3eeraqimedic retrieved

Teaching the world a lesson

2012-01-24T11:33:00.000-08:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16690300

When the Americans were committing these atrocities people like me would say "how are you any different to Saddam and his henchmen"

The glib reply was "ah but we will be open, we will investigate, we will uncover, we will punish those who commit crimes"

And now we see what this means in practice

Does anyone remember how Uday was tried under instructions from his father for murder?

Dreams and nightmares

2012-01-05T14:16:00.000-08:00

For nearly a year
I moved on

Then out of the blue
I remember

The images try to escape
I force the trapdoor shut

I never attended the Christmas office party
Until there was no-one else to organise one

I booked, I paid, I invited, I went
Not one but two

I survived the first
But broke down in the second

He sat to my right
And I was trapped

He kept on asking
Until I started talking

And remembering

He was so quiet in the morning
But on return
Drenched by the rain
He was energised
He had spoken to his cousin
They had found a buyer
For the house on the river

I remembered

And I dreamt

Cycling down the empty road
Trapped in the mosque
Climbing to the exit
Up the spiral rusting metal steps
Complete with calligraphy

Reaching the roof
To find
The trapdoor
Being pushed down on my head

Fractured lives

2011-08-04T17:36:00.001-07:00

THURSDAY, 24 JULY 2008

I had been expecting this for some time but somehow the event was still a turning point in the whole parent child relationship.

For years now I have become accustomed to the calls, in clinic, on wards.

The face will light up for a fraction of a second before the tone and the screen shows the caller; nursery or school; please come and pick H up he has had a fall and his face is badly bruised, come and take H+ home she is feverish and crying.

This time it was different.

“Come and help me” she cried, I have fallen and cannot get up on my own.
Are you hurt? No
Are you safe? Yes
Are you warm? Yes
I will be there as soon as I can

When she arrived here with her suitcase, it was with an enormous sense of relief.

Everyone was pleased, she was out of harm’s way, she would return at some point to sort things out, once everything had settled down, once it was safe.

How many times have we uttered those empty words?

When we went to look at the flat, she tried to smile, but I sensed her despair.

The previous occupant had ripped the carpet off the ground, stripped the skirting board, and removed the light bulbs.
I tried to be positive, I tried to help her visualise how it would be, how it could look.

It was hard work, but homely it eventually became.

Over time we have had run ins with the nosy neighbour, and the racist neighbours.

And over time she has gradually filled the tiny space.

At first it was the essentials, but with time have come other things.

Not one set of plates but nine.

Not one bookcase but three, and all loaded with books.

Not a few sets of bedding but twenty, and enough curtains for the glasshouses at Kew.

They are all bought for a reason, “the pattern is just like my green set at home”, “you never know when I might need it”, “it is the same make as the one I left behind”.

All bought on the cheap, all bargains, all from markets, many second hand.

This is not just buying bargains for the sake of it.

This is a sickness she shares with many others like her.

Obsessive collections.

An inability to discard anything.

A suffocating surrounding of herself with "things" for the “home”.

Replacements for all of her losses, the contents of a home, built up over decades, cherished gifts, family heirlooms, thirty years of items and the memories associated with them, thirty years of home improvements.

I tried to intervene but to no avail, as she spent the past few years desperately recreating a warped version of the old family home, in a tiny flat, in a little corner so many miles away.

People her age tell me about their retirement activities, their dancing, their holidays, their walking trips, their plans.

Our parents’ speak of different things, they have run out of plans, they surround themselves with layers and layers of “things” that will never replace what they lost.

Five years worth of “things”, with rugs in layers on the ground, and tables overflowing, it was an accident waiting to happen.

The first fall was six months ago.

I knew it would not be her last.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 19:57 0 COMMENTS

Revolutionary surgery

2011-08-04T17:35:00.001-07:00

THURSDAY, 17 JULY 2008

Oh people
Our calamity is such that
If we speak
Our problems expose us
If we remain silent
Our illness will kill us

Where should we turn?
Direct us oh doctor

Oh doctor
Me my family
My children and wife
Were never ill in our lives
Never took medication
Or saw a doctor before

But over the past few years
We have continuous ill health
With chronic illness that
Made us forget the meaning
Of peace and happiness

Doctor
For God’s sake
Please treat us
Our disease is from within
Our fever starts in our limbs
We will take your bitter pill
If cure us it will

Oh people
Our calamity is such that
If we speak
Our problems expose us
If we remain silent
Our illness will kill us

Where should we turn?
Direct us oh doctor

Doctor
The ailments we suffer
Will not be cured by
????
Nor calcium
Or potassium phosphate
Not sodium bromide
These help physical ailments
Ours are not of that subtype
Our ailments divided
And subdivided
Into nameless conditions

Doctor
For God’s sake
Please treat us
Our disease is from within
Our fever starts in our limbs
We will take your bitter pill
If cure us it will

Oh people
Our calamity is such that
If we speak
Our problems expose us
If we remain silent
Our illness will kill us

Where should we turn?
Direct us oh doctor

Doctor the body is fit
Free of feared illness
‘tis the soul that is sick
Wounded with seven wounds
Can you cure the soul?

Make our dreams come true

We do not need speeches
We need actions

Doctor
For God’s sake
Please treat us
Our disease is from within
Our fever starts in our limbs
We will take your bitter pill
If cure us it will

Oh people
Our calamity is such that
If we speak
Our problems expose us
If we remain silent
Our illness will kill us

Where do we turn?
Direct us oh doctor

Doctor
Trust in God
And take action
To cure us of this
We have had enough
You must find a cure

This disease has gone on for too long

You must do something
Bring out your scalpel
Amputate arms and legs
Discard the harmful parts
Just leave the healthy
To move forwards

Doctor
For God’s sake
Please treat us
Our disease is from within
Our fever starts in our feet

Only major surgery will save us now

Oh people
Our calamity is such that
If we speak
Our problems will expose us
If we remain silent
Our illness will kill us

Where do we turn?
Direct us oh doctor

The song is from a previous revolutionary era; an updated version omits the radical surgical style solution to the problem.

Surgeons nowadays are more into conserving as much tissue as possible, minimal surgery carried out by minimally invasive techniques leaving minimal tissue damage and little or no scarring is the ideal.

When an experienced surgeon is presented with a patient who has already undergone several radical surgical procedures, he will be aware that the scars will cause more complications during any further surgery, and most will be even more conservative in their approach.

If surgery is inevitable the surgeon would want to be up to date with current surgical and medical expertise, and always be guided by the principle of “First do no harm”.

Because if any procedure is carried out by someone who has spent more time delving into historic methods of solving problems rather than modern ones, or indeed spent most of their time outside medicine, they may resort to outdated approaches, amputating legs to deal with gangrenous toes, radical excisions for localised abscesses, ineffectual cautery to bleeding major blood vessels and loss of vast volumes of blood, and they probably would not be very concerned about modern antisepsis leaving wounds exposed to be rapidly colonised by liberal numbers of maggots and parasites.

All progress takes time.

Maybe we will start one day.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 22:19 0 COMMENTS

The train terminates here, all change…all change.

2011-08-04T17:34:00.001-07:00

FRIDAY, 11 JULY 2008

I was at a meeting yesterday, and travelled there by train.

As has become my habit, I use the time to read a few more pages of the book I am still trying to complete (I am half way through and realize I should have been born in the 30s I would have been a great communist!)

As I read the words and turn the pages with the old photographs over I can’t stop thinking about a recent email exchange I have had.

It all started with a “classmates” site.

I found the site sometime in the 90s, as is usual it was mainly occupied by younger generations, but there were also some of my peers, and even a few older.
At the time they included only those dispersed like myself, it seemed a harmless thing to do at the time, and I entered my details.

When I returned recently to remove them I found I had mentioned Arian’s sister’s name as someone I would like to contact.

I was reminded of this site ten months ago
“Who is KH?” asked M
I don’t know I replied
“Well someone by that name has sent you an email”

And so they had, with an accompanying photograph confirming identity.
A colleague from college, and a “locker neighbour” in the first years, a “bench neighbour” in the laboratories, a “group member” in the clinical years, and a “lecture neighbour” for six years.

I replied, we exchanged updates, and swapped pictures from our days as students.

A little later I became included in the “email list” and four months after that first message I heard the first warning bell, a poem.
I decided not to respond.

Six months and two visits to Baghdad later (with many heart wrenching pictures of no-longer familiar sites) and we both eventually “came out”, albeit by email.

This time the poem was more provocative, the message specific, and the accompanying images touched a raw spot.
Try as I could to be polite I could not withhold a response.

After the initial “aha I caught you out” the reply was three pages of multicoloured text, and the kind of taunts I find myself unable to ignore “the American soldier was the most honourable person to have ever been in that room”.

I did of course have the "last" word, which has been followed by silence.

I realise it has gone really quiet, and look up from the unread pages of my book, to notice that the train has stopped.
Everyone has got out, and the cleaners are emptying the bins.

There are no more stations to travel to together.

The train terminates here, all change…all change.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 22:18 1 COMMENTS

A decade of letters

2011-08-04T17:33:00.000-07:00

MONDAY, 7 JULY 2008

Nowadays email, mobile phones, text messages and online chatting with or without cameras mean maintaining contact with people back home is a totally different experience compared to how it used to be, faster, easier and maybe more personal, but call me old fashioned, Ithink there is still a place for letters.

I received my very first email from home in 2003, all communication before then was via phone calls or snail mail (and with the average transit time of several weeks the term was very apt).

I have been packing boxes of letters unopened for several years, and for the past week or so instead of just filing them away I have spent hours re-reading them, letters from friends, from parents and from siblings.

Over a decade worth of letters with everything from problems at school, to problems at collage to those at work, from girly gossip to broken hearts, from hopes and dreams to exam results, but as well as all that within the lines and in the covers of my letters is the story a of a decade in our lives.

Some arrived by hand, in plain envelopes, others arrived with stamps

Most start with the Bismilla, reliably ornate and beautifully written

The content often drifted to the shopping bills

1992“…Tomato puree has gone up to 19-20 ID, eggs now cost 40ID for a tray! Imagine and I used to complain when they were 22 ID, and I still remember all the fuss when they became 2ID! Those were the days weren’t they?…. “

“… I have been to the souk, I am trying to get rid of all the 50 ID, the 100 ID has been pulled out of circulation, and the 50 ID will be discontinued at the end of this month….”

“…Your father and K were weighed today, lots of dieting, and diuretics for the past few weeks, worked wonders, 6kg underweight…we will never hear the end of it now…”

“…I read your letter to Baba…he is right, your Arabic is terrible…you are forgetting already…”

1993 “…Even the shops in Mansur are empty, Iraqi shoes cost 250 ID, wrapping paper costs 2 ID a sheet, and a bottle of Pepsi is for 5 ID and tastes like urine with sweetener…”

“… I went to see Dr K last night, he had my leg X-rayed, he has recommended some medication that I cannot get here, I am taking the alternative but could you send me some V please….”

“…. We are in a mess, Baba sold the car, thinking he could get a less expensive one instead, but he is no expert and everyone says they paid him too little for it, and now all the cars are 40,000 ID more expensive, and we are stuck….”

1994“…I am knitting like mad, and hoping to be able to sell everything so I will have some cash for the winter….”

“… Thanks you for the offer to buy the dress, but you know once you add the cost of actually getting it in it is not such a great idea, the suitcase is till in Amman, no-one is travelling, and no-one is willing to pay the extra $200 tax to bring it in, so it may not even get here in time for the wedding….”

1995“…. Do you remember L, she got married two weeks a go, you thought my wedding was متخلف you should have seen hers, they had the hall divided into two with a curtain between the male and female guests, she did not even sit next to her husband, she sat behind the curtain…ah well each to their own…”

“… I remembered you the other day in كمب we saw a bar of the yellow chocolate, can you imagine it costs 3500 ID now…we did not buy it….”

1997 “…We are busy getting everything ready, imagine baby powder is 3500 ID, baby lotion is 3250 ID, and I am asking friends to get me nappies instead of presents at least for the first few days, 48 nappies cost 15000 ID, the same nappies in Jordan cost 7-8000 ID… Can you send me some sterilising tablets for the bottles please…? ”

1998“…We have electricity timetables now, so from the 1st to the 21st of November we will get 2-4 hours in the morning, from the 2nd to the 22nd December it will be from 3-6 O’clock in the afternoon and so on, every ten days it changes… but I think they forgot the timetable this week, we have had no electricity at all today….”

“…We cannot travel, A طالبين مواليده and anyway there is no way we can afford it, the cooker is not working, the fridge is not working, the toilet is not working, but I think we will spend our money on a small generator this year, for lights and a fan during the summer, we have become used to the heat without electricity, but for the baby it will not be possible…”

“…We have had no water today, and the electricity situation is worse, in addition to hours without any electricity, when it does come it is cut for ten minutes in each hour…the situation in the heat is unbearable, every time I need to wash the clothes I need to carry eight buckets of water from the garden tap…having no water and no electricity is driving people mad, the man next door beats his wife up when she turns the tap on downstairs whilst he is in the bath and we can hear them…. the neighbours on the other side are the same, he came home from work, there was no water and no his son broke the door handle, he started hitting him repeatedly and shouting that will cost me 5000 ID where will I get that from?…….”

1999“…. I sent you some photos of E… I hope you get them; otherwise that was 9,000 ID down the drains…. I had everyone over for Christmas, it was a sort of Christmas فطور and in the dark, with a rather dark Christmas tree, anyway candles made the room look nice… I don’t like the nursery he is at but what can I do, if I take one day of work they cut 1/8th of my salary…”

Some things just lose it in translation
As she wrote this little poem on the light of her kerosene lamp, she felt obliged to remind me what they looked like

ألله يا لالات
إشتاكينالج يالحبيبات
جنا نعثر بالظلمات
جيتي ضويت الممرات
حسدنج الشمعات
حسبالهم بس هن بالكليبات
خو دخانج الي على البردات
ما يروحها ألا مسحوق التايد
فوك الثلاجه و التلفزيون تنحطين
طاح حظ الي يحجي عليج بالموزين
و خليتي الناس بكزازج مبتلين
مرة فتحة و مرة كصيفة
مرة تنفطرين و مرة تنكسرين

Other situations just go better with English nursery rhyme style

Its raining its pouring
Bombs from the skies are falling

We went to bed
To get some sleep

But at four in the morning
The sirens started roaring

Windows shattered
Doors rattled

E is crying
A is swearing
And me in the middle exploding

Jump out of bed
Tape the windows
Open the doors

Rockets over our heads are passing
We pray we will see each other in the morning

Somewhere around the new millennium “stamps” became just that

2001“… She is enjoying her new job, the pay is 20,000 ID, that is enough for a pair of shoes, or barely covers her transport fees but she is getting some experience, and maybe will be able to use it one day…”

By 2003 we started receiving emails

2003Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 8:41 AM
Hi every body, we have just had the fright of our life, at 8.12 the college of technology was hit, at 8.30 the ICRC red cross was hit, at 9.20 about 100 m from the Care organization the police station was bombed, Care’s ambulance with the driver got killed, the whole office shook, all the International staff are going crazy. And now as i am writing another bomb went of in Al Ghazalia police station, it is all happening today, Yesterday about 11.15 at night 5 (MEDF"A HAWEN) were hit from Adamia, we were just saying that things have calmed down and then all hell let lose. I don’t know when all this will end, they are just not able to stop what is happening, I can hear the ambulance as they are going to the station, they say that more than 10 people are killed and lots of people injured.
………………………….
We have just now been told that the Ministry of health has been hit and the main market in Al Shaab was hit more than 20 have died.
………………….
Hope you got the Ramadan greetings, if not well I wish you all a happy Ramadan and hope things workout for the best
Love
…..
Oh yes did you get the prayer rug that A sent you?

But not everyone could or wanted to use it
“…. I have a lot of spare time on my hands now, I have been spending some of it jotting down the family tree, I am sending you the scribbled results of conversations with several members of the family and have managed to piece together both sides of my family going back over two hundred years. I hope you find it entertaining…”

Intervening letters describe the changing situation in the street, the area and the country and my last letter is dated May 2004, just before our home was finally vacated

“…There is no water, the orange trees are dying, we have dug a 90 foot well and I hope we can save some of them…”

Throughout all of this, the letters would end. …Hope to see you one day…. and be sealed with a thank you note to the postman…

POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 00:20 3 COMMENTS

Laura said...
Thank you for sharing those snippets, 3eeraqiM. Thinking of all those years of struggle, love, longing, pain cuts to the heart. (a good thing.)

I hope all the writers and readers are well, and that happier, easier, more peaceful times soon will be theirs.

07 July 2008 08:35
sami said...
Dear 3eeraqimedic I liked the photos and the post alot. It was the photos that attracted my attention first, then that poet in arabic which is wonderful and real, then I read the post. Thank you for letting us share this experience with you. Sami.

08 July 2008 13:45
3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Psych team (he he he)
Thanks for visiting, sorry so long in responding (computer problems and busy at work)

Laura
I also hope that Iraq and Iraqi wherever they are can one day see better times.

Sami
I am pleased you liked the pictures, it was the stamps that actually started me thinking about posting, the "poet" is my sister and she laughed when I read it out to her!

09 July 2008 20:22

Ministers

2011-08-04T17:32:00.001-07:00

SATURDAY, 28 JUNE 2008

In the “bad old days” in secondary school we had a weekly ceremony.

It involved speeches, occasionally the mention of a local or national prize won by the school in sports, or the particular academic achievement of a class, always culminating in the raising of the national flag, and singing the national anthem.

During the first war, in addition to this there was the “honour” of being selected to shoot blanks from a Kalashnikov, a privilege bestowed on those with particular political activities, or as a reward for some other achievement.

During one such event, a high-ranking government official visited our school.

The preparations took several weeks, in addition to the events within the school grounds, girls from the fourth and fifth year classes, me included dressed in hired military gear would be lining the route to the school ground, starting from the school entrance opposite the river.

We had all been training, and took our places in line silently, sweating under the camouflage berets, our blotchy trousers held up with the cream belts, khaki boots on chalk marked lines, and oiled machine guns held parallel to the trouser seams.
The entourage arrived, a few words of acknowledgment before they entered the school proper.

Once everyone was in place, we formed a line under the trees and with the school ground clear, and to the piped drums we started our marching.

I guess for some that was a frightening or unpleasant experience, but at least we did not go to school fearing the visiting minister’s guards would shoot us.

POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 20:12 4 COMMENTS

A&Eiraqi said...
3mti
I won't e surprised if someone says that the minister was attacked by the terrorist; it's always like that.

Isn't it surprising that the minister on your days would dare visiting the school while girl are holding weapons!!
While Al-Khuza3i visited an exam center but was scared and keen to fire th others.
How scared they are!!

28 June 2008 21:18

Abbas Hawazin said...
very nice way of posting about this.
wouldn't it be nice if everybody decided to boycott the exams?

30 June 2008 11:36
3eeraqimedic said...
A&EIraqi
He did!
It was all self defence
خطيه المسكين

30 June 2008 19:16
3eeraqimedic said...
Abbas
After the shock, disgust, anger and sorrow I could not help but remember this story.
I think ministers who do not feel safe in certain parts of the country, and have trigger happy American trained "self defence experts" for gaurds should do what they did as students.
Boycott the schools.

30 June 2008 19:20

Channelled

2011-08-04T17:31:00.001-07:00

TUESDAY, 24 JUNE 2008

My first memories of television are of the 6:15 pm cartoons, a family of morphing creatures that could take up any shape they desired, a superhero who could become invisible, and some prehistoric creatures. All of these flickered from the small screen, in shades of black and white and grey.

The television was made in Russia and like many things made in Russia its designer had no intention of making it look good, all that was necessary was that it should last, and last it did for very many years. Eventually the time it took to warm up before we could see anything became ridiculous, and by the time it was moved into someone’s bedroom the channel dial had become so wonky it would only stay in one position if propped up by an overturned oversized torchlight (probably also made in Russia).

As colour TV arrived so did an interest in films, Disney favourites for special dates, musicals and songs.
Somewhere along the line a second channel started to air, so called channel 7 was distinguishable from the original channel 9 by its somewhat more art and culture focus, foreign films, and a selection of soaps and dramas were on offer, with more than one choice and ample opportunities for family disagreement the era of channel switching had arrived.

At eight O’clock both channels would join for first of two news bulletins, the music from Um Kalthoom’s “Baghdad”, and the image of a whirring planet Earth signalling the start of a serious list of events that would be read out, the head of some small state or other was visiting, the reporters struggling with the names of Chinese and African leaders, the musicians struggling more with foreign anthems and we would watch the people descended the steps of the plane wondering “where on earth is Trinidad and Tobago anyway?”.

Gradually the content of the news bulletin became more lengthy, there would be a visit to some village to cover “with the compulsive fridge inspections”, at other times a special occasion to be commemorated, an elaborate party with lots of carefully selected children, little girls wearing balconies for skirts twirling around, and little boys with earnest faces and semi-raised palms reciting long poems, on other occasions there were the speeches, and with the national anthem played repeatedly and multiple advance warnings of imminent coverage of said event being aired every few minutes our hearts would sink knowing that was the end of the evening’s entertainment, and that the eight O’clock news would merge uninterrupted into the ten O’clock news, and the coverage would probably continue until the snow started falling on the screen.

During the eight years of the first war, there would be periodic “pictures from the battle” and daily communiqués, the following day it would be our duty to transcribe these onto the classroom board.

Over the years that I was away, a new channel was introduced, with more entertainment, and for some time I received an annual top up of “video clips” of new songs.

In the meantime I had acquired a taste for English soaps, and documentaries.
Programmes about Iraq were infrequently produced, I remember two in particular, one I watched in the late 1990s a poignant film produced by Channel four which followed the daily difficulties of a Liverpool football club supporting Iraqi minder to the British journalist called Kiffa7, the other was many years earlier, in October 1993 I saw the first feature length documentary on the risk of extinction of the Marsh Arabs, a programme titled "Saddam’s Killing fields", produced with help from Ahmed Chalabi, Yuosif al Khoei and Mohamed Bahr al Ulum.

For the most part and particularly when there was some new military flurry we felt trapped in a vacuum, far from the news, frustrated by the meagre coverage offered by the terrestrial TV, until that is we discovered satellite TV.

A combination of a visit to Amman where virtually every building sported an enormous dish that needed to be manually turned when a different set of channels was to be viewed, and my discovery of MBC whilst on duty in a clinic catering for rich Arabs, convinced us this was what we had been waiting for.

We acquired our very first dish, with receiver and card from a reputable source, and hired “one of our own” to fix it to the wall.
The excitement was short lived, the channels limited, the reception variable, and the dish became completely detached after the first proper gale force winds.
We learnt our lesson and resorted to smaller equipment, more stable fixtures, by more reliable workmen and for a little while at least we were blissfully distracted by Rotana.

And when things went horribly wrong we could now see it vividly transmitted from somewhere close, and the other side of the story was now being laid before us.

As the war machine moved ever closer, a flurry of channels were added to our list, for the first time we discovered Fox TV and realised that not everyone did propaganda in the highly effective subtle British way, we also started receiving the Iraqi national satellite channel for a while. In fact for longer than anticipated, until eventually and abruptly the transmission stopped, leaving behind the very distorted face of the presenter frozen on our screen for days.

Many moths later a new channel started to advertise, the faces were familiar, there was even comedy and music, and after a wobbly few months Al-Sharqyia with its red and white logos became compulsory after work entertainment.

Shortly after that a number of "Green" channels were added, and in June 2005 after a particular explosion one of these channels aired a commemorative programme with the "soon to be supreme" ruler of Iraq watching, a group of children sang a little song threatening the residents of Al-Latifiya and we entered a whole new era in televised enlightenment.

And now?

Well for the past week or so we have been stuck between two extremes on our channel hopping, at one end is a choice of one of the four "Green" channels, which have been spasmodically oscillating between misery and exhilaration on the anniversaries of the death and birth of the greatest woman to ever exist, culminating tonight in a lengthy lecture on the subject of women in celebration of “Iraqi women’s day” given by none other that the Iraqi heir apparent, addressing an audience of black tents, he explained how women were transformed from -and I quote- “animals in the form of tempting women to allow procreation” into “humans” by virtue of religion and the sacrifices of one blessed woman.

Whilst at the same time on one of the "Red" channels we have had several days of heated debate with much retraction and retreats to bring forth “published evidence” over the exact mode of death of the same woman.

We have come a long way haven’t we?

POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 23:40 6 COMMENTS

Abbas Hawazin said...
this is a great post, but could you be a little less subtle, what exactly did you mean by the Green and Red channels?

Keep on writing.

27 June 2008 12:05
Anonymous said...
Truth Escapes Satans Grip

I had a dream.
I saw satan swimming slowly, languorously, smiling,
wafting down a river of blood.
More and more as he spread his blood drenched arms
across each bank, people murdered themselves
and murdered their neighbors.
Their blood poured out filling the river deeper and deeper,
and satan patiently, willfully, joyfully
screeched a hideous cry of encouragement.
The unwitting souls on the riverbank, stood
with their eyes firmly fixed on the heavens
spoke the name of God,
then committed self-murder,
and satans fingers, dripping blood, dragged their souls
into his hell bound torrent.
Occasionally a bright beam of truth
would shine upon one of the souls on the riverbank
and they would simply walk away.
And satan thrashed and screamed each time
as another soul escaped his grip.

Through Grace Peace

27 June 2008 16:30
3eeraqimedic said...
Abbas thanks for appreciating!
Too subtle??
"Green" I am sure is self evident, but just in case I meant the obscene Al-Forat.
And I am not sure why I chose red to describe the deceptive Al-"Mustaqilla", maybe because I hope that anyone with sense watching the debate would start to question more than just the difference in "opinion".

27 June 2008 16:48
3eeraqimedic said...
Anon
You should make sure you keep warm when you sleep!

27 June 2008 16:56
Laura said...
Dear 3eeraqimedic:

you have your feet firmly on the earth and i like you very much.

Best to you always,

L.

Dim sum

2011-08-04T17:29:00.000-07:00

SATURDAY, 21 JUNE 2008

They say friendship is at its most pure when it develops during student years, a time of freedom before responsibilities of work and family set in, and commitments make free time a luxury, before colleagues and networking become necessary survival tools and take up time and effort leaving little for the true friend, a friend you meet with no ulterior motive, no gain, other than the pleasure of time shared.

It started during a period of study, before the children arrived, before our world exploded.

Four research students, cooped up in a small room, two surgeons and two physicians, meeting after work, then meeting with “other halves”, getting together all over the city, and in each other’s homes and gardens.

One favourite Sunday pastime was for dim sum, the Chinese Malaysian couple knew where to go, what to order, and how much, three hours of conversation interspersed by little packages of fish, chicken, and vegetable, noodles, dilute tea and sweets.

Nothing however stays the same.

Research came to an end, “proper jobs” meant moving, children started arriving, one couple broke up, and then regrouped, and the meeting became less frequent.

The English couple were the first to outgrow the friendship, what is acceptable company for trainees is not so for established pillars of society, and when the people with the know how were also unable to make it, because they where in the middle of arranging for the their long awaited return home, we wondered if maybe non-Chinese food would be more appropriate now.

As we sat around the table explaining the difference between sambusak and kubba, he starts telling us of his recent trip home, the capital is a great place to live, vibrant modern and safe, the health service crying out for expertise, and the hospital project going ahead in the near future, the pay would be good, and lifestyle very comfortable and “if I was a foreigner I would go now”.

But and it is a large but, “if I went home there would be family, and family of family, they would be all be around, all requesting favours for themselves, their families and their friends, and they would in return part with regular advice, advice on life, advice on love and advice on future, advice I cannot live by”.

He cannot go home because of choices he made in the decades he has been away, away from home, away from the eastern influences of family and friends, and so he keeps moving around, seeking a replacement home, once he talks of Europe, another time it will be Malaysia, then again why not the Gulf.

And as we part I think to myself, I have always envied him his choice, he has a country to return to, but maybe even if one day we had a country we could return to, we may well find we would not either.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 11:46 4 COMMENTS
Laura said...
Dear 3eeraqiM: In a poem to his wife, the wonderful poet, Wendell Berry wrote of "the life I have let live for love of you...." That line came back to me as I read your post. Sometimes, it seems as if there is a certain reason that we do something and then, years later, there's a shift and hey, presto, the reason we've been telling ourselves over and over like an eternal talisman turns out to have been only incidental to the reality our feet and hands chose for us while our minds were otherwise occupied. And what was chosen--oddly enough--turns out to have been so right, even though we didn't know it. The life love lived for us, the life love lived us through.

Perhaps this is not true in your case, or will not turn out to be true. I'm just murmuring here, thinking how, sometimes, the miracle of our lives overtakes all our expectations. We turn a corner and see the rose in full bloom, every petal glowing in the setting sun.

I'm really not all that poetic. Can't think why both my comments have been so...dreamy-ish. (Have you caught up on your sleep? ) ; )

I hope all is well.

It is lovely to be able to visit your blog.

22 June 2008 07:10
3eeraqimedic said...
Laura
Thanks for visiting once more, the block was not personal, this blog has become my personal counselling couch and every now and then when my mood is dipping dangerously I need a break to think things over. After a while I return, often after a few good nights sleep and a glimmer of hope brought on by some good news (a family returning to their home in the “wrong part of town”, a story of palm trees planted in public gardens, a tone of hope in voice of someone I care about)
Thank you also for the quote, this is for me one of the most pleasant aspects of visitors comments, when a name I have not previously heard of is mentioned I go in search of more, and end up listening to a new style of music, reading an incredibly touching novel, or discovering an American male who writes about love, life and peace.
Yes for today at least there is hope.
22 June 2008 11:19
Laura said...

Dear 3eeIraqiM:

I think you will enjoy this poem of Wendell Berry's (from his Collected Poems, 1985):

The Peace Of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lied down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great . heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

(peace to you and yours, L.)

22 June 2008 18:05
sami said...
Good evening 3eeraqimedic, I was happily surprised by your blog new look, it is shining, and I smiled happily when I first saw it.
You are a precious person for us (your blog readers) take good care of your self. sami.
24 June 2008 20:39

Sleep deprivation

2011-08-04T17:26:00.000-07:00

WEDNESDAY, 11 JUNE 2008

Sleep deprivation is used as a method of torture, take my word, it works.

I have been sleep deprived several times in my life, sometimes self-inflicted, as in the forty darks days in the 1980s, a blur of coffee induced insomnia, and anxiety driven over-revision for what at the time seemed like the most important set of tests I would ever have to navigate. Oh the naivety of the time.

Another test of stamina was my first weekend on call in 1990s, I remember sitting on the desk staring at a chart trying to focus my mind on the task at hand. A simple prescription for medications, which I seemed unable to complete, my eyelids drooping 80 hours after I had started my shift, and a senior member of the team snatching the chart from my hands before I finished writing the wrong dosage that he would end up taking the flak for.

I recognise the various stages of sleep deprivation as I pass through them now.

That initial rush of adrenaline as my body prepares for what it assumes will be a brief period of need, the heightened awareness of everything that often arrives around two or three in the morning of the first sleepless night, during which all manner of boring and long neglected duties can be completed.

The first phase is replaced by a sluggish, muzzy head phase that reaches its peak by the second or third day without sleep. During this stage the world seems to be moving more slowly and people and events merge into each other, I sometimes find that the line of demarcation between reality and imagination becomes less clear.

