The New Islamic Republic of Iraq

Iraq has officially become like Iran and Saudi Arabia. It is now a country that bans music, theater and alcohol, a country that I can call the New Islamic Republic of Iraq.

What a tragedy! Why don’t they call it “banning life”?

Is that art?!

Last week, the Iraqi government shut down social clubs that serve alcohol in Baghdad, enraging the educated class who demonstrated against the extreme Islamic-inspired order. Today, Iraqis woke up to hear a far worse order; the Iraqi Ministry of Education has banned theater and music classes in Baghdad’s Fine Arts Institute, and ordered the removal of statues showcased at the entrance of the institute without explaining the move.

In a country that went through wars, sanctions and a horrific totalitarian regime, art remained defiant against Islamic extremism throughout centuries. Art has always been an integral part of Iraqis’ lives. Yet today the turbaned Mullahs, who are turning secular Iraq back into the Stone Age, have denied Iraqis’ the right of keeping art part of their country, erasing the Mesopotamian heritage that we inherited thousands of years ago. I wish the Sumerian makers of the Golden Guitar were alive, 3000 years later to see what has happened to their country.

Iraqis raised their voice and democratically elected a secular slate last March, but the Islamic fanatics who wrote the post-Saddam constitution wrote it in a way that they will always be the winners who will get the majority of the seats in the parliament.

We need two things: a new constitution and an atheist regime. Not secular, atheist. That’s how we can achieve success in arts, science and modernity. As long as there is a religious regime, no country will ever progress! Gods and politics will never reconcile. I choose not to side with religion. I choose to side with sanity.  

WikiLeaks Iraq War Logs Are Out. Nothing New! Now What?

We all knew it. We all experienced it. We all weren’t surprised by it. And by ‘We’ I mean Iraqis who went through the successive years of mayhem since the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003. 

The information in the 391,832 U.S. military documents that were released yesterday by the Whistle-blower website WikiLeaks did not come as a surprise to me. You shouldn’t be surprised either. Iraqis have been talking about this over and over for years on blogs, newspapers, TV and radio stations and through human rights organizations.

The Iraqi people have been frequently complaining since ever about torture conducted by the Iraqi police. They have said it nonstop that the foreign security contractors have been killing civilians haphazardly, and sometimes for no reason. Shiite militias controlled the streets of many cities in Iraq and appeared to be well trained by Iran to kill and torture.

Many thought we were exaggerating or saying things that are not supported by facts, but now our words are finally backed up by evidence! I’m happy these WikiLeaks documents finally came out. However the questions remains: Now What?!

The U.S. government apparently knew all about the killings of innocent Iraqis, Iran’s training of Shiite militias and Iraqi security forces’ abuse and rape of teenagers in prisons. Nevertheless, they decided not to take actions, not to intervene!

So what will the United States do in response to the that? Apologize to Iraqis? I don’t think so. Even if they do, will this bring back the lives of the thousands of civilians killed in the war? It won’t. Will it make Iraq safer? It won’t either. Will it change the current miserable political situation there? Not at all.

As an Iraqi, I don’t need an apology. I need justice. I need to see those who committed crimes against my fellow Iraqis get what they deserve. As for the Iraqi torturers, I don’t see them being brought to justice anytime soon, simply because they are under the same sectarian government that let this happen under their watch. We need a new government. We need new people to run the country and make this happen. Iraqis made their choice in last March elections, but the sectarian powers are refusing to give it to the moderates who were elected. Until this happens, I don’t think justice will ever be achieved in Iraq.

Demodictatoriyah: New Online Cartoon Criticizes Maliki’s Clinging to Power

A new online satirical cartoon,  depicting Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki and his competitor Ayad Allawi arguing about who rules Iraq as a Prime Minister has emerged on the Web recently.

The cartoon, entitled “Demodictatoriyah,” is made by a recently-launched Facebook group, called “Only for Iraqis.” It is posted on the group’s YouTube channel which has more than 100 subscribers already since its launch on October 11.

The cartoon is the latest criticism on how Iraqi politicians failed to establish the new Iraqi government since the parliamentary elections held more than seven months ago.

