Caoimhe Butterly: Iraqis fear for their future from a US government they don't trust

Al-Thawra E-mail this
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Caoimhe Butterly, Iraq Peace Team

6 May 2003

Al-Thawra is mourning its dead. Mourning-tents are present on many streets, new posters adorn its walls, immortalizing - briefly - the shaheed of the past thirty years. Young and old file past grieving relatives, drink the bitter coffee, sample the sweet dates offered, and return to their daily rhythms. Many of the young men remembered here died ten or fifteen years ago - executed or disappeared, but because they were politically active, were not mourned publicly.

Our companion, Yasser, points proudly to the green and black flags hanging from the mosques, homes and schools, "Al-Thawra has always been the same - unbreakable, Thawra (revolution) is in our blood."

We walk past the bustling marketplace, herds of goats, pools of water and rotting refuse ("our sea-side") past children screaming with excitement as one of their companions is carried off on the back of a frightened donkey. Small girls crowd around us, their fragile wrists adorned with brightly-coloured plastic bangles, hennaed hair set ablaze by the merciless sun, eyes wide with trust. They press wilted flowers into my hands exclaiming, "An ajnabia (foreigner) who speaks Arabic!" Upon my simplification and homogenisation, of: Bush, Blair, Sharon, Saddam, Prince Abdullah, Arafat, Mubarak, Abu Mazen, et al, as collectively, rowad al-bekkar (cowboys) and jaysusehn (traitors), the children profess their undying love.

We enter the house of Doctor Karim and sit down to a meal with three generations of his accomplished, articulate, passionately intelligent family. Karim describes the period of limbo, uncertainty, apprehension that manifests itself in countless conversations all over Baghdad. Debate rages - in the street, coffeehouses, confines of the home - a people wanting desperately to hope, but the magnitude of the potential for controlled disaster slowly settles in. "It is like waking up from an operation, the anaesthetic not quite worn off, one slowly trying to get a sense of things around oneself, trying to discern shapes, objects. There is pain, and fear, and apprehension dulled a little by the anaesthetic, but still there. It is pure, and complete confusion, we feel we are dreaming, waking up from one nightmare, the previous regime, perhaps to descend into another."

A neighbor, a young engineering student, explains, "Perhaps we have less to fear than others. We have little to lose. The services the municipal authorities once provided to others, we never received, because of this we don’t miss them in their absence. We are used to surviving with little resources. The only thing the government ever brought us was suffering. Our people are our only resource. We are an oil state, but look at the poverty we live in."

His mother agrees, "Oil is our curse. It brought us nothing but tragedy under Saddam. It will bring us nothing under the Americans. They should not have subjected us to another war."

All agree that after support for the Iran-Iraq war, the arming of both sides in more sophisticated ways to kill each other, support for the regime, for twelve years of genocidal sanctions, they have little reason to believe in the professed altruism of the American, or British, or Australian (or rag-tag, "Coalition of the Willing")governments. There is little reason to believe that the sanctity of their lives, and dreams, and futures, and right to self-determination and sovereignty will be respected, now.

"But let me dream, maybe they have changed," says Karim’s father.

Fatme, a primary school teacher who lives nearby, voices distrust, and humiliation. Many people in Baghdad(particularly after the lootings, the increased murder and rape, and the killing of over 24 protesters in Mosul and Faluja) are beginning to see that maintaining a state of continual, internal unrest - either instigating or facilitating it - plays quite effectively into an occupying force’s hands. It provides some justification for a continued occupation or presence, and for installing an emergency, provisional government, of their selection. Witnesses, including journalists, have reported direct facilitation by U.S. forces of the looting.

"It is effective." says Fatme, of the looting of the museums and ministries, "By destroying a people’s heritage, you destroy their past and future. We have been made, to them, a people without a past. Our records and archives are destroyed, burnt in the ministries. We become a people without names, no records to say we exist. It is not the objects themselves we are sad about, it is what they represented to us. We are the oldest civilisation, but we are presented to the world as terrorists, as fanatics. Only people who fight with small guns are called terrorists. Bush, who bombs us with cluster bombs, and strangles us with the embargo, is a 'civilised man.'"

Back in the street, Yasser stresses, "It is not that we want the Americans to leave right now. That, too, would be a disaster. But we need stability. And for that, we need a government respected by the people - not Chalabi. We are capable and ready to cooperate with other parties to form such a government. Shia and Sunni and Kurd, we are one. We have waited for this day for many years. It has come with a price tag. We don’t care about the oil, but we want legitimate leadership. Now we are waiting, for how long, we don’t know."

Iraq - as a whole - is waiting. Holding its breath, not quite functioning, continuing, but waiting to fully exhale. Wondering whether it will be allowed to draw breath, and life, again.


(Al Thawra or Sadr City, formerly Saddam City, is close to two million of Baghdad’s five million inhabitants.)


Caoimhe Butterly is an Irish human rights activist living in Baghdad and working with Voices in the Wilderness. She can be contacted through info [at] vitw.org