Immediately after I had the children I had no sleep at all for four days, by the evening of the fifth day I had started talking to non-existent people in the room.

Eventually my mind starts to clear once more, and after the first week I reach the final phase.

I have been unable to sleep properly for the past three weeks.

It all started with an email, a request for help, an exchange of information followed by the arrival of the database.

A series of entries, numbers events and treatment outcomes, stark facts that need ordering, untangling and then weaving into a coherent tale, a tale of eight years of work, eight years of sweat and blood, eight years of pain and tears, eight years of battling the odds, eight years of unsuccessful attempts to retrieve breath from the claws of death.

In the sterile environment I have become accustomed to patient data is presented in anonymous format, people become “unique identifying numbers”, poisons become “courses of treatment”, symptoms and diseases are described in sanitised clinical terms, my mind has developed ways of re-classifying pain, bleeding, and a host of other forms of suffering into “events”, even death seems less shocking when described as “mortality”.

The raw information I have been sifting through is different, columns of names, columns of cities, columns of detailed descriptions, and a final column of stark words “dead / taken home to die”

Pouring over the information started out easy enough, but sleep deprivation made it more difficult to ignore the names, oddly more personal for their familiarity, and my mind starts to play tricks on me as I visualise the description, and wonder: Did he have anything for the pain? Did she have anything for the fever? Who was with him when he bled? Who carried her home? How did they travel? Did they have water to drink?

I have not had enough sleep, and when I have not slept everything seems different. I cannot concentrate as well, and I get irritated more easily, everything takes a sharper edge, and every encounter seems to be less simple.

It is the sleep deprivation that meant I had less patience with the third round of long-lost friends who have tried to rekindle youthful relationships, only to be disappointed by my exposed hair, and by the absence of any imminent or otherwise plans to wrap myself in a white sheet and get some much needed exercise in a hot climate.

It is the sleep deprivation that makes me read something sinister when the day after a panorama programme about the $23 billions dollars of Iraqi money that has been stolen over the past five years
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama
Someone who recently returned from a “lighting” visit to the “beautifully organised” “green zone” and with whom I had previously maintained a polite professional relationship occasionally flavoured by nostalgic reminiscing about the good old days, shows me details of a $3 million dollors house he plans to buy before the end of the year.

Sleep deprivation is torture; forget the physical effects, without the escape of dreams, the world is so much more ugly when viewed through sleep-deprived eyes.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 21:28 5 COMMENTS

A&Eiraqi said...
الله يساعدج

11 June 2008 22:54
Laura said...
We do need other realities than this one, other truths and other wells. I hope you are able to sleep and dream and replenish yourself in beauty and other truths and times soon. It is dangerous and painful only to be awake in a single reality....

May peace and goodness be always with you.

12 June 2008 03:50
3eeraqimedic said...
A&E Iraqi
I expect He is also getting no sleep, but thanks for your concern.

12 June 2008 18:11
3eeraqimedic said...
Laura
Oh dear! I am sorry that you find me in this frame of mind on your first visit, but welcome to my black sometimes bleak blog.
From prior experience I expect to be sleeping a little more within a week or two, and I still live in hope that one day I may even have a pleasant dream.
Thanks for visiting, and for your wishes.

12 June 2008 18:15
Laura said...
Dear 3ee: Not my first visit, just the first time commenting. I've been appreciating your writing for several months. Thanks for the welcome. Sweet dreams!

Pride and Arrogance

2011-08-04T17:25:00.001-07:00

THURSDAY, 29 MAY 2008

Isn’t it odd how once you get a concept in your mind you start to see it all around?

It started a few weeks ago

“I was so afraid of making a mistake and being mocked, that I preferred to do nothing, say nothing, remain silent, remain unnoticed and small, but later I hated myself for not speaking, for not acting”.

You were afraid of making a mistake, that is rather arrogant don’t you think? She said with surprise

Proud yes, but arrogant?

“He had just arrived, they were tightening up on people like us, he was offered a trial period, but he was asked to work at a lower grade, to work night shifts, he kicked up such a fuss, and refused point blank to do it, the chief wrote a terrible report and he has been blacklisted since…. the Egyptian and the Indian who started at the same time as him have now been promoted twice while he remains…. ah well that is Iraqis for you…. you have to respect him though…. we all seem to have this pride, not the easiest people to deal with they say…that is Iraqis all the same…..

Pride or arrogance?

I have not behaved that way for several years, quite the reverse I seem to have spent the entire time wearing a pair of false lips with permanently upturned corners, I may not always demure but I will often remain silent. Suffocating my pride, (then brooding and blogging about it) but I justify this to myself as necessary for livelihood.

Yet within the same week I have shown very little sympathy for someone who behaved in a similar way in the face of a different set of circumstances (and a different set of people).

“He has met with his father, who says he has forgiven him, it is the first step, when he is ready maybe he will see me and our son”

I seethe but bite my tongue. I must not antagonise her.

What I would really like to do is shake her until her teeth rattle, and slap her until her eyes open. I want to rip away the veils, real and metaphoric from her head.

What on earth happened to her pride?
Why on earth does she accept being treated like this?
Damned arrogant fools, looking down at her. I curse the times that let them meet, the circumstances that made this happen, and damn the brainwashing that allows it to continue.

She thinks I am arrogant.
I think she has no pride.

On the outside at least I hate arrogance more than many other vices.

Possibly as a result of a lifetime of overheard condemnation,
“You are so arrogant, all you ------s are, you have nothing left to be so arrogant about, it is all history, but you just cannot see it”

On the inside I am not unlike my demoted friend. Pride, particularly national pride is “an essential ingredient in the diet of every Iraqi infant”

But it is rather confusing all the same, most religions regard pride as a great sin, mainly because only God/Gods have the right to be proud, so in addition to the terrors of excessive personal pride

“Pride goes before the fall” and ان الله لا يحب كل مختال فخور

They go on to explain the harmful sequel of pride on mere mortals:

“Pride supports a whole array of sins, such as jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, revenge motivation, revenge tactics, self-pity, conceit, inordinate ambition and competition, slander, gossip, and maligning”.

Back on planet earth and in scientific terms what is the point of pride and what is the difference between pride and arrogance?

According to one prolific researcher
http://ubc-emotionlab.ca/wp-content/images/2006/10/pride-chapter.pdf
the answer is there are two versions of pride “authentic” and “hubiristic”.
Put simply pride in some real achievement is healthy, pride in the absence of said achievement is hubiristic, it is this latter which is detrimental to the individual / society or in religious terminology sinful.

Authentic pride (“I’m proud of what I did”) comes from attributing events to internal, unstable, controllable causes (“I won because I practiced”), whereas hubristic pride (“I’m proud of who I am”) results when events are attributed to internal, stable, uncontrollable causes (“I won because I’m always great”).

On an evolutionary basis the pleasurable feelings that accompany a pride experience may reinforce the pro-social behaviors that typically elicit the emotion, such as achievement and care giving

Interestingly although there is universal recognition of pride as an emotion and of the physical postures of pride there are cultural differences in the expression and experience of pride.

In particular, collectivistic cultures (which apparently applies to all non-westerners) tend to promote the group over the individual, such that individuals are more prone to accept status differences rather than try to change them and assert the self. Such values seem inconsistent with pride, an emotion geared toward enhancing and affirming the self. In fact, several studies have found that pride is viewed more negatively in collectivistic, vs. individualistic, cultures.

Perhaps it is not surprising I have such conflicting feelings about pride

However pride is much more likely to be accepted and valued in collectivistic cultures—as long as it is pride about one’s group instead of one’s individual self.

And back to my original question

Is pride one emotion with two facets, or are there are two distinct pride-related emotions.

In terms of the way people conceptualize and experience pride, there are two facets so distinct as to have unique cognitive antecedents and entirely opposite personality correlates. However, both facets are reliably associated with the same nonverbal expression, suggesting that, from a behavioral perspective at least, there is only one pride.

Well that explains it doesn’t it.

Maybe despite all the research it is really simple, regardless of who we are, what our culture tells us, or what the context is, ultimately we define something as pride or arrogance depending on who is exhibiting it (and whether we like or dislike them, and agree or disagree with the basis for their pride / arrogance).

POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 20:15 0 COMMENTS

Anniversary

2011-08-04T17:24:00.001-07:00

They sit silently
On the kitchen shelf
Resting quietly
Beneath the biscuit tin

Wrapped up tight
In silver sheets
Tucked away
With days
On the bedstead
In their white box
They sleep

Waiting
Patiently
Hidden from prying eyes

Taunting me
Reminding me
Of pity
And contempt

I walk past
Confidently
I tell myself
Convincingly that
I forget them
Accidentally

I savour the coffee
Then pour another
One day will not matter
Two or even three
Surely I will manage

Eventually
When I no longer sleep
Because they have slept too long
I wake one
And down it

I throw the white box away
But keep the very first one
A white card memento
For our fifth anniversary

POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 19:37 0 COMMENTS

Beanz meanz friendz

2011-08-04T17:23:00.001-07:00

THURSDAY, 22 MAY 2008

The children are now visiting their friends’ homes without Mama tagging along.
H went to play with his best friend N, and H+ had her friend M over to play.

With the kinder weather they have moved their games and many toys into the back garden. Distracted in the kitchen trying to prepare something delicious, nutritious, quick and with no visible greens for the children, I did not notice what they were doing until I heard the crashing noise, followed by her yelp then the scream. I rushed out to find her on the ground wailing as her brother fussed around her, bright eyed and red with guilt.

Her red hands and the two sharp splinters of wood from the fence embedded into her palms needed immediate attention, and after wiping away blood stains and tears, and lots of hugs and kisses their story was told.

They wanted to go next door and play with the children and decided the shortest way was over the wood fence, and so had moved the plastic chair close to the edge to climb on.
When the height was not enough decided to give each other a helping push and H+ was to go first.

When I eventually went next door to collect them an hour later, and was invited in for some dosa I remembered another set of childhood friends

Within a week of moving into the house my brother had met the boy next door, and through Allawee I met the girls and my mother got to know Um Allawee.

Initially there was some confusion. Like us Allawee’s dad was away a lot, unlike us Allawee’s mum had two sisters who would regularly come to stay, at least one of whom seemed to be there all the time. Mama Nabeeha and Mama Sabeeha took care of the children and went out with the children and for a while my mother would wonder which one exactly was Um Allawee?

We started by playing in the courtyard in front of the house, racing down the road on our tricycles, and then chasing each other into the first front door we came across. With time we devised ways of getting into our neighbour’s garden.

Jumping over the tilted red bricks that marked the boundary of the lawn into the carnation and snap-dragon flower beds, between the orange trees, sprinting up the lower branches and hopping onto the wall, a careful wiggle later and we would slip into the “sandpit” next door.

They had workmen in the house and the back garden was full of mounds of pebbles and sand, and in the corner an old cement mixer. We spent hours making all sorts of “food” from the mud, and “cooked” it in the mixer.

At lunch time the mothers would start recalling the children, and most of us would willingly return for sustenance. Most that is except my brother, who would repeatedly refuse to return, arriving home after protracted arguments and many tears. It later transpired that this was only partly due to his attachment to Allawee, it was mainly because of what Um Allawee was offering for lunch, a sample of which was brought across, with instructions on how to make the meal.

The next time we had white beans in tomato sauce in our home they were served, not on toast but with meat and rice.

I am still waiting to meet an "Um Someone" who will one day transform my cooking in such an enriching way!

POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 09:44 3 COMMENTS

Sami said...
I liked this title alot, it is so clever....Beanz Meanz Friendz....It could be a title of a wonderful drama familly movie talking about relations between family and their neighbour...
Thank you 3eeraqimedic for giving us such nice posts that help us contemplate our life...Beanz Meanz Friendz....yes you are right 3eeraqimedic cause Beanz Meanz Friendz....

02 June 2008 16:38
Sami said...
And you knoww what 3eeraqimedic, it is me who need someone to teach him how to cook...because I cook so bad dear...
02 June 2008 16:40
3eeraqimedic said...

He he he Sami.
I am afraid it is from my "thaqafty il ingileezya" it is based on a very well known advert for a particular brand of tinned baked beans which ran in the sixties (yes yes last century)which went "Beanz Meanz Hienz". Glad you liked it.

Another May

2011-08-04T17:22:00.000-07:00

I met her in Amman, on a warm day late in the summer, in an intimidatingly smart hotel foyer, we chatted for a while, and I nervously handed her the most valuable papers I had been able to lay my hands on in twelve years.
She was on route to Baghdad, and promised to pass them on.

When do you plan to return? She asked
When the babies are a little older I replied confidently.
Looking back I think I had started to doubt my own words, the dreams of returning were becoming blurred, the timing had already slipped twice.

They were planning some sort of documentary, and she showed me the manuscript of the interview, I jotted down the address, yes of course I would look it up, and yes next February sounded like a possibility, if all went well we would meet at the house on the river.

I thought my Internet addiction was recent, but remembering that day, I did not wait to return home and check, I paid for 30 minutes of connection at Safeway’s and downloaded the piece she had published in May 2003.

The final words, spoken by my grandmother
"People here have pride, don’t step on our pride."

And those of my father
'We may have lost, but now we will see Iraq changed into a modern country. Now there is a chance.'

As I read those words today I wonder about the survival instincts, was it naivety or denial that protected us from seeing what had really happened.

POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 09:10 0 COMMENTS

Summer holidays

2011-08-04T17:21:00.001-07:00

FRIDAY, 9 MAY 2008

I opening my eyes with a jolt, it took me a few seconds to register what had woken me, and where I was, then I heard it again Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar, a call to prayer I had not heard for four years.

I rolled over and looked at the scene, the entire floor of the room was covered with plastic bags and wrappers, the small table covered with food remnants, and mounds of pistachio and watermelon seed shells, two oversized suitcases full of essentials for my family sat unopened in the corner, the other two suitcases lay gaping at the end of the bed, in exactly the same spot where the night before they had been opened and the contents passed around, they were now filled with reciprocal packages, date molasses, nuts, elaborate long dresses, and two canvas paintings of a street from home.

We had only moved into the rooms the night before, the past twenty-four hours had disappeared, and already we were into the second day.

But at last we had made it, we had talked about this get together for ages, planned and then re-planned, scheduled and then cancelled, we even got as far as the airport the year before but never boarded the plane when at the last minute it became clear that people could not make it out.

But here we were, all together in two rooms in a simple hotel, up a rather steep hill in Amman, I had taken the advice given by my mother’s friend and booked the rooms without thinking too much, it was only later that I realised the reasons she had recommended it, it was inexpensive and relatively close to the embassy.

The flights from Sana’a and London had arrived soon after each other, we had been held up for ages while someone in green (who had clearly attended the تفضل ويانا academy( interviewed M in a separate office, and tried repeatedly to extract from him details of trips to Damascus he had never made. When we were eventually released and having deposited the luggage we set out to the bus depot, a central point where buses of all sizes and private hire taxi arrived from Baghdad.

The bus arrived, almost two days after they had left home exhausted and dusty they descended the steps, tears of joy mixed with sobbing and sighs as one by one they were passed from one hug to another to yet another, before the trip back to the hotel for the night.

This morning we would go in search of a flat, we were here for only one week, the rest would be staying for a month and would need more space, two taxis and many false starts later we found a suitable place in Jebel Hussein and agreed the rates.

This was to be the first of many such snatched trips.

One week in the summer, for us a week of the almost familiar, the almost home, for them the week of almost normal, of almost free, one week minus six hours flight both ways, minus six nights of about three or four hours each, one week to cram everything in.

Months of preparation, coordinated leave, applied for six month in advance where bureaucracy ruled, and changed half a dozen times where uncertainty about everything was the norm, leave to travel that was bribed for, begged for, signed for by heads of departments, and more, hundreds of thousand of dinars raised, a brother’s house as guarantee, and several weekends of shopping had gone into preparing for this week.

“Give me a list of what you want,” I had pleaded, “give me your size again”, and “how long do the skirts have to be”, as the years went by it slowly became more difficult for me to imagine the sisters I had said goodbye to wearing what they were asking for, in my mind no-one changed for many years despite the photographs.

Clothes, shoes, and hair products were the staples, and at the airport just before departure, but after the excess baggage had been paid for, kilos upon kilos of chocolates, enough to be rationed for a year.

In that first visit we walked for miles during the day, up the steep hillside to the post office to send all those international application forms that burnt up so much cash and so many dreams, down to the centre of town after Friday prayer in the mosque, travelling out of Amman to a variety of hospitals, and countless universities in the desert, as well as schools nurseries and charities in search of any employment for anyone, and a good many of the evenings were spent in the open cafes of the Hashemite square beside the ancient roman amphitheatre.

Over the years we moved up in the world into the “Gardens”, attended concerts in Jarash, swam in the Red and the Dead Sea, and visited the incredible pink city in the rocks, but one place we returned to virtually everyday, in every visit we made to Amman was the phenomenon of Safeway’s.

The name we knew even before we arrived, the store we did not, but with time, it is incredible how fond of the place we became, eventually even collecting points on the loyalty card to help save for some piece of electrical gadgetry, for several years we would browse the pirated software on display within this store before starting the shopping proper, down the aisles avoiding the smiling holiday tour representatives desperate to get people to go to a presentation or enter a competition.

On the second floor as well as perfumes, clothes, and shoes were the books, and household items, and tucked away round the corner the yellow signposted room, where we headed at least once a day on that and subsequent trips, the internet café.

This was where emails could be accessed, and elusive replies awaited, where exam results could be checked, this was where news was searched for, and people found, long lost friends, long lost jobs, long lost opportunities.

The later it got the busier the store seemed to get, babies and toddlers still out shopping at midnight, and as well as the families there was another phenomenon associated with this store, as we queued waiting to pay or access the bureau de change I could see the entrance with the shawarma kiosk, and just within the front doors the ice cream and magazine stalls, all would be surrounded by single-sex groups of youngsters milling around in their “casual” wear, with full “shopping grade” hairdos, makeup and sunglasses, carefully “ignoring” each other from a distance.

On the first few days the shopping trips would be an opportunity to spoil everyone, they tended to be long, leisurely and loud, subsequent trips would be for essentials, brief, with arguments at the check-out, towards the end of our stay the final visits would be sombre, slow and silent, the shopping for returnees, and those waiting for their return was different, tins and jars and long dated everything, special treats, and vital sustenance, gifts for friends and relatives, and “gifts” for those on the various official stops on the way home.

For many years it seemed that every summer there was a new shopping centre to be toured, and every time there would be more horror stories, less confidence in imminent improvements, more urgency for escape, and deeper depression as the days of freedom ran out, but on that very first year, that very first trip and that very first supermarket visit despite all the trouble getting there, everything seemed so different.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 18:13 2 COMMENTS

A&Eiraqi said...
3mti
Offff
Don't know what to say, but your post touched the wound.

Summer holidays
Spending a long time waiting for it,fighting for the annual leave ,booking the flight as early as possible,collecting money and arranging things.
Then, simply, we're not sure when the exams are.
They should be soon, but they're still not sure when.
Possibly it will be something I should keep dreamin about.

Spending time with them is different; it's quite different, and This is going the first one after getting a job.

You've said once that the first ten years are hard.
Seems you're right.

Allah kereem
09 May 2008 23:13

3eeraqimedic said...
A&EIraqi
Yes time with friends and family is the most precious, and it makes no difference where that time is spent.

What is all the fuss about?

2011-08-04T17:20:00.000-07:00

SUNDAY, 4 MAY 2008

I could kick myself for not making the connection earlier.

I receive emails with attachments from a relative on a regular basis, some are jokes, others articles and news stories, yet others charities or individuals asking fro help, when the email contained news of the death of one of Iraq’s best known and loved surgeons arrived on the 18th April, I did not notice the second attachment, and missed the chance to make the connection between a letter written by Dr Omar Al-Kubaisy an Iraqi cardiothoracic surgeon and my February 2008 “blogs of note” find.

Here is the letter, written in Amman where he describes how he came across a family in his clinic who were on route to Tel Aviv for surgery, he then shows the ruins of the Specialist Cardiac / Cardiothoracic hospital (well established cardiology hospital that was opened in 1993 during the years of sanctions and provided interventional cardiology and cardiothoracic services at a level unavailable to this day in several neighbouring Arab countries, and fully equipped to treat these children), he then makes the connection between the sending of Iraqi children to Israel for treatment and the destruction of medical institutes and murder and displacement of Iraqi medical expertise since 2003.

أطفال العراق يعالجون في تل أبيب!! ألا يُخزي هذا وزارة الصحة العراقيه؟.

الدكتور عمر الكبيسي
عمان – نيسان 2008

شئ لايصدق !! تمنيت ان اموت قبل ان ارى اطفالأ عراقيين مع امهاتهم في عمان وصلوا من بغداد وعلى وجبات وباعداد تفوق المائه طفلا لغرض تقييم حالتهم من قبل اطباء اسرائيليين وترتيب تواقيت وصولهم الى تل ابيب لاجراء تداخلات جراحيه لهم بسبب اصابتهم بتشوهات ولاديه في القلب .اطفال من شمال العراق ووسطه وجنوبه شخصت امراضهم في العراق ونظمت لهم تقارير وفحوص وسجلات طبيه في مستشفيات حكوميه وتم اختيارهم وارسلوا مع امهاتهم او ابائهم ليحصلوا على تراخيص سفر اسرائيليه بتوصيات من منظمه اسرائيليه طبيه ,يتم بعهدها سفرهم واجراء تداخلات جراحيه لهم واعادتهم الى العراق.أرجوا ان يصًدق القراء ماذكرته لأنه الحقيقه كما رواها لي امهات الاطفال الذين زاروني في عيادتي في عمان للتأكد من تشخيص مرض أطفالهم وذكروا لي كل هذه التفاصيل وهم على نية السفر الى تل أبيب خلال أيام ويقيمون في عمان الان على نفقة الجهه المعالجه.في إسرائيل.

أستذكر جيداً يوم 8 نيسان2003 عندما دخلت الدبابات الامريكيه بغداد ووصلت ساحة المتحف بحلول الساعه الخامسه مساءً توجهت واحدة منها وداهمت مدخل المتحف العراقي لتحدث في مدخله فجوه كبيره إيذاناً بنهبه وسلبه في حين توجهت دبابه اخرى الى مركز صدام لجراحة القلب (مستشفى بن البيطار) واقتلعت الباب الرئيسي والناقله الكبيره التي وضعت بالعرض في مدخل المركز كاجراءحمايوي وسمحت لمجاميع السلب والنهب لدخوله وامام جمع من اطباءه ومنتسبيه وبالرغم من تشبثهم بحمايته,وكانت ضمن مجموعة الجنود الامريكان اعداد من الاشخاص الناطقين بالعربيه والمرتدين للباس الجيش الامريكي ومنهم نقيب اسمر اشرف بعدها على حرق البناء الجاهز للمركز(يمثل80./0 من بناء المركز)بطريقه فنيه وسريعه من خلال تمرير شريط على طول سقف البناء واشعاله وخلال اقل من ساعه واحده. وأذكر جيداً كيف هاتفني اكبر جراحي ايطاليا في القلب الدكتور دومنيك في حينها على جهاز الثريا للمركز وكان قد زارنا لمرات عديده لاجراء عمليات قلب للاطفال خلال فترة الحصار يناديني لترك المركز مع كوادري لانه مستهدف بشكل مؤكد واكد لي انه يرى المركز الان على الشاشه وسيضرب وفعلاٌ تم ذلك قصفاً بالطيران قبل 48 ساعه من دخول القوات ولم استطع في حينها تفسير سر هذه المكالمه وهو يكرر قوله انا لست بعيداً عن المشهد يادكتور عمر!.

مركز جراحة القلب بعد احراقه في 8/4/2003

هذا المركز أنشا في زمن الحصار البغيض عام 1993 ولمً شمل معظم كفاءات العراق في اختصاص امراض القلب ويقدرات عراقيه ودعم متميز اصبح فيما بعد اكبر مركز في الشرق الاوسط للقلب وكان يجري بمعدل 7-8 عمليات قلب مفتوح وبحدود 25 حالة قسطره وتداخل علاجي قسطاري يومياً وكان يستقطب كل حالات امراض القلب من العراق ومن اقطار عربيه اخري وتكامل عمله في حينها مع افتتاح المركز العراقي الساند والوليد في الجهه الثانيه من النهر في مجمع الشهيد عدنان خيرالله كل هذا التطور والأنجاز تم خلال فترة الحصار المقيت.

عودةً الى بداية المقال, ألا يثير تسفير الاطفال المعتلين بتشوهات خلقيه في القلب من العراق الى اسرائيل مروراً بعمان وهم مزودون بكامل الفحوص والتقارير الصادره من مراكز القلب في العراق ومن ضمنها مستشفى ابن البيطار بالذات, العواطف والقييًم والمُثل؟.من يشرف على هذا العمل المنظم والمرتب في زمن تغيب فيه كل مؤشرات العنايه والرعاية الطبيه في العراق؟.هل ان وزارة الصحه طرف منظم فيه ام انها بعيدة عن كل مايتعلق بمصير وحياة هولاء الاطفال؟ هل من المعقول ان تجمع المنظمات الانسانيه او تتصرف بهذا العدد من المرضى وترسلهم الى الخارج دون اشرافها او علمها؟.اذا كنت لاتدري فتلك مصيبة وان كنت تدري فالمصيبة اعظم .
خزيُ وعار والله على وزارة الصحه وعلى حكومة العروبي المالكي ! أن يتم ذلك في العراق بلا حياء .بماذا تعييرنا أرواح يوسف النعمان ومؤيد العمري وجعفر الكويتي وعادل العاني وهم في قبورهم لهذه الفضيحه؟. مارد فعل أبطالنا الجراحين الصامدين في بغداد أمثال العاني وحبه وسرسم والأنصاري في بغداد؟.أين أنتم أيها الصروح المهاجره والمغيبه في بقاع الارض من هذه الصاعقه؟. اين الورد والمشاط وسرسم والصافي والدليمي وجحيل وشابا؟.صروح وخبرات عراقيه و عالميه بجراحةالقلب تنتشر في بقاع الأرض معظمها بلا عمل وكفاءات مهاجره بلا هويه, أين الكفاءات العربيه من هذا الحدث؟.أين مجدي يعقوب وحمدي السيد وداود حنانيا ومحمدالفقيه وسامي القباني ومؤيدالناصر وبسام العكشه وكثير غيرهم مما يحدث؟.ولماذا اسرائيل بالذات وهي التي تقتل أطفالنا وتجوع أهلنا في القطاع وأرضنا المحتله ليل نهار, تمدُ اليوم يد العون لأطفال العراق وتستقطبهم للعلاج من دون كل المراكز المنتشره في العالم؟.أليسَ في هذا تحدٍ وإهانه لكل إبداعات الأمه وقدراتها الطبية والعلمية والأنسانيه والماديه؟ وماذا يعني أن يكون معظم هؤلاء الأطفال من كردستان ؟
أليس لحادثة حرق مركز جراحة القلب في بغداد وما جرى للمستشفيات الأخرى وإستهداف الأطباء والكفاءات في العراق, ومن ثم إستقطاب إسرائيل لعلاج أطفال العراق في مستشفياتها, من صلة ٍ وربًاط؟. ليس لي إلا أن أردد قول شاعرنا المرحوم اليازجي قبل أكثر من قرن من الزمان :

تـنبهوا وأستـفيــقـوا أيهــا العـــــربُ فقد طغى الخطبٌ حتى غاصت الركبُ

*********
I have just listened to an interview with Mr Al Kubaisy on Al-Baghdadyi station, and although he repeated much of what he wrote in this letter he did not name the charitable organisation that is organising the treatment trips.

His rather oblique warnings of untraceable HIV or Hepatitis infections in these children are clearly scaremongering, but as with recent opinions in the Arab world regarding the Bulgarian nurses in Libya many will accept them, but the question of a larger plan for the systematic destruction of medical institutes and murder and displacement of Iraqi medical expertise, well many already believe that to be true, but I am not sure these cases really prove anything…yet.

The Iraqi ministry of health is denying any knowledge of the transfers.

The Americans will have some trouble denying knowledge, as some of their own senior officers are mentioned clearly in the blog entries of the person blogging about the nine months he spent in Iraq organising the whole process

http://canuvworms.blogspot.com

According to whom the funding is raised by the sale of “Kalas” hand made in Kurdistan, and sold over the internet

http://www.buyshoessavelives.com

I think there may be an Israeli-American / Jewish-Christian agenda here, but it may just be a hearts and minds one (in other words divide and conquer).

Update
I guess I had not done my homework properly, there is clearly a heavy religious element to this whole “save children’s heart”, and now we have a major scramble between the powers that be while the families caught up in this whole tug of child game sit waiting in Amman for treatment.

And I guess I am sort of nearer to understanding what all the fuss is about, contrary to my first impression this is not isolated to the Kurdistan and Kurdish children and has been going on for much longer than the past year.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 22:07 5 COMMENTS

A&Eiraqi said...
3mti

I think there are more than one aspect about this subject of sending Iraqi children to Israel.
I wouldn't be surprised hearing many people shouting that no one has got the right to say anything(Why didn't Arabs offer treating those children rather than just talking).

Well; the correct question is why would "the kind" Israel offer such thing for Iraqi children rather than for the closer Palestinians who are starving???

I also don't think that we (Arabs) no enough about Kurds and Kurdistan.
I think they're torn.
Muslims but not Arabs, always ruled by Arabs, brought up being told that they're oppressed, so they should fight for.....

I think the whole fuss is about creating a fuss.

04 May 2008 23:25

3eeraqimedic said...
A&EIraqi
I agree there are many elements, Dr Al-Kubaisy he does raise many of them in the letter.
As far as Arabs offering treatment I think once it became public both the Jordanian and the Algerian governments have offered to take the children currently waiting trnsfer in Amman.
As far as the choice of surgeon / location well there is a well established and respected charity called Chain of Hope that provides cardiac surgery for children with congenital anomalies as well as adults, it is run by Magdy Yacoub and he and his team operate in Cairo on an anual basis, so the charity could have sent the children to them.
As far as the Kurds are concerned you are right and I did say I was not sure how many people think this way, but I do think that many have grown up with the belief that Arabs are the enemy this feeling can be used by those (in this case American Church based charity) who want for their own political agendas, just as we (at least my generation and maybe even yours) have grown up with the belief that Israel is the enemy and this feeling can be used for those (in this case someone with ties to Islamic political parties) with their own political agenda.

05 May 2008 08:27
3eeraqimedic said...
I stand corrected
This has indeed been happening for some time, since December 2003 apparently.
http://shevet.org/archives/ArticleSymbol.html

05 May 2008 09:11
Treasure of Baghdad said...
God help us! What have we done to hear and face such news? I am so heartbroken.

They are trying to win our hearts and minds to be on their side. They are using I-will-save-your-life method in order to make us sympathize with them.

