Imad (IMC Beirut) in Bagdad

The nearby mosque does not stop praying over the loud speaker that it, persistently, put me off sleep. The sheik violates my personal right as not to listen to prayer, denying me every right to sleep peacefully. After all the sleepless nights listening to the melodious praying, I am getting used to it. It has become part of my system that if one night the power cut turns off the microphone, I would wake up and I would have a hard time going back to sleep. It is weird how things you can not stand grow on you after a while… just like the occupation.

After the war for oil, the collapse of the Baathist regime and the commencement of the occupation, new marginalized professions were introduced within the Iraqi society; professions that shape the imagery of Baghdad in the new “free” Iraq. Everyday and as I am sitting in the cab, we would drive across tens of children of all ages scattered all over the sidewalks. Sometimes they look as a dark pile of cloth over the translucent white gallons filled with the brownish fuel. Something that I believe will stick to my visual memory of the city after I leave. These children are the new gas stations of the new “free” Iraq. They stand there from dawn to evening under the burning desert sun waving for cars to stop for gas at their mini-stations. Each kid would hold on dear to his funnel and tube that are used to pour the gas in the car tanks.

Some of them pick locations close to each other as to keep company or to compete over the busy spot. Some pick a rather exclusive area where they hang out alone alongside their gallons thus avoiding competition. I have been wondering about this business and its sudden popularity in a country known for its oil… especially by the Bush Administration, let alone Blair! “It is faster and more convenient than having to pull over at a gas station” I was told by a driver. Could be, but did not seem convincing enough to me especially that it is more expensive though not to that big difference (keeping in mind that gas is mighty cheap here as 20 liters of gas would cost 1 US dollar). Seems like this business have flourished in agreement with and the under the patronage of the gas stations owners in Baghdad, and of course the blessings of the liberating armies of Saint Bremer. Seems freedom always comes in market forms! And the price at stake is always children and their rights. From the sweatshops of Manila to the streets of Baghdad, “freedom” prevails.

Walking down the busy streets in Baghdad such as Karadeh Dakhil, I chat with Salam my flat mate about Iraq, past and present. We pass by the tea vendors with their small metal cabinets holding their teapots, the small glasses and sugar.

Tea is served in a small glass under which there is a small plate. This is the etiquette (custom) here though not the Louis 16 one. Iraqis pour the tea out of the tiny cups in the small plate and sip it from there. At first I found it weird, but then it was explained to me that this is done to cool the boiling hot tea and I found it rather smart and pleasant.

Salam and I took a bus from Karadeh Dakhil to Baghdad Al Jedidah (an area in Baghdad). Arriving there was dazzling for me. The busiest place I have ever been to. An area full, say stacked to the rim with street vendors and carts that hinder the passage of cars. The place is packed with people, vegetables and fruits, snack booths with meat on the fryers and flies hovering over racks of local sweets. You can find all kinds of goods that would ever cross your mind from clothes to gold to kitchenware. A market that is so unique in its stagnating smells, crowds, colors and sounds. Chaos all over the place, from the piles of dirt to the hovering flies to the wide variety of goods. This was not to be seen in Baghdad in million years under the reign of the late Baghdad Municipality. A fact made clear to me by every Iraqi I met, just like the good riddance of Saddam.

Iraqis, or at least those I met so far, are ecstatic for being relieved of Saddam, but at the same time each and everyone of them admit that the dictatorship was not replaced by freedom but rather by chaos… a life threatening one! The job that Saddam started, as I was told by one cab driver, is being carried on by the coalition forces. For Ahmed, the cab driver, now it is not Saddam that is taking the fuel, it is the Americans. The only difference is that instead of the people taking 1% of the oil revenues under Saddam’s regime, now they are taking 5%. Something that is not fair for Ahmed but much better than getting the nibbles Saddam used to give them. For him, the oil revenues were never his, so why should he care about it now as long s he is getting more than what he used to get before. Ahmed is not the only one with this theory, many of those I met, let alone children at squats use this analogy when asked about their attitude towards the continuous theft of their oil. They have been used to nothing, that now the scarce amounts given to them by the Americans are worth a lot. Now I understand what Haj Ismaeel meant as he drove me from Amman to Baghdad by saying that Saddam destroyed the spirits of the Iraqi people.

Another cab driver who drove me along with an Irish friend back to her hotel went on and on in broken English on how his income improved after the fall of the regime and how the Americans saved his neck. He was outraged when I told him we are here to monitor the occupation. For him this was not an occupation, nor is the whole news about the corruption of the governing council true. This driver could not understand what all of us were doing while Saddam butchered thousands of Iraqis and starved millions. I tried to explain to him that Saddam was the pampered pet of the American government and because of that main stream media was not reporting the horrid stuff he was doing. For the majority of the globe Saddam Hussein was unheard of before the invasion of Kuwait and the Desert Storm. I wanted to tell him how many dictators and terrorists around the world are not heard of until the American government decides to turn the table, stop its support and use them as an excuse to invade or bomb countries. I wanted to tell him all that, saying that I understand his rage and incomprehension, to tell him that this is why all of us are here, to report the truth that was, and still is, being shut down from the world and the Iraqi people themselves. We are here to share the locals their struggle for "true" freedom. Not the "freedom" granted to them by the Bush in return of the billions of Dollars in revenues of their own fuel. I wanted to tell him that this extra income he is enjoying and is grateful to Bush and Blair for giving it to him is microscopic compared to what he is ought to have if the coalition governments where not stuffing their safes with the billions of dollars of oil revenues. Too bad we arrived and had to get off!

