Bringing History Alive

I remember that Algerian woman in one of Rachid Boudjidra's novels who asks the Communist Algerian elder who used to tell her about the liberation revolution in precise dates. He remembers the days. But she used to have a strange kind of lust to know more about the personal characters of the men of history. She would ask: what he was like, how he was dressing, does he have some habits? What kind of sport he liked?



Shua'ayb was the boy who shared me my desk in the 3rd grade in secondary school. And our desk was full of dates. Dates we used to write down before the history lesson starts so that we remember the dates of our different revolutions. Dates and numbers and wars. That was our history lesson given to us by that angry teacher who didn't like us. We weren't parrots and hence we were hated and rejected by her. It was then when I started to learn to smoke more cigarettes and to hate being polite.

Ali Bader's novel title "the naked feast" is about that day in 1917, that day in the life of the guardian of Al Qushla, Mahmood Baig. A day before the UK forces enter Baghdad and defeat the Ottoman empire army. The language of the government by then was Turkish. Mahmood Baig still remembers that day when he wanted to play with Ara, the Christian child, Ara said: "go wash your face you dirty". Mahmood kept washing his face but he didn't become white like Ara. His inferiority complex was clear in front of Beatrice the Armenian who smells like soap. His inferiority complex was evident in front of every Christian.

Mahmood was fearful from whiteness and cleanness. Whiteness and cleanness was united in the body of each Armenian woman. In all chrestian women bodies. The body that smells like soap, the smell that he likes, desire, and fear.

In that contest, Ali Bader, started telling us history. He gave us a lesson of history in his novel. He gave life to Baghdad of 1917 when Al Zahawi who believed with all of his emotions in Darwin's origin of species and started talking about it in Al Shabender café surrounded by his audience. The Imam who declare Al Zahawi as an atheist and the problems thereafter.
The Ottoman empire as representatives of Islam, and the UK as representative of Christianity, and how the Germans stood with the side of the Ottomans, hence made the people awaken from their naivety and making fun of how the king of Germany declared his Islam and Abbas Merza volunteered to circumscribe him for free!!
Told us about the government when don't give the salaries to the soldiers and how they would break into the market and steal from the merchandise. How the Ottoman Empire used to take Baghdadis for wars in Russia in the name of Jihad for Islam. About how the Ottoman army used to steal from the people's houses in those horrible "Farhoods".

When we love, we exaggerate. That was obvious in the way I see Baghdad. As a reaction to its current ugliness, I tended to search in its past for spots of beauty and exaggerated them, so as to say, that I got a country that worth my living in it. A living that carries its risks of death daily. But the real Baghdad is not that beautiful, nor that special. Take this trial of translation by me for one of the pages of Ali Bader's novel as an example:

"No doubt that the real Baghdad was not to Maud, Thompson and to Hooker nor to any other English soldier the golden dust described by Richard Burton's translation of The Thousand Nights and a Night, and it was not to the Indian Muslims who came with the occupation army the capital of the Muslims, which had long dreamed of seeing through the writings of Sayyid Ahmad Khan in his book (The Surprise of People in Knowledge of Baghdad), which was printed in Calcutta in the eighteenth century, but it was another city, a city ravaged by gendarmerie's mules, and cannons of the occupiers, and epidemics, wars, floods, it must be that they recognized how lucky this city which built its legends, a city manufactured by delusions, dreams and myths, its image is closer to myth than its reality, the reality of its water turbidity, and poor populations, and poisoned air, scanty food, and filth, and dirtiness, and blackness, and decay…." P.282

About Parents and Love

J'ai de l'amour plein la tete un coeur d'amitie
Je ne pense qu'a faire la fete et m'amuser
Moi vous pouvez tout me prendre je suis comme ca
Ne cherchez pas a comprendre ecoutez-moi
Dans toute la ville on m'appelle le mendiant de l'amour
Moi je chante pour ceux qui m'aime et je serai toujours le meme
Il n'y a pas de honte a etre un mendiant de l'amour
Moi je chante sous vos fenetres chaque jour

We were in our Passat near Al Baya'a when I said: "I hate him!". My father answered: "Do not hate Sami, don't use this word, use another". I was in my primary school and I cannot remember exactly how the discussion went. "Do not hate" was not that clear to me, "how can I control my emotions?" I must have asked. But the answer came with years passing by, and love prevailing.



Donnez moi de la tendresse surtout pas d'argent
Gardez toutes vos richesses car maintenant
Le bonheur n'est plus a vendre le soleil est roi
Asseyez vous a ma table, ecoutez-moi
On est tous sur cette terre des mendiants de l'amour
Qu'on soit pauvre ou milliardaire, on restera toujours les memes
Ces Hommes extraordinaires ces mendiants de l'amour
Moi j'ai besoin de tendresse chaque jour

The 90s were tough years. Poverty struck Iraqis and hunger was usual. In most homes, there was one main meal, a lunch, but the breakfast and dinner was not always there. While the family eats together, a member would give from his dish a present to the one s/he loves. My parents must have felt that we are not getting enough food. We, the children, were eating so fast, finishing before parents who find themselves giving us a present from their dish. When they sometimes don't do that I can still remember how angry I used to feel. On the other hand my parents wanted me to continue the piano lessons but it was not for free and I lost some of my interest. I started to love hard rock and guitars. Father took me to Al Nithal street to buy me a guitar. After few days I played my first piece, a Fairoz song, surrounded by my family's applauding. Those years will not be forgotten, the years when we were united by hunger and love.

Alors laissez-moi vous dire la generosite
C'est une larme de sourire a partager
Je n'ai pas envie d'apprendre pour qui et pourquoi
Je n'ai pas de compte a rendre, ecoutez-moi
Dans toute la ville on m'appelle le mendiant de l'amour
Moi je chante pour ceux qui m'aime et je serai toujours le meme
Il n'y a pas de honte a etre un mendiant de l'amour
Moi je chante sous vos fenetres chaque jour

In my teenage years I've been too rough on my parents. Now that I remember those days I feel so impressed by their patience and calm. In my 20s I started to criticize their upbringing by comparing that to psychological theories of the right upbringing. I told them some of my thoughts in bursts of anger. Yet, they kept being calm. Father used to bring me coffee to my room when I study, my Mom made me orange juice. Now that I've not seen them for the last few years I miss them so much. And I hope they know that I got the lesson of love they gave me.

Donnez donnez dodo-onnez
Donnez donnez moi
Donnez donnez dodo-onnez
Dieu vous le rendra

To Be or not to Be, it is a Matter of Love

From a loving mother he learns how to love himself, he identifies with his loving father. They love him for what he is, and do not push him to their "Great Expectations". His ideal self is not that difficult to achieve, hence he got no narcissistic injury. He knows what he must do, and knows what he can. He doesn't blame his self harshly like those who got harsh superegos. He loves him self and he loves the world. But what that child whose parents are unloving?

Pic.1 Hassan Al-Alawi

Hassan Al Allawi attributes Saddam's cruelty to his harsh childhood and absence of love. Saddam suffered a narcissistic injury. Saddam came up to a conclusion that he cannot be loved really. He couldn't trust people. Saddam's school was few kilometers away from his home in his rural area, Al Auja. He used to hold an iron stick in his way to defend his self from the attacks of wild dogs and to remove the thorns from his way. In the school, and at the city, he felt no one defending him, no one loved him, he whose father is dead, and his mother is married to another man, a thing not easily accepted in his society. The only thing that defended him was his iron stick even when he ruled Iraq. Saddam didn't believe in peace because he was not in peace with his self, as Hassan Al Alawi wrote once.