When are we gonna wake up? When?
07 May 2008 05:37

3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Treasure
I think "we" have woken up, but we have no control over what the majority see or hear and think.
The truth is both sides (i.e Islamic and Jewish-Christian) have more in common than they would care to admit, the methods used vary but medical treatment has long been used as a method to gain support by Christian missionaries, as well as by Islamic groups, the families of sick children caught in the middle are used as pawns by both sides and that is what I find so offensive about this.
08 May 2008 13:48

Two from a thousand

2011-08-04T17:19:00.000-07:00

FRIDAY, 2 MAY 2008

From indecision
Ten years he waited
Until there was nothing left to lose

From pride
Three years he tried
To grip this foreign ground

From mental torture
Two years he endured
Before something snapped

Three hours he cried
Before he could explain

I snapped
Today I quit

Three years
Watching
Listening

Days
Talking
Dreading

The call that

Broke his back

We walked to the edge………

We couldn’t take the car………

We stayed with him………..

But had to return tonight………

It was the road behind ours………

He hadn’t returned from work…………

The house is still standing……….

She and the baby died……….

We buried them in the garden
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 22:25 0 COMMENTS

Narinj

2011-08-04T17:18:00.002-07:00

SATURDAY, 26 APRIL 2008

We have been house hunting, and visiting the home of a Greek colleague, and for the first time in many years I have seen gardens with fruit trees.

This time of the year they have clouds of blossom and the ground is carpeted with pink and white flowers.

We have never had a garden large enough for fruit trees in the UK, but the story was very different in our gardens back home.

A large "Tukee" tree in the back with fruit we could collect by leaning over the roof wall formed the outer margin of the grape vine supporting trellis or "qamaryia", an orange tree to the front, a lemon tree to the back and a "lalengee" tree in the middle just outside the kitchen window were all well established when we arrived.

The pear tree in the front corner was planted by my mother, and the date palm in the rear corner by my father when there was some rule or other that date palm planting was a national duty, but I have no idea who planted the Seville orange trees or when.

They ran in a row, just outside the front wall of the garden, four or five trees packed together just beyond the bougainvillea. Creating a screen of branches and leaves, and a shady area in the front garden where delicate flowers and herbs flourished.

Our Narinj trees were different to the ones in my grandmother’s house in that they had been left to their own devices, and not used to cultivate alternative fruit, one of her trees had a branch of oranges and another of sweet lemons, our Narinj trees produced only Narinj.

After the blossom had been and gone, the fruit, with it distinct smell, and thick craggy orange peel would be plentiful, hanging heavily dragging the branches down. Eventually almost all would fall onto the pavement outside the house or occasionally onto the flowerbeds below.

Passersby would collect some of the sour oranges, the neighbours would be offered some, a few jars of marmalade would be made, and the rest would usually go to waste.

Until one year, for one reason or other parents decided that waste was a bad thing, and that we children would be tasked with collecting all the fruit, squeezing the oranges and then storing the tart juice in a variety of methods for use during the months that followed.

Friday arrived, and the job started, collecting all the fallen fruit, and then climbing up the borrowed ladder to remove the remaining orange balls from the trees, with three or four large tubs full of fruit and water we doused each other instead of washing the fruit, and for several hours after that sat on little chairs in the garden squeezing hundreds of half oranges with the small glass and plastic manual juicers, then decanting into a selection of brown and green bottles salvaged from storage, and sterilized with boiled water.

Some of the juice was used fairly soon after that as an alternative to lemon juice or vinegar, and went particularly well on our Friday morning fried eggs, and of course with the boiled chick peas we would sometimes buy from the” lebleby lebleby” shouting man with his little mobile stove-in-a-trolley.

Someone had suggested the bottles be sealed with a layer of oil to keep them from spoiling, I am not sure what we did wrong, but when we eventually brought these bottles out from the storage cupboard under the stairs the fermented content had become wine like, and it was virtually all discarded.

My mother, having her doubts about this storage process and with years of experience freezing dates, whole grapes and berries decided to freeze some of the juice and thankfully not all was lost, the bags of frozen juice kept us going for a year, and two jugs of sweetened juice were converted to a summer’s supply of refreshing ice lollies.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 13:50 2 COMMENTS

saminkie said...
Oh dear, what can I say about this post? It is wonderful how you talked about those memories. I smiled so wide, so deep when I was reading your description for those memories. You pinched my memory between your fingers and throught it high, in the sky, where it started dividing into small colored balls, to let tham fall all in my uncles garden where I grew up. My memory balls started bouncing around the garden while you described experiences that I, and many Iraqis, share. It was so nice. You expressed it so well. I especially liked that "leblaby..leblaby ". Thank you .
27 April 2008 14:17

3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Sami
I am so pleased you liked this, it strated with a lemon tree that propted a single memory, but somehow a few other things got triggered along the way into a cascade of word, smells and smiles.
Take care

27 April 2008 18:31

Muslim Doctors Beware

2011-08-04T17:18:00.001-07:00

TUESDAY, 15 APRIL 2008

It has been many years since I last wore the necklaces with Quranic text, or the Allah, but in the eyes of many of those I work with or treat I am still a Muslim doctor.

And to date I have only been asked whether I am Sunni or Shia by one “charming” Israeli colleague, but the time may come when it becomes part of the “equal opportunities” questions as it has already become at my local general practitioner’s clinic.
If you are a Muslim doctor wanting to practice in the UK and would like to know the “safe” answer to this question “other than refusing to answer it” read on.

Last year the headlines were full of the three stark words Iraqi, Doctor and Terrorist, as the suspects in the Glasgow airport bombing attempt go to trial, the British Journal of Medicine publishes a comment on a study published by the Centre for Islamic Pluralism last month titled the Scientific training and radical Islam. (Made possible through the donations of an anonymous donor).

The link and interest from the BMJ (which is the journal that carries the classified adverts for virtually all medical jobs in the UK) is curious, as to all intents and purposes only about 50% of the content actually relates to medical professional, and despite the title not all of that is related to Islam.

What the 66 page document does provide is a brief synopsis from a team of seven researchers (five of whom are born Muslim) lead by a Californian intent on promoting one or two versions of Islam over others is a profile of a number of medical doctors who became members of a variety of Islamist / Islamic movements active in the Middle East and Pakistan, from the Muslim brotherhood, to Al-Qaida, as well as a couple of Pakistani groups.

The basic goal of the document seems to be to induce fear by highlighting the “risk” from the “widespread” infiltration of radial Islam into the circles of many Arab and “Asian” physicians (according to this report there are 90,000 foreign-born doctors practicing in the UK) and Iranian engineers.
I glossed over the final section covering Muslim Iranian engineers intent on acquiring atomic energy, but I did note that it did at least consist of interviews and opinions sought by an Iranian researcher, a lot of the information on the doctors was gleaned from the press.

The first part of the report, which attempts to explain the reasons why Muslim doctors appear to be overrepresented in the “visible” face of religious organisations, is based on three elements
1. The overarching intertwined link between religion and science in Islam, “For Western doctors, medicine may draw on religious ethics; for Muslim doctors, it draws also on the Islamic view of the universe."

2. For the Egyptian doctors it is the doctrine of the Muslim Brotherhood, which states that the revival of Muslim science will result from the dominance of a fundamentalist view of religion.

3. In the Pakistani medical personnel it is the disparity between medical training in the West and the Muslim world. Reinforced by specific political and other events, including relief projects and recruitment to the anti-Indian jihad in Kashmir.
Western medical education is increasingly centred on technology that is often unavailable in Muslim countries except to the most prosperous elites, as in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Sates”

“Islamist radicalism has mainly developed in ‘third-world’ countries. It is true that fifteen of the nineteen hijackers on September 11, 2001 came from Saudi Arabia, and that functionally and economically; the Saudi kingdom is not considered a poor country. Nor is Iran known for a post-colonial or deeply impoverished status. Still, oil revenue is not the only criterion for deeming a country to have escaped the third world. One must examine the general national outlook and standard of living; to the degree such things are measurable".

This sort of analysis sets the theme for the entire document, with repeated elaborate explanations based on interpretation rather than actual study of individuals, the interpretations will often not fit exactly but no attempt is made to reconcile this contradiction, the document describes several doctors or medical students who became involved in murder rather than healing, they studied in Russia, Germany, and Yugoslavia, but for some reason these are seen to be different “Dr Zborowski was clearly atypical of medical anthropologists; Guevara epitomized neither Argentine nor pre-revolutionary Cuban doctors. But Dr Al-Zawahiri comes to us as the representative of a wide social stratum and a large ideological milieu similar to those of the German concentration camp bureaucrat Dr Mengele or the Yugoslav Communist functionary Dr Karadzic”.

Having started with a historic perspective on murderous doctors I expected the study to try and find the common thread between all these bad doctors possibly in events or conditions these people faced during their youth in whatever country, rather than concentrating all the attention on religion, third worldism or a shortage of Western technology.

An interesting point of view specifically relating to the medical professions “it must not to be forgotten that doctors are typically among the first to see the effects of atrocities inflicted by tyrannical regimes in Muslim countries. The armaments of modern countries are designed to cause maximum injury… and their effects are horrible to behold. When such weaponry is used by a Muslim regime allied to the West, a physician who comes into contact with the victims can only be appalled at the severity of the injuries, the brutality of decapitated bodies, etc. In most humans, the basic reaction will be to hate the perpetrators of such violence, and in a culture where everything may be conveniently blamed on the ‘other’ — real or imagined — this creates a fertile soil for the transformation of a caring physician into a terrorist agent".

The use of weapons by “Tyrannical regimes” and not “Foreign armies” makes one a radical, but I guess they are right, when buildings fall down through actions of others the natural response is to hate the perpetrator, and this clearly can create a fertile soil for the transformation of ordinary people into a blood thirsty warmongering nation!

And the solutions to the “problem” suggested are:
Monitoring radical Islamist groups, and pressuring Muslim governments to stop supporting these groups, encourage moderate Muslims to join the struggle, encourage Sufi inspired psychology, upgrade medical training in Muslim countries by involvement of India, ex-USSR states, Israel, and Singapore, and set up Sufi inspired charitable organisations similar to those in Indonesian to compete with Muslim brotherhood based works.

But what exactly is a moderate Muslim? Well maybe he is one who follows the fatwa given in the second page of this document:

A message sent to Muslims in Western nations, urging them to obey the laws of the countries in which they live.
"Muslims have undertaken to obey the laws of the country of their residence and thus they must be faithful to that undertaking," the statement read.
It condemned all acts of violence and encouraged imams to keep a watchful eye on what's going on inside their mosques.

The fatwa was delivered at a Montreal news conference of prominent Shia Muslims on behalf of Ayatullah Sayyed Ali As-Sistani.

And to those who wonder what the expert of bioethics does all day he is apparently pondering the use of genetic engineering for cosmetic purposes!

A Code of Practice for Muslims in the West, a Shia Muslim manual reflecting the guidance of the moderate Iraqi Ayatollah Ali Sistani, addresses bioethical issues in much greater detail. In a separate chapter titled ‘Medical Issues,’ the volume specifies that organ transplants, even from dogs and pigs, which are considered unclean by Muslims, are permissible, in that the human body will, by ‘rejuvenation’ of the organ, purify it. The same text authorizes the use of insulin even if extracted from swine, as well as ‘genetic engineering’ to make human beings more physically attractive.

Ultimately this document read as yet another piece of pseudo-research from this organisation whose sole motivation seems to be the division and distinction in the mind of all who read it between good Muslim doctors i.e. Arab Shia, Indonesian Sufis, and Indian Barelvi on one hand, and bad Muslim doctors i.e. Sunni Arabs, and Indian Deobandi.

So there is the answer to the “equal opportunity” question.

It is perhaps relevant to note that the author, a Christian who converted to Islam in 1997, apparently strongly supported the invasion of Iraq and was in attendance at the U.S Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the 18th June 2007 debating the Bidden plan for “soft partition of Iraq”. A plan he apposed, primarily because by dividing the country into three parts it would be treating all three groups of Iraqi’s as equal, and therefore would not punish one group sufficiently for the crimes committed against the other two.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 20:44 1 COMMENTS

Sami said...
thank you dear 3eeraqimedic to tell us about that sensitive issue who really we did not know about. We have a capacity to talk about sensitive issues in a very nice neutral way that really seems professional I think. Keep up the good job. Thank you. Sami.

23 April 2008 22:21

The third generation

2011-08-04T17:17:00.001-07:00

TUESDAY, 8 APRIL 2008

Sixteen years is a long time, many things happen, many things change, waistlines stretch, hairlines recede, and there is grey everywhere.
But it was nice to see some things remain the same.

For the past three days we have been touring London, visiting all the places we have not seen for fifteen years, acting as guides for friends from college days visiting from Qatar.

Hours of reminiscing, chatting and laughing, smiling at the innocence of times long ago, laughing at the antics of youth, and admiring each other’s children.

In memories even times of unpleasantness are reduced to treasured moments of reckless abandon, months at a military training camp dissolve leaving behind only the hours of freedom that followed an elaborate escape through a trench under the barbed wire, and a hike in a vegetable truck to the nearby city to eat, drink and spend a decent night’s sleep in a room in a tiny hotel before being accompanied back to camp.

The day hours seem too short for all the memories, and as the evening draws in and we sit around a table in the basement of the Iraqi restaurant eating lentil soup, Iraqi Kababs, Qeema and Bamia while Nathim El-Ghazaly sings in the background we start the painful process of naming the dead.

It has become part of our ritual now, a solemn almost religious ceremony that must be observed, at the end of each gathering of friends from childhood or youth, an increasingly lengthy list of names, the stories are personal, we have learnt to dwell on the personality, the quirks, the best aspect, and gloss over the final event, we concentrate on their lives and achievements and not the grisly ways they met their end.

We start as is the norm with the older generation, those who trained us, the nationally renown neurologist and his exceptional lectures, the best orthopaedic surgeon, the young rheumatologist, and the list continues, we then move on to our fellow trainees maybe one or two years our senior, the surgeon, the physician, the radiologist, and finally on to our closer friends, friends from university, friends from school, friends from the neighbourhood. This is where it falters a little, our farewells are said to those whose fate we already know, the names of others we have lost contact with are whispered softly, fearfully, hoping for the reassurance of safety in Yemen, in Libya, or maybe even in Dubai, but usually it is from the continued collective ignorance that we derive a little hope.

We conclude our evening with a brief visit to their family on the outskirts of London, a family of the 1970s generation of émigrés, whose grown up children cannot speak Arabic, and whose grandchildren will not understand it.

As we compare notes, and find out who was whose neighbour in Baghdad, and who is living where and how they are finding it, there is a bitter sweet familiarity, all our stories are so similar, so many families have members of several generations living outside Iraq, some left in the 70s, others in the 80s, our generation left in the 90s and many left more recently.

Several of them are dotted around the Arab world, in Jordan, Syria, the UAE, and Egypt; on route they have passed though Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Libya.

What unites them all is that none of these countries have accepted them on a permanent basis, and so they live, work, bring up children while all the time planning, applying, saving, negotiating and waiting for somewhere else, Canada is the dream, Australia a close second choice.

The ultimate we all want for our children is “not to live what we lived through”, what we all want to leave them is security, not simply the absence of war, conscription, visits in the night, accidental bullets, or general mayhem, but the security of belonging beyond the exact duration of the job contract, the belonging that come with the right to settle, to live to have roots.

For cousins, thirty years after arriving in the UAE, the paperwork finally completed, and Canada beckons, thirty years of work, thirty years of investment; in time, effort energy and thought, time to retire, time for the children to start their lives, and time to move on for the last time.

For others, ten years after arriving in Amman, the papers finally arrive, the plane is booked, after ten years of work, ten years of investments in ten generations of graduates, and an additional five years of unpaid work, time to move on, time to settle elsewhere.

When exhausted and disillusioned we eventually find alternative “homes”, our children cannot understand why we try to keep something of Iraq alive in them, we try to convey the sense of the place, but they are accosted continuously by alternative imagery, we try to pass on the language, but they have picked up that we are not embraced by those who share the tongue, and we so fear they will be disadvantaged that we reward them most for their English, and finally we pass on the religion, perhaps the most vital link for some of us to pass on.

I wonder how much of this, for how many of them, will be worth passing on to the third generation.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 23:02 2 COMMENTS

saminkie said...
ldear 3eeraqimedic, since your post 1991, and you are really writing a posts that are really great. Did you ever thought of publishing them in a book? cause they really disearve to.

09 April 2008 14:42
3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Sami
thanks for visiting, and thanks for your kind words.
In a way we are all publishing much more than books.
Take care of yourself and stay safe

10 April 2008 06:56

Chained

2011-08-04T17:16:00.001-07:00

SATURDAY, 5 APRIL 2008

On a wrist recently returned from Amman
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 11:37 4 COMMENTS

Little Penguin said...
Do you think it could pass as a 50p coin?

It's beautiful.. if only such things were made available in London...

08 April 2008 02:18
3eeraqimedic said...
Little Penguin
It was I suppose the equivalent a nuss dinar, and the bracelet was on sale at the airport, It made me sad as do so many similar reminders.
08 April 2008 19:29

Abbas Hawazin said...
this is rubu3 dinar i think
12 April 2008 15:26

3eeraqimedic said...
He he Abbas
I was waiting for someone to put me right! trust you to be the one
12 April 2008 19:52

What lies behind your eyes

2011-08-04T17:15:00.000-07:00

SATURDAY, 29 MARCH 2008

But when all is seen and done
Fly on and on and on
Do not turn back
Do not return
I want my own blurred vision
Not what lies behind your eyes

I said I did not want to see what lay behind your eyes.
But like a pigeon returning with a message tied to its leg
The bird that flew returned
With images captured
With thanks to Sami of Colours of mind (http://saminkie.blogspot.com)
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 21:16 2 COMMENTS

Little Penguin said...
I think one day those message-carrying pigeons are going to carry us displaced Iraqis back home.. one by one.. from Willesden and Wembley and Kingsbury to 7ayy Al 3adl, 7ayy il muhandiseen, 7ayy il 7ewish, abo skheir.. home..

Regards
04 April 2008 03:09

3eeraqimedic said...
Little Penguin
Where there is life there is hope.

04 April 2008 22:37

Short spring

2011-08-04T17:14:00.000-07:00

THURSDAY, 27 MARCH 2008

I looked out of the tiny window, and turned to my brother sitting beside me “make sure your belt is fastened”. He scowled and mumbled something about sitting by the window, but did as he was told.

The instructions had been very clear “you take care of your brother, make sure you stay together; your father will be there to pick you up when you arrive”.

I felt very grown up sitting by the window as the plane started to taxi and then took of for the short flight southwards to Basra airport that warm February day, it was the first time we had flown alone, the spring holidays had started and we were going to see our father.

It felt like we went up and down on the same spot, the trip was over so quickly, and we came down the steps into the humid heat looking out for a familiar face in the crowds.

The drive home seemed longer than the flight, winding through roads, listening to the ongoing commentary and directions, statues, buildings, the river, the bridge, and the island across.

We stopped at the massive market place to pick up some essentials before finally reaching the old “English” house, close to the soft drinks factory that would be our base for the next two weeks.

We went out most evenings, even if briefly and only for a short walk by the riverside (in the days before the sandbags), but more often we went visiting, two families in particular and spent a night at their homes, playing in the garden, working up an appetite and devouring the meals of fish and rice with a bottle of the locally bottled Pepsi-cola.

During the day, I took charge of the rather neglected house, clearing and cleaning, and cooking my very first unsupervised meals, I managed to produce rather basic fare, and had to quickly pick up the art of cooking rice without draining it, as I had been unable to locate a colander.

But the real treat was at the end of the week, we had been invited to visit a special friend, and after driving for several hours we eventually completed the trip in two narrow boats, expertly handled by the young boy perched at the end, I sat stiffly in a boat whose edges were barely skimming the water surface, too scared to move my arms lest I tip the balance and end up underwater, my panic picked up by passing friends of our sailor who “accidentally” wobbled their boats dangerously close by, laughing loudly.

By the time we returned home it was pitch black and the roads virtually empty, and as is typical in times like these we had a burst tyre.

The adults got out to change it and we decided to stretch our legs, and wander around in the road.
A few minutes later I heard the metal gates screech behind me, and a smiling face framed in a white scarf peer out, beckoning me she started chatting, two glasses of something cold were handed to those working on the car, and we were invited inside.

By the time we had finished out tea and kleicha, the car was ready to go.

For much of the time we spent there during holidays, my father would proudly talk about his plans, once we got through final exams, we may move down, I would complete my studies and become a doctor, and then I was to be a brain surgeon!

Needless to say we didn’t move down, the flights stopped, and with them our visits, several of the people we visited are no longer with us, the one who eventually returned after several years across the river was never the same again, and I never did become a brain surgeon.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 15:57 0 COMMENTS

Light entertainment

2011-08-04T17:13:00.000-07:00

TUESDAY, 25 MARCH 2008

Tuesday evening entertainment comes courtesy of Al-Jazeera

After a long day at work, full of polite discussion that go nowhere, a long day of talks that hum along quietly it is refreshing to watch an amusing programme that has often been the subject of family games of charade, and even a you tube or two

I am talking of course of our trusty follicularly challenged Faisal with his unique Guinness book entry level verbal athletics, and his two guests chosen to be at extremes in opinion if not at each other’s throats.

Here is a programme that will often be interspersed with much hand waving, and fist shaking from the guests, and on much loved and repeatedly played back editions guests attempting to jump across the table and throttle each other, or noisily rip off their microphones and stride out in a gust of smoke.

Today’s episode was being recorded for the benifit of someone else, the two guests a Baathist ex-editor of Al Jamhooryia newspaper Salah Al Mukhtar, and across the table a young Lebanese speaking American called something or other Peres.

Billed an unmissable episode to mark the fifth anniversary of the disaster, in reality it proved an amusing and welcome release from the scenes of mayhem and blood shed that have been engulfing the country for the past few days.

Good old Faisal did his usual egging on of both with comments such as “but don’t you see the improvement, the whole world can see them” to one silently fuming side, and “what do you have to say to the poor Arab watching this whilst writhing under the injustice of their dictatorial governments, while all the time they ask why do you reserve your favours of liberation for only the Iraqis’ what about us” to the pale faced future ambassador.

Although it is always a great joy to witness someone have a good go at the “liberating forces, who are only in Iraq by invitation from the democratically elected government”, much of what was said in this “debate” was like a live version of the comment sections of some bloggers’ sites, with the American reciting from the good ole textbook of …drink oh people of Iraq from the rivers of freedom, the freedom of speech, the freedom of debate, the transparency, the elected government, participation in the political process, and the improvements visible all around in so many aspect of daily life for ordinary brave Iraqis working with their friends the Americans to build the great new world, and do not be distracted or disillusioned by the temporary “suffering” caused to you by those heinous terrorists.

His best comment though came at the very beginning of the programme as he listed the great strides the country had made since “liberation”, in all aspects especially the successes in sport.

I have not laughed this much for a long time.

POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 23:17 0 COMMENTS

Five Years Ago

2011-08-04T17:12:00.001-07:00

THURSDAY, 20 MARCH 2008

POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 00:35 1 COMMENTS
A&Eiraqi said...
We will not forgive
20 March 2008 07:43

A little history

2011-08-04T17:11:00.000-07:00

SUNDAY, 16 MARCH 2008

My natural instinct is to not put here anything incomplete, and if I do err to delete it, but on this occasion I will make an exception, I will write about a book I have yet to complete because I may never complete it at the rate I am going, because the timing is more significant than the full commentary, and because the parts I have read are more relevant to my current feelings than those I have not.

This is a book that has proved challenging to read on several levels.

Unlike the other books on Iraq I have read and commented on this is a massive 1300 plus pages, a scholastic study of over one hundred years of social history of a nation and people with sufficient detail for at least two PhD’s, in addition to the one obtained by the author for the first sections of this book, reading it is taxing as it is in many parts dry and factual, and in others repetitive and excessively individual centred.

For personal reasons also it was a challenge, I had sections of this book read out loud to me, and it was thrust upon me on several occasions and over a two-year period as a book I “must read”, advice I would have taken under normal circumstances were it not for the reasons given.

Since the familial exodus from Baghdad that has left only one member of our immediate family behind, several relatives have become obsessed with the documentation of the family tree, and within this book several members of one branch are mentioned, the most prominent even gets a photograph, and so a copy of this book was passed from one budding genealogist to the other and back.

The burden of more nationalistic, unattainably more prominent ancestors is heavy and I had shunned the idea of “finding out more about them” for a time.

Having read parts of this book, I accept how wrong it can be to reject a whole work to avoid one aspect of it.

So enough about me, what about the book?

Well someone whose writings I admire quotes it repeatedly, and many have likened its importance to that of Ali Alwardy’s works.

The book is divided into three “books”, the first and the one that I have read in most detail covers the wealthier classes over time periods preceding the republic, specifically 1921-1958, but by necessity draws on background and events dating from the mid nineteenth century that shaped these classes.
The landed are subdivided into, and separately described as one of five groups, the tribal Sheikhs, the “religious” Sadah, the official aristocrats, the merchants, and the ex-Sharifian officers.

The much more detailed second book which I am only half way through covers the history of the Iraqi communist party, divided into three parts, spanning roughly one decade each, and associated with the groups of Iraqis that shaped the party; beginning with the Armenian and Jewish influences through the 1930s, the persona and role of Fahd in the 1940s, and finally the influence of the Kurds in the 1950s.

The final book completes the story of the communist party and its replacement by the new wave of army Ba’athists and Free officers.

The source material is from the British public records, Iraqi police held records on individuals and parties, as well as personal conversations with a number of Iraqis, some ex-aristocrats living abroad, others communists serving in Iraqi prisons, one of whom asked the author how it could be possible for an American University post-grad to write an impartial book about communism, to which the author’s response in the preface is “In any historic work, there is history, but there is also always something of oneself, one if only unwittingly, bares one’s own narrowness of experience and one’s intellectual and temperamental inadequacies..” add to that the author was born in Jerusalem in 1926 and emigrated to America in 1948….. so readers of the book beware.

On the other hand for me reading this book, there were the recurrent memories of stories and tales from elderly relatives that I could now place in context, and a clearer understanding of how I have acquired my opinions and emotional responses to certain emotive triggers…..so readers of this post beware.

For the most part I found this book fascinating in the minutia, in the ability to bring to life the people behind the well known names we read about in our history classes, or heard cursed by family members, but in addition there is much detail of the lives of people I had never heard of, and most importantly the lives of the ordinary Iraqis.

The suffering and abuse, the monumental thievery, and decades of neglect during the eras of foreign rule, both direct Ottoman and British and indirect British rule during the years of monarchy, the worst of which were ultimately meted out by “our own”, the conditions of peasants and unskilled workers in the vast southern parts of the country living miserable lives while the Sheiks and Sadahs maintained their lifestyles of relative opulence,
“The sadness that was the life of the peasants was also in their songs
Mother, why have you brought me forth for injustice?
Except for me, the rain comes without clouds” p 141
And how ultimately the communist party came to be born in this deep dark bleak time.

The fact that this book was published originally in 1979 explains the somewhat premature designations of significance to events that shaped the “Iraqi National coherence”
It should be borne in mind that what is becoming the Iraqi community has also grown in crises, in moments of great danger and common suffering, in the tremors of agitated masses and their outbursts of anger; if this community in embryo will in the future hold together and maintain its separate identity, the uprising of 1920, the war of 1941, the Wathbah of 1948, the intifadah of 1952, and the revolution of 1958, though not free of divisive aspects will be seen as stages in the progress of Iraq towards national coherence. p 36

One tedious feature of this book is there is much detail of the repetitive tabular type, with divisions and re-divisions of everything from lands owned to moneys spent by groups and individuals according to class, origins, family name, but recurrently also their religion or sect.

It is curious how it seems everyone other than the middle class Baghdadis seemed to have been interested in such minutia in the 1970s, but then I suppose the details of the Arabian tribal systems where carefully studied many years before 1917, the wheels of empire indeed grind exceedingly slowly, but exceedingly finely.

On the other hand at the very beginning of the book the scene is set with a sobering table chronicling the calamities suffered by Baghdadis over centuries, mostly natural, but also inflicted by our neighbours from hell. p15

Year Event
1621 Famine
1623 Hundreds of thousands of Sunnis massacred and thousands of others sold into slavery by Persians
1633 Flood
1635 Plague
1638 General slaughter by the Turks, about 30,000 victims, mostly Persians
1656 Flood
1689 Famine and plague
1733 Persian siege; more than 100,000 died of starvation, pestilence.
1777-8 Civil war in Baghdad
1786 Flood, failure of harvest; famine, civil strife
1802-03 Plague most of the people of Iraq annihilated
1822 Plague, flood
1831 Plague, flood, siege, famine, the population of Baghdad dwindled from about 80,000 to about 27,000 souls.
1877-8 Plague, famine.
1892 Flood
1895 Flood

Having lived in what Baghdad came to be within a relatively short period of time with a combination of self rule and peace, just before the recent waves of wars and destruction this table actually gave me hope, however the overall feeling from my reading of this book so far is that in so many aspects the description of people, their way of thinking and sequences of events in times not very long gone could so easily be used to describe my country today.

Whether in the somewhat typical Iraqi mistrust of people in power, which we manage to infect even our visitors with
“Every man that is employed makes the most he can of his appointment, and secures his utmost beforehand from the wreck he feels conscious he still floats on even in the full tide of his prosperity” William Heude a voyage up the Persian Gulf 1817 p216

And I am pretty sure many Iraqis will either share, or know someone who shares these views about past or current ministers.
“Under Faisal I the established families, found it difficult to suffer with equanimity the abrupt ascent to influence of men whom they regarded as upstarts. “Who is so and so that he should become a minister or a mutasarrif? His father was only a sergeant or a grocer” p 322

The interdependence and competition between cities and tribes is illustrated
“In a sense the life principles of the cities and tribes in Iraq’s river valleys were mutually contradictory. To be more concrete, the existence of powerful tribes was as a rule a concomitance of weak cities. Inversely the growth of the cities involved the decline of the tribes”. p24

And the precedent of reliance on tribal connections when law and order is lost in the cities.
“To depend on the tribe” wrote in 1910 one of Baghdad’s deputies to the Ottoman parliament, “is a thousand times safer than depending on the government, for whereas the latter defers or neglects repression, the tribe, no matter how feeble it may be, as soon as it learns that an injustice has been committed against one of its members readies itself to exact vengeance on his behalf” p 21

I was intrigued to find such a longstanding difference of opinion on the merits of tribalism in Iraq
The ex-Sharifian officers or at least some of them had military solutions for the backwardness in the tribal country: 1910 ” As long as the government will not interfere in the private life of the inhabitants and concern itself with their lodging, with their food even, as long as they will not be led by force and against their wishes towards progress like soldiers, there will be here neither prosperity nor civilization. They must be led and with a strong hand.321.
Despite the fact that a diplomatic King Faisal apposed this view, it is fair to say that there have been, and remain many who would support it.

The parts of history in this book that I found most interesting where in the details of the British occupation, the long-term pre-occupation infiltration, and the manner of thinking and influencing used by them for decades.
The commercial ascendancy of the English had long been in preparation. The groundwork had been laid by the East India Company, whose agents were seen in the port of Basra as early as 1640, although it was not until about a century later that the company succeeded in establishing a firm foothold in the country. In Iraq its weight became considerable from about 1775, when even the armed vessels owned by the pasha of Baghdad were protected and captained by Englishmen and curiously enough flew the British flag! p 236

Maintaining armies of occupation however is a costly matter, and it is much easier to manage, control and pit people against each people, particularly if you can pigeonhole them.
The British accustomed as they are to the class system, and eager to repay those who had been supportive of them entrusted much power in the hands of the locally grown versions of “nobility”:
“The longer the tribal system can be preserved” remarked one British political officer in 1918, “the better, and when at last it fails from natural causes, it is to be hoped that..no low-born Baghdadi will be permitted to dance prematurely and indecently on its grave” p 87

The policy of separating tribesmen from townsmen was carried to the extent of planning for special residential school for the sons of tribal Shaikhs on the lines of Gordon College at Khartum or the chiefs’ college in India. Boys of this class read a 1918 British report, should not be sent to urban schools to herd with townsmen and be corrupted by the manifold vices of an Iraq city, nor should they associate with those whom their parents regard as inferiors.

