Bus Newspaper Reading

"Rave is still being understood as monopolized by mental illness, while it is the human language that created its raving, and raving would not be possible without a linguistic incubator, an incubator that can make raving another kind parallel to speech, or a little behind speech, or a little in front of it in its well-made beautiful majority." That was how today's Khudair Mery's article started today in Al-Sabah newspaper.

He continues after few lines that I found myself unable to translate: "… and perhaps it was Jacques Derrida who deconstructed, for the first time, the concept of writing and referring to writing as a trial to be centered around the logos."

What is more amazing in today's article is Mery's trial to elaborate on the concept of writing for us, the Arabs, and why we find difficulty in understanding Jacques Derrida's view about writing.

I don't claim that I understand Derrida. I must declare here that I didn't read anything before about Derrida in spite of one of my friend's insisting on this issue.

Mery states the quote of Gilles Deleuze about the difference between the Eastern wise-man who thinks by images in a side, and the Western philosopher who thinks in concepts.

I don't claim that I understood that, but I can assure that this saying was imprinted well in my memory for further evaluation. 

Towards the end of the article Mery mentioned one of Roland Barthes quotes: "Writing is that neutral, composite, oblique space where our subject slips away,
the negative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of the body writing."

Khudair Mery's last two articles are exciting and encouraging to read more and more. To open a new window. To share my friend, who likes philosophy, some views. To open conversations with some friends. Thank you Khudair Mery and thanks to Al-Sabah.  

Mohamad Ghazi  Al-Akhras wrote today in Al-Sabah. He wrote today about a conversation with a taxi man in Baghdad about the taxi man's brother visit to a psychiatrist and about that psychiatrist strange prescription: "Music, hear tranquilizing music!" 

Mohamad Al-Akhras compared between the music that is composed by Arab Iraqis Vs. music composed by Kurdish Iraqis. The former is sad, the latter is happy and dancing.

Newroz is approaching and is usually celebrated in Kurdistan vigorously. Al-Sabah showed a picture of Kurish females dancing. 

Another picture was from Afghanistan showing a man in traditional clothes standing in front of a poster of Marylyn Monroe.

The 20^th episode of "Known and Unknow:  A Memoir" by Donald Rumsfeld was talking about the arrival of Paul Bremer to Baghdad. I could not read more than 4 or 5 lines then shifted to Al-Mada which talks about the history of the 100% Iraqi-made clock in Al-A'athameya.

Reconsidering Khudair Mery

‘To write is certainly not to impose a form (of expression) on the matter of lived experience…Writing is a question of becoming, always incomplete, always in the midst of being formed, and goes beyond the matter of any liveable or lived experience. Writing is inseparable from becoming: in writing, one becomes-woman, becomes-animal or vegetable, becomes-molecule to the point of becoming-imperceptible.’ (Gilles Deleuze, ‘Literature and Life’)

With this quote of Deleuze today's Khudair Mery article in Al-Sabah newspaper started. Mery is writing about writing. I must declare here that I never had read anything about Gilles Deleuze before today. Thank you Khudair Mery for this clever article. For this philosophy that we need in our daily life. Because of you I will start buying Al-Sabah more and more. 

Another article tells about Khudair Mery trial to direct a theatrical piece of Jean Genet.

Today's Al-Sabah issue was remarkably mentioning the name "psychiatry" here and there. 

Labua Arab (Labua means literally: Lioness; and Arab means Arab), a new Iraqi actress was stating that: "Art had stolen me from psychiatry!"

In the article she declared her early dream to be a psychiatrist so that she can understand people. 

An article entitled: "declarations of a mentally ill" written by Ali Daneef Hasan, talks about people gathering one morning in Iraq outside a governmental department for some papers to fix, and as they were waiting a man among them declared that he is a mentally ill patient and that one must admit this and not be shy of it. Not only that but he said that he thinks that all of the Iraqis are mentally ill and most admit this to feel more secure and healthy. He added that when he started declaring his mental illness in public he started to feel much better and balanced. He said pointing to a clerk in that governmental department: "That clerk had screamed in my face and threw my papers in my face but I forgive him because I know that he is a mentally ill patient."

The article was cute and clever.

Next to the article is a picture of a Chinese man standing on his head, on a nail!

 Ali Shaye wrote an article entitled: "Psychological Needs" and is talking about those patients whose families leave them at the gates of one of Baghdad mental hospitals. Their family disappear after leaving them. Next to the article is a caricature by Khudair Al-Himyari showing a "punishment" coming to the only working clerk among the other sleeping clerks, a thing that is real and repetitive in governmental departments.
 