Pic 2. The Great Expectations 1946 movie's cover

Mr. Pip the protagonist of Charles Dickens's "Great Expectations". He was an orphan. His older sister was so cruel and unloving. His environment was harsh as we see when he went visiting his parent's tomb in the graveyard and how he was frightened by that prisoner. He used to work with his sister's husband as a blacksmith. He was chosen by that wealthy bizarre old lady to spend some time with her and with Estella, that beautiful wealthy girl who used to torture Pip in an unusual way by uttering comments in his ears like: "Common boy"… "I hate you"…"stupid clumsy laboring boy"…"look at his hands (referring to their dirtiness)" … "look at his boots (in referring to how much they are old and sheared" … but she then feel some need to show her charm to him and to offer him a kiss when she likes, to continue then her harsh comments. Such sadism that was enough to cause Pip ambivalent feelings and narcissistic injury and an abnormal superego development that might give a space to a psychopathic personality to flourish and to create crimes. But he didn't. That prisoner became wealthy and adopted him and gave him love, a scarce bit of love. He grew older, studied, became a gentleman, then got some happy ending with Estella, and with his superego.

That was because somebody loved him and wanted him to be. Is it by chance that Dickens chose a prisoner "a criminal?" to give Pip love, and to rescue him from being a criminal? To reverse the equation. The prisoner blocked the bad way in front of Pips and showed him the way of good.

Pic 3. A love card taken from the site www.mopo.ca

I remembered that when I was reading the autobiography of Salim Matar. His feelings of inferiority, his chronic feelings of guilt and unworthiness, his harsh superego that don't get satisfied only when Salim is suffering, all that, what could made out of him?

Many Iraqis share the same story of harsh fathering and neglecting mothering because of the chronic problems of poverty and recurrent wars.

Selim Matar, as an example of an Iraqi, came up with a psychological autobiography with good insight and bunch of articles, books, and magazines about the Iraqi identity issues. He writes in his biography about his discovery of "love" during his experience of laryngeal cancer, and the need to love his own self so that he can love others. It was in Switzerland when he found love, and while having carcinoma. He talks about his former hatred and grudge for almost everything including God. And here we find a kind of atheism with strong hatred to God (as a father figure maybe). When his grudge melted in Switzerland, by the effect of power of love, when his grudge fires were set off by love, he found God again, and he found his spirit. What was the role of laryngeal carcinoma in Selim's finding of love?

It seems that growing up unloved as a child have its catastrophic effect on personality and it needs such extraordinary experiences like that happened to Mr. Pip, and to Salim Matar so that they find again love, and finally be.

Iraqi Autobiography

Cover of "Confessions of an Unashamed Mam"

An old flask moved through 2000 years from fathers to sons, sometimes after the father's death, but sometimes the son steals it, and during the final decades it left its homeland, Iraq, to a more modern country, Switzerland. He who owns the flask owns what is inside, Hajir, a naked woman who gives pleasure usually by sex, but sometimes by telling stories, and sometimes her man chose to talk to her or cry on her chest. Adam was the one who took the flask to Switzerland not knowing about Hajir. Adam that Iraqi who is married to Marlin, the Swiss, after discovering Hajir, started to take his flask to cheap hotels in rural areas to spend some time with Hajir. His lust for sex started to be accompanies with a lust to alcohol and marijuana.

The whole issue seems not that of a novel, more of a short story, a forgettable one, with bad use of symbols.

Generations in any stable country differ from each other and there are conflicts on some issues, but what about Iraqi generations. The differences are huge since the changes were huge and radical in Iraq history at least in the last 100 years:

1. Those who were born at the end of the 19th century and lived in the beginning of 20th century lived under the Othman empire rule and saw the English invasion and the start of Iraqi Kingdom. Don't know if anyone from this generation is still living but he is still living in the mind of his sons. They are our grandparents.

2. Those who were born under the Iraqi Kingdom lived to see its fall by that revolution of Abdul Kareem Qasim, the Ba'athist- Communist conflict and killing, 1963's killing of Qasim and the start of Ba'ath regime. The relatively calm 70s and the flourishing of art, the Iraq-Iran 8 years war (those who participate in this war are a generation by themselves for what they saw in this war had changed their values uniquely), the 1991 war and the starvation years of the embargo.

3. The generation of the 2003 war.

We, Iraqis of different ages, differ markedly in the core, in the beliefs and attitudes, in social norms and rules, in the understanding of history, and in things beyond my understanding and the scope of this post.

This is why it is important to read a novel, or an autobiography written by a fellow Iraqi from a different generation, from a different experience of Iraq.

Salim Matter is a name that you cannot ignore. That "Mesopotamia" journal which deals with the Iraqi identity crisis and stability was edited by him, with few other books about the Iraqi identity that is available in the Iraqi book market.

Photo 2. Mesopotamia Magazine issues


"The Woman of the Flask" is a novel of his. It doesn't worth much like his "Confessions of an Unashamed Man", his "psychological" autobiography as he calls it. He told us about his childhood in that poor quarter of Baghdad "Al Shakeryia", and how they go walking bare-foot in the summer to the river crossing in their way that rich quarter "Karradat Mariam" with its beautiful Armenian Church and how he wished that his parents were like these people in this quarter, clean and well dressed. He told us that he and his friends were crossing that quarter with caution and fear, but didn't explain more.They reach the river, under the Bridge of the Republic (Al Jamhoureya Bridge) and start to swim in Dijla.

He tell us about his emotional father with his mood swings between extreme violence against Salim, and then the extreme warmth and telling stories, and about his mother with her 13 pregnancies, (5 babiess died, 8 left including Salim) that didn't give her time for each of her sons and daughters individually. His father used to tell him stories about the prophets, mainly about Jesus, Moses and Ibrahim. Salim like Ibrahim especially. At the age of 5 he started to believe that God will send him an angel so that he becomes a prophet. Later, when he knew about Superman who came from a very far planet he started to train his physical abilities hoping that he one day can become a superman. His family helped his feelings of non-belongingness by making fun of him telling him that they found him when he was a baby in the nearby farm, and they took him and grew him up. Since childhood he worked with his father in the father's simple kiosk in Bab El Sharki where they sell sandwiches and drinks to the police men of the nearby jail and also to the families of the imprisoned who came to visit their sons and daughters. He loved the nearby living wealthy family's girl, Eman, and he liked their big house and dreamt that he is their son. His father was harsh on him sometimes and very violent. His rebellion on his father tuned to be a rebellion against God and later, this non-belonged man who always felt as a stranger as he says, joined the Communist party to belong to its big family. At the 1979 he left Iraq. The autobiography continues to tell us about his second part of life, and briefly about his return for a visit to Iraq after the 2003 war.

His "Confessions" tells about the contradictory messages his father used to give him, and about his ambivalent feelings toward his mother whom he thinks contributed to the development of his chronic guilty feelings. For a long time he was feeling guilty if he feels happy, he tells us about the "Guilty form Happiness" that he got, as if he must not be happy.

He hated his teachers at school, hence he joined his friends in running away from the school to the nearby cinemas where he loved to watch emotional Indian movies. Later, when became a communist, he started to deal with cinema more seriously.

