Archive for
September 6th, 2007
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Afghanistan: Culture, Clash
One of the more intriguing aspects to being a white guy in America watching events unfold in Afghanistan is the astounding number of cultural gaffes and clashes that take place. Unfortunately, this sort of friction isn't limited to amusing and trivial things like diet coke, but rather often involves substantive matters as well.
Last week, Preeti Aroon, writing for the Foreign Policy Blog, noted a small protest over the issue of soccer balls in Afghanistan. The basics, as I explained in a similar post, were stemming from several efforts to “reach out” to local Afghans by giving them soccer balls (which are for football, I suppose)… only these balls have the flag of Saudi Arabia on them, which contains the Shuhada. Around 100 or so Afghans in Khowst did not like the idea of kicking a verse of the Koran with their feet, and held a peaceful demonstration in protest. Properly chagrined, the military apologized, and is now reviewing the program to see how to maintain it without any further unintentional insults.
Naturally, American bloggers blew the incident entirely out of proportion. Afghanistanica found some of the more outrageous examples:
[T]he always subtle and nuanced Michelle Malkin blogged the incident and, after berating the US military for its “ridiculous groveling” apology, remarked about Muslims:
“…they’re pretty damned “sensitive” (read: ready to riot) about everything.” [her parentheses, not mine]
Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team, Afghanistan, by Flickr user lafrancevi
Her commenters are actually more “sensitive” (read: attempting to offend) than Michelle is, but you will have to scroll down past the Koran in the toilet to read those comments.
Oh dear. Afghanistanica also linked to some other American blogs (Little Green Footballs and Jihad Watch) that made similarly heated statements about the “riots” (which actually weren't). He responds by stating what should be the obvious:
I’ll just say that that I don’t think most Afghans wake up with some sort of strong desire to get angry and riot. And I don’t think many foreign soldiers wake up with a strong desire to offend Afghans. I think this incident was quite minor, and I can’t believe how much attention it received considering the other more important concerns in Afghanistan.
Precisely. In fact, rather basic rights, such as speech, seem to be still under attack… in Kabul of all places.
Radio sadaiHaqiqat, Salam Watandar partner station in samangan was torched down last night. The radio station was set up by the local youth, mostly consisted home made gears…
The station has received some threats, mostly from local information and culture authority.
Beyond the threats to the radio station, Atash Parcha relates what it was like to wake up to a suicide bomb.
BOOM! thats the sound that awoke me on Friday morning. i was too tired. i drifted back into sleep.
later on during the day, my sister asked me if she had heard the explosion. It was a suicide attack against the German NATO troops situated in the military west wing of Kabul International Airport. As usual, it was the civilians that suffered in masses.
Here in the States, where we go into weeks of national mourning over far smaller events, such an attitude is difficult to understand… as is the anger some might feel over having their holy book, in their eyes, desecrated by foreigners. By not understanding these fairly basic cultural cornerstones, the U.S. and its allies seem set up for future failures.
Alas, Afghanistan is going nowhere without more foreign investment, a prospect made incredibly difficult by the so-called “land mafia” that has been stealing land for its own purposes.
Multiple land registries allow well-connected strongmen to stake claims with impunity, and the lack of a functioning legal system leaves victims with no recourse. The lack of security vis a vis land and property rights remains one of the major impediments to investment in Afghanistan.
Indeed. But it isn't all gloom and doom for Afghanistan. The newly repurposed Safrang, who has spent the last week in Herat, has many nice things to say about the city:
The first thing that catches the attention of a newcomer to the city is the broad, well-paved and preserved, and tree-lined streets of Herat. At least that is what caught my attention coming from Kabul with its permanently congested and pot-holed roads as our noisy convoy with its escorts zipped through the long drive from the airport into the city via Injeel district.
Then it is the history. It is there in the huge citadel, the magnificent Friday mosque, the strikingly beautiful Minarets that are all in such heartbreaking state of disrepair, the tombs of Gawhar Shaad and Khwaja Abdullah Ansari, the historic four gates of the city, the square with a Soviet tank and statues in memory of the brave Heratis of the 24th of Hoot all over it, and on and on…
Third comes the wind. No, the famous story about the wind of a hundred and twenty days is not some fairy tale…
After the streets and the history and the wind, it is the Heratis that make Herat great. Their endearingly idiosyncratic Farsi accents, their Persian features and polite manners, their relative cosmopolitanism, their industrious and entrepreneurial spirit, their love of and patronizing of arts and literature (evident in their frequent use of poetry in speech), and the fact that until things got really bad with security here, the city’s parks were filled with families out picnicing at night! I seriously like that.
