Happy Eid every one !
Here it is again , The Eid , after a month of fasting and supplications for peace on earth, well if not on earth, just Iraq will be sufficient .
Although, things have been morbid long enough people are clenching on to a very fine end of something like hope to hang on to .
As many of you know, the Eid is a time for visiting, and visiting means lots and lots of political discussions . For a while now I’ve been as desperate as can be , I’ve been having nightmares of an autocratic religious semi Iranian government , I wake up in cold sweat yelling Noooooooooooo…… not the Mullas, please God almighty anything but that .
And I actually gave up .Well, not absolutely , but nearly .
The Second day of The Eid a dear dear friend of ours came with his family to visit, he is a prominent lawyer from Basrah . We all sat talking and exchanging the latest ,I have to mention;he is a chronicle optimist, an optimist beyond help and cure ……
He told us that Shias now, especially the intelligentsia have had enough , and they are not going to put up with any semi literate clergy men any more., he told us that Basrah has been actually converted to a small Islamic republic under the noses of the Brits , no woman even dares to go out without a proper scarf and robe, the colleges are play grounds for all sorts of fanatics, imposing their improvised rules that have actually nothing to do with religion, and Basrah now is also a center of drug smuggling from Iran to Iraq , Oil is also being smuggled peacefully and the benefactors are well known .
- So far there is nothing to be happy about. I said
– Apparently , but observe what is developing from all this : Najaf and Karbala are not better , Sistani has declared ( at last ) that he does not support any one, thus not repeating the drastic mistake he made last time supporting al Hakeem, Jafari ,Chalabi package, ,which obliged most Shias then to follow his advice or rather “decree” to be more accurate . Al Sader , unstable and disturbed as he is ,yet still enjoying popularity in the streets left Al Hakeem after the latter declared that he joined him . All that isolates the hard liners , and with all the mess they have been causing, with all the assassinations carried out by them , it will certainly cost them seats and ultimately the whole Government .
- But what if the votes are faked like during the referendum, I said
– Well we just have to hope not , it is the last chance or , else welcome the Spanish inquisition once more .
– In other words you fear the same things I do , you have the same information , but you are an optimist and I am a pessimist , am I missing some thing here? .
– I have still not lost faith and trust in the Iraqi intelligentsia , I believe it will prevail in the end .
I really needed that , I choose to live on that hope too.
Mister, Mister , Welcome to our neighborhood !
Before the Eid I was sitting in the office daydreaming , our office driver was hanging around chatting ,since the Boss of all bosses hadn’t arrived yet. A friend of his came in , And sat down in our room, after greeting us and introducing himself he started reproaching his mate :-
- You so and so, why the hell didn’t you call all the past week ,didn’t you bother to take interest where I got to ?
- I called, and your phone was locked each time , I thought you were abroad or something with your boss.
- Indeed I was ! I was in Paris you know.
- Were you? what did you get me ?
- I’ll get you killed , I was arrested for a whole week, that is where I was .
- Why didn’t your wife call me ? honestly I had no idea, Sorry.
I looked at him curiously , but I was too shy to ask him what had happened . I didn’t wait long he started telling us :
- I was out doors building my fence with a couple of workers , I live near Al Saidia , a dangerous place as you know . So, several American military vehicles were driving along our lane, a soldier was sticking out of one vehicle, he was standing up for some reason .A brick or stone hit him right in the forehead , believe me, he started bleeding immediately . And that was it ! . they came down with there translator :-
- Come on you lot , all of you , hands on heads and march . We tried to explain , the translator was on our side, trying to alleviate the situation . No use ,and off we went , arrested, the whole lane .
He continued :- They let the old men out in three days, but us middle aged men -he said laughing loudly - were kept for a whole week , and were released only after the Head of some sort of committee in our Area intervened . On the way home, we remember how the old men were shouting , and ranted :- whose kid was that any way ? , was it yours , or yours … a fact, which by the way remains an unsolved mystery till this day. We also carried out our own serious interrogation, with the children when we all got home, without any success , the kids were adamant not to give away any details .
One bit of crucial information : Iraqi children are gurus in hunting sparrows and pigeons, with a special devise called ( Gazwa or Musiada ), it is manufactured manually , using pieces of wood linked together to form a Y shape,and wrapped firmly with strips of black old rubber obtained from old torn car tires , then a strip of elastic rubber is tied at the two upper ends like a loop , an extra rectangle of leather is sowed or tied in the middle of that strip, where the stone is to go .The hunter I mean the child holds the weapon's base in one hand aiming it at the victim ,while pulling the loop like strip with the stone secured in the leather bit, as far as he can with the other hand , then snap… bang ….AAAAAH , Whose damn kid was that ? , , casualties vary from birds to stray cats or dogs, windows and recently soldiers…..
Note the same weapon was used in the ancient world !
Cinderella !
My friend who lives in Khadraa is living practically in the front , although the front is getting larger and larger every day. She told me that every now and then there is a raid to search houses for weapons after policemen or solders have been hit.
The other day while they were sitting watching TV , they heard explosions and machine guns shooting , the next thing they saw was about 10 guards in the front porch knocking on their window . They marched in shouting , her husband politely told them to go ahead ( as if it mattered what he said ) . The officer went up stairs and he was shouting back to the husband : By god if I find one, just one blank bullet on your roof I’ll wrap you and take you down to the station .He came down , the mother in law of my friend asked him to calm down and sit to have something to eat if he is not fasting he refused puffing and panting , and continued : Aunty, this neighborhood of your is nothing but trouble , we wouldn’t of come in if not for the evidence we found near you door step .
- What evidence son ?
- This -he said holding out proudly one slipper- this, we found in front of your door
- Of course, they ran from you leaving their slippers behind , no big deal , it is not as if it is ( Na’al Cinderella ) = Cinderella’s slipper .
The guards laughed and left.
Are these stories funny , or am I in a holyday spirit .