Selim Matar publishes a film of his "Confessions" on his site:
http://www.salim.mesopot.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=49:2010-06-29-12-26-58&catid=35

While "the Woman of the Flask" is a boring novel, Salim's Confessions is such an original work written with good insight, and after reading the confessions you might got some empathy to his earlier novel. Thank you Salim Matar for all what you have done. Your works helps to make the Iraqi identity more understandable.

Islam, According to Al-Jibran's Heart

Abdul-Razzaq Al-Jubran starts his book entitled "Prophet's Republic: An Existential Return" and a secondary title "Muddling Soil" by dedicating it to the deceived by the current copy of Islam, and to Ali Sharee'ati, to Soren Kierkegaard, to his brother, and a female who taught him rebellion.

"I divorced Muslims, hence I found Islam"

“The path of reform in Islam is Kierkegaardian.” P. 86

“Faith is not a must for beauty” p. 87

A book that had been published in 2007 by a Lebanese publication house named "Insan (=Human)", reached Iraq and, as usual, illegally photocopied and sold around Baghdad. According to our local book seller it is one of the most sold books during the previous years.


Who are the prophets according to Al Jubran?

“Prophets are not those who shook hand with Gabriel, but those who slapped darkness” p.113

Al Jubran proceeds to remind us of the non-belonged, of the strangers in history. All the prophets were strangers to their society rules. They felt estranged. Also did Ghandi, Jbran Khalil Jubran, Imam Ali, Abo Thar Al Ghafari, and others.

About the most widely spread version of Islamic history he writes:

“Most historians, were the court’s historians…(according to Al-Jibran, those court historians wrote a mutated version of history so that they gain the court's approval and support), while the true page of history, or let us say that true history of Islam is the history of the opposition and not any other… history of revolutions, history of the suppressed, and the crazy… the unwritten oral history” p.101

“Prophets are always buried by books and not by soil” p. 112

Al-Jubran proceeds to contrast the behavior of jurisprudents in history against the prophets' behavior and found great differences.

"God pours prophets and people drink jurisprudents"


Social-class and Islam

“The prophet came to stand for Bilal, and not to stand for God” p.159
Bilal was a black slave owned by a very wealthy man in Mecca who turned to be one of the most furious enemy of the prophet Mohammed because the prophet tried to free Bilal and to makes him equal to the wealthy man. Al Jubran thinks that feelings of strong rejection to the prophet by as such wealthy men of Mecca were not because of the new religion per se, but because of social-class problems.


Forced Faked Faith

Al Jubran reminds us of one of the prophet's quotations in which Mohammed the Prophets disapprove the behavior of those people who want to drag other people to heaven in chains. Al Jibran reminds us that the Prophet's problem were not with those who just didn't believe in him, but mainly with the injustice. Al Jubran concludes:

"God is concerned mainly with injustice and not with unbelief."


Communists

Al Jubran is an Iraqi. He might have some respect to Iraqi Communists. He declares in a short quote that: "Communists are closer to God". Since communists usually don't steal in Iraq, then you will find them poor here, and hence they haven't the capability to leave the country to a safer and secure one. And since many Iraqi communists are known for their love for alcohol, Al Jubran quoted:

"If the communists are drinking wine in the bar, then the Islamists (=political Islam) are drinking money in the mosques, and God's problem is not the drunk, but the poor!"


Old Temple New Temple

"The first thing the prophet had destroyed was a temple" p.126

"the problem of the people here is that they cannot find a door to the prophets but the jurisprudents and this what makes them enter to this cave they call a mosque in spite of its darkness"

Al Jubran thinks that Islam was simple at first, simple and lovable. Islamic jurisprudents had turned it into a complex and hated one, according to Al Jibran who put the Danimark cartoon drawings of the prophet as an example of how much hated we are, and how it is important to "rescue the prophet from Islam, since rescuing Islam is difficult" as Al Jubra Says. He adds:

"The jurisprudents had inserted their noses in what the Quran had chose to be silent about, and they talked more than the prophets did"

"The jurisprudents of Islam had elongated the path to God" p 120

"The religion of the prophet is the religion of heart, simply"

Al-Jubran reminds us of the prophet's advice to consult our hearts when we are confused about the right way and to be humanistic:

"It was not the prophet's aim to cultivate barbs, veils, and mosques so that they point to God, but his aim was to cultivate the hearts so that they point to mankind… because the problem of existence is not God, it is mankind".

"Religiousness in prophet's consciousness, is how you become humanistic in the street, not a priestly in the temple"


Pyramids of Love

In the Islamic belief, human were made by God from mud. Al-Jubran tells us about how some Sufis believe that it was a step in our making that we were made from mud, and our responsibility is to turn our mud into something else, like when Mohammad Iqbal, the Sufi who liked Jalal Al Deen Al Rumi's wisdom, said once: "Al Rumi, turned my mud into crystal (taking in mind that the word crystal in Arabic also means "core")". Al Jubran tells us then about the slaves who die while building the pyramids from mud. And advices us to build pyramids from the mud we are made from, the humanistic mud. i.e. to build pyramids of love inside of us, inside our hearts.

The Obstinacy of Love in Baghdada

According to Elliot, when the Hollow Men feel a desire to kiss someone, they are unable to. Instead, they say prayers to broken stones.


Hassan Mutlak wrote in the introduction of his novel: “there is an old memory, since I was a student in the second grade in primary school; I witnessed a man who found a beautiful alabaster box and sold it to an English man for 4 dinars. At that moment I suffered.. and I am still suffering”.

“I dream of a magic wand
Which turns my kisses into stars
So that, at night, you can
Stare at them
To know that they are countless”

Those were Dunya Mikhail’s verses, said in a prayer of love.

Hassan Mutlak, and before being executed by Saddam regime, had signed a copy of his novels to Dunya Michail who kept asking about him when he dissapeared. So let me tell you about Dyam, the protagonist in Hassan Mutlak’s novel “The Power of Laughter in Ura”:

Oliver came to Nineveh to look for the Assyrian treasures. Dyam was a local boy aiding him. Oliver gave his hat as a present to Dyam, but as Dyam took-on the hat, he could not anymore see the skies, because of the hat borders, and not that only, but he started to hear about the Hollow Men of Eliot.

Dyam had seen the Assyrian tressures deep into that dark well, but he lied to Oliver saying that there is nothing in that well. Oliver was frightened to go and check by himself because of the extraordinary creatures living deep in the darkness of the well.

It was raining and Oliver offered Dyam a ride in the car but Dyam answered: “why would I came inside the car and the rain has started?” Dyam went walking “receiving the wide drops like kisses” as the novel says.

Dyam who wished to “die in a moment of a kiss” kept talking about his coming death. As if Hassan Mutlak knew that they will kill him. Dunya Mikhail kept asking people about him while people's faces were turning yellow from fear, and she was asked finally not to mention his name again publicly.

Hassan Mutlak knew about the Styx River which marks the borders between life and death, but he refused to join the Elliot’s Hollow Men in their scarecrow show as he tells us symbolically throw Dyam.


Hassan Mutlak's brother, Mihsin al-Ramli, told us in an article about their mother and her night stories and especially that story of the illiterate man who invented his own prayer and how funny and sincere it was.

Hassan Mutlak prayers were published openly in Iraq after the 2003 and I received them lately while I was making my own version to Baghdad, picturing those drowned boats, those poor people, this burned-out court of justice, and this demented river.




Baghdad, we love you obstinately.