He also mentions the interesting fact of the entire region's steady supply of electricity. Somehow, he has made me want to visit even more than I did before… and I already really wanted to see what it was like…. if nothing else that to see the elaborate narotechture springing up in its newfound prosperity.
Why not end on a more positive note? Hope for bridging the wide gap between Afghanistan and the West may, after all, be possible through music. This posting of an American Rubab master at work is somewhat breathtaking, and very much worth seeing.
Russia: Beslan Anniversary
Moscow City Day celebrations this year coincided with the third anniversary of the 2004 Beslan school siege. Like many others, LJ user varfolomeev66 (Vladimir Varfolomeev, Radio Echo of Moscow host) found this shockingly inappropriate and wrote this (RUS) on his blog:
City Day or the Day of Grieving?
Why aren't New Yorkers and Washingtonians having public celebrations on September 11?
Why aren't there loud fireworks in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv on January 27?
Why aren't they holding concerts and holiday festivals in Grozny and Nazran on February 23?
Why wouldn't you see picturesque parades in Thailand, Malaysia and Sri Lanka on December 26?Because over there, these dates are associated with national catastrophes, whose victims' memory they are trying to keep and honor in these countries. Over there live and rule the Human Beings who don't think it possible to hold any celebrations on the days of Grieving. Events like Moscow's City Day - the most shameful and disgusting action that one can possible imagine on September 1.
Before you set out to have fun at Manezhnaya or Poklonnaya Squares today, to the Christ the Savior Cathedral or to Luzhniki, remember that on this very day 1,128 people were taken hostage, and 333 of them died, including 186 children.
LJ user mgtverskoy offered this explanation for the authorities' heartless initiative:
All this is being done so that people forgot [about Beslan]. […]
A relatively small memorial gathering did take place in Moscow, however. LJ user abstract2001 (Marina Litvinovich, founder of PravdaBeslana.ru site) posted a few pictures (RUS) from it on her blog (more pictures are here). The first photo is of Dmitry Milovidov, whose daughter died during the 2002 Dubrovka theater hostage crisis; at this year's September 1 rally, he held a poster with photographs of the children and adults who had died in Beslan.
Below is one of the conversations that took place the comments section of abstract2001's post:
lugerp08:
400 people is too few, perhaps there haven't been enough victims yet. :(
abstract2001:
Should there be victims for other people to wake up? ;((((((((((((((((((((((
lugerp08:
Apparently, yes, if it's predominantly the victims and their relatives who attend such rallies. The rest probably lack the time, they were saying goodbye to the summer with beer outdoors, and were celebrating September 1 at home.
rgkot:
And what's going to happen if one goes to such a rally? Will the Chechen terrorists drop their weapons […] and repent?
lugerp08:
No, the terrorists will leave the Kremlin if we stop acting like sheep.
LJ user drugoi posted a selection of 2004 Beslan photos from various sources, most of them heartbreakingly graphic. Although he didn't write a single word, his post generated seven pages of comments, the majority of which were wordless, too.
Below are a few comments that broke the mournful silence (RUS):
lach_gas:
It's amazing that you hear more about Lady Diana […] than about Beslan. The capital is celebrating. On […] TV, on this most tragic day in recent history, they are broadcasting ice dancing and outdated Hollywood tits.
ptiza_s4astja:
Well, all of this has to be forgotten and we should pretend as if nothing had ever happened. Hey, we live in the most well-off, developed country, all's cool, people live in prosperity and safety, and Beslan doesn't fit into this scheme at all.
bifurcus:
Horrible. One is willing to forget, but such things should not be forgotten, there's no way we can forget.
Kazakhstan: Sham Elections
On the eve of the elections, a result prediction poll on the top Livejournal community 101almatinec showed that the bloggers were far from being unanimous in their forecasts. This seems interesting, because most of the people here explain their absenteeism and apathy with the allegation that the “results were known in advance”. This time it wasn’t the case, apparently (RUS).
