A Family in Baghdad

Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Good morning…
I was busy in the past days reading a book about the history of philosophy in Europe… it comes in the form of an interesting novel, I mean; it isn't a heavy, boring narrative…
The book is called: Sofies world, and the author is: Jostein Gaarder, a Norwegian, working as a philosophy and Thought History Professor.
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Perhaps some shall say: look at this woman, were does she live! The world is full of killing, ruin, and mishaps, and she talks about books of philosophy!
Ha,ha,ha…
By GOD, the world is tiring, and that who keeps following its events breaks, and wouldn't get a thing… that is why time should be used in a useful thing, like reading, to widen our perceptions, develop our knowledge, and perhaps help us to find answers to many questions residing in our minds…
Many events took place this week in the countries around us, all of them depressing:
Elections in Egypt, and people walk in angry demonstrations accusing the government of forging the results, and thus giving the Parliament seats to members of the ruling Party…
Well then, why?
The rival candidates come from an old, Islamic Party, whose opinions are moderate, why don't you give a chance for such Parties to be in power?
Isn't this a repression of democracy?
Wouldn't that have been better than the emergence of angry, extremist Parties that bomb and kill, as a result of the government's policy of suppression and continued mouth-muzzling?
And Syria is facing political pressures from America, as usual, an America that enjoys playing the part of the villain in all the issues concerning our region, and people in Syria and the neighboring Arab countries are angry, seeing that America is planning to destroy Syria like she did in Iraq…
In Iraq; the situation is still in chaos, the government and the occupation forces live in a combined private world of future plans, of how and what the Iraqi future shall be, away from the world of the opposition; who want to run in the mid-next month elections, hoping to fulfill dreams of another kind; like moving the occupation out, handing power over to the Iraqis, and putting the decision about the future of Iraq in the hands of the Iraqis…
Every day, the non-governmental Iraqi TV stations bring out pictures of detained Iraqi men, standing in humiliation with their eyes tied, from various Iraqi towns, and all around them are occupation soldiers and Iraqi policemen. And raids on houses, searching, arrests, and demonstrations … and houses in Iraqi towns and villages demolished by the occupation bombings as they chase the insurgents, insurgents against whom??
Isn’t rebelling against occupation a legitimate right? Or did the laws of the world change since America came to occupy our land?
There are news of suicidal operations against the occupation forces, and others against the Iraqi Police, and in both cases there are Iraqi civilian casualties…
It seems like Iraq needs a miracle to turn into a secure, peaceful country, with its people satisfied about what is happening inside their land…
And in Jordan, the bombings of the Hotels came to be the straw that broke the camel's back…
The Iraqis run away from the bombings in Iraq, but it followed them to Jordan, killing some of them, and the Jordanians are terrified that the fire blazing in Iraq would extend to burn them along with it…
And we see that this fire is capable of extending to all neighboring countries, unless there would be a local and international agreement to put it out…
America waged the fire in Iraq, and now America shakes; Gondaliza Rice comes to Amman, and Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Koffy Annan. All those came to Jordan.
And we wonder: why? Is it really in sadness for the innocent, civilian victims who fell?
Who can convince me that those people really have hearts, or consciences?
And why are they impaired, and do not function towards the Iraqi civilian victims, and do not feel them, or move to do anything to stop the inferno going on there?
Or is it a matter of interests?
Oh, yes, life is a matter of interests….
Who cares about the poor nobodies who fall and die in Iraq everyday?
There aren't any rich people among them, or famous personalities…
Even people's minds and consciences are working by remote control now… if the governments felt angry, condemned, and called for demonstrations, people would run, and react… and if governments took to silence, people whispered among themselves, in complaint and grumble, but wouldn't do anything; they know the government wouldn't give them an authorization to march against the high prices, or against the war on Iraq, but the government would demand them to march against terrorism, because the government's interests were harmed…
I do not know who the hypocrite is; the governments?, or the people?
I do not know whose ability to see and distinguish between things was deformed, the government's? Or the people's?
And always, there are some marginalized, oppressed victims, waiting for someone to stand up, and defend them….
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And speaking of the marginalized, we all saw what is happening in France; the poor unemployed, the immigrants, being treated like second-rate citizens…meaning; they live with half the rights of the original citizens…
This is France, whose history housed the Age of Enlightenment, and the first manifest of Human Rights…
Why is the world moving backwards?
Would the solutions be arrests, curfews, and enforcing emergency laws that could last for months?
Why did they use to say Saddam Hussein was an unjust dictator…
In the faces of Europe's and America's rulers I see a lot of similarities with Saddam Hussein…
By GOD I think that this Globalization has opened our eyes to the falseness of the western governments; they aren't better than our own governments….. Always when they find themselves in a jam, they act highhandedly, striking with an iron fist to protect their interests…. Even if those in front were their people, and not the people of some colony…
I have a French friend who sent me an e-mail, saying she has been working for years now with those immigrant young people. She says she always thought there was some time-bomb that will explode one day, because they lived through very difficult conditions that accumulated for years…
Nothing comes without an origin, without a reason…

When I read that philosophy book, the philosopher (Kant) attracted my attention when he spoke about "Awareness", and how much it was relevant to knowing the true nature of things… then he spoke about the "Law of Causation", for example; if you were sitting in the living room with a cat, and a ball rolled in front of you, the cat will chase the ball without thinking, but the person will look around to see where did that ball come from?
Why?
Because the person has a mind that thinks, and analysis to discover the cause…
Yesterday I laughed when I heard there is a campaign to be carried out by governments, starting from America, and the pro-American governments. The campaign says: We fight terrorism, and those who justify terrorism…
From this we understood that we should muzzle our mouths, and not think where did the ball rolling in the living room come from? I mean; where did the ugly terrorist gangs come from?
We are forbidden to ask or say that the war on Iraq was the reason, that that war brought chaos and destruction to the whole region, so that Iraq became a focus of terrorism, exporting fire to its neighbors…
We are forbidden to say this; for this is a justification… and a contribution to the terrorists in their work…
Hummm…
When will we learn to respect the minds of Humans?
I do see that the world is moving backwards….
And the governments are oppressing us always, even though they claim their love of freedom, democracy, and human rights…
The simplest right is our right to think…
Is that forbidden too?
Are the people always supposed to play the role of the dumb lambs, so the country would settle down?
I do not know how to get over these ordeals?
I mean; when I think of the gang that attacked me in Baghdad a year ago, who put the machine guns in my face, took my car and run, in the shadows of deteriorating security conditions, and the absence of an active legitimate authority, and state…
Should I cry and curse the gang? Or those who destroyed Iraq, permitting these gangs to roam Iraq, looting, robbing, and killing??
Do I sympathize with the gang? Or do I charge them with the responsibility of the crime, with their partner who waged the war on Iraq, destroying everything, and erecting chaos….
Both are a terrorist criminal, who targeted the peaceful weak, and destroyed their lives…
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Translated by May/Baghdad.