 Donald Rumsfeld's "Known and Unknown: A Memoir" is being translated in a series of articles since some time in Al-Sabah. Today was talking about the 1^st of May 2003, the day of the end of the military operation in Iraq.

 There were many other interesting articles like the one about sculptures made from the previous wars' waste products. 

 Those were interesting but of course not.... cute!

Friday in Baghdad

It's Friday and I woke up refreshed from a long deep sleep. I called him and he answered: "I was about to go there alone, let us go together friend!". Central Baghdad, neglected but still charming in our eyes. 

 Then to Al-Mada House in Al-Mutanabbee Street.

 The man who was talking today about Ma'eda Nazhat in Al-Mada House had said: "And she had gone to Mecca for pilgrimage in the late 80s and quitted singing."

  A usual story for Arabic Muslim female singers and actors. That is not the case with male singers and actors. Many understand the hidden message, which is not actually hidden per se, that a female singer or actor is a sinner. To be more specific, she is regarded as a prostitute.

The relation between music and Muslim Arabs is a complex one.

Women who dare to sing in our culture are regarded as prostitutes until proved otherwise. Um Kalthum, Fairouz, and few others succeeded to become an exception for that rule. 

 Today I saw a group of Iraqi female singers who played traditional Iraqi music pieces with one of Ma'eda Nazhat songs, in Al-Mada House in Al-Mutanabbee street. A man shouted something between the songs and I didn't caught what he said. One of the female musicians looked at him in a gaze that was questioning and was anxious. He gave her his back and came smiling sarcastically and went walking far pretending to look at the books and magazines that were in his hands.

The musicians started another piece of music and the attendees helped to give life to the rhythm of the well-known Iraqi traditional song by their clapping.

In the Bus, with Eric Berne

Now that it is 7:35 PM in Baghdad in my parents' house watching the photos I took today with my mobile phone, it seems they come from a long time before. The "now" seems so strangely real in front of those pictures which served to stop some moments back in this same day we are still in.

I have tried in my mind to see "mentally" a summary of "Games People Play" but I failed. After reading the book, understanding 50% of it, forgetting another big part, I really have nothing specific to say about it but, it does made me apologize to a friend of mine today for a "Game" I diagnosed myself playing it with him. The apology was very brief: "(Friend's name), I am sorry I commented last Thursday that comment in front of that student". He said that it is okay and we are friends. I said: "No, if I wanted to say that to you, I should have said it quietly and while we were alone. I am sorry"

My friend invited me to a lunch. (Eric Berne talking: Ahh, you came out of nowhere this morning to your friend and said you are sorry then you get a lunch! Let us see. Is this a new game you are playing? A game entitled "I say I am sorry, I owe you a lunch"?)

Thank you friend for your generosity that embraced me. I have learned from you a lot. (Eric Berne talking: I do owe you a dinner now!). Another thanks goes to Eric Berne. Another thanks goes to Abdul-Khaliq Al-Rikabi and his novel "The Book of Eternity" which talked about games friends play, in an occult way, with each other.

As I see the pictures, I knew that I have read two newspapers today. Al-Sabah, bought originally because I saw an article written by Khudair Miri in it, and my usual newpaper: Al-Mada (=The Horizon).

Khudair Miri, an ex-inpatient in Al-Rashad hospital, the only Iraqi asylum for the mentally ill,  who wrote many books about his experience in Al-Rashad, was talking, again, about Michel Foucault. I don't understand Michel Foucault, till now. Nor Khudair Miri. The only thing I did understand was that, next to the article, to the right, there was an article about one of Steven Spielberg movies. And it was about a horse. And a war. Uhum!

Pictures about many Iraqi tragedies are in black and white almost daily in newspapers. The caricatures were better in Al-Sabah than elsewhere. 

 Al-Mada is my newspaper. Since days and the articles are discussing that last killing and physical abuse of many Iraqi young men and women only because they tried to express themselves in a non-traditional way in clothes and hair-cuts and make-up. They are called the "Emo"s. Many talking about the involvement of the Iraqi minister of internal affairs in those killings and physical abuses.

Iraqi Communist Party was talking about a trial to make a secular group of many liberal and democratic parties in front of the non-secular parties. Anyway. 

 I folded the newspaper and handled it to the old man sitting next to me: "Do you like to read Am'mo (Am'mo=uncle)?"