Woman casting their vote, by Flickr User hemak
Small-horsy almost never writes about politics, but she resolutely opposes the “nothing-depends-on-me” principle of many Kazakhs. “I have one thing to say: if you sit and weep that nothing depends on you, it will remain this way. Active people can make the difference. You are free to skip voting, but the problem is that most machinations are done with the unused ballots”, she says (RUS).
Meanwhile, Irene of neweurasia posts an overview of fraudulent techniques, based on her experience as an election monitor. She highlights the six simplest ways of how to win on all counts: multiple voting, irregularities during mobile voting, presence of officials at the polling station, organized group voting, stuffing the ballot-boxes, and cheating during the ballot count (RUS).
One of the reasons why the people in Kazakhstan were not sure about the outcome of elections were the recent constitutional amendments, which made the parliament a technical approval body, where the minority has no rights. Many thought that the opposition would be given some seats in the legislature (especially now when it is purely decorative), thus promoting the regime’s image.
Pulemetchizza is not trying to analyze the situation. She is just “sitting and sadly reflecting”. She writes: “I was loyal, because I thought that the new ones will try to get as rich as the incumbents. But I don’t like to be treated as an idiot. Let’s call things by their names. Don’t call this a democracy. Let’s honestly admit that we are not building it. Then I will shut up and continue writing posts about my baby’s excrements.”
Disappointment was the main emotion that dominated the blogosphere – and, certainly, the whole society. Count-asylum noticed that the opposition Social Democratic party was far ahead Nur Otan in the exit-pollsters’ notebooks. 4uni-muni says that in Kazakhstan, the “results of the vote depend neither on the voter turnout, nor on the vote, nor on the voters”. None of the elections here was deemed free by the OSCE. Another usually totally apolitical blogger Belilovsky wonders: “If there is only one party in the parliament, maybe this body should be called differently?”
Megakhuimyak tries to understand the correlation between the percentage Nur Otan gained in each region and the level of the governors’ “zeal”. He alleges that if there was no so-called “administrative resource”, the parliament would have consisted of 65-70 per cent Nur Otan members, 15-20% of Social Democrats, and 7-10 per cent of the quasi-opposition pro-presidential Ak Zhol party. He also warns the president that the protest electorate is growing.
Sarimov, a local pro-opposition journalist, puts a dot in the myth of Kazakhstan’s transition to democracy: “The current regime will never share power with the people. There will never be a democracy in Kazakhstan under Nazarbayev”. Sean Roberts suspects that “the country’s previously shaky relationship with the OSCE’s election monitors will come to haunt them again. Nathan of Registan confesses that he would honestly be shocked if Kazakhstan gets the chairmanship in the OSCE in late november this year.
Interestingly, the blogosphere distinguished itself at these elections as leaking information: on the eve of the election day, a full list with access codes/passwords to the e-voting machines appeared on several Livejournal communities, raising even more serious doubts concerning the reliability of the e-voting system, which was purchased by Kazakhstan from Belarus.
Japan: It's in the Milk
A group of scientists announced yesterday that Japanese women's breast milk has been found to contain polychlorinated/brominated coplanar biphenyls, or Co-PXBs, a toxin similar to the pollutant PCB. Possible sources of the toxins include a contaminated fish supply, fumes from garbage incinerators, and factory wastewater.
