Baghdad's
Frightening Freedom
By
Mario Vargas Llosa
5 September, 2003
Iraq
is the country with the greatest freedom in the world, but since freedom
without law and order is chaos, it is also the most dangerous. There
are no customs, nor customs officers, and the CPA (coalition provisional
authority) governed by Paul Bremer has abolished all tariffs and duties
on imports until December 31. As a result, the Iraqi borders have become
strainers, through which all kinds of goods - except weapons - are pouring
in without difficulties or costs. At the border with Jordan, the US
watch officer assured me that just this week an average of 3,000 vehicles
a day had entered Iraq with all types of merchandise.
That is why the
two large avenues Karrada In and Karrada Out, which zigzag through Baghdad
like conjoined twins, present an immense variety of industrial goods,
clothes and food. The innumerable shops that flank them have spilled
out on to the streets, turning the pavements into a plethoric bazaar
- and into a paradise of pirate records, compact discs and videos. However,
the one product that citizens of Baghdad are buying most eagerly is
parabolic aerials, which allow them to see television broadcasts from
all over the world, something that had never been possible before, and
that infuriates the conservative Islamic clerics, who see this television
frenzy as an invasion of the corrupting western pornography. Now Iraqis
can also surf freely over the web, which in the days of Saddam Hussein
was considered a crime. It is amusing to observe, in the internet coffee
shops which have mushroomed throughout Baghdad, the passion with which
the Baghdadis, especially the young, indulge in this new pastime that
connects them with the rest of the world.
The active street
trade has more in common with primitive bartering than with modern dealing.
As there are no banks, nor cheques, nor credit cards, all transactions
are made in cash and, given the plunge of the dinar (the rate was approximately
1,500 dinars to the dollar on my last day there), buyers, in order to
make a purchase, must bring bundles of notes with them, at times suitcases
full, which can be nicked from them at any moment by the scourge of
the day: the omnipresent Ali Babas. For on top of the lack of customs
officers, there are no policemen, no judges and no police stations to
report the robberies or outrages one suffers. The ministries are closed,
as are the public registers and the postal service; the telephones don't
work, and there aren't any rules and regulations that stipulate what
a citizen can or cannot do. Everything is left to each individual's
intuition, boldness, prudence and instinct. The result is reckless freedom,
which makes people feel helpless and frightened.
The only authority
is represented by the tanks, the armoured cars, trucks and jeeps, and
by foot patrols of US soldiers who cross and re-cross streets all over,
armed with rifles and submachine guns, making the buildings shake with
the power of their war vehicles. Soldiers who, on a closer look, seem
as helpless and frightened as the citizens of Baghdad themselves. Since
I arrived the attacks against them have been increasing systematically,
and have already killed 30 and injured around 300. It is not surprising
that they seem suspicious and in bad spirits, with fingers on triggers,
patrolling streets full of people with whom they cannot communicate,
amidst a hellish heat, which for them, dressed in helmets, bullet-proof
jackets and other war paraphernalia, must be even worse than for the
average local. I tried to talk to them - many being adolescents not
yet capable of growing a beard - on four occasions, but I got only very
concise replies. They were all pouring sweat, eyeballs perpetually moving,
like distrustful grasshoppers.
But Morgana, my
daughter, succeeded in conversing on a more personal level with a soldier
of Mexican origin who suddenly opened his heart from atop his tank:
"I've had it! I've been here for three months and I cannot stand
it any longer! I ask myself what the hell I'm doing here every day!
This morning they killed two buddies. I can't wait to go back to my
wife and child, damn it!"
Endless stories
about the US soldiers who patrol Baghdad are spreading all over, the
majority of which are, without doubt, exaggerations or lies. One example
is that, in their desperation against the growing attacks, they burst
into houses and abuse their authority under the pretext of looking for
arms. I tried to verify some of these charges and they turned out to
be unfounded. The truth is that nobody knows what line to take. For
the first time in its history there is complete freedom of press in
Iraq - anyone can buy a newspaper or magazine without having to ask
for permission from someone - and currently more than 50 news papers
are being printed in Baghdad alone (where, since April, 70 political
parties have emerged, some made up of only one person). Still, the information
they publish is so contradictory and imaginative that everybody is complaining
of living in complete uncertainty.
I went to the home
of Kahtaw K Al-Ani, in the Sadea neighbourhood, because I had been told
that in the house next to his there had been a very violent incident
the night before which resulted in various casualties. It actually took
place five houses beyond his. The patrol entered by breaking the door
down with a kick. "This is no good, sir!" And there was one
dead Iraqi. But did they find weapons there? Did they fire at the soldiers?
He does not know, and does not want to know.
Al-Ani lived in
Reading for three years and has good memories of England. He was a technician
in the ministry of agriculture and now, like all other civil servants
from the fallen regime, has been fired by the CPA. Is this not totally
unfair? He and his colleagues hated Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath party,
which they were forced to join, and they were happy that the Americans
freed them from the dictatorship. But what kind of liberation is this
that puts you on the dole, for no reason, leaving in poverty tens of
thousands of families, who previously felt like victims of the regime?
"This is no good, sir!" Al-Ani is old and dignified, with
close-cropped hair, and is dripping with sweat. His children soak up
his perspiration with paper serviettes and he constantly apologises
for the fan not working as a result of the lack of electricity. Before
he hated Saddam and the Ba'ath party, but now he hates the US soldiers.
