash their brains, and they showed him obedience, but their minds and hearts retained their convictions……
After the fall of Baghdad, the Iraqis opened their eyes again, after the long darkness…
And they discovered that those who came now to rule were no better than those who went away, but rather uglier, because they were unjust, sitting under the canopy of a foreign occupation that provides protection for them. Saddam Hussein was unjust, but at least he had some fear of revealing his ties with the west, and he had the least minimum sense of nationality…. he used to say: we do not like the occupier… we won't permit him to steal our independence and national wealth. And whether he was lying, or telling the truth, the people were content with his patriotism and national spirit…
But those who came with the occupation are nothing more but miserable employees who receive their orders from their masters… agreeing publicly to the remaining of an occupation force in Iraq…
How shall we create some dignity for them in our hearts?
How shall we respect them, and acknowledge them as legal leaders for us?
It is evident that they, along with the occupation forces, are in a deadlock… and they are trying by all means to market the process of being accepted in the Iraqi street…
By the daily brain washing in the media, or by enlisting agents for them in power, in the civil society organizations… or everywhere…
***********************************
The development of people's comprehension is a fact, on the ground of reality…
And it is a fact ignored by the theorizers of the American policy…
We have a parable that says: a cautious person is usually bit in his lair…
Meaning; he receives the deadly stroke from the least expected direction…..
People's comprehension is the thing that capitalism and imperialism, who occupy the people, and are filled with the conceitedness of superiority, do not believe in….
But I bet, as many others do…that people's awareness grow day by day…as my own awareness grew, personally, after the occupation of Iraq, and my eyes opened to see the picture with its true face…without lies, without embellishments ……….
At the beginning, I ran in Baghdad to work with non-governmental organizations, because I believed they were going to work for the Iraqi's welfare… then I discovered these were outlets through which the occupation policy was being spread, to infiltrate to the people… nobody financed the honest national organizations, so they had financial problems, then closed their doors…. As for the organizations that were financed by the occupation, in one way or another, they grew, and spread among the people to market the occupational notions, and to beautify them in the eyes of the Iraqis…
After I got back from the Red Sea to attend the Iraqi Women Leadership's Convention, that was supervised by an American Congress Committee, last spring, a Convention which I called the "brain washing Convention", in which the Americans strongly outlined the ideas of the constitution, federalism, the government's type, and the oil's fate, but one which I found very hateful, and full of poisons, so I left it on the second day, when I was supposed to remain for five days, but I couldn't bear the poisons in it….
Before the Convention, I usually had my dinner or lunch at American or Arabic restaurants, I didn't care which, for I used to say: all the same… but after that, I found myself totally refraining from entering any American chicken or hamburger restaurant… in my head, an idea solidified: I shall not take part in financing capitalism from my own pocket, however humble the expenses were, but I shall not give it to them…
So I went back to eating in Arabic restaurants only…and I taught my sons to do the same…
Who pushed me into this decision?
The foolishness and arrogance of the Americans in the Convention, their attempts at treating us like we were stupid, without minds, personalities, identities, or independent decisions of our own…
And they, by their stupid policy with us, are pushing us far away from them….
They are pushing "us" to choose… so "they" would be the aliens.
And by GOD, I see they are pushing us to be more nationalistic, and to belong more to our identity…
Shall we say: Thank you to them?
**********************************
And after that, they dream Iraq would become a center point for them, a base to spread their notions among the Arabic countries….
Doesn't that remind us of Satan's dream to enter the paradise??
Huh…..
================================================
Translated by May/Baghdad.
Good morning…
What is happening in the Arabic and non-Arabic countries around Iraq these days?
Yesterday, there was some news about a fight in the Saudi city of Al-Dammam that lasted for three days, between the governmental security forces and " some wanted armed persons", as they were called. The fighting ended yesterday by killing 5 armed people, and about 10 deaths and some wounded from the governmental security forces.
The question is: who were those people who were killed?
Why the mystery that surrounds these stories?
Were they nationalist oppositionists against the government?
Why aren't we allowed to know the subject of the conflict between them and the government?
Is there a Saudi parliamentary council who discusses such matters, making the truth known to people inside Saudi Arabia and outside the truth about what is going on?
Why would the western media, and especially the American, make such a fuss about silly, petty subjects, exaggerating about them under the pretext of Human Rights, like the right of Saudi women to drive cars, opening those subjects as public issues for debate and dialogue inside Saudi Arabia and outside, but ignores, and clearly conspires to cover up the stories of the repeated fighting between the government and opposition groups who get killed after armed confrontations that would last for days, and would demolish the houses of the neighborhood around them, their bodies would be burned to cinder, without any useful information that declares what exactly happened?
Who controls and directs us in the Arabic countries?
