13/10/2005

To be locked up in the house for a while is not so bad after all. In fact it is great to lie about watching all the Ramadhan TV serials and cooking programs . The break is for four days , four days enjoying living in an aquarium ,which I decided to isolate myself in from any thing that reminds me of where I live and what is going on out there in a terrifying place called Baghdad . The purpose and meaning of my life these days is to watch my favorite series ( Nizar Qabani) on Dubai TV base on the biography of my favorite poet . One of the greatest poets of the 20th century - to my mind that is- .He was denounced at a stage of his life as an infidel ,and fanatics detest him till this day .
Ah… how can one forget his ( Fortune teller , The school of love or the Memoirs of an Arabic executer )… I love Nizar Qabani. I am entranced every evening at 11 o’clock by the finest poems, but he ( the poet I mean ) threw me right back to where I belonged , when he said -and that was back in the mid forties:
- “..We will achieve our independence ,that is not what troubles me .The French will leave us eventually there is no doubt about that , but remember and mark my words there is no independence without freedom , independence without personal freedom is lame . We shall remain for decades to come without freedom if our mentality stays as it is “ .
And his prophecy came true . The colonizers left us in the hands of dictators and the dictators left us again in the hands of colonizers and the story goes on .
I felt what Nizar said hit very close to home , it seemed as if we had been frozen for what? 50 years: the same problems ,the same issues the same guardians imposing thought in which we do not believe , so I decided to do something useful and read a book . I have been reading lately "Zorba the Greek" , I read …
Zorba said to the boss when the poor widow was slaughtered:
– Do any of these books explain to you why people die like that ?
- No, Zorba all these books are written by wise men who are seeking answers to questions like that .
- Then I spit on all your books boss.
I decided then to read the constitution draft once more although I promised not to.
This time it was the final version . We collected it yesterday from our local shop ,where we usually get our ration . I wrote about it before(July Post) , the same awkward issues are still there, I don’t see much change in them .
First section article( 2) Islam is the official religion of the state and is a main source of legislation (a) No law is to be issued if proven to contradict with Islam’s laws.
Well , the concept of Islam or to be more accurate the understanding of Islam defers from one group to another .Even in the most obvious issues there are differences in interpretation , which means that any progressive new law can be refuted if viewed to contradict with Islam . Here we’ll have to have clergy men and legislators who are really open minded and enlightened , which is a hard task .

Second section
Article 36(3)The right of demonstration is regulated by law .
That may be the case in many countries, I mean you have to obtain a permit to demonstrate and it is your right to demonstrate peacefully, but a law issued for that purpose may have implications such as determining the issues that you may demonstrate peacefully on .

Article 38
States that Iraqis are free to determine their personal status according to their religion , believes and choice . That sounds perfect , yet this strengthens sectarian division in issues as divorce , inheritance and marriage . The husband or wife may choose as they see convenient “which may not be fare always” the way to settle their disputes . I know this is complicated to understand even for some Muslims, I’ll try to explain it with an example: if a man is a Sunni and the wife is a shii or visa versa, when it comes to divorce she may demand settlement according to shia laws and he will do the same demand a settlement according to sunni laws , so what would the judge decide?, or more properly stated :What is the criteria he bases his judgment on? .You see this may lead to a situation, where disputing parties decide to take disputes to sectarian courts. But if it is all regulated by one law it would be more fair for both parties .

And now they decided to amend the items after four months from the elections of a new government . The role of the government has been postponing and pushing things along as time goes by , not one problem has actually been solved yet .
The news reported, that Sistani has issued a fatwa urging his followers to vote YES , Now that is not playing fair at all. So is it going be a NO then ???…..