I took the supplement and read about the life of this Baghdadi diva. Fifteen pages say nothing but good and happy incidents that occurred to this "happy" female singer. Just few words said that she had to leave Baghdad to Beirut for some time "due to some problems". Her childhood? Was very happy and marked by her love of music which is told in brilliant words all over the 15 pages. No word about her family attitude towards her when she "chose" to take this career. 

 Whom are you trying to deceive? An Iraqi woman, born in the 1937, and was singing in bars and cabarets. All that and she was happy? And talented?

As you read her life in those 15 pages you will confront a biography of musically talented angel who was happy all the time and full of good.

She was not threatened at all, nor have any indecent behavior.

That’s the way our history is told, and re-told. Full of happiness and good things.

Denial? No! Stupidity!

Let's go back to Al-Sabah to Mohammed Gazi Al-Akhras article about the praise that Abdul-Salam A'arif, the Iraqi presedent in the 70s, had received from many Arab thinkers like Malik Bin Nabi. Malik Bin Nabi, an Arab thinker, from the so-called "enlightenment" period of the Arab countries, described Abdul-Salam A'arif with the most beautiful idealistic words, and regarded him as the typical man who can solve all the Arab problems. Yaaay!

Eric Berne, hope to meet again in a bus. So long.  

  

Closing "The Book of Eternity" and starting a game

I had "The Book of Eternity" on my table since years. I knew I have tried before to read it but I thought I didn't complete it. When I was reading it, every page seems to be read before. When a page seemed to be new to me, I usually conclude that I haven't read it before. But some later pages seemed familiar. It was only when I finished the novel that I knew for sure that I have read it before.

Accuse my memory of lethargy, accuse me of pretension, but this novel, is not a novel that you remember for a long time.

I have just finished it yesterday and today I am finding myself forgetful of the post that I thought I should write yesterday. Yesterday I felt so sleepy after that long trip and I had some written work to do, so the writing of the post was postponed till today, and it faded in my mind. Filtered out.

Waheed Hilmy (=Alone Dreamy) and Hanan (=Sympathy) did enter the writer's house and use his computer and find that desktop picture of the four drawings. One of the drawings is put as a cover for our novel. The four paintings (by: Edouard Manet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Velasquez, and ????) share the common character of including the painter himself in the painting. Waheed knew this fact about the paintings when consulting Talal Shakir (=Fine-rain Thankful) who knew that the four paintings got some relation with the experienced novelist.

The novel tells the story of a difficult relationship between three friends, where no positive emotions were sensed, but strong envy, jealousy and aggression.

The novel talks about how pain is necessary for tasting the pleasure of life.

The novel mentions, on the other hand, a quote by Nietzsche that is unforgettable: Amor Fati

The one personality that I liked the most was Yousif Shaba, an Iraqi Christian whose poverty and beauty made him play the role of a model to the students of beaux-art in Baghdad. He loves classic music, and he claims that he is writing a novel since years.

We knew about that particular piece of music of Beethoven that helped Talal in his partial recovery from paraplegia, the 14^th quartet, the last piece of music composed by Beethoven before his death.

The novel tells about how relations between friends can be regarded as a game, which is a "painful game" the novel pretends.

The devil inside of me whispered in my ears: "you didn't like it because you are playing resistance to the painful facts the novel presents you!"

"Okay, then let us read what Hussein Sermek Hassan says about the novel in his psychoanalytic study entitled: Al-Rikabi, the Godfather of the Cunning Subconsious", I answered my devil. 

 I completed the study last evening but nothing significant is remembered after last night long sleep. "Resistance, Repression, Forgetfullness! Huh", the devil inside of me remarked.

 My ego, as have seen the happy sunshine this morning decided to take the positive point of view and read: "Games People Play" by Eric Berne, at least we might come with something helpful finally.

The Book of Eternity: a Bus Reading (Part 2)

In yesterday's post I wrote about the significance of the protagonists' names in the novel "The Book of Eternity" by Abdul-Khaliq Al-Rikabi. Today I've reached in my reading about two-thirds of the novel:

The journey to central Baghdad started at 7:00 a.m. and after that, the watch, the metaphysical eye, was forgotten. Pages ate pages, images interposed. I was happy that Hanan (the female name which literally means Sympathy, or Compassion) had gained some individual characteristics, even though, they were little negative: her addiction on using her personal computer via which she proceeds her literature study, hears music and songs, and plays video games. 

The old experienced novelist had quitted his home but had left the key for Waheed Hilmy (literally means Lonely Dreamy) in one of his neighbors' houses and invited Waheed, who is making a research on his works, to visit his library, use his books, and open his personal computer but left a notice, that he don't want Waheed to open the file of the new novel he (the experienced old writer) is about to accomplish. 