Lag3ud bi tali el leal (= I swear I’ll wake up late at night)
Ya 3nayid ya yaba (=o you little stubborn)
Wallah wathkur waleefy (= to remember my lover)
Wib 7igat el 7alman (=and on the excuse of dreaming)
Ya 3naid ya yaba (=o you little stubborn)
Ana lamshi 3a keafi (=I will sleep-walk to wherever I want)
3eani w dhay 3eani (=my eye, and the light of my eye)
Ya 3naid ya yaba (=o you little stubborn)
Tiswa hali w kul lil garaba (=you’re equal to my kin and all my relatives; means you are more important to me that them all collectively)
Ya 3nayid ya yaba (=o you little stubborn)


Thanks to my friend who provided me with the burned-out court photo. The song lyrics and music is said by most to be made by Hudairy Abu Aziz. But some regards it as a Jordanian Folklore. Muhsin al-Ramli article about his mother is published in the Iraqi journal “Mesopotamia” in its Issue 2 December 2004. “The Power of Laughter in Ura” novel which was written in 1984 is published by the Arab Scientific Publishers after 2003 and available in the net on http://www.neelwafurat.com/. Baghdad was written as "Baghdada" or "Baghdado" in the writtings from the Keesh era, 1500-1117 B.C. and it was the oldest mention of Baghdad according to Taha Baqir.

Hearts Splitting Apart

They are building some huge thing in Bab Al Mua’atham, but nobody is sure what it is. We got to walk a long distance till we get our bus to go back home. I passed near the Uzbek Mosque and wondered about what is happening in Kyrgyzstan. I thought about taking a photo to the mosque but it lies inside the ministry of defense and the guards are everywhere. They would ask me why I need that photo. And it will be hard to explain. I thought that I can find its picture in the internet when I will be at home but I was wrong, no picture for the mosque but a Google Earth view which has no artistic value.

Today it was very hot and dusty. The bus driver told me that he wish rain would fall. Baghdad turned her face to me and said: “me too… I wait rain… since long…” as I was searching for an answer, she turned her face and went walking, but to where? “Where are you going?” I shouted. “She’s deaf” the bus driver said with laughter!

Et comme toi j'attends la pluie
Pour lui dire toutes mes peines
Tout comme toi, je lui souris
Quand elle tombe sur la plaine
Quand elle tombe sur la plaine

وإنني مثلكِ أنتظر المطر
لكي احكي له كل أوجاعي
ومثلكِ تماماً سوف ابتسم له
حينما يتساقط على الأرض
حينما يتساقط على الأرض



Once upon a time in history, centuries ago, some Uzbeks didn’t find shelter for them but to live in Baghdad. They immigrated here and found it a good place to install their life in. They knew that the place in enough good to start their manual works. Then they needed a mosque, and they built one near the gate. The Iraqi historian Abdul-Razzaq Al Hasany says that Baghdad was just a small city which extends from Bab el Mua’atham, to Al Sinaq, surrounded by a tall wall. The only functioning gate of Baghdad just before the British army entered Baghdad early in the 20th century was a gate called Bab Al Mua’atham, and when you just enter through the gate, you would see the Uzbek mosque to your side. I wondered about that time when Baghdad was receiving immigrants who seek stability. There is no Baghdad that receives immigrants these days anymore, but there is one that expels her sons out.

Uzbeks and Kyrgyz people, you got some huge mountains and wonderful music, so why don’t you play some music for the world and show them how diverse and rich this world is?

Trop de souvenirs gravés
De cours d'écoles et d'étés
Trop d'amour pour oublier
Que c'est ici que je suis né
Trop de temps abandonné
Sur les bancs de ma cité
Trop d'amis pour oublier
Que c'est ici que je suis né
Que c'est ici que je suis né

كثير من الذكريات المحفورة
دروس مدرسة وأصياف (جمع صيف)
كثير من الحب للنسيان
هذا لأنه إنني وُلِدْتُ هنا
كثير من الأوقات المهجورة
فوق مصطبات مدينتي
كثير من الأصدقاء للنسيان
هذا لأنه إنني وُلـِدْتُ هنا
هذا لأنه إنني وُلـِدتُ هنا

Picture taken today from Bab El Mua’adam bridge. Part of Faudel’s Mon Pays song in which he sings his confusion of belonging to France Vs. Algeria from his album Mundila Corrida and film made by Windows Movie Maker.

PARFUMS D'ENFANCE À SANATE

Un village chrétien au Kurdistan Irakien,
By: Ephrem-Isa Yousif


After the First World War, the borders between Iraq and Turkey had been drawn and specified. With a line, Herbool started to belong to Turkey, and Sanate to Iraq. His mother Yorina was from Herbool, while his father was from Sanate. He is Esho, the Chaldean-Assyrian, talking to us about his childhood in Sanate till he left Sanate in 1956 after graduating from its primary school, he left it at that time to Mosul to complete his studies, and since then he misses it. He misses the fresh air coming from the mountains, the Gods of Nineveh embodied in nature, misses the freedom, and the perfumes of Sanate in an elegant 117 pages book, which misses, unfortunately, 17 pages in Dar Al Zaman publication edition which I got (from 48-65).




Da3ouni ajoodu beel buka’a (=Let me give generously with weeping)
3ala wa7eedie wa7die ( upon my only son by myself)
Fanhameri ya dumu3 3ayni (=So pour down, oh tears of my eyes, )
Wa athri fi kabadi (=and reach my heart (literally: my liver))

Foa’adi enkawa (=My soul (literally: my heart) was seared)
3ala el 7abeeb (= on my most beloved (meaning: "my heart was injured badly because of what happened to my beloved"))
wa khananie jaladie (=And my patience betrayed me (meaning: "and I couldn't take it" or "my patience didn't hold up"))


His father Yusuf was a farmer. He used to implant tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, peas, and did not forget to implant and harvest Tobacco which he was addicted on, in spite of the recurrent objections of his wife, Esho’s mother, Yorina.
They got 50 goats that were used to graze in the mountains. Esho’s grandma, Kitro, and his mother, Yorina, used to care for the 50 goats milk, making various products from it, but mainly cheese which was a main meal.
They got a donkey named Kindo, and a Mule named Ferdo. Esho loved to accompany his father in their rides around the area and sometimes to Zaxo to buy some merchandise for their village. Such trips were not out of danger, for the Bandits were numerous and they would not hesitate to kill if the others would not give them what they want. Even gangs from Turkey sometimes invade the village at night and steal sheeps and things alike. But they couldn’t steal the beauty of the mountains with the various trees it got: the poplar, willow, fig trees, pomegranate trees, peach trees, apricot trees and others.
He tells us about the special days, and holy days they got in their Sanate. I liked the most that specific day of the year, which seems not to have a special name, when everyone between 6 and 16 years old should go in 4 groups to the wild and live a whole day without the men and women form other ages. The girls would play the role of mothers, and the boys would play the role of men. Such a great idea.
I liked also that public bath in the nature for women and children every Sunday. All the villages’ mothers would go with their children, about 500 one, to a valley in an area named Bahwari where there is a river, and they would take a bath, all naked. When male children get over 11 years of age, they are no longer taken in this common bath; rather, they can go together to another place and swim together.
Esho tells us about many incidents that reflects the social rules and values. Most of the stories he remember were sad. Like the story of Nano Kore the blind poor girl who got pregnant without marriage form a teacher, then get killed by her brothers. Or the story of Hinny and her elder husband who kept believing that she was unfaithful to him till he one day cut her nose by a knife. Or Khatoon who was married against her will to a man with paralysis, to fall in love later with amn from another religion and escaped from the village with her lover.
He told us about the names of the tribe was living in Senate at his time: Al Bou Isac, Al Bou Zaya, Al Bou Kimya, Al Bou Kinno, Al Bou Kara, Al Bou Nisan, Beshman, Al Bou Shalmoon, Al Bou Mangana, Al Bou Koureah, and Al Bou Tshina.