Do our local governments derive the legitimacy of their survival from their people? Or rather do they derive that legitimacy to survive and remain from America, and its support?
The people in the west think us dumb, ignorant people who hate democracy and freedom…
But whoever lives here sees exactly the opposite….
We are people who have been fighting the darkness and ignorance that our governments want to let us sink in for long years, we struggle for freedom and democracy. Our religion urges us upon freedom, inciting to join the others in taking decisions, urging upon the spirit of unity and collectiveness, and urges us to love justice, and die for it…
Are we backwards people, following a backwards religion, worshiping a strange god, and our doctrines are vicious, stupid, and closed?
That is how the westerners portray us…
And we are the opposite…
We are exactly the opposite….
******************************
In Egypt, an election is taking place today, to elect a new president…
The present president has been in office for more than twenty years…
The country suffers serious economic crises that are difficult to solve, the poor are getting poorer, and there are some rich people who are getting richer, as usual… there is official corruption, as usual, and some hot, debatable topics, like the relations with Israel and how should they be…. The freedom of the political Parties, Union activities, and the other civil society organizations…
This is the first time a multiple-candidate presidential elections were permitted, the government controls the media as usual, and they did all they can to constrain matters for the new candidates, they accepted some and rejected others under many pretexts, and there was a conflict with the Egyptian judiciary to obtain the right to monitor the elections by the civic society organizations.
By GOD, my respect for the Egyptians increased in these difficult conditions as they try the impossible to improve their political life, and to achieve freedom and democracy.
And everybody says that President Mubarak's chance to win the majority of votes is the most likely, and the opposition announced their suspicions about the integrity of the elections since the beginning….
In spite of the people's tiredness, but they participated in all the stages of the election process, to assert their serious wish in change…. that they hadn't lost hope yet, but will keep on trying one time after another, until their wishes would be fulfilled…
It seems that the government's existence law in our countries these days is such: we obtain our force and existence from outside powers who want us to remain, and not from the support or the wishes of our people…
And this election is the game of democracy, nothing more… do not yarn for the existence of true democracy on earth…
I think this is how we have been for tens of years, but in a hidden way…and now, no one would feel ashamed any more…
America talks by the policy of actuality, meaning; in spite of the people's noses, we do what we like…
Isn't this the cowboy mentality, that who doesn't acknowledge the law, thinking himself above it?
And the same story is repeated in countries like Latin America, Africa, and East Asia; in countries dominated by the invisible or evident hands of the American imperialism, where the will of the people is pushed to the margin, their wealth is stolen, and pro- imperialism factions are put in the power seats… the story is clear, repeated, and became boring…
They think they will always win by enforcing the "Actuality" policy on those poor people…
But, as they say, the days will stand between us, and we shall see ….who will remain firm on the ground, and who will fly off, away……
************************************
In Syria, Lebanon, and Iran, there are some questionable, accelerating events. There are some strange hands messing around there too, to change whatever can be changed politically on the ground of reality….
*********************************
As for Iraq, the story is more complicated, but still clear…
The aim there is to fragmentize all the nationalistic powers and the Iraqi Parties, thus pushing the country back into the ages of sectarians, creeds, ethnics, and tribes, attempting to drown them in side fights and conflicts, and exaggerating all these, until they would forget their real enemy: the occupation…
As if the program in Iraq says: You fight among your selves, and we shall help you to formulate a constitution that will achieve dissension on the ground of reality, so you would remain busy with endless arguments and conflicts…
As for the occupation, it will build military bases, so as to remain in Iraq indefinitely, and the American investment companies will come to start the real job of sucking the Iraqi wealth; the oil, and others… Long live imperialism and its interests, and down with the Iraqi's right in freedom and independence…
The reality of the condition says: let them fight and conflict, always open up new problems for them, planting those who love the west among them, to divide their ranks and destroy their unity, and the tension will always be present, giving a justification for the occupying forces to remain…
These are the new policies of the west towards our countries; a policy of fragmentize and destruction from the inside, slowly, and with continuous malice……
***************************
There are a lot of theorizers in the American administration who laid down the idea of re-drawing the Iraqi map; geographically and demographically, to make it the democracy model in the region!
What model is this? According to them, they imagine that Iraq can change from a fighting country into a peaceful country, like what happened to Japan after WW2, and would turn into an industrial country, or a center for capitalism in the Middle East and the Arabic region.
By GOD, I don't know how these naïve people think? They imagine that humans are tools in their hands, for them to program as they wish, and to direct where they wish.
They talk freely and confidently of these notions… but for us they are just funny, far away dreams…
Not because the Iraqis hate industry, technology, and peace…but because no one can force the people to forget their past, principles, and convictions in life that easily, to adopt another character, completely different… an imported character from the west…
And where would that change come from?
From a foreign occupation force?