The slate led by Maliki trailed one led by a former interim leader, Allawi, by 89 seats to 91. In the seven months that followed, neither side was able to pull together a coalition that would allow them to create a new government. But on Oct. 1, Maliki struck a deal with a Shiite faction that had previously opposed him, putting him within striking distance of a majority in the new 325-member Parliament. (Read the full New York Times coverage here for more on this election)

This development helped shape the online cartoon which obviously is anti-Maliki. It starts with the Pink Panther famous music, followed by Maliki walking to a stage to recite a poem. In it he, threatens and mocks Allawi while the event is broadcast on TV. In the background, people are heard clapping, while Maliki recites the poem. However, when he finishes a man’s hand pauses a cassette player which apparently was the main source of the cheering and clapping audience.

The cartoon is hilarious. The sarcasm in it is to the point and expresses my views and the views of many Iraqis who did not vote for Maliki’s slate.

Here is the translation of part of Maliki’s poem as heard in the cartoon. It’s the closest I could do but you’ll get the point:

The [Prime Minister] seat is mine
Everybody should go away
If the people object
I swear with my mother’s soul I will exterminate them
The party that does not want us
We don’t want it either
We are about to finish the oil
And I’ll make you [Iraqis] broke
But whoever voted for me
I will give him more than he stole
And those voted for the other man [Allawi]
Let’s see how useful he’ll be to them

Enjoy the cartoon!

Hijacking Mesopotamian Heritage

The last time I attended Babylon International Festival was in 2000. Then, it was a celebration of the world’s arts and culture and a revival of a civilization’s history. There performed various Arab, Asian, European, American and African artists, dancing and playing traditional and contemporary music, leaving Iraqis enjoy precious times as they endured the hardships of the Iran-Iraq war and the 12-year international sanctions.

But today, seven years after it was canceled due to the US-led invasion, the festival opened with failure and disastrous atmosphere. No dancing, no singing! Nothing but two badly-performed plays on globalization and hating the United States. The reasons, according to The New York Times, were religion and politics!

The Times reported that the deputy governor of the Babil province, Sadiq al-Muhanna, “declared the ban on music and dance… which he called offensive to Muslims during religious ceremonies for Imam Sadiq.”

This news came in like a lightning strike to me. It is really sad that religion hijacked the entire Iraqi society, whose culture and art battled and survived dictators, wars, barbarians and invasions throughout history.

Iraq was a country where culture and arts met and flourished. It was a country that gave birth to great artists whose imprints were recorded for thousands of years across the globe. But today it’s a country marked by religion and only religion. Instead of reviving our glorious history, the leaders of the new Iraq are forcing that form of submission. They coat Imams’ graves with pure gold; they block streets for weeks in celebration of death or birth anniversaries of those Imams and now they cancel the entire basis of the Mesopotamian civilization: appreciation of art and culture.

We have become worse than the most conservative countries in the Middle East. Even in Saudi Arabia, where men and women are flogged if found mingling with each other, people celebrate their culture by dancing and performing in national festivals, and they don’t even have Mesopotamian heritage to revive.

My heart breaks for Iraq. It makes me gravely sad to see how religion has become the winner in the former secular country that I remember.

I dream of going back. Every day. But the Mullahs hijacked my country and turned it into a bigger mosque, where people cannot do anything but pray to deaf ears. I’m afraid the dream is shattering. I’m collecting the pieces but not sure how long this will last.

New Golden Domes? What about the people?

Celebrating Eid Al-Fitr in Baghdad this year came with the reopening of the Kadhimiya shrine domes! The domes, that had been already coated with pure gold hundreds of years ago, were re-coated with new shining, pure gold tiles.

I first heard about the news today when a coworker of mine shared the photos with me. I was literally shocked and disturbed at the same time. I sighed and thought about all of the money, gold and the resources that were used to carry out that project.

Secretary General of the Kadhimiya Shrine Fadhil Al Inbari talked to Noon website (Arabic):

“The [project] was directly funded by the Shiite Endowment. The total of number of tiles used to cover the dome is 10261. The work process lasted 6000 hours (equivalent to two years of continuous work). The total weight of the pure gold that was used to cover the dome is 112,400 Kilograms, and that 300 workers, engineers and technicians worked on it.”

This doesn’t end there! Al Inbari told the website that they have started a new phase of rebuilding the minarets of the same shrine with 3600 Kilograms of pure gold as well, in addition to building a new shrine for Mohammad Al-Sadr, the Imam who was murdered by the Saddam regime and whose son Moqtada Al-Sadr’s militia was responsible for the murder of thousands of Iraqis during the sectarian war.

