03/03/2004
Though I've been back in Baghdad
for about a month since my vacation, I haven't found time to post on this site
until now. For those of you who have
emailed to inquire, I apologize and thank you the interest and concern. There's been a lot of bad news coming out of Baghdad
lately (though what else is new). As
always, the situation here is safer on a day-to-day basis than the news
portrays. I still feel fine going out
with Amjad and Thamer - talking to people on the street, going food shopping,
even going to restaurants. I've started
having lunch sometimes at a little place on Karada St.
that sells really great chicken shwarma sandwiches for about a buck. They have a few tables on the sidewalk and I
sit with Amjad and Thamer and watch people walking along the block, buying
vegetables or plumbing supplies or cell phones or shoes. Nearby there are some women's clothing
stores. On one corner a store
specializes in a combination of abayas and insanely sexy lingerie (they had
some sort of beaded American flag bra number on display in the window recently,
though I can't imagine it was a big seller for them).
Yesterday I was at home finishing up a salon.com story when the bombings occurred in Karbala and the Khadimiya neighborhood of Baghdad. I watched CNN with some other journalists in the house. Watched the estimates for the number of dead keep rising. We had all half anticipated that there would be bombings that day - the ashura holiday - but it was incredibly depressing to see those fears actualized . I spent two afternoons last week in Khadimiya. This is the holy month of Muharram for Muslims and there are festivities throughout the month. But ashura -- the 10th day of Muharram - and is particularly significant for Shiites because it commemorates the martyrdom of Imam Hussein. Last week, Khadimiya was already filled with tourists, mostly Iranian Shiites who had not been free to come to Iraq under Saddam Hussein's rule. I walked around streets in Khadimiya that were closed to accommodate the big crowds and allow for the processions of men who symbolically flagellate themselves with small bundles of chains attached to handles. Each afternoon, a different group of men representing a different group of Shiites would perform the ritual march. They line up in two parallel lines, wearing some version of matching black outfits. Someone bangs time on a drum and, with each bang, the men step forward and swing the chains over one shoulder, then the other. A singer walks down the middle of the lines, chant-singing into a microphone while helpers push big speakers along side. It's pretty dramatic choreography, though on both days, the initial lines of serious and young men were followed by little boys performing the ritualized moves. They were like the peewee team of self-flagellation and they giggled and got out of step until older men sternly coached them back into line.
All the blocked off streets were jammed with people and, on the edges, Iranian tour busses. Tour guides lead ancient Iranian men and women through the crowds, holding aloft colored flags so that no one got lost. Enterprising Iraqi boys had low wheeled moving palettes. For a few dinars, they would give tired Iranians a lift. Vendors sold fabric and kebabs and sweets and plastic dolls and leather coats and (for some reason) a very significant quantity of yellow Luxe soap. The whole area had a really nice festival air. Because it's such a deeply religious event for most people (despite the plastic dolls and Luxe soap), I had worn an abaya. I now own a sort of urban-lady version (actually purchased at the place with the ridiculously sexy lingerie) which is basically a very long lightweight coat with a black headscarf. When we first parked in Khadimiya, I had trouble getting my scarf to stay on. Amjad asked a woman to help me out and she happily did while a small gaggle of kids hopped around us in excitement. One girl had spotted me as an American and gathered all her friends and they gleefully asked me questions. As I've written before, despite being occupied by Americans, most Iraqis I meet have never seen Americans (except soldiers, usually from a distance). I'm almost always treated with curiosity and/or respect. Iraqis do not hate Americans, they hate the occupation (more and more all the time).
We watched the processions and walked through the crowds on either side, making our way towards the mosque. There the crowds were very tight and we didn't stay all that long. But yesterday's bombings in Khadimaya detonated there, in front of the mosque, where because of ashura, the area was even more crowded than its had been.
Not far from that spot - down a boulevard and opposite a traffic circle, is a military base housing American and (new) Iraqi soldiers. The first day I visited Khadimiya, I didn't think I was going to stay long. I asked my driver to stop at the head of the boulevard leading toward the mosque so I could just take some quick photos of the procession. American tanks were parked at that spot and I asked a soldier whether my driver could linger while I just took the photos. The soldier said, "Ma'am, you can't take any pictures." I said, "I don't want to take pictures of you guys, I want to take pictures of that." I gestured towards the several hundreds of Iraqis and Iranians enjoying themselves down the block. The soldier said, "Hold on, I'll have to check." I just walked away. Obviously, I could take pictures of a frigging public festival (and if I couldn't, that would be the choice of the Iraqis, not American soldiers). I understand these guys are scared -- after all, they're getting killed everyday - but that sort of knee-jerk suppression is part of the military attitude that Iraqis have come to loathe. It's not that I don't have tremendous sympathy for a lot of the soldiers as individuals. Watching CNN yesterday, I saw soldiers who had arrived at the scene of the Khadimiya bombings get pelted with rocks and general street detritus. They were there to restore order. Instead, they became the object of anger and frustration. Frequently, after bombings now, Iraqis blame the US for the carnage. They're not saying the US is actually responsible. (Although I have met people that believe the US is perpetrating acts of violence so that they can keep the country unstable enough to justify on ongoing presence here. I'm pretty down on the occupation but I don't buy that theory. I think the US is much more interested in exit strategy at this point.) But they do feel that the US occupation is responsible for the overall environment of violence. And as the perception of the military and its intentions continues to get worse here, so does the whole damn situation.