How would people accept such a funny idea?
Like the way the lambs would accept the idea that the wolf is their friend, seeking their interest?
The people who produce these theories in the west are people blinded by the pride of superiority…and the truths as they are on the ground of reality will carry the answer for them one day….
These people think that the people's will is a silly, extinct thing…
But I believe, and a lot of people believe, like me, that the people's will is true, and just…like GOD the Mighty… seen by the believers, denied by the disbelievers…and that is an on going debate, until the day of judgment.
**********************************
I go back to the Saudi model again….
I lived in Saudi Arabia at the beginning of the 1980s; and I saw their life style at that time, the people were pampered and luxurious, they had fancy, latest model cars, women wore gold by the kilos, and used the most expensive French perfumes. The men usually had four wives, they had East Asian servants in almost every house, the salaries were excellent, the income level high, water, electricity, phone lines and services were very good, reaching every village, the public facilities and places were clean and tidy, there were servants everywhere, provided by foreign companies; in the airports, hotels, and public gardens… the families travel to Europe with their servants, spending thousands of dollars yearly in shopping and fun, the men go to casinos and gambling places, and spend some more thousands of dollars…
At that time, I came from Iraq who used to live through the war with Iran, entangled in it by the American government, as usual. Gandhi used to say: If two fish had a fight in the sea, look for Britain for involvement! And we in Iraq can say the same for America, for we saw nothing of her pretty face…she always exposed her ugly face and fangs for us…
Before that, I worked as a volunteer in some Palestinian camps during the Lebanese civil war… then, I came to Saudi Arabia, it was a different, strange environment; no national awareness, no parties, no civil organizations, no Unions, nothing at all… people just eat, drink, get married, and have as much fun in life as they can…
Then, I went with my relative many times to places they call: "the base", I didn't understand what they were, we used to visit good, respectable Saudi ladies, and we spoke about our families and children. They were the wives of the military officials there, then I discovered that it was the American military base in the South, in the "Khameese Masheet" area where I used to live…
It was another world…..
Houses, streets, gardens, residential, and commercial buildings designed evidently in the western style…
I never understood what those bases were, and why they were there…
Now, I recall the memory, and laugh at my naivety and unawareness at the time…
Perhaps at the naivety and unawareness of us all…
Those bases were perhaps used to raid Iraq for times and times….
Now, if I were to go and live in Saudi Arabia, would I go and visit the base, and my friends there?
Would I look at them as neutral locations populated by the families of military personnel?
Am I the same, as I was twenty years or more before?
Or rather, am I the same as I was before Iraq was occupied?
Do I look at the west and America by the same naïve, wondering vision before the war serial against us started: Do they like us, or hate us? Do they really come to our countries to help and develop, as they claim in their media, or just to divide us, break our national unity, then steal our wealth to finance their countries, and develop it?
As for us here, we only reap a bitter fruit from them…..
**************************************
When I was in Saudi Arabia those days, I used to tell myself: these people couldn't rebel one day against the rule of religion and the tribe, which are well rooted in the country for a decade or more…
They live peacefully, they eat, sleep, and think of no others… the government gives its citizens unique distinctions, for the Saudi citizen has the right to guarantee any non-Saudi person, (an Arab or a foreigner), and that alone gives the Saudi citizen a comfortable way of life, and an excellent income without much effort… any investor must have a Saudi partner…and thus, the investor or the non-Saudi resident lives under the mercy and the moods of the Saudi citizen, perhaps he would turn out to be a just, honest, well-bred person, or, alas, he might turn out to be unjust, a lier, or an opportunist, so he would devour the rights of strangers, and kick them out of the country, and the government is on the side of its citizens in all conditions, applying programs like: terminating the employment of any non-Saudi employee if a Saudi with the same specialization applied for the job.
At that time I told everybody: By GOD I wish Iraq had such laws to protect the Iraqis and pamper them, but the laws in Iraq don't give the Iraqis any more rights than the others…..
**********************************************
After the Iraq-Kuwait war in 1991, things started to change in Saudi Arabia; America forced Saudi Arabia and the other Arab countries to accept the principle of the Coalition, and the war on Iraq…there were a lot of the wise men in the nation who called for the necessity of an Arabic-Arabic solution to the problem, but America pushed in the direction of a western interference, and the nationalization of the crises…
The war on Iraq took place, and somehow it depleted the Saudi economy… and so, things changed…
The economic crises started; a reduction of the salaries and privileges of the Saudi and non- Saudi employees, the poor and needy emerged in the society, and beggars were seen in traffic light locations in the streets…
Some criticism against the government inside Saudi Arabia and outside started to appear, along with the opposition inside and abroad, against some economic, social, and political issues…
Saudi Arabia is an excellent place for investment; there are factories for food, electrical, construction materials products, and others, and most of these factories are foreign, with a Saudi license.
