Tuesday, December 06, 2005

A blogger in Iraq

Today, I found the blog of a 26-year-old Iraqi woman who signs her blog entries "river". Her blog is Baghdad Burning. She used to be a computer programmer before the war. The first year of her blog was turned into a book. I haven't read all of her blog - she began it in 2003 - but what I have read is eye opening.

"No- I’m getting great at [identifying different kinds of gunfire]. I can tell you if it’s ‘them’ or ‘us’. I can tell you how far away it is. I can tell you if it’s a pistol or machine-gun, tank or armored vehicle, Apache or Chinook… I can determine the distance and maybe even the target. That’s my new talent. It’s something I’ve gotten so good at, I frighten myself. What’s worse is that almost everyone seems to have acquired this new talent… young and old. And it’s not something that anyone will appreciate on a resume…"


and

"I get hopeless, seeing [American soldiers] pointing their guns and tanks at everyone because, in their eyes, anyone could be a ‘terrorist’ and almost everyone is an angry, frustrated Iraqi."

and

"Don’t blame it on Islam. Every religion has its extremists. In times of chaos and disorder, those extremists flourish. Iraq is full of moderate Muslims who simply believe in ‘live and let live’. We get along with each other- Sunnis and Shi’a, Muslims and Christians and Jews and Sabi’a. We intermarry, we mix and mingle, we live. We build our churches and mosques in the same areas, our children go to the same schools… it was never an issue.

Someone asked me if, through elections, the Iraqi people might vote for an Islamic state. Six months ago, I would have firmly said, “No.” Now, I’m not so sure. There’s been an overwhelming return to fundamentalism. People are turning to religion for several reasons.

The first and most prominent reason is fear. Fear of war, fear of death and fear of a fate worse than death (and yes, there are fates worse than death). If I didn’t have something to believe in during this past war, I know I would have lost my mind. If there hadn’t been a God to pray to, to make promises to, to bargain with, to thank- I wouldn’t have made it through."


and

"Bush was wrong when he said, “You are either with us or against us.” The world isn’t in black and white- there are plenty of people who were against this war, but also against Saddam. They aren’t being given a chance. Their voices aren’t heard because they weren’t in Washington or London or Teheran."


All of that is from 2003. I will keep reading and see what she had to say more recently.

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