In addition to their trust in the “nobility” the British, at least indirectly were happy with most of those whose power depended on their religious positions:
The revolt of 1920 failed to rid the country of alien power, however the English continued to rule in the next decade on account of the inadequacy of their financial resources by indirect means, and even though the Sadah of Shamyia suffered for their rebellion, the Sadah stratum as a whole now gained politically. Thus in the period of the mandate from 1921 when upon the initiative of the English the monarchy was instituted and Faisal of Arabia raised to the throne, till 1932, when the effective internal control of the country passed to his hands, 9 of 13 appointments to the premiership and 35 of the other 113 cabinet seats went to the Sadah. p175

Maybe the difference in emphasis in carving up the people on basis of religion between the British and the Americans is a result of different times and circumstances, or maybe it is a genuine choice of policy, but the British were clearly not averse to the idea of maximising religious differences for their own advantage:
“I have” wrote the British Civil Commissioner of Iraq in 1918, “always regarded active support of the Jewish commercial community as a potential asset of great political value and have done my best to demonstrate to them that the fruit of our intentions in this country will be palatable and beneficial to them, more so perhaps than to any other class” p 247

In 1927 when the leader of a Shia inclined party opened a fierce attack on king Faisal and the government in their paper, the articles were calculated to provoke communal animosity and embitter the feelings between the Shia and Sunnis, they dwelt upon and exaggerated past conflicts and old grievances, it was made clear in a British intelligence report that His Excellency the High Commissioner is supporting the Shia agitation” whilst at the same time the Sunni Ulama began discussing the possibility of a republic, British intelligence report would lead us to believe that this was under the influence of articles appearing in the British press, and lo and behold a group of Basra mallak’s revived an old demand for a separate Basra under British protection the promoters of this movement insinuated that their cause was supported by the premier who was especially favoured by the British government.

The Ikhwan of Najd, launched repeated attacks on Iraq, precisely on those occasions when the Iraqis or their government would not bend to British wishes, that is in 1922, when the king stood against the “Mandate”, in 1924, when a powerful anti-treaty apposition developed within the Constituent Assembly, and lastly in 1929 when the British government requested that the cost of stationing the British air force in Iraq be borne by Iraq, and that ultimate
In 1929 the secretary of state for the colonies directed the high commissioner “to exercise his judgement in using the present situation on the Iraq-Nejd frontier to emphasize the necessity for the continuance of British support and dependence of Iraq upon such support” p 329

Where the English-speaking occupiers do agree however is in the “coincidental” connections between which-bit-of-Iraq-stays-in-Iraq-/-treaties-/-long term military agreements and that insignificant stuff oil
The continued union of the Mosul Wilayah with Iraq, which had earlier that year been tied to the granting of oil rights to the nucleus of what came to be known as the Iraq Petroleum Company, was now made also contingent upon the extension of the period of the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty and of its subsidiary Financial and Military agreement from four to twenty-five years, the oil rights were conceded on 14 March 1925, but to the new condition Faisal it would seem demurred though eventually he gave way. p 189

Although as a rule those who were seen to be unduly friendly with the British were treated with the contempt they deserved, it was on occasions profitable to back the policies of the foreign occupier
“The Jaryans chiefs of the Abu Sultans a section of the Zubaid tribe, to cite one example, had begun with next to nothing. In 1920 they did not have “even a piece of furniture to their name and slept in sacks”, but by 1958 they had accumulated 183,722 dunums of land in the province of Hillah and Kut. p112

I have in the past recommended books about Iraq to non-Iraqis wanting to have a better understanding of us, on this occasion I am doing the reverse, for any Iraqi who still thinks kindly (or even denies) our new occupation, read this book, at this very moment many many Americans and others somewhere are writing hosts of secret reports about individuals, groups, and officials, and in how ever many years it takes when they have eventually all left, and thirty years after that when the reports become public there will be a PhD project for someone to write up, and another to compare the outcomes.

In a book of this scope it will be very easy for twenty different people to find twenty different angles, and quote only the sections they choose, for one particular person who has always argued that Iraq is doomed for one reason above all others, and that it is our eternal fate to pay back for events that preceded the death of Mohamed’s grandson by many years I will leave you with this little gem:
We do not desire read a project circulated privately in 1910 among selected Young Turks, and authorised by the Berlin branch of the Allgemein Judische Kolonisations Organisation that the immigration and settlement should be confined specially to one part of the Ottoman dominions but that the Jewish immigrants should be distributed to different parts……..
The parts of Turkey, which seem most favourable for our present enterprise are Shatt-ul-Arab, Anatolia, Syria, and Palestine…although Iraq is large enough to contain ten times as many Jews as there are in the world, t…. We can promise and assure the attachment and friendship of the Jews towards the new Jewish emigration centre and towards the Government, which protects them, for we have the means of bringing about these feelings…287

I will soldier on reading this book, and if I can muster the energy will update this post at some point.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 21:01 0 COMMENTS

Fly for me

2011-08-04T17:10:00.000-07:00

WEDNESDAY, 5 MARCH 2008

I shut the door
Turn the key
Start the engine
And escape

With the first notes
I hum along
And sing
Louder and louder
Blocking the noise
Blurring the now

In the sky above
A swarm of birds

Fly home for me

Between the clouds
And the planes
Fly in silently
Unannounced
Unnoticed

Cross the borders
The barbed wire
That I cannot
Or no longer want to cross

Enter the land
Jump the queues
And questions
The inspectors
With berets
And chains

Fly and see for me

Places I cannot
Or no longer hope to see

Riversides and
Bridges
Buildings and
Gardens

Rest a while for me

On the wires overhead
As the sun turns red
Between the Narinj trees

Listen for me

To the hum of the crickets
And the singing of the frogs

Your wings are weary
Your eyes drooping
But just before you shut them

Look down once for me

Through the window pane
In soft putty of a corner
A jewel was once drowned

Take a peak into a room
I will never again see

White and green tiles
Cracked so many times
White surfaces
Never finished
A sliding cupboard door
Jammed still

Curl up tight
Hided your face
Drift off
And wake the next day

To the sound
Of dawn prayers
That I no longer hear, or
No longer want to hear

Ruffle your feathers
And call upon your sisters
To join you

Under the swing
Between the chairs
Are crumbs from the evening

Now just before you go
Outside the window
Between the mint and parsley
Under the leaking tap

Breathe in for me

The scent of
The wet ground

But when all is seen and done
Fly on and on and on
Do not turn back
Do not return
I want my own blurred vision
Not what lies behind your eyes
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 23:08 0 COMMENTS

Our Mum

2011-08-04T17:03:00.000-07:00

SUNDAY, 2 MARCH 2008

“This Tuesday it is my turn”
Those words filled us all with glee.

They called themselves the Tuesday group, they took it in turns, meeting every week at one of their houses, they would talk, exchange magazines, recipes, gossip, news, clothes, books and films, always leaving their husbands behind and usually accompanied by the younger children.

Like all such arrangements, it had started as a simple small group meeting over a coffee and a slice of cake, but in time and with an increasing variety of people of very variable backgrounds and wealth, the get-togethers became a showcase of homes, designs, and individual’s abilities and flair.

Whoever’s turn it was would prepare her own specialties, exquisite little samples of cuisine, occasionally made from ingredients that were difficult to get hold of, ingredients they needed to save up for, search high and low for, order in advance, store very carefully, or if all else failed ingeniously replace by alternatives from Shorja.

Over the years they included Danish, German, Greek, and Mexican tasters.

When it was our turn there would be profiteroles.

I would watch as the dough was mixed in the large glass bowl.
Once cooked and cooled it was my task to fill them individually with the cream, careful not to damage the perfect spherical shape.

A variety of other finger foods would come and go, and in the end the desert would arrive.

The largest green and white serving plate, piled high with a pyramid of the little balls would be brought to the table, and with it a jug filled with the heated chocolate sauce, when the glistening sauce was drizzled over the pyramid it would warm the shells just slightly, but spare the inner chilled cream.

Everyone would be impressed.

By the evening, when everyone had left, there would often be leftovers to clear away, but rarely if ever was there a single profiterole.

I very rarely speak of my mother here

Sometime not so long ago, the subject was taboo.

I have always thought of myself as Iraqi, but in fact that has only ever been half of the truth.

A half nurtured for over twenty years by my father, a staunch nationalistic believer in everything Iraqi.

And so it was, I looked the part, I spoke the part, and in my eyes at least I also behaved the part, at some point it became vital to be absolutely and totally that part.

Somewhere in my teens when my behavior was being watched more carefully by relatives, friends and neighbors, waiting for the inevitable poor outcome of the “inferior” upbringing.

Possibly after Sahar was unceremoniously placed with her family in a truck and driven to the border to return to the country of her ancestral roots.

Or when it was decreed that all those of my mother’s ilk must choose, denounce what you used to be or leave.

Birth countries didn’t understand the situation, and many saw the loss of nationality through marriage as “your own bloody fault for marrying the natives”.

Many left, never to return.

But a combination of nationalism on one hand, and motherhood on the other proved a blinding, catastrophically powerful force, and some shrugged their shoulders, wiped their tears, and handed over their priceless passports in return for the worthless Eagle embossed green prison badges.

Even after I left, for the first few years after I arrived here
It seemed that to acknowledge my mother’s nationality would be to undermine my efforts, any success would be put down to her, any failure down to my father.

Years,
Motherhood and
Reunion
Brought realization
And appreciation

My Mum

I now comprehend the extent of your isolation in the early days, without a common language, without friends or family

I now see why you needed to prove to the disapproving that you were worthy, and why you took on a new face, a new name, even a new faith

I feel small realizing how you allowed so much of yourself to be eclipsed in order to protect us from confusion

I cannot imagine how difficult it must have been, childbirth, illness, and injury, the unfamiliar heat, the mosquitoes, and all those flies

I understand why you asked everyone to bring back little tastes of home, a certain type of tea, a chocolate drink, and your gravy

I am grateful that you stayed up all night preparing a special dress, that you only realized was needed when someone read you the note, late at night.

I am grateful that you tried hard to learn the language to help us with our homework

I am amazed by your courage and strength as you walked miles, and traveled often alone from city to city, and across borders repeatedly for your children

I am so sorry we teased you by calling you Youm rather than Mum.

I am sorry we sniggered when you listened to the Queen on Christmas day

I am sorry you had to go from baking profiteroles, and fruit flavored loaves to baking chicken-feed flat breads on a kerosene heater

I am sorry I could do nothing but wipe your tears when you couldn’t be with your dying mother, because you had no male companion to travel with

I am sorry that our weddings were not what you had dreamt of

And I am sorry that when you arrived, with a family, full of dreams, you flew in to the shining lights of Baghdad, but when you left, you were alone, in tears, and trekking across the desert.

But most of all I am sorry to see you grappling with your birth country, when you eventually returned, to find it had changed so much in thirty years that it no longer felt like home

It took me a long time to accept

That we were so alike

We both made the choices

That made us foreigners

And it took me a long time to realize

That I could never be

As great a Mum as you have always been

I dedicate this post to all your friends, the honorary “Iraqi” Mums

To auntie Doreen; who gave us our jabs when we were small, and on whom we wished all manner of childish horrors.

To auntie Sally who negotiated her way across the city to help a stranger in need, and came to my birthday to meet my Mum

To Sandra who persevered for the sake of her children, despite everything, including sharing her home with a second wife

To Barbara who despite all the horrors she went through never ever stopped remembering the good days in Baghdad

To Mary who succumbed only after everyone was out and safe

To Sybil who put her own health on hold, and life at risk

And to the friend I never met

To Margaret, who paid the highest possible price

For staying with her family in Iraq
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 08:49 4 COMMENTS

saminkie said...
It was so difficult for me to comment on this post, but I got to comment, cause my parents also are of different nationalities. It was so brave and clever from you to write this post. Am sure it was so difficult, cause am just trying to comment and find it so difficult. Dear 3eeraqimedic it has many advantages and some disadvantages. My mum suffered also, but am not sure that I can talk about that. Any way thank you dear 3eeraqimedic for this very important post which I read 3 times, till today. thank you.
15 March 2008 09:48
saminkie said...
I lived in Algeria for a while, and saw how some people got dual belonging to Algeria and France. Either they got a parent from one and the other from the other, or they were born by 2 parents from one country but living in the other, for example tink of Zidan, the football player, or Alber Camus, the novilist, or Faudel, a singer, and many many others. many elderly Algerians get retirment saleries from France. Many got scars of wounds while they were defending france in war.
Am more familiar with that cause my mom is Algerian.
15 March 2008 10:02

saminkie said...
Edward saed said that those with dual belonging see life in two perspective.
15 March 2008 10:04

3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Sami
I am sure there is a psychological term for it, but the English saying goes "it takes one to know one", and hence your understanding and empathy for this post and all the turmoil that lies beneath the words, yes there are advantages, our collective survival is one, but there have long been disadvantages many of them not visible.
On a separate note we have relatives living in Algeria of mixed Iraqi/Algerian parentage, and I must say I have often wished my French was up to a standard to talk with them, because we struggle to understand each other's Arabic.
take care
16 March 2008 10:17

On Whose Orders? BBC's Panorama investigates

2011-08-04T17:02:00.002-07:00

MONDAY, 25 FEBRUARY 2008

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama

This was a thirty-minute summary, and predicted outcome of an ongoing legal battle between lawyers defending six survivors of British prisoner camps in Basra in 2004, and the British MOD.

The programme carried out its own investigations over twelve months into the cases, including conducting interviews with several Iraqi prisoners captured by the army on 14 May 2004 and taken back to Camp Abu Naji, and their harrowing stories of sandbaged and handcuffed friends also taken prisoners who where taken alive and later beaten, tortured and killed that night by the British.

Although most of the images being submitted in the legal case were “too graphic” for broadcast, the descriptions include gouged eyes, neck injuries consistent with hanging or wire strangulation and mutilation including penile amputation in a teenager.

Perhaps not surprisingly the programme finds “no proof that prisoners died at the hands of their captors and concludes that the case being brought by solicitors Phil Shiner and Martyn Day represents the most extreme interpretation of a troubling but confusing incident.”

It did at least publicly raise questions about the methods of torture that no-one disputes took place including the so called “five techniques” hooding, stress positions, constant noise, sleep deprivation and being starved of food and water, which where apparently banned in 1972 by the then government of Ted Heath.

There is even an interview with a “nice British Soldier” who was injured in the so called Danny boy checkpoint battle at the time and sat “smoking fags” while a young injured Iraqi boy was dragged along, punched, and kicked, and then had this head repeatedly submerged in a nearby ditch. He survived but is deaf.

“Makes you wonder why we didn’t just shoot him” is the young hero’s’ final thought.

Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General during the time was asked how it was that the ban had been side-stepped, his response was:
"There is no question of anyone in my office, let alone me, advising me that it was legitimate to interrogate whilst hooding or using sleep deprivation or any of those techniques. Full stop."
When asked why it was happening despite this, he said:
"I think the Ministry of Defence are probably the responsible department to understand with the army what actually took place, to learn the lessons from it to make sure it never happens again."

The MOD's response to the program

DNews/Personnel
Dated 20 Feb 08

MOD response to second Panorama letter

Dear Callum

Thank you for your letter of 18 February. There is
little for us to add to our earlier response.

Given the sensitivities and the nature of the allegations
that you make, we must insist upon the following
statements (attributable to an MOD spokesperson) being
used in full in your programme.

On 20 May 2004 the Special Investigation Branch of the Royal Military Police (RMP(SIB)) began an investigation into allegations of mistreatment and mutilation during the incident at Vehicle Checkpoint Danny Boy and, following that incident, at Camp Abu Naji. The investigation lasted 10 months and involved the interviewing of over 150 British Personnel and 50 Iraqi nationals.

The RMP SIB has no factual evidence or complaint regarding a 14-year old boy in connection with the incident, which occurred at or near VCP Danny Boy or at Camp Abu Naji. There is no evidence at this time within the original RMP
(SIB) investigation to support the allegation that a boy was transported back to Abu Naji.

6 of the 9 detainees were sentenced to 5 years’ imprisonment and one was transferred to the juvenile court. At this time the RMP (SIB) are not in possession of any official Iraqi court details pertaining to any challenge to those proceedings.

There is currently no evidence to support claims of alleged mutilation of bodies at or near VCP Danny Boy, or of torture or execution at Camp Abu Naji.

The allegations with regard to Hamid Al Sweady and Haidar Al Lami are part of an ongoing RMP (SIB) investigation and judicial review.

The RMP (SIB) conducted a preliminary review into the allegations contained in the book “Condor Blues”. They found no credible evidence of wrongdoing to justify any further investigation.

The RMP is currently looking into new evidence and hopes to interview those who have made the allegations as soon as possible. Once the interviews
are complete, the RMP will be in a position to decide
whether to reopen their investigation.

MOD Press Office

You see that is how to do it

Commit whatever atrocity because it is war and you are angry

Don’t worry too much about leaving evidence of any sort (images, video footage, mutilated bodies) because there are always reasons why it is inadmissible, un-analysable, or potentially caused by natural causes “like bodies being stamped on because there was no ground to walk on”

Never admit guilt

Allow a thorough and long investigation over several years during which you question hundreds of people

If you have to accept any blame remember the rotten apple (or as one interviewee puts it the apple orchard)

And promise to make sure it never happens again

That is the difference between justice for the “civilized” and “justice” for the uncivilised people
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 21:43 0 COMMENTS

Not Guilty / Guilty

2011-08-04T17:02:00.001-07:00

THURSDAY, 14 FEBRUARY 2008

I read a comment
And those that follow
I know even before
You ask the question

Centuries of experience
Destruction
Unpunished
What did I expect?

Why do I do this?
Why not just ignore?

Armed with just
A sense of injustice
Arguing against
The experts in argument
Discussion
That alters no opinion

With two “versions” for everything
Nothing is ever real
Lies repeated until
They are the truths
Excuses repeated until
They became the cause
Blame placed elsewhere
While they just float on air

Justification to allow
Clouding to continue
Other opinion producing
Attack and ridicule
Intimidation and threat

No they were not guilty
Your death
Like that of your country
Had started before you were born
If killed, than by your own people
If not them than surely by your own hands

When self preservation
Of the powerful means
Everyone else is worthless

When the reasonable
Are talked into defeat

Then cry not when
The only ones who stand
Are those whose convictions
Come with no fear

“The soldiers had never been trained to deal with this type of situation; there was lawlessness all around, no police, no judiciary and criminals released from prisons onto the streets.
“The vast majority of British servicemen, particularly British soldiers involved, behaved impeccably and with great courage”

On the other hand, when their own captains go to "war" they must never die because if they do, someone must be blamed, and someone must "pay".
On this occasion at least the verdict was "guilty"
"He said sending troops into a combat zone without basic kit was "unforgivable and inexcusable" and "a breach of trust between the soldiers and those who govern them".
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 09:00 0 COMMENTS

And Treason

2011-08-04T17:01:00.001-07:00

MONDAY, 4 FEBRUARY 2008

They have different backgrounds, different ideas and different direction, but they all share this one recurrent stance.

In response to any question, statement or data they react in the same way:
It is not our / their fault,
It was inevitable because of others that came before,
It is all the fault of others, who came later,
It was and always will be worth it.

I observe silently thinking to myself;
Do these people really believe what they say?
Is it possible that we are all totally wrong and the information we have is absolutely untrue?
Or are they in some extreme state of denial?
And if so how? and why?

The specific people I am referring to are traitors, two specific people from relatively well to do families, Iraqi education system graduates, whose sense of allegiance to all that is American / British overrides any other emotion when presented with evidence of the extend of suffering inflicted on ordinary Iraqis since 1991.

And as is the norm for a sleepless 3eeraqimedic I go hunting for the answers in psychology, many things come up, but the first thing I read remains the most fascinating, reading it as I do i.e. ignoring the bits that irritate me, I still found it made some sense, these are selected extracts from a paper written by a professor of psychiatry in 2002 titled:

Conflict, Treason and Terrorism. An Attempt at Psychoanalytic Understanding by Humberto Nagera MD.

It starts with a definition of treason:

“n. Betrayal of allegiance to one’s sovereign or country, as by yielding vital secrets or aiding an enemy in time of war”. The definition of traitor is: 1. One who betrays another's trust or is false to an obligation or duty. 2. One who commits treason.

The concept of treason implies that the treacherous act constituted a significant, departure from expected behaviour in a given situation, it includes that the treacherous act causes or could cause significant distress, damage, etc, to individuals, to the self and/or to generally accepted principles, as well as to nations.

It similarly includes the idea, that such behaviour would be considered unacceptable, highly undesirable or even outrageous, by a large majority of people who share a similar cultural background with the traitor.
The implication that follows is that the act of treason will automatically call for the condemnation of the relevant social group.

The writer goes on to concentrate on so-called major forms of treachery, which he concludes can only occur in individuals with “certain constellation of conflicts, or, specific (and quite complex) forms of psychopathology with very idiosyncratic developmental characteristics, dynamics, defence activities and personality traits”.

1: Personality: Some sort of narcissistic fault seems to be a sine qua non element in the personality of the malignant traitor.

2: Ego: One of the characteristics of the hallmark of the traitor is a good, intact and not infrequently excellent ego.

The genuine traitor is prone to be narcissistically injured, the narcissistic elements in their personalities are clearly discernible and visible as the cause of these injuries as are the attempts, maladaptive or not to restore their narcissistic integrity or, in other words, a good feeling about themselves.

We then go on to Oedipus; well you clearly cannot have anything remotely interesting wrong with you without this complex playing a part

The would-be "traitor" reaches the Oedipus conflict handicapped by his narcissistic lags. Specific for them, is an unsatisfied wish for the father's love, attention and admiration, that for various reasons they do not seem able to obtain. Thus, a tormentuos and ambivalent attitude toward the father “who does not think much of them”, or “does not pay them enough attention” or simply and truly does not care for them is quite a common complaint and an important part in the dynamics of the traitor. Generally, as one would expect by the time the traitor is an adult he reactively and defensively may think poorly of the father or see him as weak or worthless, a man of little accomplishment or value.

Well I guess this could apply to a large proportion of the population, but it takes more than just an unloving father…..

because of the earlier failure of the mother-child interaction to help him regain a stable narcissistic feeling, that the figure of the father as the possible “restorer or healer" of the narcissistic injuries becomes all-important.

I should have guessed the mother would be to blame

In this type of psychopathology the father, for the above reasons, is seen as omnipotent and omniscient and as the only promise of relief. Given that this basic fault cannot be corrected in reality by all of the father's admiration, given that this type of child is highly prone to narcissistic injury through any real or imagined neglect, he is soon disappointed in him. From that moment onwards the father (and later by extension the fatherland) becomes the subject of a sordid discontent. He is seen as unfair, unjust to his children, unwilling to recognize their merits, to soothe their pains, to restore their well being, in short, to give them their dues (retranslate this in your minds into complains about society social ills).

Well now we are talking, here it does start to look a familiar, that terrible father and the heinous fatherland that deprived us of our rightful dues…

The reinforcement of these hostile and destructive feelings that comes from the positive Oedipus complex seals the fate of the father (potentially the fatherland) and the chi1d. He will be forced into the path of revenge and, since his unconscious hate knows no limits, sooner or later, in one form or another, he will attempt to destroy the father. The act of treason will become the means to his revenge and to the symbolic destruction of the father.

Well revenge from a hideous “father” I can understand but why destroy everything and everyone in your path, at this point it starts to get a little more complicated and the mother gets dragged in again

But there is a significant difference in the traitor's psychology that makes his Oedipus complex somewhat unique. For him it is not enough to gain the affection of the mother at the expense of the father, to surpass him in her affection, while the death wishes are normally kept strictly confined to the realm of fantasy, in the case of the malignant traitor this destructive fantasy must be acted out in real life just as the conquest of the mother is acted out in real life, though in a displaced form.

But this is by no means the only important difference. Perhaps more important is the fact that the rage towards the father must include the simultaneous damage, sell out, or symbolic destruction of that which the child thought to be most important to the father, that is, the father's wife, or in other words, the child's own mother (and by extension the motherland). It is thus a doubly vicious blow that must be accorded the "father", usually in the form of its symbolic substitutes in the case of traitors.

What I am saying is that the Oedipus complex can and is re-enacted in a large variety of scenarios. There is for example one's country as representative of the mother who is felt as possessed, controlled and in the hands of the politicians in power, presidents and prime ministers, who thus become surrogate father figures.

Sort of revenge from politicians or surrogate father by destruction of country they control, does this imply that traitors at some level think they will harm the politicians by harming the country i.e. that the politicians care? And it must also mean that in some way the country has become reduced to the “size” of the politicians?

And now to the bit that got me started; how someone can blithely say that hundreds of thousands of deaths are either “worth it for the better good” or actually “caused by everyone and anyone, other than the people and actions that I support and continue to support” and it is a combination of “externalization. projection, rationalization and intellectualization”

Typically, the genuine traitor is generally unaware of the true nature of his intentions, or his actual treachery when it occurs. Though obvious to everyone else, in most cases he is totally oblivious of his behaviour and the consequences of the situation he may well have created. This incredible feat is due to the amount of denial they use in combinations with other defences. In fact, the genuine traitor manages to believe that his behaviour is fully justified. Indeed, they see it as the only honourable behaviour left to somebody who thinks of himself as they do, as highly principled individuals trying to correct "injustices,” or stop the “unprincipled behaviour of others", or to correct what are considered by them ”intolerable social i11s”. As the result they are led to idealize, with the help of many rationalizations and intellectualizations, socio-political regimes that are in fact paradigmatic of those evils that they mean to correct.

Page, Leitch and Knightley, in their 1968 book, Philby, The Spy Who Betrayed A Generation, (which accounts for the lives and exploits of the three British traitors, Philby, Burgess and Macleen) stated: “essentially they were moved by a quasi-religious faith: they believed the Soviet Union was somehow cleaner, purer and better than their own country because it claimed to have adopted Communism. Like religious zealots in many ages before, they would justify everything in their careers—treachery, cruelty, even murder--by pointing to the cause.

Indeed, one gets the distinct impression that the potentially lethal psychological structures and conflicts that characterize the personality of some of these individuals, is more easily actualized when a social, philosophical, political or religious vehicle is found, offering the opportunity to create such "idealizations."
Another no less important component of the hallmark of the personality of the traitor is the direct consequence of the generous use made of externalization and projection. Deep down the traitors are fearful individuals. They can in many cases show a cool and calm demeanour, but deep down, and in their fantasy life, they are enormously suspicious of everybody else's intentions vis a vis them.

But not all people are equally suspect; imagine that you can find people who genuinely, or intentionally approach you with very similar ideas and “ideals”

First, there is the gradual cathexis in the most intense manner of a group of highly idealized, abstract ideas though generally quite distorted and deformed. To this is added the second factor, that is, at some point and in some cases he joins others, either overtly or covertly that are similarly devoted to the "cause."
It is my opinion that this could explain what we see happening in the case of the "genuine malignant traitor”. Thus, they substitute more or less extensive parts of their superego standards by those of the new “leader” which in any given case may be an individual, an ideology or even more important a combination of both.
And finally we have a set of psychological rewards for the action that removes all the simmering tensions

These processes are facilitated by certain predisposing factors in the make-up of the personality of the genuine traitor. First, consider the inordinate disappointment in the father and the concomitant hate. There is here a peculiar in-built structural conflict between introjects that are acquired from a person that is marked simultaneously to be betrayed and possibly destroyed. This perhaps creates some sort of lack of stability in this type of introjects and in some form facilitates its substitution under appropriate conditions by a radically different set of introjects.

Yet the new introjects change this situation in important ways. It is factors like these that explain not only the changes observed but also the remarkable stability that some of the new introjects acquire.

So what it takes is
A personality damaged by real or perceived rejection by the symbolic father “the politician in power”, a defect in the personality at a young age distorting the relation with the symbolic mother, or the “motherland”, the gradual development of resentment against the “father”, associated with the need to damage the “mother” as part of the revenge, and finally finding the right group who can nurture and help one externalise, project, rationalize and intellectualise (and oh boy do they intellectualise) this destructive behaviour, a group of either like minded persons, or those well versed in grooming, who hunt in packs, searching for young potential recruits to the “cause”, with every destructive action there is a sense of increased self worth, which is amplified by all the praise from the supporting band.

I must say the traitor I have had the misfortune of knowing personally had at the very least the family background, and the group of “groomers” that somewhat explain her final actions.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 08:09 0 COMMENTS

Envy,

2011-08-04T17:00:00.001-07:00

SUNDAY, 3 FEBRUARY 2008

Long ago
I wished
I was a boy

I envied you
Young
Special
The only “one”

More space
More time
More money
Than sense

You erred
Forgiven
Again and again

You struggled
Failed
Again and again

Not yet eighteen
Decked in green
Trained and moved
Again and again

One of “them”
Front line fodder

Disposable
Hungry
Shrinking
Before us

Scarred
By the scenes

Abandoning
For the orders

And cursed
All the way home

You came back
Araz
And my envy
Did not

Araz was our neighbour
He was killed in 1991
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 10:43 0 COMMENTS

Oil,

2011-08-04T16:59:00.001-07:00

SATURDAY, 2 FEBRUARY 2008

I am not sure how I had managed to avoid them for so long, probably parental overprotection.
I had been too young to comprehend when Jidoo died and, was not taken along to funerals with parents during my youth.

The first funeral or fat7a I attended alone was in college, she had been a lecturer, her daughters distant relatives, and close friends, I had been aware of her illness for some time, and although I had been really upset when she died, it had not come as a shock.

This time was different.

This time the death had been unexpected, and although the direct cause of death could be called a heart ailment, in reality it had been caused by so much more, the person a closer relation, and the time altogether altered.

I was home for a few days, maybe only my second visit home since it had started, there was still no telephone line and I had been unaware of the event until I arrived.

Somehow or other people managed to get the news transmitted, people drove or cycled across Baghdad to tell others, who passed on the information by word of mouth, and so on in ripples and waves, they had also managed to get word out, both his daughter and son had returned.

Unsure how many people or indeed who was going to be able to attend, the area had been mobilised and neighbours rallied together to prepare, two houses would be hosting the visitors, the men in one, the women in another, the whole process taking up everyone’ time, and effort, the distraction dampening the sounds and scenes, delaying the inevitable emptiness and pain that would follow.

The doors between the two reception rooms were opened, and the resulting L shaped space filled with seats, in the centre the women, his sisters, daughters, and wife receiving those who came to visit, and the trays with bitter coffee passed quietly around.

As N probed people for stories, I sat in the corner listening to the conversations, the trips people had made to get here, the names of relatives lost, the damage to peoples’ property and the descriptions of similar times seen in Beirut.