In 1956 Esho graduated from the primary school of his village. His father wanted him to continue his studies in Mosul. He took him to Zaxo and at the borders of Zaxo he saw a thing that frightened him. A thing moving, but was neither a human nor an animal. It was a car. He took the bus to Mosul in which he kept missing his village life, the freedom and the air and the Gods of Nineveh.


The picture in the video is for the cover of the book and you can see the walls of Al Umawie Mosque behind it. The mosque itself was a church before Islam. The Hymn “Let me cry generously” is believed to be sung by the Virgin after the crucifixion before more than 2000 years from now and is sung on the eve of Good Friday in Eastern Churches. Here it is performed by Lena Chamamian, a Syrian-Armenian singer.

The translation of the Hymn is taken and modified from the following link
http://www.arabicmusictranslation.com/2008/07/lena-shamamian-let-me-give-generously.html

My Poor Baghdad.... I Love You

بغداد، يا أُمّاُ مخرفة لم تتعرف على أولادها
بغداد، يا ممحيّةً دعيني أقراكِ
أحب فقرك المدقع
فثرائك الفارغ كافر

Baghdad, you demented mother, who didn’t identify her children
Baghdad, you who is erased, let me read you
I love your poverty
For your empty luxury is blasphemous

أحن الى رائحة صابون الرقي في فوطة بيبي
ورائحة عرق أبو موزة الحدايقجي بعد العمل حين تصب له بيبي الغداء
أحب أن أشم رائحة أولادك الكادحين
رائحة تلك العجوز حين تتكوّم بعظامها البارزة تحت تلك التُكيّة
تعطيها بيبي بعض الكيلوات من التمن والعدس
واجلب لها الماء بارداً والشاي حارّاً كما يجب
كما علّمتني بيبي

I long for Grandma Foota’s (= type of veil for elder women) smell
A smell of Saboon Raggi (type of locally made soap)
I love the smell of sweating of Abu Moza the gardener after finishing his work and eating the lunch my Grandma made for him
I love the smell of sweat in your working sons
The smell of that elder woman who was sitting tired with her bony face under the huge blackberry tree
My Grandma would give her her kilos of rice and lentil
And I brought her the cold water and the hot tea as it should be
As my Grandma taught me


بغداد، اكره عطورك المزيفة الحديثة
أعشق أكل الروبيان من يديّ عجوز بصراويّة أًميّة
أكره وجباتك الجديدة المفبركة
في مطاعم الإجرام

Baghdad, I hate your high priced cheated modern perfumes
I love to eat shrimp cooked by the hands of a Basrawi illiterate elder
I hate your newly faked dishes
In the restaurants of crime

بغداد، اريد ان امتطي حصاناً يعبّ الخبب
وأن أصيح ديـــــــــــــــخ
وأن أسبح في نهر دجلة مع أخوانٍٍ لم تلدهم أمّي
أن أشرب الشاي مع متسوّل
واهديه حذائي لأبقى حافياً
يلسع الكًير الحار قدميّ فأُغني أُغنية لصلاح البحر
"لله يا صاحبي... ترحل وتنساني"
ثم أتلوها بـــ
"جايني وشسّوي جاي"

Baghdad, I’d like to ride a stylishly running horse
And to yell Deeeeekh (a word usually said to the horse to run fast)
And to swim in Dijla with my brothers whom my mother didn’t born
I’d like to drink tea with a vagabond
And to give my shoes to him and stay bare-food
Ground burns by feet so I started singing one of Salah Al Bahar's songs:
“For the sake of God my companion, you leave and forget me?”
Then follow it by
“you’re are coming back to me? What for?”
(Salah Al Bahar is well known Iraqi singer and composer of some songs, and the two songs between brackets are his own)

بغداد اريدك حرة كالطير
أمينة كحمامة بيضاء
صبورة كالجمل
ووفية ككلب اسود مكتئب
ينتظر قدوم صاحبه في المطرالحزين
حكمة البومة وسكرة البلبل بنبيذ التين

Baghdad, I’d like you to be free as a bird
Safe as a white pigeon
Patient as a camel
And loyal as a black dog with depression
Waiting for the coming back of his companion under the sad rain
Owl’s wisdom and the drunkenness of a nightingale by the fig wine

اريدك ان تزهي بجمالك وترقصي
اريد المطر ان يبدأ ولاينتهي
اريد ان ارى نوح مرة اخرى يبني سفينة
لنا نحن الذين نحبك يا بغداد

I’d like you to reveal your beauty and dance
I’d like rain to start some day and never stop
I’d like to see Noah again building his ship for us
We, that we love you oooh Baghdad

أمي
عبائتك السوداء هي بساط صلاتي
شعرك الأسود هو ليلي
صوتك الحلو ترنيمة نومي
حين تغنين لي آودللو
فيما أبي في قهوة عزاوي يستمع الى الجالغي

My mother
Your Abaya is the carpet I will pray on
Your black hair is my night
You sweet voice is my lullaby
As you sing Oooh Delello (= a well known song to sleep the baby in Iraq)
While my dad is in Azzawie café listening to Chalghie (Azzawie café is well known café in bgahdad, and Chalghi is a style of singing and playing music especial for Baghdad)

ابنتي
لا تنسين ما كتب الأسلاف
لا تنسي إينوما إيليش
لا تنسي أُوتونا بشتم
لا تسني مكتبة بانيبال
ولا تسني أغاني جدّاتنا

My daughter,
Never forget what our ancestors wrote
Do not forget Enoma Elkish
Do not forget Utanabishtim
Do not forget Banipal’s library
And do not forget our grandma’s songs

بغداد الفقيرة احبك
بملابس غير مكويّة
بسلال خوص النخيل المليانة بهدايا عمتي
بشربت قمر الدين الذي ربّى بقلبي حصرة
بالنومي بصرة

Baghdad I love you, you the poor
With old non-ironed clothes
With palm leaf made bags filled with presents from my aunt
With Qamr El Deen juice which grew an opression in my chest
With Noomi Basra (dried lemons of a very special kind)

شاي أسود حرقته "هيلة" الجايجيّة بعد أن نسته على النار
محروقٌ ومرّ
جكَارة سومر قد تفيد بعض الذكريات من دخانها
لكن
قد لا يكون "شاكر" هناك

With black tea, burned because “Hela” the “Chaicheyia (=tea maker)” had forgotten it on fire
Burned and bitter
“Sumer” cigarette may had a memory in its smoke but
“Shakir” might not be there

بغداد.... قد رحل إيشو القادم من سانات
حاملا على ظهره نبيذاً صنعوه في بيوت بعشيقة
وقد رحل حسين مردان آتياً من بعقوبة
جالبا لنا عرقٌ خمّروه في هبهب
وها هو تائهٌ ذاك الذي يحبك
بين يديكِ
فدلّية على الطريق الصحيح
واعذريه إن رحل

Baghdad…Esho who came from Sanate had departed
Carrying in his back home made wine from Ba’ashika
And Hussein Mardan who came from Baquba
Who was bringing us Arak made in Hibhib
Had departed too
And that is your lost man who loves you
Between your arms
So show him the right way
And pardon him if he departs


بغدادي الفقيرة ... احبك
My poor Baghdad, I love you



ملاحظات
هيلة وشاكر عاملان بسيطان كادحان تعرفت عليهما في الحلة و أحبهما بشدة
الموسيقى المصاحبة للصور التي التقطتها البارحة هي موسيقى ارمنية لفنان ارمني اسمه أرتو تونكوياسيان واسم المعزوفة هي "زيتوني زار" وقد استخدم كموسيقى مصاحبة لفلم "رحلة في أرمينية" فطوبا لهم هذه الروحية

Notes:

“Hela” and “Shakir” are poor workers from Hilla and I love them severely.