Blogger Mumon outlines and comments on the findings:
日本人の母乳に臭化系化合物が蓄積していることが大学の研究グループの分析で判明したことを５日に発表したそうです。臭化系化合物というのはPCBに構造や毒性が似た物だそうです。
原因として考えられるのは、世界中の魚に凝縮され蓄積された物が、体内に取り入れられることが主なる原因らしい。そういえば、水揚高日本一を誇る焼津港でも世界中の漁船が入港するようになり、いろんな海から魚が集まっています。動物性蛋白より健康にいいといわれていた魚食文化にもなんとなく寂しい影が忍び寄ってきるていますね。
中国各地ではがん患者が急増してきているそうです。２００６年のがん発生率は前年比１９％増で農村部は２３％増だそうです。科学的な証明はまだされていないそうですが、「汚染物質を垂れ流している企業とがん死亡者が多い地区の分布が一致した」そうです。
たとえ１％増であっても中国の場合は日本の１０倍の人間に被害を及ぼすことになることを考えると、約２０％増というのは桁違いの数になるのですね。そしてその汚染物質は当然のごとく海に流れ込み・・・・・・。
一番の問題は、日本の場合は国民によるチェック機能がある程度働いてはいるが、中国では民主的チェックは、すなわち国家に対する反逆と取られがちになることですね。一党独裁社会では政治屋の汚職や不正経理などはつき物です。日本もプチ一党独裁が長く続き、今になって国民のチェックが入りだしましたね。
米ソ中、それに日本も含め、世界の大国といわれる国が、なんとなく甘えの構造に戻りつつあるようで、この地球を壊しだしているみたい。日本の母乳さえ危険に陥れるとは何たることでしょうね。
In a post entitled “MADE IN MOM — Is this dangerous too?” (MADE IN お母さん も危ない？), blogger Wadai no Pon Pon expresses shock at the discovery:
安全だと思っていたものが、実はそうじゃ無かったって時のショックは、結構大きいほうなんですが、
これもスゲーショックでした。
but this was really shocking.
結論から言いますと、日本人の母乳がＰＣＢに極めて近い化学物質に汚染されている事がわかったらしいのですよ
母乳っていえば、生まれたばかりの赤ちゃんが命の糧として食べるものでしょう
それも工場で作られるわけじゃなくて、お母さんがまさにその体から作り出した愛情たっぷりの栄養ドリンクだと思っていたのにさ
It's not something that is made in factories, it is a nourishing drink produced with love and affection directly from the body of the mother — at least that's how I used to think of it.
Blogger Risamine, meanwhile, weighs in with a perspective from the theory of psychologist Abraham Maslow:
魚がダメならいよいよ大豆などからタンパク質をとるしかないですね・・・・・
いくら先進国が集まって、環境問題を論じても、中国やその他の発展途上国は、生きるのかが精一杯（今の日本の大多数もそうですが・・・）なので、環境なんてお構いなしですね。
In the case that fish become inedible, we may be left with no choice but to get our protein from soy beans…
However much developed countries may gather and discuss environmental problems, in China and other developing countries, they are doing everything they can just to get by (the great majority of people in Japan are today also in this situation, but…), and so the environment is not something that is cared about much.
マズローの段階説どおり、やはり基本的欲求が満たされて、初めて人間の高次の機能が発揮されるのは間違いないところだと思います。
環境問題はグローバルな問題なので、根本的解決は資本主義の構造を変えていくことが必要になるでしょう。
ゴアをはじめ、利権に絡んで環境問題を利用する輩が多いですが、もっと大きな視点で物を言う人達が一人でも多くなって欲しいものです。
I think [Abraham] Maslow made no mistake when he expressed, in his hierarchy of human needs, that higher-level functionality comes out only when basic wants are fulfilled.
Environmental problems are global problems, so it seems to me that a fundamental solution requires that the capitalist system be changed.
Starting with Gore, there is a large group of people who make use of environmental problems for their own interests. What I really want is that the group of people who are speaking about these things from a broader perspective grows larger, even by just one person.
For more perspectives on the story, see posts from bloggers Arekao, Aratetsu, and H. Matsui.
Colombia: Dutch Woman's Secret FARC Guerrilla Diary
On September 1st, the El Tiempo [ES] newspaper of Colombia wrote about the army's findings after raiding an insurgent camp back in July. One of the hottest news items, possibly because the information found on revolutionary leader Carlos Antonio Lozada´s laptop computer [ES] is classified, is a diary found at the camp. This set of spiral notebooks contains the thoughts and feelings of Tanja Nijmeijer, a Dutch woman who for the past 5 years has been living and working with the FARC, the Colombian revolutionary armed forces. Within this group, she is known as “Eillen”. The partial content of these diaries has already been published in newspapers and online, both in Spanish[ES] and in English, by Radio Netherlands Worldwide.
