Sunday, March 21, 2010

Patience of an Ordinary Iraqi

We went to the elections happily and voted with great joy and pride of ourselves believing that we are writing history. I was glad due to my belief that the Iraqis would chose the best, and that the Iraqi politicians are more experienced than before.

After the elections, and day by day I was nauseated by the performance of the politicians’ emotional shouting on each other having no Iraq in their mind, giving the impression that what they fear about is their chairs, their pockets, and their narrow belongings.
Last Friday I went to central Baghdad and sat next to Dijla:






Sabreen (still, we have patience)
Ya weali (oh my suffering)
Ya 7baibiti Sabreen (my love, we still have endurance)
Ya wleifiti Sabreen (my companion, we still have patience)
Sabr el ashjar 3la sheta (the endurance of trees in the face of winter)
Sabr el ghareeb ib wa7shita (the patience of the stranger in his loneliness)
Sabreen
Belchi Allah yin6i mrad lil sabreen
(hoping that God will give the patient what he wants)

I joined a symposium run by Al Mada and Naseer Al Jaderchi, who failed to get enough voices to have a chair in the parliament till now, was giving a short speech about Mustafa Al Barzani, the Kurdish leader. I went to a restaurant and ate rice and spinach sauce with a glass of yogurt.
Would the nowadays Iraqi politicians put Iraq into their eyes? would they hear Fuad Salim and join us in a simple lunch next to Dijla?


The singer, Fuad Salim, was a know member of the Iraqi Communist Party since long time and the previous regime had ban his songs.

3 comments:

Bassam Sebti said...

Thank you for posting this song! I enjoy reading your blog a lot.

Keep up the good work!

Don Cox said...

Politicians are the same the world over. But there are a few who are competent, and the fear of losing their seats in the next election keeps the rest more or less in line.

It is still better to have a government of many greedy politicians who can be voted out than a single greedy man who can't.

saminkie said...

You are welcomed Bassam Sebti.. I like the song too..

Yes Don Cox I agree with you but I think that our politicians had suffered from long periods of opression in the previous regime and they are identifying the old opression (Freudian Castration?) with lossing the elections and that is why they cannot easily admit that they may loose... hence they are highly emotionally charged due to some hidden old stories...