The music in the film I made with my photos taken yesterday from central Baghdad is an Armanie music by Arto Tuncoyaciayan and the name of the piece is Zetuni Zar and was used as a sound track in the film “Le Voyage en Armenie”

Love'N Remorse

I regard myself as a dot… as a black unimportant dot in a forgotten road of Baghdad. As I imagine the size of the world now I know how much small I am. After hearing about the rambling incidents of the world around I know how miserable my life in Baghdad is.

The electricity is still a “something” that is regarded as very modern and non-reachable easily. Visas are not given to me cause I am Iraqi. I am frightened most of the time. Cause I am Iraqi.

Some lucky friends had left this country and got new nationalities. Most are Americans now. Some are British. And my dear friend with whom I spent some of the most important part of my life is turning to be a Canadian.

Do I have an Australian friend? Yes. He was my neighbor.

Well, I don’t need much from the world.

I don’t want luxury. Actually I was taught to hate luxury.

I want to stay an Iraqi living over this hot ground that burns your feet when you go walking bare-foot in summer as I did once before years and that unforgettable.

From the soil of this homeland came up those people that I most adore for their patience, wisdom and warm.

Here are pictures from Al Mahmoodiya, a quarter from Baghdad, with a song about how love can cause remorse. I hope that there will not come a day that an Iraqi would blame himself for not leaving this land, for loving this land, which had suffered a lot. See by your eyes, hear by your ears, here is Iraq, feel it.




Bisnoonha ( =By her teeth)
3adhat shafayifha nadam (She bit her lips because of remorse)
Tirjif khajal (=shivering because of her shyness)
Min rasha l 7ad jidam (= from her head to her feet)
Sa3ar tighamth 3younha (=one moment she closes her eyes)
Sa3a etabaddal loonha (= one moment her color changes)
Amoot ana bi3younha (= I die on her eyes = I love her eyes to death)
Wsa3a etighayer loonha (= and other moment her color changes)
Shifti el 3ishig shisawi a yeflana (=did you see what love can do?)

Caricactus

Today’s temperature at the afternoon was 41 Centigrade (=105.8 F) in Baghdad. Many got to walk for a distance before reaching where they can take a bus back to their home. At the main cross roads in Baghdad they are building either tunnels or bridges. Soil and dust is everywhere. Most go out from work somewhere between 2:30 pm and 3:00 pm. Most are hungry, got a headache, and feeling hot, and got to walk across those cross roads to reach where they can find busses which have no air-conditioning.



I was so hungry so I went to the nearby old Baghdadi quarter to have my lunch in a simple public restaurant. Went for a walk and felt so tired again and found that café. Cold water and a cup of tea were great to refresh me. I asked for another cup of tea and opened my newspaper (Al Mada, =the horizon http://www.almadapaper.net/) to find this caricature (by Adel Sabri)

To the left stands a man representing the “hot summer” and to the right a man representing the “electricity crisis” and the poor Iraqi citizen is wrapped in the stick they hold him in, above that fire.

I found a friend and we went to reach home together. I wondered about other papers caricatures and searched for them in the google. Yesterdays issue of Al Esbouya (the weekly) http://www.alesbuyia.com journal has a symbolic cover. The British election Vs Iraqi election, flowers Vs Cactus.

Cactus appear again in Al Alam (the world) newspaper http://www.alaalem.com/ issue of today put in a long table and empty two chairs and man waiting at the door for the proposed meeting of the “opponents” as the newspaper states.

Al Zaman (the time) www.azzaman.com/ wrote above its caricature: all in the government and the others are opposition forces. Making the note that all want to be in the executive part of the government and no one like to be as a member of the opposition forces in the parliament.

Al Sabah (= the morning) www.alsabaah.com/ caricature of today:

liked another caricature from Al Sabah published before days and it needs no words.

Sorry for not mentioning the names of other cartoonists but it is not clearly written in Arabic, only of Al Sabah which might be read as Abdul-Raheem.

Green Love

Friday it is and Baghdad is calm again. The streets are almost empty from the ugly cars and no irritating horns are heard for a while.

Next to Dijla those men are succeeding in remembering us of our identity, of our smell and existence. All ages gather to hear the sound of wisdom. Hand in hand, Kullita and Ninatta (Goddesses of music) came out of Dijla and started dancing for us.

Ahmed Khalaf was talking about Fuad Al Tikarly and about the behavior of the novelist and the relation between behavior and writing. I remembered that Hussain Sarmak, the Iraqi psychiatrist, had written a text about Ahemd Khalaf novels. I started searching for the novels.

Tarek Harb started talking about the novelists who were lawyers since Fuad Al Tikerly was a lawyer. He mentioned Kazantzakis, who was a lawyer as he said, and started talking about the lawyer in merchant of Venice and the trial stating that Shakespeare had broke a rule in courts because he wasn’t a lawyer, since the flesh got blood in it, then the final rule of the judge was wrong, according to Tarek Harb.

It was a hot dusty afternoon but after I was heading to my home, Baghdad had drawn me a childish green heart on her ugly walls. Well Baghdad, me and my friends, love you.

Symphonic Annoyance

Baghdad roads are very crowded since some of the high ways, and most of small streets are blocked by concrete walls. Since about one year and eleven vital cross roads are partially blocked cause they are trying to build bridges at the site. They only work in the morning, at the peak of traffic, crowd, heat, and annoyance.


Some, fortunately, still find a place to play football in spite of everything.

Since our present days are ugly and irritating, we try to find our calm in history.

Fathers are trying hard to find work. Many college graduates are self employed in some hard works. In a lecture of one of the known professors of psychology in Baghdad he said that most of his students now work as self-employed in Al Shorja (the central ugly messy trade centre).

The 1980s Brazilian made Passat is still widely used in Iraq and it is known for its sudden unexplained troubles. When it suddenly stops, with no life in it, the driver and his friend got to push it under the annoying symphony of the angry cars in the blocked road behind them and their irritating loud horns.

I reached home and slept like a dead. Woke up at evening dazed with my cup of black tea watched the politicians accusing each other of stereotyped words that made me sick: sectarian, loyal to Iran, Ba'athist, Saddamist, Sunni, Shiit.... and so on forgetting that we, the normal Iraqis, are living under the same hot sun, and hearing the same ugly symphony since years.

We Miss Life

Read in the newspaper that “Son of Babylon”, that film made by Mohammad Al Darraji, that young Iraqi director with that marked lovable long hair would be screened in Baghdad in Semiramis cinema that Thursday (yesterday). The newspaper doesn’t say anything about the time, nor the internet. I found another newspaper stating that the film would be screened at evening. Well, then at evening. Thursday was a busy day for me and i needed to take a nap. I woke up at 4:30 p.m., hurry to take a bus to Al Saddoun Street and headed for Semiramis. I saw the door of the cinema closed and inside it was filled with broken chairs and other trashes. Oh no. i was about to ask a man about the film but imagined that he would laugh at me: “a film? Ahahaha, you are kidding?”