In Colombia, Tierra Galactica y Cosmica! [ES] Paul O'Leary sums it up:
…En este diario Tanja Nijmeijer escribe lo que ya sabemos los colombianos y esta sabiendo todo el mundo, pero sobre todo los europeos que creen que estos narcotraficantes están luchando por la vida y la libertad (mas asesinos y violadores que estos narcos de las farc hay pocos en este mundo)…..escribe que las farc es una carcel, una basura…donde algunos tienen rolex y otros son tratados como animales(ella misma) y los guerrilleros razos. dice que en medio de la soledad de la selva, los guerrilleros de las farc tienen sexo todo el dia, hasta contagiase de sida,osea….. culiar,matar y culiar que este mundo se va a acabar!
…In this diary, Tanja Nijmeijer writes what all of us Colombians already know and the rest of the world is finding out, particularly the Europeans who believe that these drug traffickers are fighting for life and freedom (there are few in the world who are more of assassins and rapists than these narcs)… she writes that the farc is a jail, a garbage dump… where some have Rolexes and others are treated like animals (like she) and the private life of the guerrilla. She says that in the middle of the solitude of the jungle, the Farc guerrilla members have sex all day long, to the point of getting AIDS, in other words.. to fuck, kill and fuck because this world is coming to an end!
In Tumbo2 [ES], stultaviro takes it in with a dose of humor:
Conmoción en Holanda por ‘Eillen', una joven de ese país que se enroló en las filas de las Farc. Voceros de la organización N.T.N.I.D.L.Q.P.E.C.P.L.F.S.C. (No Tenemos Ni Idea De Lo Que Pasa En Colombia Pero Las Farc Son Cool), anunciaron la apertura de varios puntos de inscripción en todo Amsterdam para atender la horda de jóvenes enloquecidos por seguir los pasos de su compatriota, quien según estadísticas en la última semana logró desbancar en popularidad a Paris Hilton, Harry Potter y Shrek.
Commotion in Holland due to “Eillen”, a young woman from this country who enlisted in the ranks of the FARC.
On Equinoxio [ES], Daniel Ramos is reminded of the documentary film Guerrilla Girl and ponders:
Las historias de Tanja e Isabel, de tantos otros jóvenes que entregan su vida a la lucha por ideales de justicia social e igualdad enrolándose en las FARC desafortunadamente quedan registradas como algunas de las más tristes crónicas utópicas que conocemos hoy en día, como un testimonio más de la criminalidad absurda que no parece tener fin en Colombia y de las utopías enfermas que pretenden aliviarla…
The stories of Tanja and Isabel, and of many other young people who are dedicating their lives to fight for ideals of social justice and equality by enrolling in the FARC, unfortunately remain registered as some of the saddest utopian chronicles we know of today, like another testimony of the absurd criminality that seems to have no end in Colombia, and of the sick utopias which pretend to relieve it…
In En Medio del Ruido [ES], Mauricio Duque Arrubla links to information [EN] and other blogs[EN] who are discussing this news, then he writes:
Ojalá esta situación sirva para que los gobiernos de Europa Occidental pongan presión sobre los terroristas, la misma que están poniendo sobre el gobierno colombiano por sus vínculos para militares. No debe eliminarse la fiscalización al gobierno de Uribe y debe comenzar a hacerse a los narcotraficantes y asesinos de las FARC.
Let's hope this situation makes the Western European governments apply pressure to the terrorists, pressure them the same way they are doing with the Colombian government because of their connections with the para-military forces. The overseeing of Uribe's government should not be stopped and it should begin with the drug dealers and assassins of the FARC.
Colombians and foreigners alike debate in Poor But Happy, where Tinto succinctly posts the article and the comments bring it to life, skipping from privacy issues, to possible retaliation, to international recruiting efforts by the FARC, to what draws these foreigners to join the guerrilla[ES]:
Sr Tertius comments:
Here's another issue: Regardless of whether she is a criminal or not, her privacy should be respected, no? Her diary is a private document, and the police and army may use it for intelligence and whatever other purposes, but what purpose does it serve to make it public?
