arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Al Ghazalieh compound is one of many locations previously owned by the fallen regime and currently squatted by hundreds of families living under extreme conditions. Al Ghazalieh used to be a cattle and chicken farm owned by Oday Saddam Hussein. Most of the families living here, not only have no place else, but also some of them were denied by Saddam – and still are up till today – from identity papers or nationality because of the father’s refusal to join the army. They have been fugitives for years that as Um Kadhim* told Jo and me she lost her daughter on the run. The three-year-old daughter got sick and died long before her parents got even close to finding a hospital. Of course illiterate Um Kadhim knows not what was the cause of her daughter’s death, as much as she have a hard time remembering her children’s ages or dates of birth.

Um Kadhim was one of tens of women who gathered around Jo and me the minute we walked in the compound, let alone close-to-hundred children. Most were barefoot and had flies hovering around their faces – after all, this place was long occupied by cattle and chicken for a long time which makes it easy to tell how contaminated it is now! The farm had a laboratory full of chemicals used to treat the cattle and fatten the chickens as we were told by one of the very few men around us. A lab once filled with chemicals and recently looted is now the place where children play and sleep.

It is rare that you’d walk into any place around Baghdad and not find tens of people eager to talk to you about their sufferings. It is as if they all want to compensate for the years of silence under Saddam in the few minutes you meet them. My hand does not stop being pulled by women trying to tell me about their suffering thinking that I am there to assess their needs for future aid. Jo and I made it clear that we are here as independent activists to listen to their suffering and transmit it to the world.

Um Ala’a, who told us she is fifty six, but surely looked like seventy something for me as she dragged her black chador as the wind blew it away, lives there with her only son Ala’a who is now seventeen. Ala’a works in a slaughter house making 2000 Iraqi Dinars a day ($1 US).His job is to blow in a slit made in the feet of cattle after being slaughtered to facilitate its skinning. “My throat dries up from blowing all day to earn the 2000 Dinars when I am lucky, sometimes it is hard to make more than 1000 (50 cents) or 1500 ID”. Um Ala’a said the money would be used to buy some potatoes and tea.

Ala’a dropped out of school when he was in fifth grade after his father passed away. Being the only son, he had to support his Mom. They used to live in a house costing them 20,000 ID/ month ($ 10 US), of course, with what Ala’a was – and still is – making, it was hard to pay for food and rent. When I asked the 17 year old boy with a coarse-from-blowing voice playing now on my recorder, what would it be the thing he wish for he did not wish for a cooking stove that they could not afford nor did he ask for a blanket for his Mom. He spoke aloud confidently as he tried to steady himself on top of his bicycle “all we need is a stable place to stay in”. Something his mother told me the minute she saw me.*

Al Ghazalieh compound accommodates 84* families living in three different kinds of houses; rarely with one family enjoying a private space. The houses are either former stables accommodating more than ten families per one, or newly erected stone houses with tin roofs, or straw tents that do not even block the sun during the day. The interior of the houses was mostly empty, except for the very few who afforded a small stove or one blanket for the family’s ten members. Within these walls it is hard to discuss occupation or stance on war. The time froze for these people at the sanctions period; they are deprived of everything, including the bare necessities of life! The only improvement in their situation is that now they are not scattered around and continuously on the run but rather gathered here in a stable location. This place is all what they have, yet they are under the daily risk of eviction. Al Ghazalieh is not the only compound in Baghdad, but seems it is the only one with a recent letter from the CMOC saying they can stay until someone takes responsibility of their living. Of course this someone is not the “liberator” freedom-carrier Bush!

Unlike those in other squats, the Ghazalieh residents were lucky by picking a trivial location such as a farm previously owned by Odey and which the coalition forces currently do not need. In the new “free” Iraq, human rights do apply where premises are not needed by the occupation forces, thus guaranteeing a place for the Al Ghazalieh residents till “such time a suitable place is found for them”, or as not mentioned in the letter but practiced in other squats, till the premises is needed by the coalition forces or the new government.

We visited Al Ghazalieh compound for the purpose of talking to the children and see what do they believe could be done to improve their situation. We were guided to the single recently painted room in the compound that was fixed by the residents to be a clinic on the hope that some medical team would come and use it for their sake – something did not happen yet. The room is 5 m2 and it is faintly painted with white. Empty from everything but a small table and a chair. The children were being called from all over the compound and gathered in this room. Bit after bit the room was being filled with children to the extent that we could barley move anymore. They all sat on the floor whispering among each other and waiting for us to speak. One particular little girl started crying franticly and holding on to her mother’s black chadour. She was scared of us and no the more we tried to talk to her the louder she would scream and press herself against her mother’s limp body. Her littles sister joined her in tears and in turn pressed her body against the sister’s body pressed against the mother. We failed to gain her trust and asked the mother to take her away where she feels more safe – there is nothing more disappointing than failing to communicate with children in crisis.