Eventually the details of how it had happened, how frantic the days had been, how traumatised he was by what he had seen, by what had happened, the lift out of work, rushing up the six flights of stairs to inspect the damage, a life’s worth of work gone within a few days, and how he was wrecked in the middle of the wreckage.

As we made our way towards his home, someone pointed to the houses nearby, and their walls.

As I entered Baghdad, from the distance I had seen the thick black clouds, blocking the sunshine as they moved, but the black rain they brought had all fallen before I returned.

Everyone had seen it, everyone had felt it’s stickiness, and everyone had spent days cleaning the walls of their homes trying to remove it.

Uncle M’S house was covered in white plaster, as we turned the corner and it came into sight, I could see.

Sharing in the family’s mourning, streaked and grey, the front gate alone had been spared (or maybe it alone had been amenable to cleaning), the black oily stains clinging to the walls, our own personal curse, a dark reminder of the weeks before, and a harbinger of the years to follow.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 09:51 0 COMMENTS

The last prayer

2011-08-04T16:58:00.001-07:00

THURSDAY, 24 JANUARY 2008

We worked in shifts of sorts

Three days on call, three days off duty, it was the easiest way to work the system with the shortages in petrol and the unreliability of public transport, the fewer trips we made the better.

As one team arrived there would be a hand over, unlike the usual handover of inpatients, our handovers consisting mainly of a resume of events in Baghdad, which bridges were still standing, which roads still open, where else had been flattened.

The morning duties were fairly light, very few people turned up, and after a while we'd drift back to our on call room and switch on the radio trying to tune into radio Monte Carlo, to follow the news of events in Kuwait.

Before we set out in the morning, we would put a saucepan full of water onto the heater, the water would very slowly heat, and over the following six or seven hours the potatoes and eggs within would be cooked.

Eventually darkness would fall, and at about 6 p.m. they would start coming.
Flying over our little dark buildings, ignoring us, flying on to one of the many places nearby that had obviously been put on the hit list.

We'd stand in the grounds of the Hospital watching the skies helplessly, trying to guess which site it was to be tonight, there was no electricity, and little petrol available for our generator so this had to be rationed, by working out where the strike was, we could judge how long it would take before the cars, jeeps and lorries full of bodies and wounded would arrive, and turn the generator on for their arrival.

Taking our places as we heard the distant sound of the engines, someone would stand at the main entrance, vetting all arrivals, this was the first screen, the dead from the still living.

The dead were diverted to the evacuated wards round the back, the still living rushed through to the second person standing at the door to our modest casualty department, where a second screen would take place into those critically injured who would be seen immediately, and the walking wounded who had simpler injuries (anything from second degree burns to joint dislocations to broken bones).

We would be busy for hours like this sifting through everyone, every member of staff pitched in from radiographers, and nurses to ambulance drivers and the receptionist who became adept at suturing, finally after stabilising deciding who needed referral to the hospitals in Baghdad.

Once that was finished there came the task of the dead.

Identifying some was easy; I clearly remember one young boy almost had a smile on his dust-covered face; his eyes still open, clouded over, and his face perfect; it was only when I went to turn his head that it became clear that the whole back of his skull was no longer there.

In others it was more difficult, with distraught wailing mothers and pale shocked fellow soldiers trying to identify people from their footwear, their clothing, their name tags or anything recognisable from the midst of the mounds of what was left of tens of young men.

We slept fitfully those nights our rooms next door to our makeshift mortuary.

The morning would bring fresh suffering, as mothers, sisters, fathers, brothers, and friends would arrive from further a field to take away their precious boys' remains.

As the sun came out so began another job.

The bombing never was as precise as it they always claimed, and a collection of small houses near-by had been flattened, I needed to issue the death certificates.

Here in the rubble that remained had last night stood a home to a family of four.
I was given their photographs; the parents were just 20 years old, their two children 2 and 4 years old.

In the corner of what had been a room was a burnt mass of flesh from the bones I could make out three distinct people but not a fourth, everyone started hunting furiously for the second child maybe she had crawled out and was alive somewhere?

The hope was short lived; she had indeed crawled out but lay dead only yards from where the rest of her family had perished.

The vision of this family would haunt me throughout the weeks that followed.
As I worked far from home, my brother at the army barracks elsewhere and my father in yet another corner of this beleaguered land.

Each night I would pray.

If my family's name is on one of these missiles let me be with them when it falls.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 22:00 2 COMMENTS

A&Eiraqi said...
3mti
At that time I was only 8 and a half years old, that time was pleasant to me as the whole family was together.

12 years later, I could realize what the war is.
I lived every moment you mentioned, lack of supplement, innocent people being killed for no reason, blood, bones and flesh.
And of course the family had to split and I had not to pray only but to check the corpses in case one of them is related to me.

Such reminences bring some difficult questions which I'm not prepared to answer; will it happen again? Do I want to live it again?
Will we go back?

I can tell the difference between the A&E here and there
Bests
24 January 2008 22:46

3eeraqimedic said...
Dear A&EIraqi
I know that to your generation the previous wars all pale into insignificance, and yet if I still have such painfully clear memories of the time what of all of you in years to come?
Your questions are another issue, the reasons we leave are often very different from the reasons that we decide to remain, and in 1991 these questions were exactly what I thought, in my mind the answer was it will happen again, and I do not want to see it again.
And finally I bet you see a difference between the A&E's, Friday night with drunks, and overdoses, interspersed with sprained ankles. he he
25 January 2008 19:27

1991

2011-08-04T16:57:00.001-07:00

THURSDAY, 17 JANUARY 2008

Baghdad had a heavy cloud hanging over it, never in my memory had it been this quiet, people walked around in a daze, an air of hopelessness prevailing.

I was travelling south to work, with my week’s worth of things in a shoulder bag, and a cool bag filled with home made frozen food.

As I entered the coach station garage (3alawee al 7illa), and moved in my usual direction I was carried along with crowds moving in a massive wave in response to a call for passengers travelling to Diwaniya.

I climbed into the blue and white-stripped bus, and jostled for a seat with the young soldiers and an elderly lady with a chicken under her arm.

The scenery had become familiar by now, several months into my placement just south of Hilla, where I was working at the small hospital (Mustashfa al-Qatha'a) with two other doctors. We shared the doctor's house with a further two girls posted to clinics nearby as well as the two dentist who had been there for two years.

Layla would often travel with me from Baghdad, other drove down, and one girl whose husband worked in Hilla had settled and rented a house nearby.

On Saturday morning we would all arrive to relieve the person who had held the fort for the weekend.

It was the evening of the 14th January, the two-bedroom house was overcrowded, with 3 families crammed in to the space, like everywhere in the surrounding rural areas the small local population had been swollen by hordes of Baghdadi families who had travelled down in search of that elusive sense of safety.

We had finished our evening meal, and taken turns to have a bath in the single bathroom, the original "wet room", with a single water faucet, and an outsized plastic tub that would be filled with water heated in the three largest saucepans on the gas stove in the nearby kitchen.

As we sat around the kerosene heater, drying our hair, one of the girls made a feeble joke about meeting our maker smelling sweetly!! The laughter was hollow.

What's the 4th of February someone said jokingly?
Everyone knew the reply to that one, Il arba3eenia mal til sha3ab il 3iraqi. (the forty day anniversary of the death of Iraqis)

But nothing happened.

48 hours later the human frailty called hope started to flicker again, they'll never really bomb us we reassured each other as we went to bed late that night

It was around 2:00 in the morning when we woke up with a jolt, the sky was alight, full of loud planes, and in the distance the horizon was a blaze of fire, in shock we rushed across the road to the hospital, and everyone kept repeating “they are bombing us, they are actually bombing us”.

We piled into the office clambering over the one and only telephone there that occasionally worked, the first call was to the family in 7illah, they knew little more than us, within the short while it took for my turn to arrive the phone line had died and my heart sank.

Back in the darkened front room of the house someone turned on the radio, in the mist of all the noise, the lights, the horror, for some bizarre reason the national radio station (Itha3at 6out al Jamaheer ) was playing songs by Fairuz.

Moving the dials in disbelief, the static eventually cleared, and George Bush's voice came through loud and clear-Today we have commenced operation desert storm-.

Three days later, the stories coming in thick and fast, Baghdad had been bombed beyond recognition, Dora was burning, the communication centre had been hit, I decided to try and return home.

I set out before dawn, hitching a ride with the off-duty ambulance driver who dropped me off at the nearby Al-7amza where buses were still making the trip to Baghdad.

As I sat by the window on that morning with the cold wind numbing my face my whole life seemed to pass before my eyes, what would I find when we arrived in Baghdad? Would our house still be standing? Was my brother alive?

On the outskirts of Baghdad a bomber plane flew over us, and the bus screeched to a halt, “That's it” shouted the driver, everyone out; I'm going no further.
After several worrying moments and a quick collection of some extra fees, he agreed to take us further into the centre on the proviso that any repetition of what had happened would automatically mean the end of our ride.

As we drove into the garage the sirens started to whine once more, everyone piled out of the bus and I looked around in disbelief, there was usually a swarm of people here, the buses and coaches filling within literally minutes of arrival, this morning the place was deserted, one of the platforms had collapsed.

I walked out into the main street and it was as though I'd never seen this city before, there were no cars on the road, the people what few of them there were, shuffled forwards slowly towards the bridge.

I crossed the bridge with one other person that morning.

The ministry of defence was a quiet empty shell of a building, it had been evacuated some time earlier but the building had still been targeted several times, across the bridge and below, I couldn't resist the temptation to visit the Medical City.

The main reception area was totally deserted, the last time I had been here it was teeming with patients, semi-patients and visitors. Today there was no one.

Halfway along the corridor I saw a nurse I recognised, “everyone is down below” she told me.

Down below?
"There is no electricity" she said "most the patients were discharged, anyone left was transferred to the tunnels under the building"

I descended into the tunnels, which had functioned as commuter channels between the various parts of this great medical centre, that day they were dark dank and noisy, as my eyes became adjusted to the dark I saw the patients lying in disorderly lines along the walls, fluid bags nailed to the walls above them, blankets instead of beds below them, the tunnels had even been divided into surgical and medical sections.

Coming out into the sunshine again I resumed my walk home, as I shuffled slowly forward blinded by my tears, and walking through the streets covered in shattered glass, visions from (The day after) passed before my eyes.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 20:01 8 COMMENTS

Bruno said...
A good, descriptive post. Thanks.

18 January 2008 07:01
Yasmin (Blanche) said...
3eeraqi Medic,
Beauuuutiful post.. I, too, remebered the nightmare of 15/1/1991.. i suppose all of us did one way or another ..the memory so vivd.. i kept asking myself was it really 17 yrs ago??
Never shall i ever forget the dark gloomy nights filled with fear and the ugly sound of sirens and bomb shelling.. i used to have cramps and shake all over unable to overcome the fear..
uptil now i hate the sound of Monte Carlo musical commercials of (el -arabi oil) and duracell batteries).. i dont think i ever will ..
thank u for sharing this..

20 January 2008 08:48
3eeraqimedic said...
Yasmin
It is carved into our minds.
Oof ya Yasmin, you remember "Il 3arabee lown il thahab-Il 3arabee ta3moo 3ajab" it is the defining jingle of that entire hideous time.
Everytime you write here or on your site I am reminded that I have a twin somewhere in this world.

20 January 2008 14:21
Yasmin (Blanche) said...
dear 3eeraiq Medic,
My feeling also..blv me..
al arabi lon el thahab i shall never ever forget as long as i live,it used to give me the feeling that somewhere outside the gloomy darkness that wrapped everything the world was going on with its ev day life.. a feeling of isolation and that no one outhere knows or even cares what we r going through.. it was Awful..
domtee Be kher..

21 January 2008 07:55
saminkie said...
Oh dear....the way you ended this post made me feel little sad. It was a post written with a deep psychological insight. You described how many felt that day. Thenk you for speaking for us. We need such posts that mirrors what happened and what it left inside our memories. It is rare to find someone who can speak it in words the way you did. Reading that wonderful post made me felt that I was living the detail you said. I lived that day in my home with my familly. But in the future when I get older and my memory get more tired I may think that I lived some things we said here. I mean i will get what you said as a false memory when I get some type of dementia if I am up to live till am elderly.

22 January 2008 09:13
saminkie said...
The way you ended your post made me took a pause. "as I shuffled slowly forward blinded by my tears". I read that line again. My room mate asked me what I am reading. I said little harsh: something. Tears did not came to my eyes. But I think I was resisting them. Thank you 3eeraqimedic. That post was a piece of art. Of some holy art that we really need.
22 January 2008 09:16

saminkie said...
I searched about novels talking about that day. that war in general. I did not find many. I found only 2. One was for Muhamad Khudair calle AL SALSAL. The other was for Jasim El Raseef and it was better than the first called TARATEEL EL WAAD تراتيل الوأد. Your post was great. For me it was better than both novels. Thank you again and sorry for commenting too much but it was really great.
22 January 2008 09:20

3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Sami
As Yasmin said so long ago yet still very raw, I am sorry it upset you, but our collective recent history has unfortunately been a series of devastating events, as someone much more eloquent than I once said "it is painful, Iraqi stories are all painful"
I had meant to follow this post with three other related ones, but then had second thoughts.
I wish I had the time to read all the novels and books you recommend, but time is short and I am still wading through a massive book on the social history of Iraq in the past century, which will if I ever manage to complete it prompt another long post I am sure.
23 January 2008 00:20

Violent deaths in Iraq since the occupation a new study

2011-08-04T16:55:00.001-07:00

MONDAY, 14 JANUARY 2008

Violence-Related Mortality in Iraq from 2002 to 2006
Iraq Family Health Survey Study Group

Yet another study has been published in an international medical journal of the rates of violent deaths in Iraqis since the occupation.

This time it is the American The New England Journal of Medicine’s turn (printed copy due to be published 31st January 2008).

I am not sure how much, if any interest this study will generate, but after all the fuss that followed the original Lancet study from Burnham et al it was only a matter of time before something like this was published.

For those interested I will summarise the findings, show you the tables, and highlight a few points I picked up when I scanned this paper.

The period studied is from 2002 to 2006, and the authors are the Iraq Family Health Survey Study Group or IFHS (who describe themselves as relevant federal and regional ministries in Iraq in collaboration with the WHO).

The study presents data collected by questionnaire conducted in 9354 households, covering 61,636 individuals, and 1325 deaths.

Not surprisingly it proved difficult for teams to visit all intended households, and the highest rates of non-visited households are in precisely the areas most likely to have seen the highest violent death rates.

Of the 1086 originally selected clusters, 115 (10.6%) were not visited because of problems with security. These clusters were located in Anbar (61.7% of the unvisited clusters), Baghdad (26.9%), Nineveh (10.4%), and Wasit (0.8%).

However the authors then compensate for this by utilising data from the Iraq Body Count; a source they state “underestimates the death toll, but probably over-estimates the rates in Baghdad”.

Data from the Iraq Body Count were used to compute ratios for death rates in Anbar and Baghdad, as compared with the three provinces that contributed more than 4% each to the total number of deaths reported for the period from March 2003 through June 2006.

The main conclusion of this study is that the overall death rate per 1000 person-years was 5.31 (95% CI 4.89-5.77) and violent death was 1.09 (95% CI 0.81-1.5).

Although there is an acknowledgement that underreporting of deaths is usual, and one cause is the dissolutions of the household after death of a member, the estimated 62% completeness of reporting is thought by the authors to be an underestimation.

The application of the growth balance method, with the use of the age distribution of deaths in the population obtained from the household roster, indicates that the level of completeness in the reporting of death was 62%. However, this estimation needs to be interpreted with caution, since a basic assumption of the method — a stable population — is violated in Iraq

In a table showing the cause of death by sex and age before and after the occupation
the authors comment that:

Overall, the proportion of deaths from injuries increased from 10.5% before the invasion to 23.2% after the invasion. The increase was most dramatic among men between the ages of 15 and 59 years, among whom deaths from injuries increased from 31.2% before the invasion to 63.5% after the invasion and became the leading cause of death in this age group.

I think what is just as significant if not more so is in this table is the absolute numbers of death due to communicable disease (infections) and reproductive (death during pregnancy or delivery), these rose four-fold, in children and women, and doubled in those over the age of sixty, accounting for an excess of 917 deaths, compared to the excess of 240 violent deaths.

The adjusted rate of death per 1000 person-years increased significantly, from 3.19 (95% CI, 2.67 to 3.82) to 6.36 (95% CI, 5.78 to 7.02); the increases were seen in all age groups but were most prominent in men between the ages of 15 and 59 years. Mortality from nonviolent causes was significantly higher per 1000 person-years in the post-invasion period (4.92; 95% CI, 4.49 to 5.41) than in the pre-invasion period (3.07; 95% CI, 2.61 to 3.63)

The highest mortality rates were in central and southern Iraq as compared to Kurdistan, and in males aged 15-59 years.

And finally the group compare these results with the two other sources of data.

The estimated number of violent deaths over the three years from this study is 150,000 deaths (or between 104,000 and 223,000) and lies somewhere between the “underestimates” of the Iraq Body Count (46,000 deaths), and the “over-estimated” Burnham (The Lancet study) data (650,000 deaths) for the same time period.

All three sources agreed on the low mortality in Kurdistan. Of all the violent deaths occurring in Iraq, the proportion in Baghdad was 54% in the IFHS, 60% in the Iraq Body Count, and only 26% in the study by Burnham et al.

The IFHS data indicate that every day 128 persons died from violence from March 2003 through April 2004, 115 from May 2004 through May 2005, and 126 from June 2005 through June 2006. The Iraq Body Count numbers were 43, 32, and 55 civilian deaths per day for the same periods. In the study by Burnham et al., there was a much higher rate of death from violence and a sharp increase during the 3-year period, with 231, 491, and 925 deaths per day, respectively. There was greater agreement regarding mortality from nonviolent causes between the IFHS study (372 deaths per day) and the study by Burnham et al. (416 deaths per day).
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 00:00 4 COMMENTS

saminkie said...
Thank you 3eeraqimedic for this summary of that study...it was sad but important to know...
17 January 2008 09:08

Bruno said...
The omission of Anbar and the most violence stricken areas of Baghdad etc will seriously skew the results, IMO. IBC greatly underestimates mortality, and indeed, can only do so given that it is a passive reporting system based on news reports in a war that has been described as the most dangerous war for reporters ever.
18 January 2008 07:07

3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Sami
"It was SAD but important" an Iraqi looks at the study and sees, a terrible loss of precious lives, thousands of damaged families, and a fragile country losing a large section of its young men.
I have been reading the "foreign" comments on this study and almost everone is analysing from the "ha ha Lancet was wrong angle" or studyng the authors affiliations. I guess it is denial or deflection of responsibility.
Take care
18 January 2008 08:07

3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Bruno
Long time no "see"
I intentionally emphasised the point of missing clusters, and even the "Iraqi ministry personnel" who collected this data state that the IBC underestimates rates.
But ultimately no matter what studies show for some people this occupation would have been as much "worth it" as the sanctions previously.
18 January 2008 08:17

War pension

2011-08-04T16:54:00.001-07:00

SATURDAY, 12 JANUARY 2008

Tony Blair has retired

As a war hero he will be drawing a unique war pension, the details of which are public knowledge.

Although the occupation of Iraq had nothing to do with money, and nothing whatsoever to do with oil, The £1 million / year, war “pension” that will reportedly help pay his mortgage, is in return for a part-time advisory job with an American bank that is set to make billions from the riches of occupied Iraq.

That the bank can make that much money, has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that it has friends who had nothing to do with it being chosen to run a Trade Bank of Iraq, and thereby raise billions in trade guarantees by mortgaging future oil production.

I perhaps should add that the religious beliefs of numerous men also had nothing whatsoever to do with the war, but then everyone already knows that, don't they

Unique war pensions for others who sacrificed so much in this war are likely to be announced in 2009.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 21:44 0 COMMENTS

Walking with Y

2011-08-04T16:53:00.001-07:00

TUESDAY, 8 JANUARY 2008

Curious how the brain works isn’t it?
How memories are entwined in such a way, that a single word can bring back a whole event, or experience.

A call
A drive
A pastry

A memory of walking to college.

“We are counting on you” he said, “we have a full quota of guys for the teams, but if you two do not train we will lose out to the team from the second year, their girls team is very good”.

I knew A from school, and having competed on her side I knew exactly what we were up against.

I also knew I was totally out of shape.

But having tried to summon some interest in others and failed (some girls were just too conservative, others too pretty to be seen competing) I “volunteered” Y and myself for the team.

We would train together, and in addition to the general training at college, with the coach and the consultants, we cycled at the stadium closer to home.

We also decided to walk to and from the college together.

Even after the competitions were over, we would walk this route, spending time together, and in later years pat ourselves on the back for the exercise we were getting alongside our recurrent attempts to shed a little weight.

I would make my way from home, more or less in a straight line, beyond the bookstore, to the square corner where her bus from across the river would stop, and then we proceeded together.

In the warm morning bustle, the shops busy, the roads full, the commuters rushing for the buses.

As we walked thorough this particular stretch we would look longingly to the shop across the road, being very careful not to cross, lest we fall pray to the delicious aroma, forget all our good intentions, all our vows, and lose any chance we might still have of success in the race or indeed the diet.

We never succumbed to the temptation.

I remember those walks

Whenever I speak to her on the phone.

When N in an attempt to explain how things are better, tells me she can now drive from near our home almost to gre3at, but no off course she couldn’t get to the college.

But mostly I remember those walks and that road when anyone mentions Kahee (a fillo pastry filled with cream and drenched in syrup) that we resisted on those mornings on our way to college.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 22:48 0 COMMENTS

A life certificate

2011-08-04T16:51:00.000-07:00

FRIDAY, 4 JANUARY 2008

That was the driving force for the visit; the annual requirement to prove continued life and thereby continued entitlement for a pension.

Visits to Iraqi embassies are not something I relish doing.

I am reliably told that there was a time that the building was a social gathering place, a place to seek support and help.

My vision I suppose has been marred by other stories (possibly all fictional) of people going in and never coming out again.

My last contact with an Iraqi embassy happened in the Arab world sometime in early 2003, sitting in a room with a rather distracted official who was watching the occupation armies entering Iraq on a TV screen while half heartedly refusing to release an Iraqi passport into my possession.

On this occasion I decided to join the team travelling to the consular section of the Iraqi embassy in London, and so it was that on this bright morning three generations of one family arrived from separate directions at Gloucester road station.

It appears that life certificates were the thing most in demand today as into the basement of a rather unassuming building, down the black fire escape metal steps several members of the older generation of Iraqis living in England descended, to be greeted by a younger generation of Iraqis living in England.

Someone who had recently visited described it as reminiscent of a waiting room in a doctor’s surgery, I would say more like a pharmacy, with a deli style ticket dispenser, rows of plastic chairs on scruffy carpet, and two glass windows through which to communicate with the employees within.

The bureaucracy was as expected of any self respecting Iraqi official office, several forms to fill, submitted accompanied by colour photocopies (obtained from a DHL office nearby or from the copier just behind the desk according to the discretion of desk official) of at least three forms of Iraqi identification, lots of small talk on families and friends oiling the procedure and a couple of hours, several signatories and stamps later the job was done.

This however is just the first step in the process (said form will need to go via several ministerial buildings in Baghdad for further vital signatures and stamps before total officialdom can be achieved).

While I am here I though I might as well ask my burning question once more, so armed with my number ticket and the only form of Iraqi identification I own I approached the window.

Oh no dear I was informed by the kindly woman, this is defunct, you will need the originals of the other two, and no a photocopy will not do, any British documents will need to be stamped by the home office and Iraqi documents will need to be stamped by the ministry in Baghdad, everyone must attend here in person etc etc.

Much discussion followed, what if I cannot, what if they are lost?

If you want I could issue you with emergency documents on which you could travel to Baghdad and get the necessary papers another helpful young man offers.

Odd how reassuringly “homely” it was to see how little some things have changed.

And a reflection on my level of expectation that although my problem remains unsolved, simply for being treated in a civil way by the people in this building I left smiling.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 19:18 2 COMMENTS

Yasmin (Blanche) said...
dear 3eeraqi Medic,
how very Iraqi.. "simply for being treated in a civil way "..
Lovely post as usual..
v Iraqi..
05 January 2008 11:19

3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Yasmin
Yes not being barked at is such an unexpected bonus!
06 January 2008 14:28

New Year

2011-08-04T16:50:00.001-07:00

MONDAY, 31 DECEMBER 2007

New year’s eve was when we used to celebrate, not the 25th of December but the 31st.

That was when the tree was decorated, when the celebrations happened, and when the stuffed bird was consumed, sometimes turkey other times goose, with the trimmings.

New year’s eve was also when, for many years there was a special party at Uncle Henry (or Abu Joseph) house, special because it was fancy dress, and special because we were too young to go.

The people invited were usually the same group work colleagues, neighbours and friend of friends.

The costumes would be agreed in advance, no hired costumes here, all home made and very imaginative, I remember a pirate, and a princess, a Sheik and a belly dancer, and B once went as a Greek goddess in gold sandals and a toga that troubled her all night, and her Kaftan covered compaion was Demis Roussos of course!

We would go when we were as old as Joseph was the promise, he was about five years my senior and that seemed like an eternity, instead we would enjoy the preparations, laugh at our parents and their friends in their costumes, and then spend the night with Beebee.

Spending a night at her home was a rare and very special event, I loved her cream yellow bathroom suite, and spent my evening converting her multicoloured box of tissues into bunches of flowers, and she would let me sit at her vanity table with its curtained sections while she combed my hair, I would apply her hand cream and if I was really good be allowed a squirt of perfume from her old style scent spray.

Needless to say I never went to one of those parties, like all Cinderellas Uncle Henry and his family had to leave before the clock struck twelve, and they became frogs.

Here is hoping that 2008 will bring that all elusive peace to Iraqis.
And maybe the fairy godmother can magic us some happily ever afters and instead of leaving, Iraqis can start returning.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 20:59 0 COMMENTS

Tourism

2011-08-04T16:47:00.000-07:00

SUNDAY, 16 DECEMBER 2007

One night in December 2003 the Americans soldiers made their first visit to our home

As the twenty three year old in charge of the team of go-go-go Rambo wanabees who were sifting through my mother’s sewing and bags of wool twitched and worried, my father sat in the living room in his dishdasha, with a set of worry beads in his hand.

As the girls clothes’ drawers were opened, my father started a conversation with the young boy-man soldier, they chatted I am told for about fifteen minutes, during which my father had gone into his usual educational mode, as it became clear to him that none of these people had a clue about the country they had been sent to “liberate”.

As he talked about history, civilisations and architecture, he jokingly remarked that if they cared to look in the bookcase they would find tourist guides for England, Italy, and Sweden, three countries he had visited, and that maybe the soldiers should have read a tourist guide to Iraq before they came to visit.

If he had had a copy of this guide he may well have given it to them.

The pictures are of another Iraq, an Iraq offering non-religious tourism.
What I have not included in this little compilation is the final several pages, of usual guide book information covering details of the local currency, the electric current, the water supply and telephone numbers (old style landlines) for cinemas, theatres, nightclubs, hotels, swimming pools, as well as hospitals, clinics and pharmacies.

For those Iraqis lucky enough to have access to this medium, but unlucky enough to have missed out on these sites (or indeed services) before they were “liberated” I offer you an extract from a tourist’s guide published in Iraq 1982.

And to any foreigners thinking of visiting, don’t bother; there is very little left to see and in most of the country you are no longer welcome.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 09:51 0 COMMENTS

Muzzling those who bark, and barking up the wrong tree

2011-08-04T16:44:00.000-07:00

SUNDAY, 9 DECEMBER 2007

So it appears that certain types of poetry will get you a prison sentence in the UK,
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article3010203.ece
Someone sent me a link to this piece of news with a joking warning to beware.

Much of the attention paid to this case is from those defending her right of free thought and speech, I think there is another worrying aspect, although I have not read much of Samina’s poetry, having read the piece and the legislation used to cover her trial I remembered a two-piece drama I had seen on channel 4 one month ago titled Britz

http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/B/britz

A story of a brother and sister born in Britain to Pakistani parents, he is an MI5 agent, she a suicide bomber.

The first episode had every stereotypic box ticked, the young foreign boy beaten up, the blonde police officer forcing him against the wall with a “f***ing paki” accompanied kick in the groin, the family returning the sister to Pakistan to marry, where she is apparently murdered, burnt and buried by the roadside in a village where the animals still share the living quarters with the barbaric cousins.

In the meantime an Asian man is in custody somewhere in Eastern Europe being tortured to within a breath of his life while interrogated by his neighbour the MI5 stooge, who justifies what he is doing as “preventing the deaths of hundreds of innocents”, and concludes the night’s work with a drink of scotch and sex with his blonde fellow agent.

The second episode uncovered the truth behind the story, the sister is a medical student, a political activist rather than a devout follower of Islam, with a sense of injustice, her attempts at political dialogue foiled, her best friend committing suicide after detention under the terrorism laws for having too much pepper.

She escapes society and family to the training camps, and is dressed to kill in her explosive belt when the final scene brings her face to face with her brother, she ready to detonate, he on the hunt for the first British female suicide bomber about to blow up London’s financial heart.

One scene that struck me involved a conversation between the heroine and her London contact where she tells him not be to be sad for her, and responds to his reassurance that she will soon be on Allah’s side that “that is not what it is about”.

In addition to a more real view of what drives people to become suicide bombers I saw in this drama a depiction of how easy it is for evil to manipulate our need to “fit in”, a weakness clearly affecting some second generation British Muslims, growing up in a family that is “non integrated” and a society that is “non-accepting”, for the brother who was so desperate to be more British than the British he was willing to join the recruiters for spies on telephone conversations, grass his friends, and watch over the torture of another to prove his “belonging”, and for his sister who was so disaffected by the non acceptance that she is willing to join the recruiters for training camps in her university campus.
Who of the two recruiters is more evil?

The use of antiterrorism legislation to muzzle poetry and the training of a police officer I overheard knowingly explain that “you will recognise a suicide bomber by the fact that they pray or chant the Koran just before they detonate” suggests that despite pieces of drama like this, in the real world by continuing to concentrate on Islam, watching over its followers, and prosecuting people who scribble things on paper for terrorism, while ignoring the underlying grievances of previous suicide bombers, this country will continue to be at risk of missing a group of disaffected and potentially more dangerous angry people.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 21:19 3 COMMENTS

A&Eiraqi said...
3mti
Wonderful
Totally agree with you.
Regards
10 December 2007 22:32

Little Penguin said...
Dr, the thing about spotting a terrorist is that there's no point in scanning faces, outfits and dialects, what's more important is eradicating the ideology that justifies their means of having brunch with the Prophet.. By that I'm pointing my finger at those who implicitly and explicitly advocate that Muslims distance themselves from "the kuffar" - anyone who isn't Muslim..

The other day I was talking to a seemingly level-headed Somali girl on campus when she said she'd rather have Abu Hamza (Captain Hook) as the Muslim khaleefa than anyone who isn't Muslim.. "Brother, haven't you read the hadeeth that says 'support your Muslim brother, oppressor or oppressed' we have to stay away from them.. and if they're killed, well it's just their comeuppance"

The threat of radical islamists shouldn't worry only Brits.. but the whole world.. I mean, look at Iraq.. killing Manadeis and Christians and anyone who hasn't got a beard and who doesn't tuck his shirt in.. and I hope i'm not seen as taking sides here, many religious factions are culprits..

el muhim.. I didn't get to see Britz but it seems to have over-blown an already-farfetched scenario.. in any case, some aspects may well be true..