Billyb comment seems to reflect what many other Colombians could be thinking, but don't dare write about directly:
Regarding the point made, differentiating political and common crimes, what happens when the lines between the two become nebulous when applied to the organization (the FARC in Her case) you delinquent in? As for wishing her evil, she enthusiastically joined an organization that kidnapped 3 of my cousins, one who they put a bullet in his head and another we never saw again and I'm sure she's participated in actions where unarmed civilians have lost their lives, and as far as I can tell, her dairies have not expressed any remorse for the loss of innocent lives. As a matter of fact she laments the fact that she didn't get the chance to kill the helicopter crew. Whatever good she thought she was doing by joining the FARC will never in my mind balance out what has happened to so many innocent people at the hands of the FARC. So I see no need to cut her any slack. To many people, specially foreigners, the conflict in Colombia is a chance to participate in an abstract intellectual feelgood exercise, but to many of us it's a bitter personal experience.
It seems that Tanja isn't the only foreigner recruited by the FARC [ES], and it is yet to be seen what will happen to her, if the FARC will kidnap, torture or kill Eillen for her lapse in judgement or if they'll let her loose and let the Dutch and Colombian government to deal with her.
(Foto courtesy of geenstijl)
Landing at the Iraqi Blogodrome
It has been a while since I last wrote my roundup but today I will only write about three blogs. There is so much to report and, yet, at the same time I feel there is so little. You hear a lot about Iraq in the news, about military surges and oil laws, benchmarks and statistics, political disagreements and security. There is a whole maze of paths and blind alleys that one can travel down considering the situation in Iraq. But all this boils down to one thing and that is the everyday life and hopes of the people living in Iraq.
Maybe none better can explain what I mean than a post in Inside Iraq. Sahar quotes the story of a cousin returning home in Baghdad one day:
“We turned the corner and all of a sudden all hell broke loose. We were a target! WHY?? What is happening?? We ducked as far as we could, but the fire wouldn't stop! Who was shooing at us??“A thin scream! Oh my God!
TARA!!
“She went limp in my arms! I started screaming and screaming. My husband tried to move and was shot too. Twice. But he didn't pass out.
“I opened the door. Cradling Tara in my arms and shouting for Dima to stick by me, I crawled out of the car, and continued to crawl the few meters to the gate of the nearest house. Too terrified to raise my voice, I banged and banged with all my strength – and miraculously – the door opened.
“Arms came to my assistance, we were half dragged into the house…
“A few minutes passed.
“Miraculously, I saw my husband's twisted face peep through the half open gate at ground level! They ran to him and pulled him in. We found that he was shot in the shoulder and in the arm. He was loosing blood fast.
“I tried to stop the bleeding but wasn't skilled enough to do it. I was losing them – they were dying in front of my eyes!
“Suddenly the door was kicked in. American troops poured into the house … Looking at us – at the blood – at my broken family..
“They said they were sorry. They had set up an ambush for somebody and we had walked into it. “They thought he had taken refuge in this house, and followed him in.
“They said they were sorry, again and again…
“My daughter lost two fingers. My husband has a punctured lung and a steel sliver embedded in his arm, still to be seen to.
Sahar finishes, with more than a hint of irony,on the major news of the day:
Parliament resumes its sessions tomorrow to discuss important things like Oil Law, maybe, or new ministers.Security in Baghdad is better.
Much better.
Normal life among the car bombs
Sunshine photographs the aftermath of the carbomb near her house.Sunshine describes the routine when a car bomb is discovered in her neighbourhood:
dad come running and saying “OPEN ALL THE WINDOWS AND DOORS THERE IS A CAR BOMB IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD NEAR THE HOUSE” I was shocked and didn't think about anything I opened my room's windows and called our neighbor S to tell them about the car, so that they open the windows and doors and hide in a safe place , their dad replied- hello?
- hello uncle , if you don't mind , please, if it is ok
(then I thought what am I saying?!!) There is a car in our neighborhood and will explode in a sec, thought I would tell you to ..
- he interrupted me saying , oh yea I knew about that, thanks , and stay safe..