I was about to go back when thought about checking whether the cinema got another door. Walked to the other side of the street an found that there is an open door and inside there are many people, some holding cameras. At the door I asked the man with the camera: “when it would start?” and he answered: “it will end in few minutes, it has started at 4 p.m.”
“When they will re-replay it?” I asked and the answer came “will not be” as short as can be as a bullet. Well, I went walking like a …. Like a stupid in that big lobby, going round and round not knowing what to do….

I was hearing the sound of the film coming from that door and wondered that it is prohibited to go inside if you haven’t got the ticket. But men were going out and in as easy as every mess in Iraq and they were talking with a loud voice. So… I went in to see the last scene.





The voice was not understandable, of a bad quality. But I saw a young man and an old woman whom he calls grandma. The young man was holding a reed pipe and sitting with his grandma in the back of that car which was going away from the gate of Ishtar. The scene was nostalgic as it was showing the gate of Ishtar becoming farer and farer. The grandma died. The son started crying “grandma, grandma!!!”
The film ended.




After that Mohammad Al Darraji with another Iraqi director went up to the cinema’s stage and told us about the film and heard our questions. Of what they have told us was that this is the only working cinema in Baghdad, and that till yesterday night they didn’t have an audio sensor till 11 p.m. when somebody rescued them by bringing an audio sensor which worked but not that good. They apologized for us for the poor quality of the sound and told us that the film had been praised in some other countries for its audio management.

Then a young man came and started give CDs to people he selects. CDs on which there is some documentary about the film making. He didn’t give me so I headed for him and told him if I can have a copy. He refused. I offered money. He refused with annoyance and left me to continue distributing the CDs to what he said: “The Journalists”.

I went and took a seat. A young man who seemed confused came and was about to sit next to me, then looked at me as if to see whether I am threatening or not. “have a seat” I said and he sat while asking: “who are all those people? Are they artists?” he meant the people gathering in the lobby after the film had ended. “some are and got an invitation, some not, like me, who were not invited but came after hearing about the film play from the newspaper”….

“and… when this…. Gonna end???” he asked.
“… you mean when they will go out? And what they are waiting for?” I asked
“ YES YES!!” he confirmed happily
“Well, in a while, they are waiting for the journalistic conference” I said
“… it had already started above… there” and he pointed to the stairs.
“oh… then i will go… pardon me” I said while going in the direction of the stairs
“Come on… where are you going? What for?” the young confused man asked but i just waved my hand for him and went up stairs. I found the director and the actors making that conference. I stood about only 5 meters away but failed to hear a word from what they were saying. The journalists were very noisy and their microphones and audio system doesn’t amplify the sound at all.






Well, it was a few minutes opportunity to visit this old neglected cinema and to see the face of the director and actors. It was an opportunity to see that it is not understood for an average Iraqi young man that families like to attend cinemas to see some kind of films he might not heard of. A film that is followed by a conference. I forgot to ask that man about his work or why he was asking those questions but after all, I can understand why he was asking.
Thank you Mohammad Al Darraji and thanks for your team and we hope that this would be repeated cause we miss life my friend.
On my way back to home, it was an opportunity to see Baghdad late at evening, with all those tired face in the bus and the two frightened women who took the bus, but when see that it is dark inside and that men are looking at them chose to go out as fast as possible before the bus advances while the men were murmuring: “what is wrong?”

The American Granddaughter

By Ena'am Kaja Ji (or Inaam Kachachi)

She can have 90, 000 US $ per year working as a translator in Iraq. That can increase to 180, 000 US$. Zina left Iraq before 15 years with her family to the US when she was at the middle of her teenage years her Arabic is excellent since her Assyrian father had taught her to love Arabic poetry.

P 25:

“I said farewell to my mother and Jason and travelled to Washington in a cloudy morning to join the Arabs who were about to work the same work of mine. From there i phoned my father who lives in Arizona and told him that i am heading to Baghdad. I didn’t hear an answer, then heard some murmuring from which i understood that he doesn’t like the idea, not because that he was afraid from the war on me, but because he was still deluded that the “death penalty” verdict he got form the Iraqi law is still valid, and that the security men would capture me instead of him”.

Her Chaldean mother loved her Assyrian father and married him against the Iraqi traditions. They immigrated to the US at the end of the 80s. Zina still remembers how her mother felt guilty while taking the American nationality and while everybody was uttering the US anthem and singing: “God bless America” her mother, Batool, started uttering “forgive me father, oh father forgive me”.

Her parents had separated. Her father started living in Arizona. Zina, Yazin who is now called Jason and is an addicit, and their mother who is now smoking cigarettes vigorously are living in Detroit 7 mile. After the 2003 was the US army needed translators to aid them in the war and in interrogating and dealing with Iraqis.
Zina reached Baghdad in 2003 in a dust storm. They got to sleep in the airport waiting for the other day to be taken to their new places. she slept and started dreaming:

P 44:

“I saw myself knocking on the door of my grandfather’s Yousif house in Al Rabe’a Street (= Spring Street and is a well known avenue in Baghdad) while i was wearing a purple wedding dress. I don’t like purple but we are not left to choose in dreams. My grandfather opened the door and i didn’t fear from him in spite of the fact that I know in the dream that he had already died. And i asked him:
- When did you come from the voyage?
- I woke up before 2 days. I wanted to be there in your wedding Sana’a (Sana’a is a well know Iraq female name)
I didn’t correct my name for him. I didn’t say that I am Zina, or Zoueena as he used to call me, but my grandmother Rahma peered form behind his shoulder and said:
- This is Zunzun, didn’t you know her? Poor girl had married and you were not here and she is coming back to us after she had been widowed… oh my dear.
I crossed the door of the garden and approached my grandfather to kiss his hands. But he withdrew his hands, then his body started to withdrew itself from the scene, and at the same moment my wedding dress color turned into black and i froze in front of my grandmother, looking at each other with sorrow in the dream.”

As a translator working with the US army she was taken the next day to Tikrit. The US army station was a Saddam palace whose guardian kitchen became Zina’s private room.
From there she startedto contact her grandomother Rahma who still olives in Baghdad. Rahma was against Zina’s work with the US forces and when Zina offered Rahma to her with some money, Rahma answered with anger in her Mosuly accent: "والله وقمنا نضغط من جحغ كبيغي" which maybe translated to “what a time that we are starting to fart from a big ass!”

One day Rahma invited Zina to her house. Zina went to find Rahma cleaning a military costume. Zina knew that this costume was her grandfather’s. Few minutes later, and while contemplating her grandmother, she noticed that that day date was the 6th of January. Zina’s grandfather, Rahma’s husband, was a colonel in the Iraqi army. When he had to retire from the Iraqi army, he kept his military costume and started to take that costume and clean it every 6th of January, the Iraqi army day.

Rahma, after cleaning the costume jacket, put that jacket on the shoulders of Zina. Tawoos (a female name means peacock) approached and Rahma told Zina that Tawoos is Zina wet nurse. And that Zina got milk brothers. Zina started to remember Tawoos.

When her grandmother was taken to Jordan for therapy, Zina met Muhaiman, one of her milk brothers. She started to feel that she loves him. She started to look for more information about him and she knew that he was a communist, taken as a hostage in Iran in the Iraq-Iran war in the 80s, came back to Iraq as a religious man, and after the 2003 he joined the Mahdi militias. For all that period, Mahdi had changed but something about him didn’t change much as he said, and that is, his hate to America. She tried to seduce him but he refused. She kept thinking about him.