As for that lyrical terrorist, I was aghast when I read that piece of news on the paper.. seriously, British Muslims have got a lamentable image as it is, the least we can do is hide our faults and accentuate what's good about us.. write hate-poems and publish them on the net? how stupid and irresponsible can you get? This kind of thing is what The Daily Mail thrives on.. Dr, you have a case for arguing against prosecution of unorthodox creativity, but when it has the potential of making me pull the pin, I think it was only reasonable..

but then again, what's making her want to pull the pin?

Such a headache.. sorry to have rambled..

Regards
18 December 2007 14:04

3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Little Penguin, nice to see you once more, and please please ramble as much as you like here.
I am going to be honest again and then probably regret it and delete some or more of what I say.
Had anyone asked me if I would pondering such questions five years ago I would have laughed, just as I laughed (and cringed a little with embarrassment) when I watched some odd Syrian cleric make an absolute fool of himself on a TV programme some years ago.
At the time it was difficult for me to understand why the government allowed people like him to live off state benefits while he sprouted nonsense about making Britain a Muslim country with Sharia law, I also couldn’t believe how anyone with two neurons could listen to him let alone follow him.
But time has passed, I am not sure if people are different, if I look at people differently or if I just see different people but I am concerned, concerned by the sense of alienation in some people, an alienation resulting from a perceived injustice committed by their own countrymen, and rejection by others they thought would welcome them, the alienation creating a need to belong, and the incomprehensible (to me at least) need to find themselves in religion, a religion that they previously observed in what I consider a moderate manner, but now has become a sort of competition in devotion, and in observance, a sort of obsession that is truly worrying, not in itself but in the sort of blinkered view it creates.
What follows is then a second round of rejection for the visible expressions of the belief, a second round of displacement to a more “tolerant” country, the result of which is further sense of injustice and so on!
It seems to me that the more pressure is placed on people the more some of them seem to radicalise, it is another chicken and egg situation I am not sure you can really decipher what happened first, but I must say although I now feel more fearful of people like the odd cleric and what he was nattering on about, I am also very worried about the pressure being exerted on Islam and all Muslims to “reform” themselves or their religion because I know it is pushing some people the wrong way.
I have rambled enough, and if you do not understand what I mean it is probably for the best, but if you have read some of my previous deleted posts you may well comprehend what I am talking about!!!
18 December 2007 19:56

Occupation Science fiction style

2011-08-04T16:42:00.000-07:00

THURSDAY, 6 DECEMBER 2007

There were lots of reasons why I liked Star Trek, memories of childhood evenings watching the black and white episodes of the original series back home, later many evenings spent escaping the harsh reality of the here and now into the fantasy world of a better future for mankind.

I have just been watching a repeat, an episode from the Deep Space Nine series, titled “Waltz” produced in 1997.

This series unlike the others is based on a fixed space station, and involves a lot of wars and several rounds of military occupation.

The episode involves two main characters, the Federation (i.e. Earth i.e American) captain Sisko “the goody”, and the Cardassian (very nasty reptilian like alien) ex-station commander during the previous occupation Dukat “the baddy”.

If you read the transcript I am sure you will see why I wanted to share.

SISKO: All right you really want to do this? Here? Now?

DUKAT: Yes.

SISKO: Okay. Let's do it. You were Prefect of Bajor during the occupation. True or false?

DUKAT: True.

SISKO: And you were responsible for everything that happened under your command. True or false?

DUKAT: True.

SISKO: So that makes you responsible for the murder of over five million Bajorans who died on your watch. True or false!

DUKAT: False. I tried to save lives during my administration.

SISKO: Evidence?

DUKAT: Evidence? He wants evidence. By the time I became Prefect, the occupation had been going on for almost forty years, but the planet was still not ready for full-scale colonization. Central Command wanted the situation resolved and they didn't care how it was done. I was convinced that a gentler hand was required to deal with the Bajorans. So in my first official act as Prefect, I ordered all labour camp commanders to reduce their output quotas by fifty percent – fifty percent! Then I reorganized the camps themselves. Child labour was abolished. Medical care was improved and food rations were increased. In the first month of my administration, the death rate dropped by more than twenty percent.
And how did the Bajorans react? On my one-month anniversary they blew up an orbital dry-dock, killing over two hundred Cardassian soldiers and workers.
I had to order a response. But even then it was a carefully tempered one: I had two hundred suspected members of the Resistance rounded up and executed. Two hundred lives for two hundred lives. That was justice -- not malevolence --justice.
But did I give up my efforts to reach out to the Bajorans? No.
I tried again. And what did I get for my trouble? An assassination attempt. On my own space station!
Another round of executions followed. Again, courtesy of the Bajoran Resistance.
On and on it went, year after blood-soaked year. Time and again, I would reach out with the open hand of friendship and time and again, they would slap it away.

DUKAT: I hope you're listening to all this.

SISKO: Oh, believe me, you have my undivided attention. Now let me get this straight: You're not responsible for what happened during the Occupation, the Bajorans are.

DUKAT: Exactly.

SISKO: So why do you think they didn't appreciate the rare opportunity you were offering them?

DUKAT: Because they were blind, ignorant fools. They couldn't see that if they had only chosen to cooperate with us, we could've turned their world into a paradise. From the moment we arrived on Bajor, it was clear that we were the superior race. But they couldn't accept that. They wanted to be treated as equals when they most definitely were not. Militarily, technologically, culturally -- we were almost a century ahead of them in every way.
We did not choose to be the superior race, fate handed us our role. It would've been so much easier on everyone if the Bajorans had simply accepted their role. But no... day after day they clustered in their temples and prayed for deliverance, and night after night they planted bombs outside our homes.
Pride. That's what it was.
Stubborn, unyielding pride. From the servant girl that cleaned my quarters to the condemned man toiling in a labour camp to the terrorist skulking through the hills of Dahkur Province, they each wore their pride like some twisted badge of honour.

SISKO: And you hated them for it.

DUKAT: Of course I hated them! Their superstitions and their cries for sympathy, their treachery and their lies, their smug superiority and their stiff-necked obstinacy, Yes I hated them, I hated everything about them!

SISKO: You should've killed them all.

DUKAT: Yes! I knew it! I've always known it!
I should've killed every last one of them and turned their planet into a graveyard the likes of which the galaxy had never seen!

I am pretty sure that the writer of this plot had in mind a European occupation and a non-Muslim occupied people, but you can see why it is a very bad thing to admit that you are an occupation force, even writers of science fiction shows know what that means. As do most ordinary people, even if they pretend otherwise.

Just as most people understand what is happening when occupation leaders start blaming the inferior non-grateful occupied people, or the incompetent non-trained political superiors, in fact everyone and anyone else for the terrible things that happen during their watch.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 20:00 5 COMMENTS

Yasmin (Blanche) said...
Amazing !!
I loved Star trek too.. it seems ages ago..
but 3eeraqi Medic, how can u get to watch these reptile like creatures now??!!
Even (our stratrek)was something else..
regards..
09 December 2007 08:52

3eeraqimedic said...
He he Yasmin spoken like a true trekkie yes the original series with all its shortcomings was the "real" thing.
Hope you are well, noomehilo has disappeared again.
09 December 2007 21:32

Crocogator said...
Bones (Doc),
I love Star Trek. They were always had some kind of historical or moral message, like when CAPT Piccard said "some of the darkest moments in my planet's history involved the forced location of people," in "Star Trek: Generations." Not to be a whiner, but we who had to go through the pain of childhood in the late 1970s call ourselves "Trekers" now. Admitting you watched the Original Series re-runs back then (before Star Wars) got you pounded in school.

Interesting piece. I was wondering if you ever got to see the last series "ENTERPRISE."

Best,
Croc
17 December 2007 18:50

3eeraqimedic said...
Croc
I did not appreciate the "moral messages" of start trek until I watched repeats, and I was spared Star Wars until the recent releases of episodes!
I am not sure I recognise your quote or its relevance, my all time favourite quote from Star Trek is "The Prime Directive"......as a treker or a trekie I am sure you will know why.
17 December 2007 20:17

Crocogator said...
Doc,
I guess I was trying to make a point that both CAPT Sisko and CAPT Piccard were speaking more of Slave Labor and Concentration camps. This is my opinion of course, and I certainly hope I did not (and do not) cause any offense.

With Aloha,
Croc
17 December 2007 20:39

So many smiles

2011-08-04T16:40:00.000-07:00

SATURDAY, 1 DECEMBER 2007

Three hundred and more
Dressed in our finest
Smiling for the world
Six years or more
Spent together

Some became experts
Others chose to serve
Travelling the globe
Or staying at home
Families and children
Tragedies and great hopes

But one amongst us
Had started
In marriage
A transformation

I watch and I listen
From afar
To Maha
The representative
Of the “people”
The champion
Of the “cause”

Her white coat long gone
Her black gown
For always to don
Her training
Not for healing
But for leading now

So distant we have grown
But on that day
We stood side by side
A white scarf sufficed
And we both smiled

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/iraq

Inside Sadr City Life in Shia Baghdad
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 09:41 0 COMMENTS

The nights of the obturator nerve

2011-08-04T16:39:00.000-07:00

SATURDAY, 24 NOVEMBER 2007

To the non-medical reader you may want to click away now!

Tuesday morning would start early, it was our receiving day on the seventh floor the third medical unit, the second busiest day to be on-call after Monday, which was the fate of those working for the second medical unit on the sixth floor.

We would start out on the ward with a quick wiz around, checking the sickest, and taking the bloods, making our way in the underground tunnels to the pathology laboratories in the specialist building, and returning to split the day between the two of us, myself and M (another of the so called acute rotators i.e. in his first year of the medical rotation, but from another university and way too laid back for my liking), we needed to cover both the ward patients, and anyone presenting to the medical emergency room, so the day was split into four 6-hour periods, and we would alternate ward and emergency room, neither of us sleeping for the next thirty six hours at least.

Running down the stairs, and entering the emergency room with the team which consisted of the first year board students, a few years older than us, much more knowledgeable but still very approachable and keen to learn and teach, they would come down armed with their polystyrene cups of coffee (and occasionally the packet of cigarettes) and their trusty textbooks; Harrison’s textbook was the commonest, but S preferred Cecil’s and A would bring down his red and blue Anderson’s, we carried our handbooks, or occasionally Davidson’s.

There were still a couple of patients left over from the night before, and we would take over from the exiting team exchanging tales of woes at how busy the night had been, and receiving reassurances that the lady in the corner would be ready to go home soon, and that the young man was definitely a tenth floor patient, his discharge card attesting to the fact and the team were informed and preparing to receive him.

Going through the early morning preparations, checking the equipment, the cardiac resuscitation trolley, the glucose monitors, the venous cut down sets.

And then the work would begin, tens of patients would pass through the doors, the barely alive cardiac patients who would take up the attention of everyone for a while and whose arrival would be the trigger to summon help from the coronary care team, once they had stabilized him or her they would take the patient up to the unit using the separate guard-operated lift back to the coronary care unit on the eighth floor, through to the diabetics in ketoacidosis, who would tax our mathematical abilities working out exact doses of insulin and fluids (we did not have continuous infusions of insulin and had to check sugars and administer doses of insulin every hour for however long it took to stabilize the patient) , to the silly girls who had had an argument too many with husband or mother in-law and decided to have some sort of nervous attack, these usually presenting with pseudo faints or unconsciousness, or occasionally elaborate pseudo epileptic attacks, they would almost invariably be accompanied by a frantic often abusive husband (if argument with mother in-law) or brother (if argument with husband), these I found particularly time wasting and to my eternal shame I offered them no sympathy whatsoever and occasionally very unkind treatment.

I preferred the second shift, around lunchtime, and with a new set of board students this was a quieter time, and as the seniors were third year board students, and not based on the ward they generally had more time and patience to teach us and go through the limited number of cases in more detail.

With the evening came the visitors, and the occasional couple of people who would pop into the outpatient department whilst visiting to have those swollen ankles sorted out, only to be whipped across to us with a note from our fourth year board students suggesting we listen to the heart for the classic mitral murmur.

Slowly going through the patients, either discharging, or admitting to the counterpart on the ward, and occasionally pouncing on the tell tale white card sticking out of the medicine bag that was the clue to their prior visit, their prior diagnosis, and most importantly the team that would now be called down to sort out their returning patient.

More often than not, we would have our regular odd patient, I am not sure what his diagnosis was, but to anyone stationed at the medical city at the time he was a benign, occasionally amusing regular, in his stripped nightshirt and hat, carrying his plastic bags, and demanding his saline drip (which we usually obliged) or occasionally demanding he have a urinary catheter placed (which we usually refused) he would be humored for a while if the room was quiet, and then discharged in a hurry once the flow of patients started to pick up once more.

Through the night the trickle of patients would continue, and as morning arrived we would start shifting the last few of our intake for the day up to the final beds or couches, and going through our notes carefully making sure all necessary test results were available for the consultant ward round, climbing up the stairs wearily now, and sitting down in the doctor’s office to write out the forms for the blood tests, the drug cardexes, the instructions for the nurses, and waiting patiently for the ladies from the canteen to start bringing up the patient’s breakfast trolleys, knowing they would never pass the weary doctors without passing us a tray with hot tea, a roll of bread, butter, cheese and possibly a hard boiled egg.

At some point during this day we would have done some reading, everyone was studying for some exam or other, the board end of year exams, the board finals, the foreign exams, usually membership of British royal colleges, and in our case an opening to take the American License exams, we used the patient note paper, and studied our craft, making notes as we read.
The image is one such page, with reminders of the nerves of the lower limb, including the obturator nerve.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 21:01 2 COMMENTS

saminkie said...
the nights of the obturator nerve is very clever nice brain storming title....from where you got that abitlity to creat such a nice title....3eeraqimedic I think you are creative....
know something....those days of rotation will always be on my mind...my personality changed while I was doing rotation.....thank you for such a nice post...(obturatur nerve....waow...nights of obturator nerve...I congragualate you again for such a nice title really)...
02 December 2007 14:50

3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Sami
Glad you liked it!
Yes the rotation changes one, entering a little hyperconfident inexperienced student we come out less confident more realistic slightly more experienced doctors.
03 December 2007 05:48

Jigsaw

2011-08-04T16:38:00.000-07:00

TUESDAY, 20 NOVEMBER 2007

I was part of a jigsaw
Discarded by time

Part of a picture
Faded even in my mind

The paper picture
Peeled

The wood pieces
Dispersed

The sharp corners
I once had

Jagged
Faded and
Charred

The carved edges
I once had

Bent
Misshapen
To fit

The face
I once had

Crayoned over
Appropriately

Ultimately
Placed
Where I belong

A bag of spare pieces
A box of odds and ends
A bunch of bits and pieces

From all the games
And puzzles
That life
Left behind
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 00:34 5 COMMENTS

saminkie said...
I saved this poem in my mobile phone to read it again and again....look 3eeraqimedic.. I do not like poems too much but I will tell you some truth....I did not like your previous poems...I read them but...did not like to think about them more...but this one....Jigsaw....it is really a poem that nead to be read in slow...spelling every word slowly...and i will do that tonight and comment again....3eeraqimedic...you are a poet now in my mind....
02 December 2007 14:53

3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Sami
Syria has clearly disoriented you!
This is not poetry, it is a paragraph of words with anything extra deleted, leaving a telegraph (or for your generation a text message)the minimum sufficient to convey the meaning, or remind me of the feeling
03 December 2007 05:52

saminkie said...
Dear 3eeraqimedic, so your paragraph of words was so briliant...I liked it and it also remembered me of the piecful days we lived in our childhood me and my siter playing the Jigsaw...am not more in Syria 3eeraqimedic...am back to iraq waiting the visa to visit my familly...am a piece of jigsaw too...thanks for your nice posts..
03 December 2007 14:41

3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Sami
Hope you do not have to wait too long
I am glad you liked this piece, and I guess we are all part of a jigsaw, I hope you do not lose the other pieces.
03 December 2007 22:12

saminkie said...
3eeraqimedic you talked in one of your answers to one of my comments about psychoanalysis...and believe me..this what you call A PARAGRAPH OF WORD, and i still think its a poem, is the best material that a real psychoanalyst can go beyond symbols and start his/her analysis...it is word with open ends..with diverging meaning...it is so so nice and clever...and believe me 3eeraqimedic if you wrote it in a paper then show it to someone who loves poems and ask him this way: " I read this poem of papbl neroda (or octavio path or anyone) and did not understant what he means...please what he mean do you think?" and you will laugh really laugh on their answer.....hehehe...sorry to be silly...
04 December 2007 14:51

Women on a Journey between Baghdad and London

2011-08-04T16:37:00.000-07:00

WEDNESDAY, 14 NOVEMBER 2007

So I go to, or know someone who goes to an Iraqi event. I buy or borrow the book written by an Iraqi offered for sale at the event, and a little while after I have written about the event I write about the book.

On this occasion the book is a novel with five characters, I will try and not spoil it for anyone wishing to read it themselves, but suffice to say it is about Iraqi women in exile and the outcome is not rosy for all.

The five women meet in London, and with time on their hands decide to get together regularly in a café to chat and reminisce, the women are:

Adiba a communist tortured in prison in Iraq in the 1970s, she is alone in London, and has spent the past twenty-five years looking for her husband. He has been missing since they were both escorted off the university campus one ordinary day in Baghdad. She walks with a limp, and has undergone several operations and psychotherapy to help her cope with the after effects of her experiences.

Um Mohammed, is a brilliant cook, a genuine believer and devout Muslim, a kindly soul with a good word to say about everyone she meets, a Kurdish refugee who arrives in London with her son after the “Arabs burnt their homes”, her son finds a new life in London, and she is left to her own devices.

Iqbal is a divorcee, who is also a bit of a communist, she is juggling a hectic life bringing up a child whose classmates are up to no good behind the school sheds, working long hours for modest pay with Arab colleagues, as well as keeping a secret English lover.

Sahira, is another communist, a mother of three grown up children, with a husband twenty year her senior, himself an ex-communist who has lost interest in everything and everyone including his once beautiful wife.

And finally Majda, the mad, bitter and confused widow of an executed Baathist minister. A Baathist herself, whose family once offered a safe house to a young Saddam Hussein on the run.

As a woman who has spent a quarter of a century in exile in London Haifa’s description of London as seen through the eyes of us Iraqis, arriving here penniless and alone are painfully true, I recognised with several smiles and many more tears so many of the situations and circumstances. In fact I recognised myself, or someone close to me in each and every one of her five characters at some point or other.

When Adiba shops for dates she “searched the small print on the box to find out where the dates come from. She did not want to commit the mistake she’d made once before and buy produce from Israel.”
When her psychiatrist asks Adiba if she talks to her friends and family about Iraq Adiba answers “do we talk about anything else?”

When it is suggested to Um Mohammed that she need not take her large bag with her everywhere she replies, “Who knows when we we’ll need our papers? we always needed our documents or photographs or identity card in the past…..how can I leave the house without my nationality papers?”

When Sahira shows her daughter her Oxfam finds pleased that they are “ beautiful, cheap and have a designer label”, the daughter is shocked that her mother is buying “other people’s rags and rubbish”

In her introduction Haifaa says of her characters
“They live in London, stepping carefully in the streets of a new country, full of apprehension and a sense of longing for their families and country……..They feel lonely in this strange place, and new culture, whose only advantage for them is that it provides a sense of security-a feeling that proves to be false………Most of the time they live in the past, unable to enjoy the present, and not daring to think of the future.

Without giving away too much, life treats the women, as the author would like people of their background to be treated, with the exception perhaps of my favourite of the characters, whose final fate is what all women, or indeed men living in western cities fear may be our own fate every time we pick up a newspaper or listen to the headlines of the local news.

I recognised small elements of people within each of the characters, and maybe that was part of the problem I had with them and with this book, the features were just spread out a little thin between them, as though there was just enough material for two or maybe three three dimensional heroines, but the author had tried to make five people out of them, with the result that the original three women with whom she clearly identified more were portrayed in more detail i.e the Kurdish Um Muhammed, the torture survivor Adiba, and the Communist Sahira, and what little was left was sprinkled over Iqbal a young women with only a whiff of Iraqiness, and Majda the tyrant of the story, and the keeper of all that is evil in being Iraqi.

But the most disappointing feature of the book is how dated it seemed to me, although only published in 2007, it was filled with communists, and with so many more recent waves of Iraqi women in London, I expected a version of this tale to have included maybe the wife of a disillusioned latter day Baathist who gets into trouble driving her massive car in London, who befriends the overworked (organising recitals and wakes) wife of an absent grand Ayatullah, ah well maybe next time?.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 23:55 3 COMMENTS

saminkie said...
Iraqies everywhere got so much to say...they got to talk....write and draw...they got to express themselves...they got to drain their psychic abscesses that collected in their memories....
I liked the picture of the book...it is professional...it is real...superreal...sureal...i hope someday i can be that professional in taking pictures....thank you 3eeraqimedic for let us know about the book...
03 December 2007 14:45

3eeraqimedic said...
"drain their psychic abscesses"
For those lucky enough to have "survived" and then the luxury of being "settled" this sums us all up I think.
I will be honest with you now I am a little intimidated by psychiatrists, I always wonder if I am being analysed!
take care
03 December 2007 22:17

saminkie said...
dear 3eeraqimedic, reagarding the term (psychic abscess) it is an old Freudian term still somtimes used now and then, I cannot give you a prefessional definition now but like the term implies it means all those repressed feelings that may hurt us in someway so that we got to (drain) them by talking, writing, drawing...by any form of expression...
And belive me 3eeraqmimedic, some young psychiatrist may abuse others by their silly (overvalued) terms in an attemt to analyse (psychoanalyse ) them or to let them feel the power the psychiatrist got....
I don't try never ever to analyse somebody ..and even if I uncontiously do..I do not let him/her know anything...cause that can hurt....
Look regarding me, am a silly person who want to play Jigsaw again with my sister which I miss....I likke your post too much..and not trying to analyse anything...am just talking....i need some friends cause I feel lonely and the blog provided me with some cultured nice freinds like you...and I will never ever analyse you..I will just talk with you...and you know what? psychoanalysis is a subspeciality from psychiatry...so...
Bythe way when i write comments or posts in my blog I never go back to change words...this is my way of trying to be more true and frank...so....thank you 3eeraqimedic for your nice posts and comments and be sure that psychiatrist who want to let us feel that they analyse them by gicing some remarks and comments are just showing and are abusing their profession....psychoanalysis is not a toy in the hands of children...take care and byebye...and keep writing such nice posts...
04 December 2007 14:43

Shopping

2011-08-04T16:36:00.000-07:00

MONDAY, 12 NOVEMBER 2007

Do you want to come shopping? So it would start, the call for volunteers, someone to talk to, and someone to help carry the shopping, company.
Usually the answer would be yes, knowing at some point on the trip there would be a treat of some sort or other.

And so we would set out, my mother pushing the pram, with someone small inside, me walking alongside, in the days before our first car.
To the end of the road, with the old water tank, straight ahead through the narrow road that led to the main street, sometimes stopping at the pharmacy on the corner, the helpful pharmacist giving advice as well as prescriptions, the store part shelves of medications part cosmetics, accessories, and baby products, cerelac for the little one, a turquoise comb with “Made in Baghdad” engraved in gold for me.

Occasionally heading to the photographer, with his window display of family portraits, smiling babies, beaming couples, the drapes in the background, the coloured-in images, maybe to take a photograph for another application, or to pick up the passport style photos, with their elaborately shaped edges, in their little white paper envelopes.

Crossing the main road, and coming close to the main shopping centre, passing the falafel shop with the massive vat of boiling oil, the small containers of 3anba, and the sliced tomatoes, with the already slit open diamond shaped bread loaves ready for the crisp hot filling.

Along a little to the corner shop with the music blasting out, we would not go in now, maybe later, on the way back, and I would go through the new cassettes, always catalogued by artist and year rather than by album title, pirated and with no front cover, having to listen to a couple of songs before deciding to buy a copy, then waiting while the cassette was placed into the double deck machine in the back and a fresh copy was generated, occasionally with the tell tale blank gaps at the end of side 1 and the beginning of side 2.

Right across the road was one of the two sweet shops, the brother Shakarchee, sweets, and treats, sheker lemma and biscuits, baklawa and zlabya, always busy taking orders, and filling the van ready to make a delivery, a fancy cake, or maybe wedding sweets.

Carrying on to the “material” shop, my mother’s favourite, we would rarely miss this large double doored store, where she would discuss and debate the cloth on sale, poplin for shirts, the cotton for dresses, and the heavy cloth for curtains with the kham il sham for the lining.

Further down the grocers, with the staples, filling bags, and the metal basket below the baby’s pram with vegetables, fruit, tins of meat, and cheese, maybe some of my mother’s favourite Jibin oo sharee or as we called it “smelly feet cheese”.

The goldsmith, rarely entered, but frequently admired.

Coming to the end of the road, and to my least favourite part, the market stalls, the live chickens in little wooden cages, the sheep heads and trotters smelling and attracting the flies in the sun, the bunches of herbs dunked repeatedly in the murky water and spread out on show on the round trays, the tilting trolleys laden with the watermelons with a choice few split in two to show off their bright red spotted bellies.

Crossing the main road, turning round and returning on the opposite side, maybe stepping in to the second “material” store and asking the store keeper to bring down the rolls of colourful cloth from the tall stacks, and measure out a few meters of the cloth with his 1m wooden ruler.

The bookstore with boxes of pens and pencils, maybe if I was lucky a boxed set of colouring pencils, and a few of those colourful fruity smelling erasers, a geometry set for school, some colourful wrapping paper to cover the schoolbooks with and those special little ready made plastic book covers with their pouches for the front and back covers, in two sizes; large for the textbooks, smaller for the copybooks.

Several more grocers, several more bits and pieces, by now the pram becoming heavily laden, the baby propped up between the cauliflowers and the tins, a stop at the bread store, maybe picking up some laham ajeen, always stacking up from the freshly baked samoon, piled up still hot into the paper bags, munching my way through the crunchy pointed tips of a few on the way home.

Winding our weary way home down the now darkening side roads, away from the bustle with the sounds of crickets, back to the main street, picking up a pink ezbery ice cream on the way, and arriving home to unpack the shopping, uncover the baby, listen to my new tape, and show off my treats to those who had declined the first offer of going out shopping.

It is possible that some old timers will recognise the street, the memories are a mish mash of several years' worth of shopping trips. Very little of this will mean anything to those living there now or recently, my family look at me with amusement when I mention the water tank at the end of the road, probably one of the first of my landmarks to disappear.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 20:25 5 COMMENTS
saminkie said...
me and my friend went to the market before 3 days...we walked alot...alot...and alot...till a falafil restaurqant came infront of us...my friend looked at me...examined my mental state with a smile..then...he told me "letus go eat"...it was near the garage of centrwal mosul gare...so many poor people were there eating with us...but after i finished my first sanduich..i quit wondering about the cleanes of the restaurant...so i asked the second...then got a crush for the third..and 3mba was spilling out of my mouth (just kiding)...and after that we drunk Zibeeb....waow...it was something 3eeraqimedic...if i was living near you I would have bring you some....
14 November 2007 14:52

saminkie said...
That crush i got for the third sandwich made me think that it can cause addiction...can it? especially that smell of the indian 3amba....is it really from india?....anyway...addiction to 3amba flavoured falafil would be really interesting subject...
14 November 2007 14:59

3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Sami
You made me smile, how did you pick up on the Felafil!
Yes for me this simple dish has many very fond memories
But surely it is only when the restaurant is not clean that they will taste good, I have eaten them in places where it is polite to eat a sandwich with a knife and fork and they did not taste as good, but we have managed to find one place in London that sells decent Falafel sandwiches that are not pretending to be something else, the vendor is Palestinian and offers a special 3anba version for Iraqis rather than the usual tahina dressing.
14 November 2007 23:40

Yasmin (Blanche) said...
Dear 3eeraqi Medic,
what a post !! full of memories of our good old Baghdad..
the only street with a water tank i know, is Sharea el Tankee.. and there is a mrket place near to it..
could it be the same u r talking ab?? im not sure if there were more than one in Baghdad..
regards..
15 November 2007 07:48

3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Yasmin
I am not sure what exactly ,makes the street uniquely old Baghdady but it was, and for a generation of us in the 70s and 80s this is where time stopped and in that time bubble we remain.
I am not sure if the road was called Share3 il Tanky, the one I refer to was not very large on the road parallel to Omar Bin Abdul Azziz street, I get a feeling we are talking about the same place.
17 November 2007 20:06

Still waiting to return

2011-08-04T16:35:00.001-07:00

FRIDAY, 2 NOVEMBER 2007

1994

Three trains
From seaside
To London
A ritual trip
In search of
A street
A smell
A taste
A sound
Something like home
Coffee
And kebabs
Banned
Newspapers
Books
Magazines
And music

An Egyptian
Who knew
We all seek the familiar
The memories
A suggestion
A disc

On the floor
In the hallway
Of an empty flat
The music started

“I loved you in the summer”
That classical teenage pick up line

“Adaysh Kan fee Nas”
A school picnic

“Zahrat Al Madain”
Years of pride and of hope

“Ya Mukhtar il Makhateer”
The drives home

“Shady”
A story repeating itself

A muffled noise
From somewhere

“We will return
To our city
We will return
No matter how long the time
And how far the distance
The nightingale informed me
The bulbul still sings our poems”

The song drowned
The noise now filling the dark
Moaning from
The heap
Curled up
On the floor
Rocking
Rocking
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 20:55 5 COMMENTS

Yasmin (Blanche) said...
dear 3eeraqi Medic,
Sa Narjeo , always was a Very sad song in my opinion.. before we even got aquanited with terms like Ghurba, Hujra, nostalgia, etc..
yr post filled me with sadness, filled me with realization for the millionth time of what we have lost and how much we miss it..
did u mean to say that the day Will eventually come when we return?? od u really blv there still is Hope??
i dont know.. my heart is filled with sadness, adn an urge to cry..
i miss Baghdad..
Terribly..
03 November 2007 09:22

A&Eiraqi said...
3mti & Yasmin
Do you still have a hope?
لاتتمنى
يا كلبي لا تتمنى ما طول جافانا الهوى وبطلنه
وك لا عين ضلت خاليه ولاضل ولف يتعنه
ولا تدك يالدكك قهر مقفول باب الجنه
وهي نوب ما مش ضنه
آه يا وكتنه الما صفت نيته وزرك عينه النه
وطحنه بوسط شلوه هفه وكل ذيب يبرد سنه
ردنه نكف ونهوش نحمي الروح ما أمجنه
وانته بجلاده عين صحت اكلنه
وما طول راضي بموتنى ستاطنه
آه ياخسارة نوحناويارخص ذيج الونه
ردفا علينا سهامكم واعلى الصبر دامنه
لااحنى للدنيا صفينا ولا هوى الدنيا النه
متبدل بطبعه الهوى لو احنى التبدلنه
آه ياهواهم باول ايامه شكثر دللنه
من وصل طينتها الضهر كلها تبرت منه
لاسالفه بشفة محب ولا عاذل اليعذلنه
وحشه دنيانه وصفت جنها ابد موش النه
متبدل بطبعه الوكت لو احنه التبدلنا

I know it sounds bizzar; but that what I feel

Regards
03 November 2007 10:07

3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Yasmin and A&EIraqi
Sorry I keep doing this, this video did make me a bit sad when I first found it and brought back memories of the CD I bought all those years ago.
But in fact for this week (until the next phone call) I am a little more optimistic, apparently things are 60% better. I do not promise to remain positive for long but will try and think up something happier to share.
take care
04 November 2007 00:34

Yasmin (Blanche) said...
3eeraqi Medic,
i forgot to ask u, if i may, where did u get this oooold film of baghdad streets?? its like a documentary..
the trip in the familiar streets was So touching..
thanks..
05 November 2007 12:54

3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Yasmin
I am not sure where the film is from, but it was uploaded to You Tube by someone calling himself namirkh check out his You Tube collection they are reliably great, and he has access to all sorts of material from history to Iraqi TV programs.
06 November 2007 19:19

New Year

2011-07-21T19:07:00.001-07:00

Tourism

2011-07-21T19:06:00.001-07:00

Muzzling those who bark, and barking up the wrong tree

2011-07-21T19:05:00.001-07:00

UNDAY, 9 DECEMBER 2007

So it appears that certain types of poetry will get you a prison sentence in the UK,
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article3010203.ece
Someone sent me a link to this piece of news with a joking warning to beware.