As I was saying goodbye, he showed me his car: he never takes it out
just in case it gets stolen, and he does not dare to leave his house
for fear of it being attacked or burned. "This is no good, sir!"
Three wars, 12 years
of international sanctions and 30-something years of Ba'ath satrapy
have turned Baghdad, which in the 1950s was famous for its beauty, into
the ugliest city in the world. Saddam's strategic centres of power,
the ministries and official organisations, and many of the residences
which belonged to the dictator and his accomplices now display their
open jaws and insides gutted by the impact of the US precision bombing.
And one can see everywhere the homes, shops, buildings and installations
looted and burned during the criminal pandemonium that took over the
city in the days that followed the arrival of US troops, and which has
not entirely died down yet.
The Ali Babas ransacked
everything that came their way and left half of the population in the
street, with no possessions or roofs over their heads. Who were these
plunderers? Saddam Hussein, in order to celebrate his re-election as
president with 100% of the vote, opened the country's prison doors on
October 15 2002 and set free all the common criminals (while sending
the majority of political prisoners to their deaths). How many did he
set free?
I'm given dislocated
figures that run from 30,000 to 100,000. It doesn't explain all the
outrages committed, but it does explain a good number, the Archbishop
Fernando Filoni, Nuncio of His Holiness, assures me. (An expert in catastro
phes, he began his diplomatic career in Sri Lanka when the Tamils started
their decapitations and throat-cutting.) "The lack of practice
of freedom initially spawns catastrophes. That is the reason why the
Pope, who is very wise, opposed the war. Wanting to rush into things
so fast, the US quickly came across something unforeseen: widespread
vandalism."
But it is also true
that the built-up hatred towards the ruling clique has incited many
victims into destroying residences belonging to the people in power
and all other buildings related to the regime. Still, why did they destroy
the factories? Nagi al-Jaf, a veteran industrialist with business in
the Iraqi capital and in the Kurdish city Suleymaniya, told me that
the huge and mixed-regime Farida brewery in Baghdad, in which he owned
shares, was mercilessly razed by the Ali Babas. "I could understand
robbing things that they could consume or sell, but I can't see why
they would destroy all the machinery and then, as if that were not enough,
burn the whole thing down."
How many industries
in Baghdad have been victim to similar forms of havoc? The answer is
categorical: "All of them." I ask him not to exaggerate, to
be objective. He looks at the stars in the Suleymaniya sky for a long
time and repeats: "All of them. There's not a single industrial
plant left in Baghdad that hasn't been wiped off the face of the Earth."
How can we explain this? Maybe it is because people cannot live castrated
and subject to abjection, terror and servility, as the Iraqis have lived
in the three decades under the Ba'ath dictatorship, without reacting
on feeling completely and absolutely free, which is just how the Iraqis
felt on April 9, with that explosion of anarchy, profligacy and savagery
that has destroyed Baghdad and left an open, bleeding wound in the soul
of all of its citizens.
As none of the public
services works and there are no traffic police on the corners, driving
in Baghdad is pandemonium. (Petrol is dirt cheap: filling a tank costs
less than half a dollar). Every driver goes wherever he or she wishes,
so traffic-related accidents are rife, and the traffic jams can drive
people mad. But, at least in this regard, I did notice some indications
of the famous "spontaneous institutions" that Hayek sees as
the most representative and long-lasting, those which emerge naturally
from civil society and are not imposed by power. When the traffic jam
reaches paroxysm, volunteers will always emerge who, armed with a whistle
and a stick, set themselves up as traffic controllers. And the drivers
stuck in the jam heed their instructions, relieved that someone is finally
giving them orders.
The same thing happens
in the neighbourhoods, overwhelmed by the insecurity that reigns over
the city, where people are organised into watch groups to defend themselves
against robbers or to cart the rubbish accumulated in the street to
the corner to burn it. It is for this reason that the passer-by wanders
through Baghdad not only surrounded by rubble, ruins, burned buildings,
piles of rubbish and vermin, but also by the foul- smelling clouds of
fire with which the citizens of Baghdad try to defend themselves against
the rubbish that threatens to flood them.
For the long-suffering
population of the Iraqi capital, the lack of electricity and drinking
water is perhaps the worst ordeal. The power cuts are constant and in
certain parts of the city they can last for whole days. Neighbours are
left with no defence against the stifling temperatures, which never
go below 40C (104F) in the shade and sometimes top 50. Being subject
to this scorching heat, in complete darkness and without running water,
is a form of torture.
In the home of my
Spanish friends from the Iberoamerica-Europa Foundation, where I stayed
during my first week in Baghdad, I experienced first-hand the hardships
that the Iraqis have suffered over the past three months. Electricity
came every now and then, but there were times when the blackout would
last so many hours that it was impossible to cook, wash or cool oneself.
And in order to avoid burning up in the oven-like bedrooms, my hosts
took their mattresses to the garden, preferring cockroaches over suffocation.
The disheartenment
that all this generates is just one of the obstacles the Iraqi people
have to overcome so that their country, which has just come out of one
of the most corrupt and brutal experiences of authoritarianism that
mankind has known, can leave behind the long night of despotism and
violence that makes up its history and become a modern, prosperous and
democratic nation.
· ©
El Pais. Translated by News Clips