Before she was about to go back to the US after 5 years in Iraq, he grandmother died, and Malik, her colleague, died in an accident that seemed a suicide to Zina. Zina went back to the US with a different taste of the Iraq that she knew once, an Iraq that is left with a curse that she call: “the Bush curse” as compared to the Pharaohs curse.

I don't know why the novel reminded me of the film "The Hurt Locker". In spite of the fact that Inaam Kachachi, like Zina, is of Iraqi origins, still Iraq seems little unreal in their eyes than in mine. I had lived all my life in Iraq and it is little annoying to see a film like "The Hurt Locker" and hearing about the praise the film got, while when I saw it I didn't feel that it was Iraq, nor the people accent nor the reality of the story. Inaam Kachachi's novel is a clever one but that doesn't mean that it got the taste of reality and doesn't mean that it deserves that praise it had.

An interview with Inaam Kachachi the novelist in the following link:

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090316/ART/883654615/1223

"Mandaean Memoir" for Collective Memory

The short autobiography of an English teacher born in 1905 in the south of Iraq. Seems interesting? He was born in Qal’at Salih in Omara. The autobiography tell us about the history of Qal’at (=castle) Salih which, according to the book, was established in 1865 in the period when the Othman were ruling Iraq as a military castle next to Dijla. Houses were made of mud and reeds, and Dijla had no bridge. They were crossing to the other side by boats and paying by the Persian currency “Qaran” (=20 Fils) or by the Turkish Othman currency “Majeedi” to be both replaced after the UK invasion of Iraq by the Rupiah and Pound then to be replaced at last in 1919 by the Iraqi Dinar.



There were Jewish, Muslim, and Mandaean people. They were separated to a degree like in cafes. There used to be a café for Muslims, and a café for Jews.
Gathban El Roomi, the writer of the autobiography is Mandaean. He said that if a Mandaean drank tea in a muslim café, they would break the glass he drank from when he leave because it would be regarded as, not anymore clean.

Mandaean religion was mentioned in the Holy Quran in three different verses as a monotheism religion and that was why Muslims did respect the Mandaeans to a degree. The Mandaeans, according to the book, are more easily in harmony with the Christians since “Yahiya (=John the Baptist) is Jesus’ cousin” as the book state literally. The Mandaeans got a special relation to Yahiya. The book says what it means that: “in spite that Yahiya parent were Jewish, but he was baptized, and baptism changes the one religion from Judaism to Mandeanism”.




Gathban El Roumi tells us in this book that he had another book in 300 pages co-authorized with another person but the papers were lost dues to the unstable statues of Iraq, as he says.
So there were some separation between religions but different religions were united by the poverty and diseases. Malaria, bilharzias, pox, intestinal worms, and scabies didn’t differentiate between the people who were mainly farmers and at night many turn into burglary. Killing was not that rare.

Women used thistle, cow manure, and palms fronds to set fire in their mud made furnaces to bake food.

In 1916, and while Gathban Al Roumi was 11 years old, the first governmental school opened in their area. Before that teaching was mainly in mosques. He entered school and started passing the classes fast with excellence. There were no specific teaching method. Every teacher had his own teaching method and text. Gathban Al Roumi still remembers how their teacher asked them to write down the numbers from one to million. They all failed to complete it in one day. So the teacher asked them to write it for every five, i.e.: 5, 10, 15, 20 and so one and it took them days to weeks.

The science teacher had told them that when you are cold and your nose run, that fluid which comes from your nose, is the brain liquefied.

Gathban El Roumi became later an English teacher. He talks about how his salary was not enough for his daily living in the 50s and that he got to give private lessons.
World War II started and some Iraqis thought that the Nazis could help Iraq problems and they started to support the Nazi ideology and to spread their writings. United Kingdom didn’t like that and they started to imprison those who support the Nazi ideology. They made a prison for them in Gathban’s city, Omara. The UK didn’t opposed the Communist Party activities in Iraq because the Communist were against the Nazis, like Russia was against Germany. The communist get stronger with time and they aided in the 1958 revolution when they ousted General Mod’s statue in Baghdad (Mod was the UK general who led the invasion of Iraq). Some of them were very violent in their expression. Killing and mutilating dead bodies took place in Baghdad and thereafter in Mosul. After that it was never settled down. The communist lost the opportunity to take power and were put in prison and tortured in an attempt to end this movement in Iraq. Gathban talks about an open court set in 1958 against the previous regime and that it was broadcasted in radios and T.V.

Because Ghathban Al Roumi was having correspondence with some literature journals and newspapers and because he didn’t take bribes he was mistaken for being a Communist since the Iraqi communists were known to value literature and to stand with the poor and look to money and bribery with small eyes. He was fired from his work as a teacher of English teacher and started selling cigarettes in Omara. He then got back to his work and show his excellence performance and was chosen to put the Baccalaureate examination questions for some years. After few years, and for the same previous charge, he was imprisoned.

The book comes to an end when they set him free after some months with 2-3 pages on what happened there after in the following decades in Iraqi politics. “Mandaean Memoir” is a book that had added much to the understanding of Iraq identity. Simple language and style, written in the period of 1981-1982 and published by Dar Al Mada in eye friendly 117 pages. We need more of these book to blow the dust away from our collective memory.

Epic of Iraq

“So that I Don’t Resign from this Homeland” is another inviting title and elegant publication by Al Mada. About 60 essays by Fakhri Kareem published in the Al-Mada Newspaper for the period 2003- 2008 gathered and published by this book with an introduction by the Lebanese poet Abbas Baythoun.

The introduction is full terms that seem to carry new concepts. Abbas Baythoun tell us in the introduction what can be summarized as follows:

Iraq now is a “horrible machine of time and action” into which there is a “confusion between time and memory” while the articles in this book serves as the “guided remembrance” of the what happened. Abbas Baythoun also resemble the “Epic of Iraq” to the “Epic of Lebanon” since both had resulted in “chronic paranoias” and “collective pain”.





The articles are variable. Some deal with the pre- 2003 Iraq like that article in which he mention the symbol of adding “Allah Akbar” to the Iraqi flag as a symbol of Jihad, and that article which tell us how Saddam Hussein is a product of the Iraqi society and politics and that we should search for the roots of tyranny. From this point maybe we can go to the post-2003 articled when he started talking about De-ba’athification and theorized that it is better called De-tyrannization and that it should become a cultural educational movement and not a rule directed against few individuals.
He tells us about how he hoped that the ex-minister of defense Ali Sultan Hashim made an apology to the Iraqi population and express his guilt like the US pilots who hit Nagasaki and Hiroshima and wrote about Hashim’s execution.
Fakhri Kareem wrote about how the “incidental haphazard leader” of the new Iraq “confused the collective memory” of the Iraqi population and how the Iraqi population memory had been exhausted by the series of sectarian violence.





The articles deal with the killing and immigration of thinkers, scientists, university professors and artists, about the faults of the US in Iraq, about Black Water, and the invasion of Iraq by the “money eating rats” and the high retirement salaries of those who work in the cabinet.
Of the things that I didn’t know is when he quoted King Faisal the first when he said talked about the difficulty of establishing an Iraqi Nation.
Sometimes, because of love, somebody see his homeland, his history, and his self, in an eye of denial. This book had been a trial of objective “guided remembrance” to what happened and what is happening. Thank you for Fakhri Kareem for this book and for Al Mada for this artistic publishing.