Waheed went with, his now lover, Hanan, and visited the old experienced novelist's home. The personal computer desktop shows four paintings, one of them is Velasquez's. 

All the CDs were in a desk that was locked but there was a CD left near the PC. Hanan and Waheed put the CD in and a video game started. The hero, a female, is in front of a puzzle. Hanan knew that game which is, "famous", as she said. She started playing and there was action. It was an action and puzzle game in an Egyptian site. The protagonist must find keys to open doors.

They argued, Hanan and Waheed, about opening the file that contain the new novel of the old experienced writer. The forbidden file. Hanan, as she is adventure-seeking as we started to know her more, encouraged Waheed to open the file but Waheed, the lonely dreamy young novelist, the idealistic who refused Hanan's help in stealing a paper from a magazine from the National Library of their city, refused to open the file. Instead they started examining the multiple varied books of the old writer. Waheed remembered Borges quote about his imagination of heaven as a big library. 

Hanan succeeded finally to persuade Waheed to open the forbidden file. The forbidden file words, written by the old novelist, spans from page 106 to page 156. It tells the story of the old writer with Talal Shakir (=Fine-Rain Thankful), Thabit Dhari (=Stable Predator), Dhuha (=Forenoon), and Talal's dog who is unnamed.

It tells about how rich was Talal's family and about how there was a car that was bringing Talal to the primary school each morning and taking him in the afternoon when cars were very rare in that time in their city. Talal received special treatment from teachers. Thabit and the old writer were in the same class of Talal. Thabit was aware of his family poverty. Thabit had squinted eyes, and a limp because one of his lower limbs is shorter than the other. Thabit betted the old writer, when they were children, that he can persuade Talal to give them a ride with his car. Thabit went to Talal and told him that he does not really own the car, and that the car belongs to his father, and that he cannot even let his friends go inside the car. The result was that Thabit won the bet, which was about a dish of chick-pea. 

Talal invited them to his parents' house and showed them his pets. Thabit whispered in the old writer's ears that his family does not eat chickens only rarely while Talal is playing with chickens. Thabit held grudges to Talal.

Thabit grudge towards Talal continued and grew old as they grew older. Thabit did his best to ruin the relationship between Dhuha and Talal. And at the end of the old writer's account for his story with his two friends we knew that Thabit had poisoned Talal's dog with a piece of poisoned meat.

The old writer wrote at the end that he had written another file and had put a password for it. He gave him a hint about the password saying that its meaning means: "the continuous now" and is used by Sophists. The old writer ends his chapter by saying that if Waheed will find the password, they will write this "game" together. 

Page 156 was reached and that makes 59% of the 264 pages novel. I feel I am in the game. I am waiting, since now, tomorrow's morning when I will take another bus to the working site, a journey that takes one and a half hour, and sometimes 2 hours, a journey that I am starting to accommodate to, and even to like. A little. Just a little bit. 

The Significance of the Arabic Names in "The Book of Eternity"

The calculator says that I have read 32% of the novel. Eighty-six pages from 265 pages means a third, almost. But since when reading novels was gauged with a calculator and a percent?

I meant not to gauge but, just to see, if I am at the position, of having the right, of writing something about "The Book of Eternity" of the well-known Iraqi writer Abdul-Khaliq Al-Rikabi.

The cover of the novel is elegant, something that is new to Iraqi book market. The cover shows a painting that I have seen somewhere but ignore any information about. 

In the minibus, from 8 a.m. till 9:30 to reach central Baghdad where I had to ask for some personal papers from a governmental institute, I succeeded, strangely, to read 86 papers in Arabic. I forgot I can read fast. Lately I tried to read English novels and I am so slow in reading them.

"The Book of Eternity" tells the story of Waheed Hilmy, a young novelist living in a small unnamed city other than Baghdad. Arab names have literal meanings and Waheed, a common Arabic name, means "Lonely", and Hilmy, another common Arab name, means "Dreamy". It is common in Arabic countries that you ask the person whom you just met about the meaning of his/her name, if it happens that you don't know its literal meaning. So Wahhed Hilmy, or the lonely dreamy young writer, is telling us his story in the novel. His story with one of the experienced writers, who is trying to travel to Baghdad (hence we knew that the place of the novel is another city, not Baghdad); Hanan, the literature student who is helping Waheed Hilmy in his research about the experienced writer and whose name, Hanan, literally means "Sympathy" or "Compassion"; Thabit Dhari, the envious jealous evil literature critic, whose name literally means "Stable Predator" (Thabit=stable or fixed; and Dhari = Predator or ferocious) and who thinks that we must put boundaries for reality and other boundaries for fiction; Talal Shakir, the painter and the sculptor, the man who loves Beethoven and whose works are appreciated by the young writer, a thing that led Talal to present one of his sculptures, a tree partially wounded by an axe, to Waheed as a present. Talal literally means "Fine Rain" and Shakir literally means "Thankful". Talal Shakir had an episode of paralysis in the past years which left him with severe muscle weakness a thing that affected his movements and especially his sculptures. Talal's girlfriend, who is like Hanan, decorative but helpful to the man, is named Thuha, a name literally means "Forenoon", or "Morning".