Much of the attention paid to this case is from those defending her right of free thought and speech, I think there is another worrying aspect, although I have not read much of Samina’s poetry, having read the piece and the legislation used to cover her trial I remembered a two-piece drama I had seen on channel 4 one month ago titled Britz

http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/B/britz

A story of a brother and sister born in Britain to Pakistani parents, he is an MI5 agent, she a suicide bomber.

The first episode had every stereotypic box ticked, the young foreign boy beaten up, the blonde police officer forcing him against the wall with a “f***ing paki” accompanied kick in the groin, the family returning the sister to Pakistan to marry, where she is apparently murdered, burnt and buried by the roadside in a village where the animals still share the living quarters with the barbaric cousins.

In the meantime an Asian man is in custody somewhere in Eastern Europe being tortured to within a breath of his life while interrogated by his neighbour the MI5 stooge, who justifies what he is doing as “preventing the deaths of hundreds of innocents”, and concludes the night’s work with a drink of scotch and sex with his blonde fellow agent.

The second episode uncovered the truth behind the story, the sister is a medical student, a political activist rather than a devout follower of Islam, with a sense of injustice, her attempts at political dialogue foiled, her best friend committing suicide after detention under the terrorism laws for having too much pepper.

She escapes society and family to the training camps, and is dressed to kill in her explosive belt when the final scene brings her face to face with her brother, she ready to detonate, he on the hunt for the first British female suicide bomber about to blow up London’s financial heart.

One scene that struck me involved a conversation between the heroine and her London contact where she tells him not be to be sad for her, and responds to his reassurance that she will soon be on Allah’s side that “that is not what it is about”.

In addition to a more real view of what drives people to become suicide bombers I saw in this drama a depiction of how easy it is for evil to manipulate our need to “fit in”, a weakness clearly affecting some second generation British Muslims, growing up in a family that is “non integrated” and a society that is “non-accepting”, for the brother who was so desperate to be more British than the British he was willing to join the recruiters for spies on telephone conversations, grass his friends, and watch over the torture of another to prove his “belonging”, and for his sister who was so disaffected by the non acceptance that she is willing to join the recruiters for training camps in her university campus.
Who of the two recruiters is more evil?

The use of antiterrorism legislation to muzzle poetry and the training of a police officer I overheard knowingly explain that “you will recognise a suicide bomber by the fact that they pray or chant the Koran just before they detonate” suggests that despite pieces of drama like this, in the real world by continuing to concentrate on Islam, watching over its followers, and prosecuting people who scribble things on paper for terrorism, while ignoring the underlying grievances of previous suicide bombers, this country will continue to be at risk of missing a group of disaffected and potentially more dangerous angry people.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 21:19 3 COMMENTS

A&Eiraqi said...
3mti
Wonderful
Totally agree with you.
Regards
10 December 2007 22:32

Little Penguin said...
Dr, the thing about spotting a terrorist is that there's no point in scanning faces, outfits and dialects, what's more important is eradicating the ideology that justifies their means of having brunch with the Prophet.. By that I'm pointing my finger at those who implicitly and explicitly advocate that Muslims distance themselves from "the kuffar" - anyone who isn't Muslim..

The other day I was talking to a seemingly level-headed Somali girl on campus when she said she'd rather have Abu Hamza (Captain Hook) as the Muslim khaleefa than anyone who isn't Muslim.. "Brother, haven't you read the hadeeth that says 'support your Muslim brother, oppressor or oppressed' we have to stay away from them.. and if they're killed, well it's just their comeuppance"

The threat of radical islamists shouldn't worry only Brits.. but the whole world.. I mean, look at Iraq.. killing Manadeis and Christians and anyone who hasn't got a beard and who doesn't tuck his shirt in.. and I hope i'm not seen as taking sides here, many religious factions are culprits..

el muhim.. I didn't get to see Britz but it seems to have over-blown an already-farfetched scenario.. in any case, some aspects may well be true..

As for that lyrical terrorist, I was aghast when I read that piece of news on the paper.. seriously, British Muslims have got a lamentable image as it is, the least we can do is hide our faults and accentuate what's good about us.. write hate-poems and publish them on the net? how stupid and irresponsible can you get? This kind of thing is what The Daily Mail thrives on.. Dr, you have a case for arguing against prosecution of unorthodox creativity, but when it has the potential of making me pull the pin, I think it was only reasonable..

but then again, what's making her want to pull the pin?

Such a headache.. sorry to have rambled..

Regards
18 December 2007 14:04

3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Little Penguin, nice to see you once more, and please please ramble as much as you like here.
I am going to be honest again and then probably regret it and delete some or more of what I say.
Had anyone asked me if I would pondering such questions five years ago I would have laughed, just as I laughed (and cringed a little with embarrassment) when I watched some odd Syrian cleric make an absolute fool of himself on a TV programme some years ago.
At the time it was difficult for me to understand why the government allowed people like him to live off state benefits while he sprouted nonsense about making Britain a Muslim country with Sharia law, I also couldn’t believe how anyone with two neurons could listen to him let alone follow him.
But time has passed, I am not sure if people are different, if I look at people differently or if I just see different people but I am concerned, concerned by the sense of alienation in some people, an alienation resulting from a perceived injustice committed by their own countrymen, and rejection by others they thought would welcome them, the alienation creating a need to belong, and the incomprehensible (to me at least) need to find themselves in religion, a religion that they previously observed in what I consider a moderate manner, but now has become a sort of competition in devotion, and in observance, a sort of obsession that is truly worrying, not in itself but in the sort of blinkered view it creates.
What follows is then a second round of rejection for the visible expressions of the belief, a second round of displacement to a more “tolerant” country, the result of which is further sense of injustice and so on!
It seems to me that the more pressure is placed on people the more some of them seem to radicalise, it is another chicken and egg situation I am not sure you can really decipher what happened first, but I must say although I now feel more fearful of people like the odd cleric and what he was nattering on about, I am also very worried about the pressure being exerted on Islam and all Muslims to “reform” themselves or their religion because I know it is pushing some people the wrong way.
I have rambled enough, and if you do not understand what I mean it is probably for the best, but if you have read some of my previous deleted posts you may well comprehend what I am talking about!!!
18 December 2007 19:56

Occupation Science fiction style

2011-07-21T19:04:00.001-07:00

So many smiles

2011-07-21T19:03:00.001-07:00

The nights of the obturator nerve

2011-07-21T19:02:00.000-07:00

Jigsaw

2011-07-21T19:00:00.000-07:00

Women on a Journey between Baghdad and London

2011-07-21T18:59:00.000-07:00

Shopping

2011-07-21T18:58:00.000-07:00

Still waiting to return

2011-07-21T18:56:00.000-07:00

The Plight of Iraqi People under Occupation

2011-07-21T18:46:00.001-07:00

MONDAY, 29 OCTOBER 2007

The clutching at straws continues, another one-day event, sponsored by SIUI (Solidarity for Independent United Iraq) http://solidarityiraq.blogspot.com, and advertised by the Iraqi league http://www.iraqirabita.org.

I wanted to go, but at the last minute could not, but I got hold of recordings of the event, and having watched most of them I have put together a summary of the day's talks I have also extracted a minute of an accusation against the Iraqi Medical Association, who were the organisers the July meeting that produced my Mind the Gap post.

After the opened words from the Iraqi author Haifa Zangana, the meeting started with an overview of Forced Migration presented by the Director of the Iraqi League Mazin Younis and London based academic Dr Mundher Al-Adhami.

A concise presentation with several case histories of forcible deportation of people and families from all over Iraq starting with the family of an executed detainee taken hostage by the British forces to force his brother out of hiding in Basra in April 2003, the systematic displacement of families in certain areas of Basra, followed by the handing over of their homes to the militias, the extension of this policy to the American controlled areas, the map of Baghdad showing the five main entry points into the city which just happen to be the areas of greatest insecurities and ongoing “sectarian” or “religious” displacements.
Deadly distractions diverting attention from the entry and exit sites needed for troop movement.

The targeted murders of the intellectuals was detailed by Doctor Ismail al Jalili and was a followed by a presentation on the work carried out by Professor John Akker of the council for assisting refugee academics (CARA).

Dr Sawsen Ismail a senior lecturer in political sciences in Baghdad University gave a presentation on the situation of academics in Iraqi universities, the 200 plus murdered lecturers and senior lecturers, the 40% student attendance rates, and the virtual encouragement by the government of the taking of long unpaid leave by those students and lecturers it cannot protect and who are fearful for their lives, her talk was in Arabic which was simultaneously translated to English by the young woman chairing of the session; a third year medical student who left Iraq a year ago and is still waiting for admission to university here to complete her degree.

Mr Al-Shaikhly who only recently arrived from Iraq, started by a sweeping criticism of all the well known satellite channel speakers who were “unable” to attend the meeting in London, he went on to speak with passion of the situation of women in Iraq before and after the occupation, the daily toil to stay alive, the forces that had made her return to a “middle ages” role in her black cloak following the turbaned leader into the American tank protected parliament building.

He detailed the sectarisation of universities, hospitals, and ministries, giving an example of the non-eligibility of his son to attend the University of Mustansiryia. The indoctrination of elementary school students, with the daily reminders of the birth and martyrdom days of one or other of the imams.

He went on to describe the violent alteration in demography of Mosul and Kirkuk specifically, and was less than complimentary towards Jalal Talabani. His concluding remarks where “the Iraqi will remain, after the tanks have left, the price will be high, the time may be long but we the Iraqis will prevail”.

International Law Lawyer Sabah Al Mukhtar who made several points, starting with the Guantanamo situation, and how it’s (il)legal status and the world’s silence but more importantly the silence of Americans within government, parliament, and the legal system makes the apparent international acceptance of what continues to happen in Iraq easier to comprehend. He went through the legal options available to bring countries or people to trial for all the breaches in law that have been and continue to take place, international courts would need a state or an international body to commence proceedings The Arab League could, but clearly wouldn’t, individuals could take their cases in civil courts, an interesting example could be for an individual from Falluja to take Ayad Allawi (a British Citizen) to court in the UK, provided enough funds could be found, the one piece of advice he did have was to document everything and anything, anyone can and should do this even if just on a scrap of paper dated with details of the event be it personal injury, damage to property committed by the occupying forces, it may be used by future generations of lawyers to sue the occupying forces who legally at least would be held accountable.

He gave a breakdown of the 40.000 currently held detainees (outside the militia prisons).

He was asked a question regarding making a legal case for an international tribunal on the grounds of genocide to cover events in Iraq and it was in the context of responding to this question that he mentioned how the IMA formally objected to a submission made to the British Parliament to allow the British Medical Journal to be sent to Iraq during the years of the sanctions, an accusation of complicity in UN enforced genocide (no mention of the timing of this event or who was in charge of the IMA at the time).

Tahrir Numan who was chairing this session went on to speak amongst other things about the ongoing detention of women in lieu of their men folk by the American forces. The day’s final session was presented by Mustafa Elmara titled Control of Oil is the Mission. The common feature in this like so many other events is that they are preaching to the converted, with a small group of vigorous head nodding listeners, and one recurring thought at the end of all such events “what should be done? Can anything be done? “
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 23:13 3 COMMENTS

A&Eiraqi said...
3mti
I was going to attend it but I didn't.
The thing is; watching the video I can say that the speaker said the truth.
That happened to us and when we complained they said it's Saddam's propaganda and there are ones who still try to put things as they're propaganda.
But; saying that someone was not accepted in a university for sectarian causes is doubtful; still accepting students for undergraduate studies is controlled by the ministry of Education and the universities have nothing to do with it; it doesn't mean there is no cheating in that; but cheating by accepting ones who are less qualified for it.
I totally agree with the way you ended the post; what will be done?
I don't think anything will be done.
Regards
31 October 2007 18:23

3eeraqimedic said...
AEIraqi
I may have misquoted, I don't think he meant his son would not accepted in University but they he would notbe welcomed in the University I think you wrote something about Mustansirya yourself sometime ago.
As for the final statement it is why I started the post with clutching at straws.
31 October 2007 20:57

A&Eiraqi said...
3mti
I didn't deny the sectarian and militias control of Al-Mustansiriya university.
I just doubt not accepting the guy in the university.
At the end of the day; you're right I said before it has been Al-Musawiyia university.

Regards
31 October 2007 21:52

The God Delusion

2011-07-21T18:37:00.000-07:00

FRIDAY, 26 OCTOBER 2007

I read this book some months ago, having blown my cover too many times to recall, and with Ramadan I found it difficult to post this before now, I have decided to do so but to my regular visitors a warning
As the title implies, if you are devout believer in God or Gods you may well find this post offensive, so please click away now.
To the casual reader this post is very long, and very wordy.

When I first started to question faith I did so from a selfish viewpoint, the faiths I had grown up with and specifically the one I was expected to follow left much to be desired, in my view at least with regards to the position of females in society, many would argue my conclusions but let us leave those discussions for now.

Having rejected some of the elements of the religion it seemed logical to start questioning others, and rather quickly thereafter to conclude that the whole “message” was a hoax, a very good one but nonetheless a hoax.

And at that point I felt a great sense of relief.

What a load of time I had saved, I didn’t need to read the whole convoluted and confusing text and argue each verse and all its possible explanations to find the errors, or go through each ritual and track back its roots in the ancient history of the people of the region, or delve into several assertions of miraculous pre-scientific knowledge hidden in text and prove their errors.

I did not need to do any of this for myself, and frankly that was all that mattered. It was never in my plan to change to world, or collect converts; it was sufficient for me to find that my doubts had co-sharers, and that there were many more logical alternatives to the angels and the eternal damnation.

But when the ground beneath our feet is dissolving, when our entity, our past, our life-long truths are being eroded, and in the name of a variety of versions of a single religion millions of our people are being displaced, tortured, massacred and worse, those close to me all seem to be trying to make sense of the events by concerted effort to further their knowledge in the religion itself (and embracing it even more wholeheartedly) or in the history of the region.

Every house I visit shows the evidence, the books abound, the history of Al Hajjaj, the history of the Abassids, the history of the Inquisition, the history of Islam, and the history of Iraq written by all manner of authors.

I even found a book published by some American church funded organisation called “What is the difference” which is a set of arguments to use against followers of other religions to convince them of the superiority of Christianity.

After resisting for a while I also succumbed.

True to form however I was more interested in why people follow religions in the first place rather than which of the selection of religions, sub religions, sects, and sub sects is the truer version of God’s message.

I started with a book in Arabic written in 1931 by Iraqi poet Maroof Al-Rusafi, and published in 2003, the premise of the book titled the Mohamadian persona was to very politely and rather apologetically suggest that maybe, just maybe Mohamed was only a genius, the greatest genius ever to have stepped forth on this magnificent earth to be sure, but maybe only a genius, and that the Almighty in all his greatness although clearly having all the wondrous features described by the genius Mohammed, maybe just maybe had not really said all those things in the Koran.
The method used was to do the whole “look here, in this bit of this Sura the grammar is odd, in this line of this Aya He surely cannot mean this because that would mean that” and so on.

I found it very hard going, and was unable to complete the book.

A book I managed to complete recently was published in 2006, by Richard Dawkins titled The God delusion.

From a Christian background and with a career in evolutionary biology, the author argues his case that not only is God a delusion but that religion is a force of great evil. The book relies very heavily on the theory of evolution; the concept is that if science can refute the religious idea of creationism then the belief in God should just dissolve.

It is not an easy read, and as I read late at night when my concentration is less than perfect I needed to read several sections repeatedly, and did not entirely follow the logic behind some of the chemistry and physics origins of earth sections.

The stated goal of the book is to “raise consciousness” in four separate elements.

1. To make people aware that they can question, and that ultimately they can leave “their” religions, yet remain happy, balanced, moral and intellectually fulfilled.

2. That if evolution is accepted as an explanation for all the incredible variety past and present in living creatures on earth, then it is likely that in time physics and chemistry will prove that the non living elements around us also evolved rather than were necessarily “created” by a super-powerful God / Gods of religions.

3. That to indoctrinate children in parental religious belief is a form of child abuse, and that we should all of us flinch whenever we hear a phrase such as “Catholic child “or “Muslim child” instead of a “child of Muslim parents”.

4. That being an atheist is something to be proud of, it nearly always indicated a healthy independence of mind.

I have no problem with his first three conscious raisers, and in this book I found another; the non-benign nature of “Non-fundamentalist, sensible religion, which may not be damaging young minds, but it is making the world safe for fundamentalist by teaching children, from their earliest years, that unquestioning faith is a virtue”

I am not convinced with his fourth statement mainly because it is arrogant.

The book has been reviewed by both sides of the argument elsewhere, I would like to quote some sections I especially liked.

“American polls suggest that atheists and agnostics far outnumber religious Jews, and even outnumber most other particular religious groups. Unlike Jews, however who are notoriously one of the most effective political lobbies in the United States, and unlike Evangelical Christians, who wield even greater political power, atheist and agnostics are not organized and therefore exert almost zero influence. Indeed organizing atheists has been compared to herding cats, because they tend to think independently and will not conform to authority.”

So there you have it, herd the American atheists and America will stop meddling in our affairs.

“God is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction; jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sado-masochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

Although this description of the God in the religious textbooks is true, this is the sort of description used to soften one up, usually before waging war against the people of this unpleasant character, often a war wrapped in a few “ we have no problems with the people, just the leader” pacifiers.

Sociologists studying British children have found that only about one in twelve break away from their parents’ religious beliefs.

Hopeless then! In fact this is rather frightening if you think how followers of orthodox forms of the three monotheistic religions place such importance on hyper-reproduction.

Why do we so readily accept the idea that the one thing you must do if you want to please God is believe in him? What’s so special about believing? Isn’t it just as likely that God would reward kindness, or generosity, or humility, or sincerity? What if God is a scientist who regards honest seeking after truth is the supreme virtue? Indeed wouldn’t the designer of the universe have to be a scientist?
Why should God value dishonestly faking belief or even honest belief over honest scepticism?

Now this bit I liked very much, oh the arrogance of us scientists!

In his intriguing argument of natural selection being more likely than design as the producer of the variety of living creatures and their wonderfully complex organs I liked the “Climbing Mountain Improbable” argument, so if you imagine a mountain with a structure of complexity or great beauty being the summit, the design theory for creation requires that the summit is reached in a massive jump from the ground and requires the workings of a God, however, rather neatly evolution goes round the back of the mountain and creeps up the gentle slope in small steps.

The message from the intelligent design theory to the scientist: If you don’t understand how something works, never mind; just give up and say God did it. You don’t know how the nerve impulse works? Good! Please don’t go on to work on the problem, just give up and appeal to God.

I can imagine many imams sympathising with this train of thought.

Though the details differ across the world, no known culture lacks some version of the time-consuming, wealth-consuming, hostility-provoking rituals, the anti-factual, counter-productive fantasies of religion.
The old Northern Ireland joke “Yes but are you a protestant atheist or a catholic atheist” is spiked with bitter truth.

So true, except in our case the joke will start with: and before I behead you for being an atheist are you……?

It made very interesting reading, although it answered some of my questions about the how and why of religion, it did not really convince me strongly to stop my agnostic-atheist-agnostic indecision.

I have for some time felt that (giving people the benefit of doubt) the three Middle Eastern religions were started as social experiments in reform, based on human ideas of right and wrong, which have in common this singular mighty God as the filler of all gaps in knowledge and trump card used to answer all unfathomable questions. That in itself does not mean there are no beings out there who are more intelligent or more powerful than us, although they did not create us, nor have any interest in our daily activities, they may have mistakenly made contact with earthlings and hence the whole Gods in the sky stories (you can see I have watched way too much Star Trek).

What I had lazily wanted, and unsurprisingly did not find was the absolute scientific proof for the absence of God. I admit my expectations were unrealistic, after several thousands of years of argument and counter argument it was unlikely that I would find the proof in a paperback from Waterstones.

The book puts forward several arguments for the low probability of His existence, but because all the scientific evidence is not available yet, it resorts to luck or chance repeatedly to explain away certain tricky questions, maybe statistically more likely than a God but I am not a mathematician, and struggled to understand it all so I suspect the vast majority of people would still hedge their bets and go for what the elders told them was the truth rather than what a few scientists say – this propensity to believe our parents and elders is of course a very useful evolutionary feature, and also makes religious belief so easy to spread and is dealt with in some detail in the book.

What this book, alongside a couple of documents I received by email after a previous posting, and the chance discovery of the blog of a well respected and internationally renowned British colleague who is “praying for the salvation of Christians from the damaging effect of Islam” and “is preparing for the imminent return of Jesus” did, was raise my consciousness to the similarities between the delusional thought process going on in some very intelligent and occasionally very powerful American and British Christian minds and those going on in some Muslim minds.

I respect the fact that the main arguments of the author are kept within Christianity, it is an uncomfortable truth that even someone like myself will feel a stirring of indignation if non-Muslims have a go at Islam while putting forward their alternative religion as being so much more peaceful / more genuine / more progressive etc. and also why I was initially so impressed by Ibn Warraq’s “Why I am not a Muslim” when I read it several years ago (although I wonder about the motivation of someone who goes on to write a book called In Defence of the West).

One thing that intrigued me about the book, and even more so about the author's website http://richarddawkins.net was an uncomfortable sense of the absolute conviction of Richard Dawkins and his followers in the superiority of his theories.

It reminded me of the absolute conviction I have seen in so many religious people, the superiority of their faith and often fatally the superiority of their sect, I have never understood how people can quite happily ridicule the rituals of yearly visits to burial places, from the lofty height of the “superior” ritual of anual pilgrimage to a gold draped meteorite, or how people can confidently assert that a book written two thousand years ago was clearly altered, from the altogether more solid position of leading their lives and condemning others on the basis of the actions or words of a man conveyed verbally for a few hundred years.

Although clearly conviction in scientifically proven fact is different “ fundamentalist know they are right because they have read the truth in a holy book and they know, in advance, that nothing will budge them from their belief…..When a science book is wrong, somebody eventually discovers the mistake and it is corrected in subsequent books. That conspicuously doesn’t happen with holy books” and science can repeatedly and with ease that increases with time refute religious myths, this has not yet made much difference to the proportion of the world’s population who still follow one of the three religious “gifts” our part of the world has given to mankind.

It is fascinatingly irritating how the exact word of God is extremely flexible at times, allowing a variety of interpretations of a piece of text when the literal meaning is proven wrong “well the six / seven days were never meant to be taken literally, it is symbolic” whereas when it comes to other parts of text they must be obeyed to the letter and offenders must be punished in “literally the way God states” and no we cannot change this because we cannot possible know any better!

Human knowledge has not yet reached the point of scientifically refuting the existence of God, in time it may well be able to do so but whether that will change the course of humanity is another matter.

Richard Dawkins presented a BBC programme last year titled “The root of all evil” and in this book he asserts that the world would be a better place without religion “imagine no 9/11, no Israel-Palestinian conflict, no Northern Ireland conflict etc”, elsewhere in the book Richard Dawkins is fairly certain that all the problems in Northern Ireland would be over in a decade if it weren’t for separate schools and rarity of mixed marriages, well as is clear in my country where previously one third of marriages were inter-sect, and as far as I am aware there were no such things as sect specific schools none of this protected people from worse fates than those seen in Northern Ireland.

Returning to my point about the superiority of personally held belief, I think it is this very human failing of arrogance (of which I am as guilty as the next person) rather than the religion itself that is the root of all the human suffering caused in the name of ideas, whether they cloak themselves with religious mythology or admit that they are the brain child of social reformers, or just plain power greedy mind manipulators.

Because this conviction in the superiority of personally held belief is such a widespread human character, according to evolution it must have some very powerful survival advantage.

This is my simplistic thinking; I am sure others will improve upon them.
I suppose if you have no maps, no aerial views of the world and yet you build your boat and set sail, because contrary to everyone else’s opinion you are absolutely sure there is land beyond the water you make the survival of your genetic makeup more likely if you are proven right, so the gene for conviction survives, likewise any of a whole host of human discoveries that at the time must have seemed magical or fanciful, the ability of human beings to be absolutely convinced they are right based on a hunch or subjective evidence or even occasionally without a shred of evidence has on the whole probably meant we have advanced our knowledge, and thus our chances of survival, it is in some occasions an evolutionary advantage for people to be absolutely sure they are right.

It may be the terrible but unavoidable price we pay for this advantage of arrogance “misfiring into arrogance of the superiority of personal delusion” that millions of people need to die for, or as innocent bystanders of “holy” wars fought by others in the name of these firmly held delusions also called religions.

In time I suppose humans will evolve out of this monotheistic version of the delusion, just as we evolved out of all the other ancient religions. However history tells us that in the meantime what tends to happen is the replacement of one religion or ideology with another more “modern” or more “pure” version of the religion / ideology which spreads - to quote the author – “like a mind virus” spontaneously, or at least when its’ followers kill off enough of the dissenters.

Who knows maybe the Darwin / Dawkins arguments will be the new religion, but I dread to think of all the rituals and fanciful stories woven by the followers of the enlightened prophet Darwin and his great disciple Dawkins (and their sons and rightful heirs displaced by someone else) fighting those “non-believers” in a few hundred years time!
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 21:48 9 COMMENTS

saminkie said...
You said you questioned your faith from a selfish point of view, and I wanna say that what you did was the right thing. You got to view your religion (and other religions) selfishly, or if you like to use a better word, egocentrically, or use the sentence (from a personal point of view) to be deplomatic.

Regarding the word, a hoax, am not that good in english but doesn't mean deception? That implies that the religious men/women and prophets knew that it is wrong. I thinkl they really believe of their religion…most of prophets (I think) believed thathey were prophets…they did not attempt to decieve..but…whether they were true or wrong..this is the question..

Anthropology was the science that gave me the best explanations about religion and why people follow religions in the first palce as you qeustioned…and you know what?...i think it was in Iraq where it all started, there in the south, in the marches, where the 4 rivers of the sumerian heaven that it all started, you can see how much is taken from sumerian stories and ideas into the mandies (sade2a manda2eyoun) religion and then to other religions…it is a heritage of believes changing over thousands of years….

3eeraqimedic thank you for that frank bright courageous post…
31 October 2007 07:54

saminkie said...
Am reading these days TOTEM AND TABOO of Sigmund Freud and it is about the origins of Taboos…and believe me 3eeraqimedic it is more enjoyful to read Freud than to read Richard Dawkins, cause I think Einstein had made physics inaccessable to the nonprofessionals in physics and after him all professionals in physics and related things like richard Dawkins is really tuisting the mind in a bizzar way…I think many of them have some mental bizzaries…some schizotypal traits…(that doesn't mean psychiatrists and psychologists are not bizzare sometimes, Freud himself is neurotic)…
31 October 2007 07:54

saminkie said...
Did you hear about the God gene?
31 October 2007 07:55

3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Sami
I had transiently forgotten your interest in world religions, well thank you for "publicly" commenting on this post, selfish / egocentric both do not sound very complimentary.

As far as the hoax is concerned I felt that I had been tricked hence the use of the word.
Only the people themselves whether prophets disciples or religious leaders can know whether they genuinely believe what they say, or realise they are deceiving people but think it is in their best interest, or deceive them intending to gain from the deception, I did go on later to say that they probably were social reformers who used the tools available at the time to spread their ideas.
And yes religions are all our fault and boy are we paying the price!

I must admit I have not read Freud possibly because I had pre-judged him as rather single-minded!! I will take your advice though.

And finally no I have not heard of the God gene, is that some gene that makes you more likely to be religious? But I will look it up.
31 October 2007 21:10

Little Penguin said...
3eeraqimedic,

Like Saminkie, I applaud your willingness to discuss a subject of this scale in front of people. When it comes to matters like this, there's nothing to be ashamed of. It's those sheep who are spoon-fed their beliefs that should snap out of their intellectual siesta and start thinking for themselves.

Many will (and have) been offended by this post, but I didn't. If anything, it shows you've got a functioning intellect..

The question of the need for religion can be tackled from endless viewpoints.. Marx said it's an opium of the masses.. Weber says it's a remedy for times of distress.. He says this and he says that.. Personally, I feel that I can't afford to rely on my very own moral evolution to come to a conclusion as to what is right and what is wrong. I can't live half a century and then realise that I should've done something differently.. Religion, albeit restrictive for the vast majority, is necessary for the smooth functioning of human societies.

Be it an indefinable superpower that defies logic and physics and metaphysics and chemistry and all that - or a wooden horse.. both will do their bit to maintain some sort of social order.. How just and reasonable and socially satisfying this authority is depends on the kind of regulations that it serves to maintain.. Hindus categorise people in accordance to their castes, some Muslims are so matriarchal is disgusting, some Christians are so celibate they turn into peadophiles - these aspects of religion are unpleasant indeed, but that shouldn't be anyone's excuse to claim the absolute rebuttal of the need for a religion..

In any case, it's not purely a question of texts and miracles and praying and starving .. it certainly involves a degree of intuitive desire to cling onto something beyond our comprehension..

I would go on but i've an anthropology essay to finish..

Regards,

P.S: hope you liked the Iraq poem..
14 November 2007 19:32

Little Penguin said...
sorry.. patriarchal.. certainly not matriarchal.
14 November 2007 19:43

3eeraqimedic said...
Little Penguin
Well well I had you down as one ptential offendee (is that a real word?) pray tell me who did I ofend? or at least tell them I am sorry, but I have never hidden my position regarding religion on this blog (although in the real world it is another matter)
One of the things that Richard Dawkins stresses repeatedly is that just because we need a delusion does not make it any less of a delusion, and although rules are clearly needed for functioning society why follow illogical or even potentially dangerous rules?
Beyond our comprehension I can accept, but I just can't square that with the messages as allegedly sent by such a powerful being.
Dear me I should have just stuck with my original "At this point I had a great sense of relief" and stopped there!
15 November 2007 00:19

Comment deleted
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
17 December 2007 02:38

3eeraqimedic said...
An open message to visitors
Do not use my site as an advertising tool for your “oh so innocent” little campaigns for “modernising Islam” which include rewriting history to suit your whims and fancies, trying to erase crimes committed by Christians and Jews and criminalising freedom fighters and national patriots.

