Summer
Of Goodbyes...
By Baghdad Burning
05 August, 2006
Riverbend Blog
Residents
of Baghdad are systematically being pushed out of the city. Some families
are waking up to find a Klashnikov bullet and a letter in an envelope
with the words “Leave your area or else.” The culprits behind
these attacks and threats are Sadr’s followers- Mahdi Army. It’s
general knowledge, although no one dares say it out loud. In the last
month we’ve had two different families staying with us in our
house, after having to leave their neighborhoods due to death threats
and attacks. It’s not just Sunnis- it’s Shia, Arabs, Kurds-
most of the middle-class areas are being targeted by militias.
Other areas are being overrun
by armed Islamists. The Americans have absolutely no control in these
areas. Or maybe they simply don’t want to control the areas because
when there’s a clash between Sadr’s militia and another
militia in a residential neighborhood, they surround the area and watch
things happen.
Since the beginning of July,
the men in our area have been patrolling the streets. Some of them patrol
the rooftops and others sit quietly by the homemade road blocks we have
on the major roads leading into the area. You cannot in any way rely
on Americans or the government. You can only hope your family and friends
will remain alive- not safe, not secure- just alive. That’s good
enough.
For me, June marked the first
month I don’t dare leave the house without a hijab, or headscarf.
I don’t wear a hijab usually, but it’s no longer possible
to drive around Baghdad without one. It’s just not a good idea.
(Take note that when I say ‘drive’ I actually mean ‘sit
in the back seat of the car’- I haven’t driven for the longest
time.) Going around bare-headed in a car or in the street also puts
the family members with you in danger. You risk hearing something you
don’t want to hear and then the father or the brother or cousin
or uncle can’t just sit by and let it happen. I haven’t
driven for the longest time. If you’re a female, you risk being
attacked.
I look at my older clothes-
the jeans and t-shirts and colorful skirts- and it’s like I’m
studying a wardrobe from another country, another lifetime. There was
a time, a couple of years ago, when you could more or less wear what
you wanted if you weren’t going to a public place. If you were
going to a friends or relatives house, you could wear trousers and a
shirt, or jeans, something you wouldn’t ordinarily wear. We don’t
do that anymore because there’s always that risk of getting stopped
in the car and checked by one militia or another.
There are no laws that say
we have to wear a hijab (yet), but there are the men in head-to-toe
black and the turbans, the extremists and fanatics who were liberated
by the occupation, and at some point, you tire of the defiance. You
no longer want to be seen. I feel like the black or white scarf I fling
haphazardly on my head as I walk out the door makes me invisible to
a certain degree- it’s easier to blend in with the masses shrouded
in black. If you’re a female, you don’t want the attention-
you don’t want it from Iraqi police, you don’t want it from
the black-clad militia man, you don’t want it from the American
soldier. You don’t want to be noticed or seen.
I have nothing against the
hijab, of course, as long as it is being worn by choice. Many of my
relatives and friends wear a headscarf. Most of them began wearing it
after the war. It started out as a way to avoid trouble and undue attention,
and now they just keep it on because it makes no sense to take it off.
What is happening to the country?
I realized how common it
had become only in mid-July when M., a childhood friend, came to say
goodbye before leaving the country. She walked into the house, complaining
of the heat and the roads, her brother following closely behind. It
took me to the end of the visit for the peculiarity of the situation
to hit me. She was getting ready to leave before the sun set, and she
picked up the beige headscarf folded neatly by her side. As she told
me about one of her neighbors being shot, she opened up the scarf with
a flourish, set it on her head like a pro, and pinned it snuggly under
her chin with the precision of a seasoned hijab-wearer. All this without
a mirror- like she had done it a hundred times over… Which would
be fine, except that M. is Christian.
If M. can wear one quietly-
so can I.
I’ve said goodbye this
last month to more people than I can count. Some of the ‘goodbyes’
were hurried and furtive- the sort you say at night to the neighbor
who got a death threat and is leaving at the break of dawn, quietly.
Some of the ‘goodbyes’
were emotional and long-drawn, to the relatives and friends who can
no longer bear to live in a country coming apart at the seams.
Many of the ‘goodbyes’
were said stoically- almost casually- with a fake smile plastered on
the face and the words, “See you soon”… Only to walk
out the door and want to collapse with the burden of parting with yet
another loved one.
During times like these I
remember a speech Bush made in 2003: One of the big achievements he
claimed was the return of jubilant ‘exiled’ Iraqis to their
country after the fall of Saddam. I’d like to see some numbers
about the Iraqis currently outside of the country you are occupying…
Not to mention internally displaced Iraqis abandoning their homes and
cities.
I sometimes wonder if we’ll
ever know just how many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis left the country
this bleak summer. I wonder how many of them will actually return. Where
will they go? What will they do with themselves? Is it time to follow?
Is it time to wash our hands of the country and try to find a stable
life somewhere else?