The cars inside Saudi Arabia are mostly big, fancy American cars, with custom made specifications, especially manufactured for them… so, the country is an excellent market to sell the American products…
And in the beginning of the latest war on Iraq in 2003, America started to pull its armies out of Saudi Arabia, considering that country an unsafe area… so they transferred the military command center to Qatar, Al-Aideed base, and commanded the war on Iraq from there…
The question is: Why weren't the Saudi people controlled to accept the concept of the American existence, even after tens of years of their residing safely among Saudis? Why did movements that resemble a resistance start appearing inside Saudi Arabia now?
Are they a bunch of outlaws, as the media is trying to make us understand, or are they the beginning of a new age in the region? An age that rejects the west, and its reckless policies against the people's wills??
************************************
So, what did they expect from the Iraqis?
The history of the Iraqis has no luxury, and no pampering…their history is full of confrontations and clashes with the Ottoman occupiers, then the British occupiers, then various national governments, but the people continued their rebellion from time to time….
And even if they seem silent sometimes, they comprehend exactly what is going on around them, and they are very difficult to fool… Saddam Hussein tried to wash their brains, and they showed him obedience, but their minds and hearts retained their convictions……
After the fall of Baghdad, the Iraqis opened their eyes again, after the long darkness…
And they discovered that those who came now to rule were no better than those who went away, but rather uglier, because they were unjust, sitting under the canopy of a foreign occupation that provides protection for them. Saddam Hussein was unjust, but at least he had some fear of revealing his ties with the west, and he had the least minimum sense of nationality…. he used to say: we do not like the occupier… we won't permit him to steal our independence and national wealth. And whether he was lying, or telling the truth, the people were content with his patriotism and national spirit…
But those who came with the occupation are nothing more but miserable employees who receive their orders from their masters… agreeing publicly to the remaining of an occupation force in Iraq…
How shall we create some dignity for them in our hearts?
How shall we respect them, and acknowledge them as legal leaders for us?
It is evident that they, along with the occupation forces, are in a deadlock… and they are trying by all means to market the process of being accepted in the Iraqi street…
By the daily brain washing in the media, or by enlisting agents for them in power, in the civil society organizations… or everywhere…
***********************************
The development of people's comprehension is a fact, on the ground of reality…
And it is a fact ignored by the theorizers of the American policy…
We have a parable that says: a cautious person is usually bit in his lair…
Meaning; he receives the deadly stroke from the least expected direction…..
People's comprehension is the thing that capitalism and imperialism, who occupy the people, and are filled with the conceitedness of superiority, do not believe in….
But I bet, as many others do…that people's awareness grow day by day…as my own awareness grew, personally, after the occupation of Iraq, and my eyes opened to see the picture with its true face…without lies, without embellishments ……….
At the beginning, I ran in Baghdad to work with non-governmental organizations, because I believed they were going to work for the Iraqi's welfare… then I discovered these were outlets through which the occupation policy was being spread, to infiltrate to the people… nobody financed the honest national organizations, so they had financial problems, then closed their doors…. As for the organizations that were financed by the occupation, in one way or another, they grew, and spread among the people to market the occupational notions, and to beautify them in the eyes of the Iraqis…
After I got back from the Red Sea to attend the Iraqi Women Leadership's Convention, that was supervised by an American Congress Committee, last spring, a Convention which I called the "brain washing Convention", in which the Americans strongly outlined the ideas of the constitution, federalism, the government's type, and the oil's fate, but one which I found very hateful, and full of poisons, so I left it on the second day, when I was supposed to remain for five days, but I couldn't bear the poisons in it….
Before the Convention, I usually had my dinner or lunch at American or Arabic restaurants, I didn't care which, for I used to say: all the same… but after that, I found myself totally refraining from entering any American chicken or hamburger restaurant… in my head, an idea solidified: I shall not take part in financing capitalism from my own pocket, however humble the expenses were, but I shall not give it to them…
So I went back to eating in Arabic restaurants only…and I taught my sons to do the same…
Who pushed me into this decision?
The foolishness and arrogance of the Americans in the Convention, their attempts at treating us like we were stupid, without minds, personalities, identities, or independent decisions of our own…
And they, by their stupid policy with us, are pushing us far away from them….
They are pushing "us" to choose… so "they" would be the aliens.
And by GOD, I see they are pushing us to be more nationalistic, and to belong more to our identity…
Shall we say: Thank you to them?
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And after that, they dream Iraq would become a center point for them, a base to spread their notions among the Arabic countries….
Doesn't that remind us of Satan's dream to enter the paradise??
Huh…..
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Translated by May/Baghdad.
# posted by Faiza Al-Araji @ 3:38 pm 