I went downstairs with my family members and we stayed in a safe room, I forgot all the prayers, I was trying to remember simple says in Quran but I forgot every word, and started to think about 100 things in the same time, I felt scared from the stressed situation, there were policemen in our neighborhood and in front of our house, suddenly I started to laugh, I said ” people change their clothes and wait for guests, or relatives, but I am waiting for the car to explode” …
After an hour of waiting, and I think it was the longest hour in my life, we heard VERY HEAVY shooting, dad and grandpa asked us to go to the corridor and wait, after 30 minutes I felt tired, I took of my shoes, and kept walking in the corridor, I was standing near the stairs and the kitchen's door, BOOOOOOOOOOOOM the ground started to shake under our feet and the other door of the kitchen was opened from the bluster with so much dust, Mariam was screaming , and mama was saying ” it is over now, it is over now” I said “thank god”
Now is the shocking fact that car bombs still target residential areas or that people already have developed routines to cope with them?
A fishing trip among the bombs and bullets
Fishing in the Tigris by Sunshine
A few days later Sunshine and her family decide to go on a fishing trip. Sunshine's mother, mama, describes the event:
I took my kids to a picnic ,to a casino [resort] near the Tigris river with some relatives, Sunshine enjoyed fishing there ,my other two kids ,Miriam and yoyo, had fun too swimming and playing, although we heard many many explosions but the kids did not care, I supposed to have fun there, the weather was great, the company was nice , the view of the river was so much relieving , my kids happiness was the most important thing to me, but suddenly I burst into tears ….Then as I was close to one of the trees I heard a far away shooting and few moments latter the tree wicker near my head was smashed by an aimless bullet…the fear I felt was beyond discretion…
Sunshine took all the explosions in her stride. She writes:
we heard sooooooo many explosions but we were in a safe place, we were able to see the smoke in the other side, one of the explosions was near my house, grandma was alone, but she is ok, now we don't care about the material thing, the money come and go, but the soul doesn't.
but after hearing her mother's story she later adds:
I had a great time fishing, & thought everyone was happy, I didn't know that my mom burst in tears nor about the bullet that hit the tree few centimeters away from my mom, she hide that and didn't mention it. When she told me my heart began to beat fast and I felt horrible, and started to think what if my mom was a little bit to the right or to the left, I wouldn't forgive myself because I wanted to go fishing and they agreed because they wanted me to be happy.
Sunshine recounts some of the tragedies that happened in her neighbourhood and admits her fears:
I do feel scared, from everything, even if I try to hide it, but there's a horrifying feeling inside me. Everyday I hear a shocking news, my neighborhood is more dangerous than before, about 4 car bombs were found this week, beside the so many mines. Every street leads to my house is closed, no one can enter/leave my neighborhood, we are stuck!!!! How will I be able to go to school? Hospital? We can't even go to the other side from the neighborhood.
These are just stories from two families that were written in the last couple of weeks. How many times have such stories been repeated for the millions of Iraqis over the last four years.
It seems to me no amount of congressional benchmarks or American military surges will bring normal life back to ordinary Iraqis. It may succeed in temporarily propping up an increasingly unpopular government. But, after one year, two years, then what?
Links for Thu, 2007-09
From Israel, David Bogner writes about his son Yohana in this personal post. He says: “Our little boy isn't sick in the conventional sense so wishes of ‘I hope he gets better' are not really called for. He isn't retarded… in fact the doctors all agree he is smart as a whip. Yonah just experiences the world around him a little bit differently than most of us.”
Iraq the Model asks : Is Islam the solution for ending the violence in Iraq? His answer is: “(R)eality proved that political Islam is in fact the problem, not the solution. And this is true not only in Iraq but in many other countries in the region that are full of political Islamist movements. They build their rhetoric on what they like to call the golden age of Islam and promise that a new golden age could come if people returned to the roots of Islam…but what happened when Islamists ruled? Definitely not a golden age of any sort.”
Iraqi blogger Riverbend writes a very touching post about escaping Iraq and its war to Syria. “My aunt and uncle watched us sorrowfully. There’s no other word to describe it. It was the same look I got in my eyes when I watched other relatives and friends prepare to leave. It was a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness, tinged with anger. Why did the good people have to go?” she writes.
A TV host of the once oppositional station almost gets fired for reporting on the cost of education for president Yushchenko's children. Ukrainiana asks: “Is Channel 5 — held in high esteem as the ice-breaker of the Orange Revolution, in what was then a tightly knit ensemble of Big Brother media — reversing course?”
Ukrainiana reports and posts pictures from Kyiv's peaceful political bazaar.
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