After I went back home I wondered, is this driver aware of the increasing debt he and his people are under? I bet he is nonetheless aware of it than the Lebanese people are… which amounts to zero! Is he aware that the estimated future revenues of oil of 20-25 billion dollars per year is not enough to repay the debt (estimated to be $ 120 billion) co-inflicted on the people by governments starting by his own fallen one?

Did they tell him that Amnesty International has warned that the 'occupying powers must make an explicit commitment to involving Iraqis in decision-making related to reconstruction. Iraqis themselves, ideally through representative institutions, ought to make decisions on rebuilding, on foreign investment, and on the selling of state assets'; and that this did not happen so far, at least not with corrupt-free bodies?

Does he know that the former company of crusading liberator Cheney, Halliburton, is harvesting Iraqi "rebuilding" contracts obtained from the U.S. government? Is he aware, or did the "freedom" carriers justify for him the visits that the all-democracy-loving Rumsfeld did to Saddam advocating Bechtel's business in Iraq, of course not only to the benefit of Bechtel but to the respective benefit of the regime as well? The regime that, according to Rumsfeld was not a dictatorship back then though it was slaughtering thousands of Kurds and Muslim Shiites! Did they pass out copies through their new democratic free-speech tools of reports given to Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials advising a rapid privatization of Iraqi industries and governmental bodies by Michael Bleyzer, a former Exxon executive? Did they publicize what Bleyzer stated in his report to the Wall Street Journal on March 27, 2003 saying “What I'd like to see over the next 10 years is to really rebuild Iraq, and that means a market economy”, adding that Iraq would have a “much better business environment if BP or ExxonMobil or Shell could invest.”? Did they read through the report to the point where Mr. Bleyzer say “We want to set up a business environment where global companies like Coca-Cola and McDonald's could come in and create a diversified economy not dependent on oil”? Did they give speeches about Mr. Bleyzer’s theory of "In the oil sector, priority should be given to improved transparency and predictability to encourage the early involvement of private international companies. Today, Iraq's oil industry is plagued by corruption and bitterly resented by the Iraqi people. Cleaning it up would boost the economy and give Iraqis some evidence that change and social benefit is coming.”? Did they explain privatization and its impacts on local communities? Did they tell the people how clean and corrupt-free ExxonMobile is? Or did they hide its being sued for complicity in human rights violations in Aceh, Indonesia, including allowing its facilities to be used for torture and interrogation? Did they have a look into the long reports issued by the Stop Exxon campaign that carry atrocities in Chad and Cameroon where citizen opposition to the environmental and social consequences of ExxonMobil's Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline has been met with brutal government suppression? Or did Bremer issue a statement concerning an entire village in Colombia forcibly relocated in 2001 to make way for the expansion of South America's largest open pit coal mine, majority owned by ExxonMobil's? Or about when Exxon merged with Mobil in 1999, and became the first U.S. employer ever to withdraw a non-discrimination policy covering sexual orientation? Did they tell the people about Coca Cola's continuous slaughter of workers and union members in Columbia? I wonder… was this cab driver briefed about his, or the minorities, or the workers, or the environment future rights under such corporate "freedom"?

All Iraqis I met detest the state their country has turned into, whether those pro the occupation or those against it. Everyone talks about how one Iraqi Dinar was equivalent to 3 US Dollars in the late 80’s opposing to one US dollar being equivalent to 2000 Iraqi Dinars now-a-days. They all explain how the consecutive wars, sanctions and dictatorship have contributed to the destruction of their society let alone the cultural state of the Iraqi people. I remember stories as a child on how Iraqis did not use to do the “dirty” work; it was usually given to immigrant workers who flooded Iraq making fortunes to take back to their countries. I am not acknowledging nor supporting such practice but rather highlighting the past financial wellbeing that the Iraqis enjoyed long before the Hussein family personal wars and dictatorship and the Bush family personal fascist obsession. Now no one is tempted to work here even Iraqis themselves and even in good posts. It is only corporation such as Bechtel that would do business here benefiting from the millions of dollars assigned to “rebuild” Iraq in contrast to the $ 50 dollars of monthly income to the regular middle class Iraqi man! Rebuilt can not be achieved according to the Bush Administration by Iraqis themselves, no, money has to be given to them in the form of international debt, and their debt must be wasted over companies linked to if not ghostly-owned by Rumsfeld or Cheney. Definitely the US congress would be generous in approving grants to “rebuild” the new “free” Iraq, and happily sign the check for big corporations that take the “grant” and stuff it down its belly along side workers and environmental rights. Of course such rights do not sink alone! According to the universal declaration of human rights all rights are inalienable, which in practice means if one right is shoved down the drain the rest will follow; such is the case here now-a-days!

Such is the case now-a-days in the new "free" Baghdad with rape, looting, women oppression, squatters living in extreme conditions with the bare minimum hygienic and nutritional situations, religious fanaticism, kidnapping, appalling school drop-out rate among children, income increased for few while millions starve, few smiles on the governing council faces as millions mourn the victims of sanctions, war and occupation. Yes, the dictator was over thrown! Bravo Bush, Bravo Blair… bring on another Berlusconi… or Hariri to the new "free" market in Iraq!

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)