F

Ayamkum Sa3eeda

2011-07-21T18:35:00.002-07:00

FRIDAY, 12 OCTOBER 2007

Will it be tomorrow or the day after? That was the question.

The television told us, until the television told us we would be prepared for both possibilities, homework finished, school uniforms ready, schoolbags packed, just in case, at the same time the house cleaned, the kitchen filled with the aroma of baking, the visitor’s room ready and welcoming, also just in case.

In our dishdashas or baza pyjamas, peering through the windows willing the crescent to show itself to our pleading eyes, we would carefully keep note of the television waiting for the news, the official declaration, seen or not seen?

With the news over we would then either reluctantly creep up the stairs and get into bed, or scramble down begging to be allowed to stay up a little later as the theme music changed and "il layla 3eed" started playing to the background sparkly images.

The next morning we would rise very early, tumbling down the stairs to wish our parents “happy days” and get through the breakfast quickly so we could at last don our brand new clothes and shoes, garments bought or sewn several days or even weeks in advance specially for the occasion.

Looking our best and with parents eventually prepared (only when you get older do you realise how many other things the adults had to do before they could leave) the journeys would begin, it always seemed to be a race, carefully orchestrated and involving meticulous attention to hierarchy so younger members of the family (even if they were in their sixties) would visit the older ones, and in turn receive visits from those younger, the same applied at work so juniors greet their seniors, and so on, we would start with the neighbours in ever increasing circles of distance, tasting samples of every household’s pastries, and repaying with our own on the return visit.

After this there would be a visit to the relatives no longer with us, a special prayer for my grandfather, his father, and the uncles buried not far away, with the annual reminder of each and every one, their names, their achievements and the stories of their bravery.

Then it was time for the first half of the family members, those relatives living nearby, the first and second cousins, some with their own children, all in our new clothes, all under strict instructions to “behave well”, “speak politely”, “thank everyone profusely for the 3eedyia” (gifts or traditionally coins given to children by older relatives in Eid), “never take more than one Mackintosh sweet” (why was it always Quality Street) even if offered repeatedly, and “under no circumstances get our new clothes dirty!”

At lunch time we would congregate at my grandmother’s house. A large meal, lots more people, gifts for the children and often a special television film.

In the evening the cycle would continue, with the slightly more distant relatives, who also lived slightly further away, the visits becoming briefer, the sweets and pastries much less tempting now, with many more istikans of chai to help digest the various parts of the meals.

By the second day our list of visitors and visits would be getting shorter, and our patience in waiting to spend our money would be shorter still.

A trip to Luna Park, a special toy, and many sweets later and becoming rather uncomfortable in the not-so-new clothes, and the not-so-comfortable shoes the days of celebration would rapidly come to an end.

And tomorrow we would go back to school, back to friends, to compare notes, to compare 3eedyias and gifts, and to take whatever was left of the pastries to who ever could manage another one the day after the Eid.

If you celebrated today or if you are celebrating tomorrow, have a good Eid, and for our country and people may the year ahead bring liberty, peace and prosperity.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 19:14 5 COMMENTS

A&Eiraqi said...
اسعد الله ايامك و كل عام و انت بخير
13 October 2007 09:21

saminkie said...
ayamkum sa3eeda....nice post...i like it when you talked about the BAZA pijamas...
13 October 2007 15:32

3eeraqimedic said...
Sami
Glad you liked it, it was very much as usualy influenced by Yasmin of noomehillo.
Ah yes brushed cotton never brings back memories like baza does!!
14 October 2007 00:50

Yasmin (Blanche) said...
3eeraqi Medic,
i miiiis el Bejama el baza..it resembles the good ooold days..
Kol am wente bekher my dear..
16 October 2007 07:57

3eeraqimedic said...
Yasmin
It is always the little things
best wishes for a better year
16 October 2007 18:56

Mesopotamia

2011-07-21T18:35:00.001-07:00

FRIDAY, 5 OCTOBER 2007

N was leaving, we had known this was inevitable for at least one year; she had spoken about little else for months.

N’s father was absent, executed for some misdemeanour or other, N had always maintained it was for fraud, and that he had been innocent, she was our friend and we believed her.

N’s mother managed on her own, with her two daughters, they lived in a lovely flat surrounded by friends.

N was going to boarding school in England, just as soon as she passed her third year Baccalaureate exams, L would be joining her a few years later, and then their mother could also leave.

The school was arranged, the colourful brochure tired out by our repeated inspections, her uniform was prepared, her long list of requirements for the cold winter months ahead carefully packed.

N’s mother kindly arranged several “last visits”, we ate spaghetti bolognaise (a new concept having the sauce served separately and not as part of a bake), and took lots of photos with her new instant Kodak camera.

On one of her last days at school Isra’a brought her a book, a special gift from a relative who worked at the ministry of information

As I turned the pages, the pictures and the storyline gripped me. Could I please have a copy too?

Generous to a fault she agreed to ask, and we walked the short distance to her relative’s office, a polite request, a wave of the hand and a second book was brought out of the wrappers.

Of the multitude of books I could have brought out with me, I chose this one.

Some thirty years after it was published I think it serves as a reminder of the dangerous optimism that was blighted by the events of 1979.

The pages were marginally too big for the scanner, hence the imperfections, and loss of text.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 21:09 10 COMMENTS

A&Eiraqi said...
3mti
I would say this book is incomplete;
You've got to add many pages to it.
You don't need to put text or pictures; they should be just red and black to show our days.
Sorry for being pessimistic but we thought there would be a better Iraq
We've got nothing but blood.
07 October 2007 17:24

saminkie said...
wooow 3eeraqimedic...it is not allowed to do any download in our hospital library net servis nor open any multimedia but picture..that was why i did not opened the mutimedia file you attach to this blog...but today am in a net cafe...and waaaaaooooooow...you are great 3eraqimedic...you did all that? thank you very much...and from where did you get that nice relaxing music? is it munir bashir? how nice...in the future when i will see you publish a multimedia i will run to this cafe to open it...thank you qagain for the efforst you did to let us see with you these nice heavenly pictures...take care..
08 October 2007 14:32

3eeraqimedic said...
AEIraqi
What can I say? indeed black and bleak days followed.
08 October 2007 18:33

3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Sami
I am glad you enjoyed the book.
The music is played by a Palestinean musician called Elias (sorry cannot remember surname).
I am new to this and do not have many such books, so I am very unlikely to be producing very many such videos, so you will not need too many visits to the net cafe.
Take care.
08 October 2007 18:39

saminkie said...
dear 3eraqimedic...it is unbelievable how many dictation mistakes i make when i write...i think i got dyslexia...in writin not in reading..what that could be called..dysgraphia i think...anyway...by what programe you did that..i mean you put the pictures on after the other and a music play with them?? cause am jealous and wanna do something like you...
09 October 2007 09:58

3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Sami
I am really no expert and had a lot of help!
Basically it was using a free programme called windows movie maker, it has instructions on how to import pictures into a "project", and insert a title page etc, you can then choose to make it look like pages turning, and add an MP3 file to create the whole "film" like effect.
Good luck
09 October 2007 21:14

Yasmin (Blanche) said...
dear 3eeraqi Medic,
That was Lovely.. sooo touching.. the book me to another time.. full of peace and serenity .. back there..
i was not able to open the book before now, only read yr post before..
that was LOVELY..
thank u..
10 October 2007 07:52

3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Yasmin
Glad you enjoyed it, but really where are you? I really really miss your Iraqi-speak memories, please please post something for us....pleeeeaaasse
10 October 2007 23:24

Yasmin (Blanche) said...
dear 3eeraqi Medic,
thank u for the sweet request..
i will inshallah..
Ayyamech Saeeda..
11 October 2007 10:20

3eeraqimedic said...
Yasmin
Kull 3am witee b khair
Hope this year brings peace for everyone
12 October 2007 15:18

Sour sixteen

2011-07-21T18:34:00.001-07:00

SUNDAY, 30 SEPTEMBER 2007

I was ten, the oldest and the lucky one; I got a room to myself.
On the second floor, windows facing the road.

It had been L’s room. L died shortly after his mother, his clothes were found in a neat pile by the river edge, no one spoke about L; in fact we children should never have overheard the story of the clothes and the river.

He had painted one wall of his room purple, moving into his room was strange, I was an avid reader of horror stories, the Amityville house fresh in my mind, and I had nightmares in that room for some time with L peering in through the windows watching me.

The purple wall had gone by the time we arrived, but it took me some time and many “pushing the boundaries” battles with parents to convert the room to my liking, with cushions on the ground, and ruche curtains (in pink I am ashamed to say!).

An entire wall dedicated to my bookcase, with everything from my childhood comics and annuals, and later my teenage magazines, from school books, to my storybook collection, my fathers’ old Arsene Lupin and Sherlock Holmes detective stories and my own Agatha Christie series, later joined by the heavy tombs of medical books, the largest and a cause of years of teasing at college my Grey’s anatomy (this is the most comprehensive anatomy book but at over 1000 pages most first and second year medical students find it too heavy going), and my trusty skeleton (in his cool box, wrapped in tissue paper, surrounded by pieces of polystyrene, with his hands in surgical gloves).
Medical journals, atlases, picture albums, cassettes, and a few trophies completed the collection.

Sitting on the wardrobe, watching over me as I grew were my childhood companions. Two dolls; birthday gifts for my second and third birthdays, a sad teddy bear, and a grey poodle.

In the corner of the room my chest for the future, a small collection for my future home, handmade delicate tapestries, tablecloths, and bedding, curtains and cushions, waiting for their new furniture.

Under the bed was my special box.
An envelope with a ring, a letter from a teen admirer, three books of illustrated poems, black and white paintings, a small blue photograph album, an autograph book from primary school signed by my teachers, and by C, S, and N, and my white diary.

When I came to leave, my sisters queued to move in, some things would be used again, the books read over the years by many others, the skeleton traveled all around Baghdad for years in his cool box, the clothes worn out before conversion into patchwork bedcovers.

I went through my boxes, and imagined what would happen as I crossed the border, inspections and checks, how could I explain a party gown, brand new tablecloths, how could I explain the college photos, the poetry, the books, I could not risk it. I left it all behind, with me traveled only a few books and my white diary.

As I watch and read about people recording the packing of their lives, into boxes, into spare rooms, blithely organizing things away knowing they may never return, I remember those days, and I remember all those things I packed away in 1991, as I left my room for my sister, and I imagine all the things my sisters packed away in 2004, stacked up in my room to be locked up leaving the rest of the house for the relatives who would later be forcibly removed, and I imagine my room as it used to be, and I try not to imagine what it may be like now.

If you are leaving and cannot take it all, think of this, try to put your things in safe hands, try to distribute them thinly, try to let others enjoy or benefit from them, and destroy what you cannot bare to share, and if you can, photograph everything you love but must leave behind, in years to come your memories will fade, and you may never see your home again.

The image is a note written in haste, folded several times and crushed into my pocket, it was handed to me by my grandmother on the morning I left home for “a little while, until the situation improves”.
The text reads, “We place barriers in their hands and barriers behind them, and their vision will be blurred, and they cannot see” verse 9 from the 36th Sura Y.S (pronounced Ya sin)
Her advice to me was to repeatedly read this as I approached the border, and the patrols would be blinded and I would be able to pass.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 13:11 6 COMMENTS
Yasmin (Blanche) said...
Dear 3eeraqi Medic,
Yekhabbol !!.. Sooo touching..
it was always painful that one has to leave for good but cannot take the most precious things that sometimes mean nothing special but for this person in particular..
i still remeber things i left home, they were nothing valuable, but to me each piece held a memory..and was special..
i feel like crying.. yr post so deeply touching im thinking of writing a post about the things i left at home and still miss till this day..
PS: i left a 2nd comment on yr previous post..u once again took me back in time..
01 October 2007 09:59
Little Penguin said...
3eeraqimedic, I'm in awe of your honesty..

your accurate account of decade-old events is disarming to say the least..

It puzzles me as to why this is.. this life.. why does it pan out this way? I dont think it's nostalgia that compelled you to write this particular post.. discussing one's possessions and the dreadful thought of mis-handling your personal history, history which is cosmically-microsocopic yet sentimentally enormous.. writing about this is definitely the result of an enduring sense of betrayal by our surroundings.. by our life.. If I were you, I wouldn't have written this to feed a sense of longing and nostalgia.. I would be in desperate wanting of and an undying yearning for that kind of life.. music on the BBC World Service, book cases full of your own periodicals, stories and stuff.. all of that.. but I would mightily angry.. fuming..

This is not how things should be..

Have you tried retrieving your infantile best-friends and other items belonging to your mesmerising years in Baghdad?

The verse in the picture.. that single-handedly propeled me to many stories of my childhood when Mama would comfort me when I was afraid of the teachers finding out I had messed up my homework or not done something properly..

Allah Kareem Dr.. Allah Kareem..

Regards

P.S: sorry for my rambling.. i just couldn't cut things short.. i dont think we ever should when it comes to matters of this scale..
01 October 2007 13:52
3eeraqimedic said...
Yasmin
Painful yes so many years later and so many hands later "my" things odd isn't it.
You are right it is the personal memories attached to simple pieces that are just meaningless to anyone else yet represent a lost time.
01 October 2007 19:05
3eeraqimedic said...
Little Penguin
Well this got you going didn't it!!!
I am one of millions of Iraqi who have over several decades gone through this and no this is not the way it should be, but I was relatively lucky, I had time to plan and years after the event to have fragments "smuggled" out to me, but I think we appreciate different things at different stages of our lives and you can never really predict which scrap of "worthless" memories you will miss several years down the line.

My piece of paper with the verse I have cherished for all these years a momento of the sentiments on that day, I am glad they brought back pleasant memories of soothing mother's prayers.
01 October 2007 19:14
saminkie said...
3eeraqimedic that was one of the most beautiful lines I read these days....well 3eeraqimedic I miss my things and home too especially because I didn't imagine when I left that it will not be safe to go there again, I left many things there....Anyway look...AL JAHIDH was asked once, what made people more wise? he answered: 3 things, travelling, travelling, and travelling..
I know we Iraqis are not forced to leave our places but...
04 October 2007 11:09
3eeraqimedic said...
Dr Sami
Bitter sweet isn't it? I know what you mean about not knowing it would not be safe to return, and it is not possible to predict that.
Yes travelling does indeed increase the knowledge, but so much nicer if it could be followed by return home, I hope you do not stay away from home for long.
05 October 2007 21:18
F

My first concert

2011-07-21T18:33:00.001-07:00

RIDAY, 28 SEPTEMBER 2007

My taste in music is something of an embarrassment to my younger sisters, and in time I will probably be banned by my children from ever mentioning my love of the Depeche Mode, UB40, Billy Idol, Madness, Soft Cell, and of course John Lennon.

The music of the seventies was not my thing, I never “got” Abba, or disco.
But for one night I was willing to pretend otherwise, although I am not absolutely sure, I think this event took place in 1979.

A teenager in the late seventies I was into what teenage girls were into at the time, music, boys, and magazines on both topics.

The music was pop, in charts as played by the BBC world service, or selected records on Radio Kuwait, the boys were on the front covers of my magazines, or better still the centre fold posters.

The magazines were called Pink and Jackie, colourful, glossy, arriving without the attached free gifts of plastic trinkets, or lipsticks (where did they go?), they showed us little snippets of a different lifestyle, fashions (thigh high wool socks, white with thick blue or red stripes worn over skin tight jeans!), and each issue would have a couple of posters to adorn the bedroom wall, the only ones I seem to remember are a group of rather ugly balding chaps called MUD whose songs I had never heard! And someone with long blond hair whose name sounded like a loofah.

The news spread like wildfire at school, there was going to be a concert, a band coming to perform in a theatre in Baghdad.

Who was it going to be?
Who cared?
We had never been to a concert before; we all agreed we must go.

Myself Aseel and Mina were dropped of at the entrance and left to our own devices for however many hours the music blared out.

It started out really reserved, the front seats were taken up by older rather timid types, our seats, reserved in the stalls by parents wishing to keep us safely away from the crowds were abandoned within moments of the first notes, as we descended down to try and join the few youngsters dancing.

The boys drifting down to join us, giggled uncontrollably at their intentionally hysterical dance moves, and at the staff dragging everyone away from the stage.

We returned to our seats during the interval, sneaking up the steps, we saw members of the band having a drink, sweating in the stifling heat, they seemed extraordinarily tall, and had their hair in dreadlocks.

As my friends egged me on I approached, trying to appear suave and sophisticated, and asked for an autograph, then realised the only paper I had on me was the crumpled wrapper of a chocolate bar!

They must have been amused, because they obliged, I treasured my crumpled piece of wrapper with its scrawled signatures for some time hoping one day it would be worth something.

The music was deafening, the lights mesmerising, the band sprawled across the stage, and the applause went on and on.

As the concert came to an end, the band was thanked; a promise was made that within a few months Gloria Gaynor would be singing, “I will survive” from that same stage.

She never came.

We never got to go to another concert.

Who was the band that played in Baghdad in 1979 you may be wondering

They were called Earth Wind and Fire.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 19:39 4 COMMENTS
Yasmin (Blanche) said...
dear 3eeraqi Medic,
I remeber vaguely the concert that took place in Baghadad, m not quite sure it was 1979 but it might fit into my memories.. and as u said , i dont think tehre was any other band visiting afterwards.. so i suppose that was it..
u took back in time.. to teenage years..my old schol..
Very nice post..
30 September 2007 07:52
3eeraqimedic said...
Yasmin
long time no see hope all is well
I am also not sure it was 1979, possibly before but unlikely to have been after, did you go? or just hear about it?
30 September 2007 13:41
Yasmin (Blanche) said...
3eeraqi Medic,
No, i think it was 1979, or 1978, i did not go myself, but my closest freinds did go..all i remember is the fuss and excitement that filled their talk for a long time before and after going..
im not so sure either about the name of the band, does Magna Carta ring a bell? or is it only my imagination??
in any case it seemed you and i moved in very much the same circles..
very nice post once more..
01 October 2007 07:03
3eeraqimedic said...
Oh Yasmin
Honestly I sometimes think I imagined it all, or it was all a dream, maybe it was maybe it was never meant to be a different world, a different time, but you were there too so it must have been real, not just my imagination.
The same circles, the same time, that is why we understand each other, and why I said a while ago the people we miss are no longer there they are dispersed everywhere little specks of what was once our home.
01 October 2007 19:00

Honesty

2011-07-21T18:32:00.001-07:00

FRIDAY, 21 SEPTEMBER 2007

Honesty

Is such a lonely word
Everyone is so untrue
Honesty is hardly ever heard
And mostly what I need from you

I can always find someone
To say they sympathise
If I wear my heart out on my sleeve
But I don’t want some pretty face
To tell me pretty lies
All I want is someone to believe

I have been unable to get this song out of my head all day and the trigger was a very brief radio interview I listened to on the way to work today from the BBC Radio 4 today programme with John Humphreys

This is my transcript of the interview

John Humphreys:
Part of our mission in Afghanistan is to win the hearts and minds of local people, to turn them against people like the Taliban, our enemies, and in favour our notion of democracy; it is always part of our mission, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, Malaya or anywhere else we send our British soldiers to fight.
But does it work? Does it make sense?
They will be discussing that at the Royal United Services Institute today.
With me on the line is Professor Hew Strachan from Oxford University and here with me is Amis Godfrey (I may have got this name wrong) who served with Royal Welsh Fusiliers in places like Bosnia and Iraq.

J.H: Why do you believe Professor Strachan there should be questions asked about this?

H.S: Well I think my approach is simply a historical one that we have constructed a sort of a bogus narrative about the hearts and minds, we think we have always done it, and you have just said we always done it………

JH: We have always tried to do it………

H.S: Well, yes and no, I mean I think that when we were in a colonial context when we were dealing in the 1950s and 1960s with insurgencies in what were largely out of the way places as far as the media were concerned the key issue was the application of military force and of course the legitimacy of our own government, what we wished to deliver was effective government and order and from that indeed you might well get hearts and minds but you would probably only win some of the hearts and some of the minds some of the time, and essentially what you were trying to do was divide and rule, and that is roughly how Britain ran most of its colonies throughout the nineteenth century and how we ran them after nineteen forty five .

J.H: Right so we should replace hearts and minds as a doctrine with divide and rule?

H.S: Well it is not a bad principle, I am not saying we should but....

J.H: But that is the reality of it

H.S: Well that is right, indeed and it might be one effective way both in Afghanistan and Iraq both of which of course are deeply internally divided

J.H: Quite well and is lets bring Mr Godfrey in for this (bit garbled here)

A.G: Indeed we should never forget that hearts and minds is a weapon in the arsenal of the military like any other strategy and it is part and parcel of a chosen strategy in a campaign, divide and rule we might as well call it that but……..

J.H: Well but they sound so different don’t they? Hearts and minds sounds cuddly, divide and rule sounds brutal

A.G: Yes but the British military, no military actually does hearts and minds because they want to be kind, they do it because they want to achieve their mission, it is part of achieving a mission, it is the same as using another tactic like heavy air bombardment, it is a chosen strategy, now the reason it works in some places is because it is part of the overall strategy, the reason it doesn’t work in Iraq is because the overall strategy was to rid the country of weapons of mass destruction and create regime change. There was never at any point hearts and minds as part of the strategy it is only now that we are in the situation we are in that it suddenly becomes very important to what we are doing

J.H: Could it work? Professor Strachan if things .er this is going to sound like a slightly silly question…. I will try to explain what I mean if things always went right, that’s to say you could argue that we are losing it is Afghanistan every time we drop a bomb as we tragically did a day or two ago on civilians and you kill a mother and her children that is inevitably of course going to turn the population against us but if you were able to guard against ever doing that council of perfection of course might it then work?

H.S: Well I think it could work you have to…as we have just heard it is one element, and I think what you have to recognise too is that it is an element that will probably only work against a background of growing prosperity which is quite hard to achieve in these countries and certainly that was the pattern in Malaya and Kenya you had growing economies at the same time as fighting the counterinsurgency so you are bringing people into the web of well ordered government, I think it is also an issue of how do you influence hearts and minds? The old idea was you scattered leaflets all over the place which is not much good with an illiterate population particularly if they are not going to read

J.H: Well I suppose your soldiers smile at them, Amis Godfrey is that it you are just kind to people.

A.G: Well as I say there are many ways you can do hearts and minds but it has got to be part of the campaign strategy so you have got to have to have a reason for doing it, now British forces…

J.H: Well the reason for doing it is presumably not to have the population against you for a start?

A.G: Well it is to isolate an insurgent to make them unable to operate among the people, to get the people now colluding with you to tell you where they are where they are planning to plant their bombs and just not allowing insurgent terrorist to operate, that is why you do it, you try and separate people from insurgents, however in Iraq what we have done because we British army is only being able to do it at a tactical level because it wasn’t part of the campaign strategy, we expected as invading Iraq that the Iraqi people once Saddam was gone would rally around us and create a brand new country that is as far as our hearts and minds plan coalition went, we then found this crumbling situation where an insurgency started out and you can almost separate out Iraq into the pre- Petreus era and the post-Petreus era and it is only in the post-Petreus era that it is being done at strategic level rather than just at tactical level

So there you have it, the time is right, and divide and rule is now officially part of the strategy.

Interesting how you can become confident enough to very publicly acknowledge what hearts and minds / divide and rule is all about, but I suppose when they have so successfully got us convinced we were always "deeply internally divided" that we continue to delve into the where, what, how, and when of events more than a thousand, or hundreds of years ago to prove how divided we have always been, and forget or ignore how at other times we have not been so divided, when they have managed to divide us into “with them” and “against them” and convinced us that there are actually religious differences between the two groups so much so that we pursue the historic evidence of our deep religious differences, and even when we live miles away and converse so eloquently in “their” languages we continue to argue amongst our selves and hurl abuse at each other it is hardly surprising.

Interesting how it is easier to achieve prosperity in Kenya than in Iraq and how they have not yet dropped the whole weapons of mass destruction nonsense
Maybe none has told the army it is safe to dump that lie yet!

If you want to listen to the interview or indeed join in the debate going on the message board you can find it here http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 19:27 4 COMMENTS
saminkie said...
dear 3eeraqimedic, I have read HONESTY, many times, and really it makes me sad when think how polititian think...anyway I came today to ask where are you and why don't you publish soemthing new.. I really miss your blogs..
27 September 2007 09:33

Little Penguin said...
3eeraqimedic, it's a saddest reality..

The 'strategy' wouldn't have worked if we stood against it firmly and resolutely.. I hate to admit it, but we've tended to have sectarian inclinations and they were only truy exposed after everyone got a chance to hurl abuse at the opposition's camp..

the them-and-us culture was crystallised in Iraq after the fall of Saddam.. but it was always evident all over the world.. you go to Saudi Arabia and you get beaten up for not folding your arms in prayer.. it's always been there..

Allah kareem.. all it takes is a few level-headed people with a certain degree of influence to shift Iraqis' mentalities.. let's overlook religious practice and focus on plastering our wounds..

Regards..
27 September 2007 10:46
3eeraqimedic said...
Dear Sami
The truth is this is how politicians and the military think everyone is a pawn in their game of ambition and power.
27 September 2007 14:40
3eeraqimedic said...
Little Penguin
welcome back, you have been missed.
I am not sure I agree with your analysis of the situation, this is the debate going on nowadays were we always divided and just plastered together by brutal dictators or are we just like all humans capable of turning against each other when driven to do so by a certain set of circumstances, I would like to have more faith in the Iraqis than to believe the first option, I think we have been manipulated by powers and circumstances to a point where the outcome was predictable, you are the psychologist maybe you can tell me?
27 September 2007 14:46

It’s getting better all the time

2011-07-21T18:30:00.000-07:00

WEDNESDAY, 12 SEPTEMBER 2007

I would hate it if people thought I was so blinded by hate that I was unable to acknowledge good news when I see it, so for a change from the black mood here are some stories of how improvements are being made in a small corner of Baghdad.

It is always better to be safe than sorry

Telephone conversation with someone:
3ainee il7amdulla your house is occupied, even if you do not know the people, at least there is someone there to open the door when the Americans come.
The two houses at the top of our road were blown up because they are empty, and may be used by “terrorists”

I have deleted this sections as Abu J's situation is fluid and very dangerous

Slowly but surely

And the mother of two in the telephone call that made me grateful?
Well she has been granted asylum
And not in America, the UK or Australia
Her parents returned to Baghdad
It had been a while
And you know how things are when you leave a place unattended
In this street it means
The bodies of nine strangers waiting to greet you
Well it was a few weeks they had spent away
So in terms of the rate of the dead a definite improvement

And finally American doctors improve their outcomes by experience

Do you remember Rusul?
She had her surgery one week after the shrapnel wound, and was discharged from hospital five days later.
She attended her Iraqi doctor for treatment with her grandmother for the following five days.
And then out of the blue the Americans visited the house, and informed the family that she would now be receiving treatment at the American hospital.
She is doing well, her grandmother is very grateful.
I guess the parents of the boys in the orchard don’t feel the same; sorry there I go again always the pessimist.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 20:15 0 COMMENTS
S

Anatomy

2011-07-21T18:29:00.000-07:00

ATURDAY, 8 SEPTEMBER 2007

First days are always awkward, the first day in a new class, a new school, a new job, usually means promotion from a previous point at which you had reached the peak only to be dumped at the bottom of the ladder again.

The first days at medical school were amazing, three hundred and more of us, the products of proud (or pestering) parents and families and the dedication of teachers, the doctors to be.

Arriving at the gates of the college, dressed in uniforms, grey skirts and trousers, crisp white shirts, and the navy blazers.
Full of dreams; saving the world, curing cancer, becoming rich and famous.

Entering rather shyly at first, and seeking security within little clusters of school friends, of city mates.

I remember the preparatory visit to the specialist stores, to be fitted for the white coats, buttons down the midline and knee length to distinguish us from the dentists, two coats at least, one lightweight white cotton with a hint of blue, several pockets for all our pens, notebooks, and treasured reminder booklets, a coat for the clean jobs, the premedical laboratories, the wards, the clinics, the patients.

The second was of heavier thick cotton, and ultimately used in one department only that of anatomy.

The names are called, and alphabetically we stand in line, divided into groups and subgroups that will attend lectures together, carry out laboratory experiments together, visit the wards together, and sit exams together for the next six years, this was where I met a dear friend whose name came immediately before mine for the first time.

Finding our way to the lockers, in their dusty corner in the old basic sciences block, claiming an empty one, sweetly asking the boys to carry it to where my friends had theirs, K picking the old lock! Claiming it and filling it with the bits and bobs we needed, the books, lecture notes, white coats, and dissection instruments, and then decorating the door with my own silly poster.

Wandering over across the courtyard, staring with envy at the groups of second year students discussing their skeleton bones earnestly, and the senior students as they descended from the hospital wards discussing the “patients” looking down their noses at us newcomers.

Between the two stone heads, under the bronze plaques with names of previous distinguished students and then to the right into the old Al-Kindi lecture halls, circles of graduated seats, central stairs, and the blackboards in the middle.

Finding a seat, speaking to those sitting nearby, and starting six years of friendships that shaped our lives.

Basic sciences, organic chemistry with Dr Frankol and his yellowed lecture notes, Medical physics, Physiology, Dr Hayawi in Embryology and Dr Hani who spoke too fast and scared us witless in Anatomy as he threatened us with dead patients as a result of sloppy surgery carried out by anatomically ignorant future surgeons.

The basic science laboratories, the pipettes, the scales, the chemicals, the monitors, the white rabbits and the frogs (and K catching and pithing them for me).
(To K a silent thank you again, I wonder did you ever make it to the Gulf)

And then the anatomy session.

The separate building, cool and dark, with the formaldehyde basins outside the long hall, the lecturers’ offices along one side with the buckets, jars and pots containing all manner of body parts.

The guard with his Erb’s palsy.

The two separate ends of the room; at one end the single cadaver set aside for the dental students, very well preserved and very neatly dissected.

The remainder of the eight silver tables ours, each occupied by one donor’s body, a cadaver that would slowly over a period of one academic year reveal the secrets of the human body, alternating sessions with the second year students working on the head and neck, while we figured out the limbs.

The first day in anatomy, the overpowering smell, the initial anxiety rapidly dissolving in our enthusiasm to see and learn, the initial repulsion overcome by the sheer numbers of students jostling for space close enough to the table to see, to feel, to cut.
The immediate assumption of control by the few amongst us who would become the expert dissectors, the demonstrators, the virtual surgeons (although thinking about it now of the three masters in our group one became a histopathologist, one an oncologist and the third a psychiatrist).

After the initial schoolboy pranks of placing a piece of dissected anatomy into the pocket of an unsuspecting girl’s white coat it was in the silent concentration of the anatomy hall where we all grew, where we became aware of the enormity of the challenge, the vastness of the role, and the smallness of our individual selves in the face of the complexities of the human body.

Coming out of the hall, with the fronts of our white coats no longer white, all the washing in the world could not remove the stench of formaldehyde from our hands and inside our noses, the initial nausea putting us off our meals for that day.

The mixed emotions at the end of the day, the magnificence of what we had seen, the extent of what we had to learn, and the elation having taken the first steps on the long path we had chosen.
POSTED BY 3EERAQIMEDIC AT 15:15 0 COMMENTS