Talal Shakir has a dream of building some sculptors in the centre of his city, sculptors that contain clocks, clocks as a beholder of time, a "metaphysical eye" as was called by Waheed,  a dream that was discussed with the young novilist, Waheed Hilmy, a dream that made Waheed Hilmy, remembers Talal Shakir the sculpture every time he sees a watch or a clock or a watch.

Waheed dialogue with Talal was about time and place and their relation to art. The difference of the relation of music from a side, novels from another side, to time and place. Waheed dialogues are always attracting the readers eyes, like when he argued Thabit Dhari's idea about the insignificance of putting boundaries to reality, and boundaries to fiction. Modernity, and our place as Easterners, Iraqis especially, in the face of it.

So, four male personalities, and 2 females. The males have a full name (name of the person and his father), while females have only their names. The two females' names meant: sympathy, and forenoon. While the males names varied from unknown (the experienced writer), alone dreamy, fixed predator, to fine-rain thankful. The two females served as facilitators for males to play their role.

Are the females' names' meanings wider than the males?

What is the significance of the painting in the cover of the novel?

What is the significance of that particular piece of music composed by Beethoven that aided in Talal's partial healing from paralysis?

Would tomorrow's trip to central Baghdad in the aim of finishing my personal papers help me in finding some answers? Or at least, posing other questions?       

  

Contemporary Buses in Baghdad

Before 1991 there were buses in Baghdad that got numbers. They got fixed hours and destinations. Nowadays, we don't have buses, we got minibuses. We got minibuses with no numbers nor fixed anything. The minibuses have no mark nor name. You must ask the driver with a loud voice: "Where to?" and he will answer you with a shout the destination he is heading to.  

Yesterday the mini-bus was empty and the driver was standing far shouting the name of the quarter. The wind was cold and dry.  

In the Search of an Individuality

What I have learned from reading a dossier about Najeeb Mahfouz is that he used to say: "I have to work now" when he wants to spend time alone with his-self. With his-self, there were almost always papers, to read, or to write. But sometimes, the logic says, there were no papers, yet still, he was working.

The privacy is something not that respected in our part of the world. I remember Orhan Pamuk's novel "Snow" when the journalist Ka who came from Frankfort, found it shocking how women lack privacy in that Turkish village, even when they had committed suicide.

Fawzi Kareem is an Iraqi poet writing a weekly column in Al-Mada Newspaper, my favorite newspaper. His column is entitled: "From the Ivory Tower". He lives in Europe. He wrote one of the most beautiful integrated books about classical European music. The poly-harmonic European classical music didn't appeal to our side of the earth. Our Arabic music is mono-harmonic, simple, and repetitive. Does this mean that we don't like diversity? Does this mean that we fear from strangers?

Let us go back to Fawzi Kareem and his Ivory Tower in which he wrote about how one of the paintings of John Martin entered to the unconscious of Berlioz as Berlioz relate his dream in his diary. Or about Ezra Pound letters to his parents. Or why does Goya was the subject of many films and operas. Of course you must imagine an Iraqi, a simple Iraqi living in contemporary Iraq with all its problems reading this in a bus, a café, or late in the evening after his siesta sitting with a cup of tea in his humble lodgment. Does that seem satirical?

Fawzi Kareem had visited Iraq lately and started writing from inside, from within. "Lord had deposited me a moon in Baghdad" is the title of his articles written from within and today was article no. 3. In today article he wrote about how talking about explosions is matter discussed as a daily routine while also discussing what to eat as a lunch that same day. The electricity problem is that background of course. I will go back to "Lord had deposited me a moon in Baghdad part 1" and share with you the following lines:

"We must not trust our talent, our conscious, our culture, our spiritual upbringing. How can we trust, we that were born and grown up and started writing in a tunnel of an era that is very dim, very delusional, and very harsh in crushing the human individualism. The despotic state wants to define the "good citizen" as it likes. The despotic state doesn't want a single human being to enjoy his individualism. The poet comes out form this individualism"

Latifa Al-Dulaimi had written one of those past days about the opening of the first school in Basra in 1904-1909. She wrote about that manager whose name was given later to the school who was so happy at the day of its opening which had been postponed for some time back then. He brought 2000 nightingales in cages on that same day of the opening and set them free from the school's square. They distributed on the nearby orchards. She compares that way of celebrating an event with today's Iraqi methods of celebrating important events.