I thought about the barely-functioning power grids, the absence of clean and sanitized water in rural areas, the lack of security, the dying agriculture, the Baghdad greenbelt that should protect the city from the dust storms, the orphans who go to bed hungry, the elderly who cannot afford medicine … and the list goes on and on.

What is sad about this is that there are millions of people who supported and believed in this “reconstruction” process. They preferred that this money goes to such a project and not their very own country’s infrastructure, which they have been suffering from for a while.

I guess those who supported it should stop complaining about water and electricity and let the late Imam whose grave is covered with a golden dome fix the electricity and bring them clean water.

It is really ironic that the very same people, who criticized Saddam for the very same reason of spending Iraq’s money on building gigantic mosques, do the exact same thing.

Fierce Competetion to Shape Iraq’s Future

On Saturday, Iraqi people are going to the polling centers to cast their ballots in the country’s provincial elections. I’ve been following the elections news and thought I should share some information I have gathered in that regard.

For those interested in understanding what the ABCs of the elections are, read this MSNBC Q&A report.

As you may all know, violence in Iraq has decreased due to several factors, including the segregation of the cities and the neighborhoods within and the joint Iraqi-American military operations that helped fight the insurgents and militias who almost took over the country. But above all those factors was the fact that the Iraqi people themselves have finally realized that there was no need to fight each other anymore. This, of course, excludes the politicians. And this led to a relative reconciliation that has finally penetrated into the warring Iraqi society.

Saturday’s provincial elections are critical. I believe they will be a new kind of test where Iraqis are going to see if those they are voting for will take the country forward and not backwards. It is a test for Iraqis themselves as well. The results will reveal whether the people have learned their lessons of the past elections. Of course, it is hard to assume they did as democracy is still new and it’ll take them decades to understand how it should work.

In this post, I’ll try to post some of the main concerns and most important issues that are related to the elections:

– Shiites, Maliki and the south

In most of the provinces across the country, the direction nowadays is not religious. People no longer care about the fact that the candidate is the son of the prophet, his grandson, or even the prophet himself. All they need is clean water, electricity, jobs and security. This is a milestone in the road of understanding that religion should be separated from the state. In this regard, Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, an Islamist and a leader of the Dawa Islamic Party and who runs The State of Law Coalition slate, is not using his party’s religious mottos. In an interview with the Washington Post, a campaign manager for the Shiite coalition said, “Maliki is Islamic as a person, but as a statesman? No, he’s secular.” He added that there are other priorities he and his candidates need to consider.

Ghassan Al-Attiyah, a secular political analyst has noted this change as well. Yet, he told the Post that the important question is if Maliki is sincere in “wearing the mantle of reform instead of Islam.”

In a recent poll conducted by the widely-read independent Azzaman newspaper and Al-Sharqiyah satellite TV, Maliki and his State of Law Coalition are on the top of the charts. According to the Washington Post and the New York Times, Maliki’s popularity these days has risen due to his strong statements regarding the centralization of the Iraqi government, which I think is a tactic he’s using to win the votes because he knows some Iraqis, except the Kurds, do not want the country to be divided into federal regions. This tactic is scaring his Kurdish and other Shiite rivals, of course. Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim, the cancer-ill leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, has been calling uninterruptedly for separating southern Iraq from the rest of the country in a federal region that will look hugely like Iran and be run by Mullahs and Ayatollahs. The Kurds on the other hand are not worried about that. They already have their federal region, ruled by them democratically. However, their concern is how much power should the central government own. They have not yet gotten rid of the trauma Saddam had caused in brutalizing them and their rights. The outspoken Kurdish member of the Iraqi parliament told the New York Times that “people think [Maliki] has overreached.” It has even reached the extent that Waleed Salih Sherka told the Post that “[Iraqis] got rid of the dictator and nightmare Saddam Hussein only to get this new dictator wearing the uniform of democracy.” Wow, the competition is fierce. Several Iraqi and American newspapers have also mentioned that there have been some heated discussions recently between the Masoud Barzani and Maliki.

In addition to Maliki’s coalition, other candidates from other political parties are competing to win some seats. Those include the communists, the secularists, members of the Fadhila party, the nationalists, and some independent candidates who gain their support from the tribes in the provinces.

