The trouff about my Iraqi childhood, including photos and stories, plus vituperative attacks on corrupt & war-mongering politicians. This blog ran between October 2002 and July 2003. Excerpts are included herein; to read the blog in its entirety, please visit http://blogs.salon.com/0001600/.

Tuesday, October 8, 2002

        Today I will start with a pic of Camille Roy when she was a maid on an Arabian... Then I’ll tell a story or two, and segue into some political analysis.

        I used to gallop over such desolate landscapes. What you can’t see: the pommel on the saddle was studded with nails, and  the wood-framed saddle had a furry black goat skin thrown over it. There was no bit in the bridle. I could practically think: do this, go there, and the mare would do it. We were as one.  Check out the stirrups. They were hammered metal sort of triangular platforms, and seemed Hussar, or Cossack, or something.  I was too cool for school in this garb, kids, and in fact school was not a happening thing that whole year. 

        I used to gallop over scalloped dunes, scattering the little desert foxes. You can’t see the dunes in this picture. You can’t see the mound either; it’s probably behind the photographer. (‘Mound’ is a term for a heap of dirt which covers an ancient city or temple.) Note the tire tracks. Rain was so rare around here that tire tracks laid down in mud could last for twenty years.

        How did I get this lovely mare? She was in fact a rather good one. Some of the local villagers worked on the dig, and as  sort of exchange, an old white hag was brought for me. Who ever heard of a girl who could ride? There wasn’t another within a thousand miles. I didn’t care. I happily rode my hag to water twice a day, to the canal, brimful with slow muddy water.

        On the way to the canal I passed shepherds. Wow. shepherds are under-appreciated in California! There were no sheep dogs; shepherds used black goats instead. The sheep were under-goat, as in under-flag. All the sheep followed the goat, who responded to whistles and calls by the shepherd. The flock could race in circles and stop on a dime with such precision it seemed ... orchestral. Really.

        Day after day, on my way to water, I passed a boy shepherd and his sister, a barefoot girl in a flowered dress with wildish hair. One day, as my hag was drinking from the deeply brown water, the boy shepherd came up to me. His sister was crouched behind a bush, giggling. Mumbling in a sort of sing-song Arabic (a language I once knew and had forgotten), he tried to pull me off the horse. I beat him off with a stick. It was a small stick, but it didn’t break. Wham, wham, with my trusty stick. He let me go. I galloped off.

        I don’t remember telling anyone, but I must of, because over night the old white hag vanished, and was replaced with this mare. Her rich bay color is not done justice in this photo. I always had a vague anxiety about her longish hooves; I didn’t know what to do about them.

        Many years later I heard that the local villagers still remembered and even talked about the girl who could ride. I hope they remember the lovely mare!

        Now for some political analysis. Last night the president gave a speech, trying to persuade Americans of the need for this war. What a nightmare. This president epitomizes the stereotype of the know-nothing American and he wants to invade Iraq; to disrupt the fragile stability of the whole Middle-east, to “fight terror” by making enemies for the United States among Muslims everywhere. He can’t even control the warring parties within his own Administration. He can’t even keep the Israelis from slaughtering Palestinians at moments which are politically inopportune for his own cause. This Administration will win the war but they will never win the peace.

        I remember how I hated talking to people about where I’d been after I cam back from Iraq. American: “You were where?” Me: “In Iraq.” American: “EYE-RACK? You were in EYE-RACK? Where’s EYE-RACK?” Me: “Uh, it’s in the Middle-east. It’s where civilization, like, started.” American: “Wow. That’s exotic.” <end of conversation>

        Americans have no appetite for the complexities of this region. The current Administration says they’ll replace Saddam with a democracy. Well, wishing doesn’t make it so. It may be impossible to impose civil society on Iraq. Certainly this Administration, which lacks diplomacy, tact, judgment, respect, and patience, is incapable. Our military is highly skilled and America will win eventually, perhaps quickly (perhaps not, given that so many Iraqis blame the United States for sanctions). But what comes after? People hold up the Gulf War as an example of a successful war --- relatively quick, not too much upsetting teevee footage (Al Jazeera will change that this time around), and hey, the ‘Arab street’ didn’t revolt, they way they were expected too. But what was September 11, if not blow back? Bin Laden targeted the United States because he was enraged at the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia, who came and stayed after the Gulf War. If we invade Iraq, there will be more terror, not less.

        There’s an interesting editorial in the Washington Post today, by Fawaz Gerges (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57518-2002Oct7.html). Here’s a quote from it:
Iraqis, monitored and oppressed since 1958, have lost faith in the political system and turned inward to the safe harbor of tribalism and religious and ethnic factionalism. Every community -- Kurds, Sunnis, Shiites -- fends for itself and has built an "iron wall" to shield its members. Civil society has been crushed and the middle class has been decimated, thanks mainly to the U.N.-led sanctions since 1991. The building blocks and institutions necessary for a functioning polity, let alone a democracy, do not exist. The tragedy of Iraqi politics, and Arab politics in general, is that both the ruling elite and the dominant opposition are anti-liberal and anti-democratic. Society is deeply scarred and its foundations of trust are frayed to the breaking point. Subversion and plotting have replaced natural political processes as the means to obtain power.

        Military conquest is not the lucky path to democracy and civil society. War is not peace. At least the peace movement seems, finally, to be stirring.