We asked to adults to move out and leave us with the kids. It took us some time to gain their trust during which I handled the questions due to my Arabic knowledge and Jo handled breaking the ice through a little game of chasing the kids around the room and taking pictures. We decided, as not to insinuate any promises of future aid that we were hoping for, we’d use a hypothetical game to get answers from the kids.

The question was “what would you ask for if a magician (we could not apply fairy cause they never heard of the term) granted you three wishes”. At first the children were shy and introverted, but the laughs that Jo managed to bring out from them, and my twisting up the question over and over started a tremendous flow of answers.

Marwa who is 11, dropped out from school this year because her parents are afraid she might get kidnapped or blown up. Her three brothers go to school, they are 17, 16 and 13 years old. Marwa says she would have been accompanied to school by her brothers if hers was close to that of her brothers’. Marwa says she is fond of school, she says that kids learn how to read and write there and when they grow up they become employees who make money. She remembers having a good time at the morning break where she joined her fellow students in the playground. When asked how she spends her day she replied “I have nothing to do, so I help my mother do the dishes and wash the clothes.” When asked what would she wish for she replied “blankets, dolls, and veils”. Marwa has been veiled for the past year, “because god said so, and if I do not do it my hair will get burned on dooms day”. Marwa heard this at her house, ever since she is very careful not to let any male see her hair “I do not want to get it burned at hell”. Marwa is one if the smartest kids I met so far, she is so outspoken, confident and alert. Marwa spoke in a commanding voice and bright eyes. She captured the attention of all those around her. Marwa who wanted to be a doctor to treat people at the compound and now helps carry water for the house. Marwa led the girls standing around her demanding they’d stay here at the compound. I had a hard time understanding how can they hold on so hard to such place. Do they have a choice? Do Marwa have a choice? Jo decided to come and give her and the rest of the kids English classes as soon as she gets through with her own Arabic ones. We are planning to get more people to teach. If these kids can not go to school, then let us bring a school for them.

My favorite game as a child was day dreaming and “what would you do if” questions. And now, here am I in Baghdad, thousands of miles away from home having a hard time getting these children to wish for anything. It was horrid seeing a child, let alone children, incapable of letting their imagination go, some of them stood there confused not knowing how to act upon this given freedom, this bliss of mere wishes, mere words! They lived for so long with the bare minimum that now it was hard for them to hope for anything, let alone have any kind of hope! For the majority of them clothes ranked second after school that came in the third place. The record-breaking answer, the number one winner wish was BLANKETS!

We went there expecting wishes of toys, sweets and gardens filled with flowers. We ended up listening to outcries for warmth and stability, let alone screaming children demanding their childhood. Once again the homeless children prove to be deeper and more insightful concerning their own problems than myself or anyone else I know. Once again the suppressed revolution seems to be lying among these walls, in the voices of these children.

Voices that once again resonate from Ain Al Helweh Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon where the Lebanese government denies them the basics of their civil rights to the children of Rafah in occupied Palestine hunted down on daily basis by Israeli Apartheid regime tanks to the silence of the world.

To those in the sweatshops of Nike and GAP subjected to every kind of molestation to sew the shoes that warm up the feet of the oblivion global majority who find it hard and “radical” not to buy Nike and GAP products in protest!

To the children forced to carry AK-47s and M-16s and die on the front lines of combat frontlines in Guatemala and Nicaragua. Let alone those used as human shields, spies, or messengers.

To the children of the Red Indians sold out to alcoholism, crime and illiteracy in the suffocating reserves they are “kept” at right on the borders of the US as it sends it troops to liberate a people thousands of miles away!

To those children morning their murdered fathers in the Colombian factories of Coca Cola for the sake of “free trade” and the World Trade Organization.

To the perishing children on the shores of Australia and in the Australian refugee camp of Wommera denied the simple plea to live in a safe place originally stolen from the Aborigines.

To the screaming voices of little girls sold for the rich and powerful penises of the patriarchal society in Egypt and Bangkok.

To the children of the US and Britain brought up to believe that the only solution for any problem is war and violence!

Seems it is time to pity the world not the nation, or call for a revolution!

Foot notes:

• Um Kadhim is not her true name, I named her Um Kadhim as the women who stalked me once in the streets of Baghdad begging for money.

• I am working on an article exclusively tackling the situation of children in compounds and on the streets, will send that out when done.

• 84 families according to the civil military affairs, while residents of the compound say they are around 135 families.