– Anbar, once restive now tries to be democratic

Anbar province was one of the most violent part in the country. Who of us doesn’t know the Fallujah battle? Today, the Sunnis in Anbar are focusing on democracy rather than violence. The Post’s Anthony Shadid reported from Ramadi, the provinces’ capital, that competition is fierce between the tribes-backed candidates and the political parties. Anbaris may find it hard to have technocrats or seculars to rule the province. They are left with the tribes because these tribes revolted against Al-Qaeda and restored the power from the terror organization. The tribes insist that The political parties like the Iraqi Islamic Party are not beneficial for the province. Shadid quote one of the candidates calling the IIP “liars” and “cowards.” They call Harith al-Dhari, head of the Muslim Scholars Association and a strong supporter of al-Qaeda in Iraq, “a barking dog” since all he does is complaining from his comfort zone in Jordan.

In any case, the Post reported that of the 29 candidates in Anbar, 15 are tribal figures.

Believe it or not, a group of secular liberals are also running in this election. The Post reports that “Shiites and Kurds sit on their board. So do a Christian and a Jew, one of the handful left in the country.” The paper said they advocate human rights and transparency, and end of corruption and the rehabilitation of Iraq. However, Shadid observed that “no one seems to be listening [to them]. “No one really can,” writes Shadid.

Against the tribes’ candidates run the Iraqi Islamic Party which created a coalition with some tribes. Called “Coalition of the Educated and Tribes for Development,” the coalition includes four Sunni political blocks, according to the Opinion Web site, Niqash. It also mentioned that violent incidents might occur between the competitive factions. One of the candidates Shadid interviewed was Hamid Al-Hayes who threatened to “kill all of their candidates” if theirs are attacked.

– Nineveh and the Kurd-Arab divide

It’s been continuously reported that the Kurds in the north are trying to include some of the non-Kurdish lands to their region. Their efforts include attempting to control parts of Nineveh province which is the home of Mosul, Iraq’s largest second city after Baghdad.

Since the election campaigns started, violence increased in the restive province. Niqash reported that several members of the competing political factions have been killed since the campaigns started. Observers believe these assassinations aim to destabilize the area.

In the northern province there are basically two slates, one include Arabs and the other include the Kurds. The Washington Post observed that Arabs in the province are looking forward to win in order to “appoint a governor and use their political power to roll back the Kurdish expansion.”

***

In the midst of this race of who will run the provinces, election posters have been stuck on almost every building and electricity post. Since corruption is a disease Iraq is still suffering from, some candidates used several methods to make people vote for them. Azzaman reported that Iraqis have been complaining about pressure and threats carried out by some parties to force them vote for their candidates. The threats varied, including assassinations and kidnappings. The paper added that they have even tried to bribe people to vote for their candidates.

***

I wish I had the time to write more about everything related to the elections. However, I suggest you read the articles I have linked to in this post for a better understanding of how this election is shaped.

blog.bassamsebti@gmail.com

Seeing Our Past in ‘Betrayed’

It was the same scene playing in my mind as it was on the stage. A young man called Adnan standing between mutilated dead bodies at the Baghdad morgue, looking for his friend’s body. As I was watching, I recalled how I stood in the real morgue back in 2006. The smell of the decaying bodies and the horror of being identified by the militias who were controlling the morgue flashed back into my eyes. I couldn’t but feel the warm tears pouring, watering my cheeks. The whole scene reminded me of the story I covered for the Washington Post when Shiite militiamen killed hundreds of innocents after the Samarra shrine bombing in 2006, an incident that triggered the civil war between the Sunnis and Shiites in the war-torn country.

The horrific scene was performed in Betrayed, a play by the The New Yorker writer George Packer, author of the acclaimed The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq. Betrayed, which was screened at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, is about the plight of the Iraqis who worked for the Americans who were either killed or threatened to be killed by the extremists who considered them traitors, spying for the occupiers and who were betrayed by their American employers who did not help them survive or flee the country for protection. The idea of the play started as an article in The New Yorker by Mr. Paker who adopted the play’s plot and characters from real stories and information he gathered as he reported in the article.
The play was great. The New York Times put it in the best words:

“But the clarity of the writing, the urgency of the story being told and the fine performances give the play a sharp dramatic impact and a plain-spoken beauty. Painful human experience is presented here as just that. Nothing else is necessary to awaken sympathy, despair and awareness of a grave moral failure on the part of the American government.”

Last night was great not only because I watched the play, but also because I had the chance to meet George Paker whom I consider my idol, along with Anthony Shadid. I never want anything in my career life just to achieve at least half of what they achieved. Mr. Paker was a very nice person. We talked about the article, the play and of course his book The Assassins Gate.