Daizi Al-Ameer used to write about daily trivial things in lovable short stories. I remember reading for her a story about packing a bag for travelling and the ideas that came in the mind at that particular time.  In today's issue of Al-Mada Newspaper a writer named: Ali Hassan Fawaz wrote about her, or more correctly, about forgetting her, because she is really forgotten. He questions why did we forget her, and her writings, she, the Iraqi lady who wrote since the 60s of the previous century. He thinks that we forgot her because we are taken by ideologies. Trivial human things are not our business. He said in a line that I most like that: "the old overcoat had stopped emitting birds and fairies."

He had put the word overcoat between brackets, in an allusion to Gogol's short story from which, Dostoevsky claimed once, that all the Russian short stories, and their writers, came.

(" Are you aware who you're talking to? Do you realize who is standing before you? I'm asking you a question: do you hear me?" at this point he stamped his foot, and raised his voice to such a pitch that anyone, not only Akaky Akakievich, would have been quite terrified. Akaky Akakievich was paralyzed with terror, and lurched backwards, shaking from head to toe, quite unable to remain on his feet: if two attendants had not run up at that point and supported him he would have fallen flat on his face. He was carried out almost unconscious. The important personage, delighted with the effect of his words, which had surpassed his expectations, and quite intoxicated with the thought that his word alone could brighten a person out of his senses. Gave his friend a sideway look to see how this was being received and noted not without gratification that his friend was in a most precarious state and was even beginning himself to show signs of fear.")   

Akaky Akakievich just came to this important personage to ask him to help him find his lost overcoat in the cold winter of St. Petersburg. Akaky Akakievich is an example of an individual in front of … in front of…. what? … the harsh superego?...

He told me that I should read Dostoevsky. He repeated that few times. Today, he showed me a book about "Psychoanalysis of Literature" and as I opened it I read Freud quoted about Dostoevsky's father being killed, and about one of Dostoevsky's stories "The Brothers Karamazov" when one of the brothers kill their father. Freud wrote about Dostoevsky's fainting attacks (epilepsy?).

Going back to a reminder of the Russian literature had fitted-in in these cold days here in Baghdad. Gogol's overcoat reminded me of the 90s of the previous century when I was growing upward, and my family didn't have the money to buy me a new trousers each year. I remember that Jeans that I used to tilt down my waist every time I encounter a person in the street so that to hide my socks. I now remember, smilingly, that I had yellow socks which were phosphorous. I suspect that two girls, in my college, used to laugh at the color of my socks.

The Exact Distance of a Tank, Shooting at You

Street shepherds and butchers are gathering in the sideway since months. I don't know if there are still slaughterhouses in modern Iraq. Slaying sheep occur as a daily routine in the sideway in our neighborhood.

 

There is a campaign of making Baghdad beautiful by building fountains and making gardens in some sideways. Yesterday, a new work of Ghani Hiqmat, the deceased, has been accomplished in the center of Baghdad entitled: the magical lantern, which relates to a story from "A Thousand Nights and a Night".

 

 As far as I know, no driving license has been issued since 2003 in Iraq. Today I was in a bus reading about "Nairn Transport Co." when a passenger in our bus asked the bus driver to stop just at the start of a bridge in a highway. The bus driver hit the break with his feet as if pressing on a cockroach and we stop just few centimeters from a taxi driver who was out of his car for unclear reason at the mouth of the bridge. "You was about to hit me idiot" the taxi driver yelled. "Learn to choose your words," murmured our bus driver with anger. The taxi driver went inside his taxi and yelled: "ZMAL (=jackass)" and hit the benzene pedal with his feet as if killing a roach.

 I read from my newspaper that Nairn Transport Co worked in Iraq from 1920 till 1960. They were taking passengers between Baghdad, Damascus, Beyrouth and Haifa. Because of the Bedouins that were attacking the buses frequently every traveler need to know that his "LIFE ASSURANCE IS CANCELLED" during his trip with the Co.

Agatha Christie had travelled in that same Co. when was in our area for some period.