Before the play started, my Iraqi friends and I had the chance to speak with celebrity and American actress Sarah Jesscia Parker who was hosting the play along with Matt Dillon, and Refugees International. We had the chance to speak with Sarah Jessica about how we lived and worked for American organizations, be it for the government or for the U.S. newspapers. My friend, B, whom the play was partly based on her story as a young woman working in the Green Zone for the Americans, explained to the superstar the reality of the daily risk she put herself in to do her job. Parker was all ears. It was the second time she attended the play. She said she was ready this time. She brought her tissues.

blog.bassamsebti@gmail.com

In modern Islam, Shiites Revived and Sunnis did not like that!

A few days ago, I finished reading a very interesting book about the Middle East and more specifically about the Shiite Muslims. The Shia Revival by Vali Nasr is a must-read for all those who have no idea what the terms ‘Shiite’ and ‘Sunni’ mean. I actually recommend it more for those who are interested in knowing why there is a difference in the two terms and why was all this fuss called ‘sectarian war in Iraq.’
Although I knew many things mentioned in the book, I still found that there were things I did not really know. Nasr narrates, analyzes and discusses them in details.

I have a friend in Philly who is a Shiite Muslim from Saudi Arabia’s infamous Qatif city. We have always sat and discussed issues that concern our region, religion, and our lives as they are related to these things. One day, I was completely upset and mad at what I had discovered in our religion. The discussion we both had led to realizing that it’s not the problem was not in the religion itself more than the practitioners of Islam themselves who used certain things and interpreted them the way they wanted them to mean. The goal is to make others believe them, and nothing other using certain things from the religion to make them believe in was better than that. During that discussion, I told my friend about my memories of Islam in Iraq. I remember leaning back on the plastic chair, saying “Our religion was simple. The war made it gross.”

Indeed, it was as simple as knowing the basic things in the Quran, knowing your prophet is Mohammed and your God is Allah and that there were other prophets whom God chose to deliver his messages. Yes, there were Sunni and Shiite differences, but among the people (at least those in Baghdad whom I was one of) it was not something we really cared about. During those years, books about religion were rarely found. The secular Baathist regime made sure people in my generation do not understand or know what the real history behind the two sects was. My family did tell me that the Shiites were victimized throughout history, especially during the Abbasid Empire era, but they never really went into details about it nor they stressed on making me or my sister insist on knowing it because it was not a big deal then.

The internet revolution and the flow of the books and the articles about the real history between the two sects appeared on surface in the aftermath of the US.-led invasion of Iraq, letting me and many others in my generation be able to read and learn about that grim and gruesome history of wars and struggle to get power.

One of these books is the Shia Revival. The book opened my eyes to many things that I did not before the war. I knew it all started when Prophet Mohammed died but did not know other details, including the fight between Iran and Saddam was a Shiite-Sunni fight. I know understand why the Arab countries supported Saddam against the “Evil Persians” and why Iran went on for eight years to fight Saddam. The goal was who would dominate? The Sunnis who wanted the Arab World always be Sunni or the Shiites, represented by Iran then, who wanted to spread their faith to a larger crowd in the Arab World?

Addressing the West in his book, Nasr relates the Shiite rituals to those of the other religions. This was something that I did not really know. Nasr also talks about Saudi Arabia’s Wahabism a lot. It is widely connected to the struggle between Sunnis and Shiites these days. It goes way back to the days when the Wahabis invaded the holy city of Karbala where Imam Hussein is buried and slaughtered the Shiites there, believing that they were infidels and tomb worshipers. He also writes about the Lebanon Shiites and how they emerged as a fighting and strong force in the region, making even Sunnis follow them in their fight against Israel which was occupying their land for decades. Then, came the Iran-Iraq war and the whole struggle of keeping the Shiites away from domination. There is also a long, detailed and very interesting chapter about Khomeini and his role in Shiism, followed by an interestingly-analyzed chapter about the new Iraq which he called it ‘The first Shiite Arab state,’ a term that I’ve never heard before and a one that is so true.

Overall, the book shows that the struggle is not religious more than political. Peoples from both sects were caught in the middle of this conflict. They were used and brain-washed over the decades to create differences.

Anyways, it is a wonderful book and a good source that I strongly recommend to readers interested in learning about political Islam.

The other book I’m sunk in its waters now is Robin Wright’s Dreams and Shadows: the future of the Middle East.

Blog.bassamsebti@gmail.com