 I then read about Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab, the Iraqi poet. Every Iraqi knew that Al-Sayyab spent the last days of his life diseased in a hospital in Kuwait. Today I read why he ended in Kuwait. A poet from Kuwait had come to Iraq to visit his friend, Al-Sayyab. That poet who came from Kuwait was surprised by the ignorance and the dirtiness of the Iraqi hospital. He managed to transfer Al-Sayyab to a Kuwaiti hospital with the agreement of the Kuwaiti government to help him. That was in 1964.

In 1991, Iraq invaded Kuwait. I still remember the nearby carpenter who brought a box full of video cassettes from Kuwait. I know a person who filled his garden with air-conditioners brought from Kuwait. My father managed to buy us a video recorder. We burrowed some of the video tapes from the carpenter. All were Indian movies. There was no subtitle. We understand nothing from the films yet, we bought a half-dozen of video tapes. My father was very anxious that a movie might contain a romantic scene that reveals some part of a female body. I managed to find some minutes of romance in one of the movies which were a big addition to my romantic experience and an enrichment to my fantasies.

I reached my destination, went out of the bus, and knew that I had to wait for a while. I managed to find a place where I can wait. A man joined me. We talked for few minutes then there was a silence. Suddenly he smiled and asked: "How can you calculate the distance between yourself and a tank in front of you in a battle field?"

You might think that there was a context that brought that question. Well, if there is a context then I don't know it. We didn't talk about tank, bombs, nor anything related to war before that man asked me the question. I drew a smile of surprise on my face, a smile that I wanted it to say: "how much you are informed man. I wanna know. I wanna know how to calculate the exact distance between me and the tank that is shooting me please!!!". I asked the man: "How can I know the distance?". With a glorious smile the man drew his left sleeve up and held his watch in his right hand and said: "you keep looking that the tank. The minute you see it firing you start counting seconds till you hear the sound of the firing. Then you multiply the number of seconds by ### (I forgot the number). It will be exactly the distance in meters between you and the tank in front of you."

  

Exceptionally Difficult Days for Ordinary Simple People

Our days in Baghdad are difficult. Here is a diary of me, with my neighbors and friends, in the last few days:

21^st December 2011, Wednesday night, Baghdad

I just reached home in the evening after three days at the working place. I got no electricity. With the help of the hand light I saw that I got bread, and a half cabbage that had lost its water. I empathized with the cabbage.

  
 22^nd December 2011, Thursday, Baghdad
I wanted the last day newspaper but the seller didn't have it. My neighbor heard me as he was standing near. He is a history teacher and a friend of my father. He had that last day's issue deep in his big bag which is full of papers. He gave it to me along with its supplement. The supplement was about Isabelle Ellindi. I promised to bring him back the newspaper that same evening. I knew about the explosions in the bus while going back to home. The road to our area was blocked. I concluded that the explosions were so severe and multiple that they started blocking roads. A car ban might occur. I completed the way to my home walking. 

I didn't like to go inside immediately. A neighbor who had witnessed the period when Iraq was a kingdom was there. He approached me and started one of his stories:

"God knows I am frank my son. One day – he took a deep breath, eyes fixed at a corner in our neighborhood- one day my son I went out of my home and saw golden bracelet. I saw it there – he pointed at that same spot he is fixing his eyes on-. I took it, felt how heavy it was. I looked around. Nobody was there and I started to sweat and tremble. I wanted to go back inside home but I found it so difficult. My thighs didn't carry me and I run short of breath. I finally went in and hide it in my room. I didn't tell my wife. I brought a piece of paper and wrote a confession of what happened and registered the date and signed. I waited for days to hear if any neighbor had lost something but no news was there. My wife started question the cause of my lack of speech. She was a good woman and didn't have the habit of insisting. I got a friend who was a big soldier in the army so I headed to his working place and confessed to him. He advised me to visit another friend of ours who is a goldsmith. Trembling I confessed to my wife, took the bracelet and headed to my friend. When the heavy bracelet was in my pocket, I felt guilty, like everyone sees me as guilty, I felt as if carrying a rocket in my pocket and that that rocket might shoot itself at any minute. I reached my friend the goldsmith and told him a lie: "friend, a relative of mine is a widow, she got this golden piece, she want to mortgage it for me for 50,000 ID, I came to seek your advice." My friend the goldsmith smiled as he took the piece in his hands and showed me that it is not gold. He proved that to me by applying it to fire. By applying it to fire it becomes black. I am telling you this story my son to tell you how much frightened and confused I was. How much guilty I was. I am asking you and myself, how come a man can put bombs in a school of children, or in any civilian place and explode it to kill us? How can his thighs carry him? How can he withstand guilt? I don't understand."

The old man left, I opened the newspaper and read about years of war and violence in Chili related by one of its gifted ladies.

23^rd December 2011, Friday, Baghdad

My friend and neighbor called me early in the morning and offered me to accompany him in a tour in central Baghdad. He reassured my worries about block road or car bans. I like my neighbor, I like central Baghdad, and logically, all of our days in Baghdad are dangerous so, nothing is special about a day after explosion. I agreed. 

In the bus he told me this story: "When I was a college, I had a strange friend. He got many ideas, beautiful ideas that sometimes seem strange. We ended friends and I respected the way of his thinking although I didn't understand it all the times. He came one day with an obvious small swelling in his pocket. That particular day his movements were refined paying attention not to move a rough movement. I asked him, since I am his friend, about what is in his pocket. He took it out: it was an egg!!! AN EGG!!! Feeling confused I asked him: but what it is for? He answered: I want to know whether I can take care of a delicate thing in my pocket not to be broken for a whole long day of studying in the college. "

I like my neighbor a lot. He teaches me to cook sometimes. He had taught me many things. He was a soldier in the Iraqi army in the 1980s war and he got many memories. We were walking today in central Baghdad when he was happily surprised to see a DVD copy of a movie of Sofia Loren.

"SUNFLOWER, what a memory," he started to tell me the story while the DVD was now in his hands, "in 1980, and for few days before the Iraq-Iran war had started, in Cinema Al-Khayam, they started to show this film. I saw it. It is about how Sofia Loren married that guy, then after just few days the World-War started. She asked him to play the role of a madman so that the Italian army doesn't take him from her. They made a scene in the center of their city, her husband running after her with a knife. They took him in an asylum and monitored him, while she was visiting him, though an opening in the door, and they saw them making love. The psychiatrist decided that he is sound and sane and they took him to fight. She gave him a coat. A thick one for he was going to fight the Russians in Russia. He went. In Russia, the Italian army failed. They were dead but he was saved by a lady, a Russian lady that dragged him to her lodgment from his feet. He married that Russian. Sofia Loren kept waiting for him. Then she went to Russian and found out his wife and his daughter. She came back to Italy. He, while under the Communist regime, was banned from travelling outside Russia. He started to ask the governmental institutes to let him go away. It was a film about war. The film was banned to be shown in Iraq just after the very first days of Iraq-Iran war. It is just today that I see it in a CD. What a coincident. The film got wonderful music that you must here."

We bought black partridge since he promised to show me how to roast it. After the lunch we heard together the music of the introduction of the film. An Iraqi poet had said once: "in Iraq, death is the rule, life is the exception." I had put that poet's saying in my memory. My neighbors' experiences and memories were also integrated in me.

26 December 2011 00:32                                                                                                                       

I reached Iraq before 2-3 months I ain't sure since I didn't count them. I received my first salary before days. When I reached home, I headed to the local electricity supplier and asked him to register me. He asked me to bring him a 150 meters wire of 2.5 width. After some expected obstacles, electricity reached my home. When it was night and sleep didn't come easily I remembered that I got a copy of a movie in my computer. A friend in Kerbala gave me a downloaded copy of the 1998 movie "Patch Adams" which is based on a true story.  The movie starts with a sky view of a forest in the winter. A piano is being played wisely slow and simple. The following words by the sound of Robin Williams (Patch Adams) are uttered calmly:

"All of life is a coming home. Salesmen, secretaries, coal miners, beekeepers, sword swallowers, all of us. All the restless hearts in the world, all are trying to find a way home. It is hard to describe what I felt like then. Picture yourself walking for days in a driving snow, you don't know if you are walking in circles. The heaviness of your legs in the drifts, your shouts disappearing into the wind. How small you can feel, and how far away home can be. Home. The dictionary defines it as both a place of origin and a goal or a destination. "

After all, I am writing all this, with the tension in the Iraqi political scene in my preconsious, linked to the last Thursday explosions. If I don't like to state that "I am not frightened", then let me put it as "I don't feel enough secure." Still, I got a generous friend in Kerbala who gives me treasures like "Patch Adams" movie. I got Isabelle Ellendi telling me about how it was difficult in Chili. I got my neighbors and their memories: one about the Iraqi Kingdom, and the other neighbor who had survived the battle field of an 8 years war. I got dry half-cabbages to empathize with, and I got more cooking lessons to learn.