October 12, 2007

I really don't know what is going on here...
The other day was Pink and today it is Pastel colors.
Not a fitting time of the year for pastel colors. After all, it is the beginning of Autumn, with its golden brown, rusty red and dying green...

But pastel colors have been obsessing me...ever since those pink and red taints.
Maybe because it is the Eid, the feast that marks the celebration of the end of our fasting month, Ramadan.

I remember the Eid in Baghdad, what used to be the Eid...
We have a tradition for the Eid, we must wear something new. I remember young and old saving that new piece, that untouched garment, for the Eid.

I remember the little boys and girls dressed in their new clothes, laughing as they rock on their swings, as they cry with joy on their merry-go-rounds...
Eating "shaar al Banat" or "ghazl al Banat" as some may call it.
You know, that fluffy hair-like sugar, dyed in pastel colors, that feels like cotton in your mouth, wrappped around a wooden stick and glues all over your face and leaves your tongue colored in pastel...pink, green, blue, yellow and...white.

I also remember the conversations...

"Baba, baba, shoof, anee helwa?" - Daddy, daddy look, am I pretty? would ask a little one raising her eyes to her dad. Showing off her new pastel colored dress and the pastel ribbons in her hair...

"Mama, mama, shofee shlon atayerhom"- Mom, mom, look how I can make it fly! would shout a little one to his mother, pointing his finger to his brand new kite made of pastel colored paper...

And the father would respond "Hadha shlon Jamal" - What beauty you are. Or,
the mother would say "Shater, ibnee, enta shater" - Clever my son, you are clever.

I can still hear their giggles, their laughs and their shouts of excitement...
I can still see the joy in their shining innocent eyes, their funny faces, their tender smile...
I can still feel their hugs, their wet kisses smelling of candies and their warm little heads on my shoulder, when tired from too much running around...tired from too much play.


I am lucky to have such memories. I am lucky to have witnessed them.
Today's children in Iraq are either too scarred or will not live to remember or... are already dead.

Only two days ago, 11 little ones were severly wounded by a mortar attack. Yesterday, 9 little ones were killed in a so called counter-insurgency attack by your brave boys. Today, at least 2 little ones were blasted away when a bomb placed in a toy cart exploded in their curious little faces...on the day of the Eid.

Our little ones are nothing but appetizers for you. Your anti-pasti, your hors d'oeuvres...The more, the merrier...

In the name of Liberty. In the name of Democracy. In the name of Freedom. In the name of the o' so civilized West that you are.

For 13 years, our little ones suffered, our little martyrs...Over half a million died as a result of your o' so civilized sanctions, while you were watching...

Thirteen fucking years and you watched, in silence, tasting your hors d'oeuvres in front of your TV screens.

Thirteen years of a deafening, utter silence.

Silence from the so called left and anti-war clowns. Silence from the international community. Silence from the so-called Islamic Ummah.

So silent, that the silence turned into a lullaby of agonies that you can still hear in the mass graves of our little ones. So silent, that they have slept, never to wake up again...A murderous lullaby.

The little ones who survived, experienced their final liberation in 2003.

God damn you. God damn you. That is all I can repeat for now. I will have to stop.
I need to regain my composure. Recompose what you have decomposed...


Am back...
The composed, rational, polite Arab woman...I am now wearing my satin gloves, lest your sensitivities get ruffled...

But let me ask you something, are you as ruffled by an average of 40'000 little ones killed each year because of an occupation carried out in your name, with your money, under your "benevolent" eyes ?

40'000 is the conservative estimate figure from the 2006 U.N Human rights report.
The real figure for 2006 is much higher. Way higher. And am not counting the orphans in the thousands...

Only yesterday, a new report warns of an ever-deepening humanitarian crisis, never seen before, since World War II...And I say, it is much worse than what this report states.

Come and see our overflowing morgues and find our little ones for us...
You may find them in this corner or the other, a little hand poking out, pointing out at you...
Come and search for them in the rubbles of your "surgical" air raids, you may find a little leg or a little head...pleading for your attention.
Come and see them amassed in the garbage dumps, scavenging morsels of food...

Well over half of our little ones are under nourished or dying from disease. Cholera, disentery, infections of all sorts....
Under nourished does not mean on a diet like your fat little kids. It means not having food to eat. It means cannot find food to eat. It means starved.

Come and see, come....

See them being trafficked, raped, sold and "finally" killed by your brave boys. The "final solution." Remember that one ? It was not so long ago...Except this time it is carried out by the "greatest Democracy on earth."

And if you are too sensitive to such scenes, and your stomach can't take it, even though your hands and pockets contribute daily to it, come and search for them in the alley ways of Damascus, Amman or Cairo...

Search for them, hiding behind walls. Find them selling or begging in street corners.
Look for them behaving like a 40 year old adult, fending for a whole family...

Come and see...

The other day, I overheard a 6 years old saying to her mother, "I want to die."
Just in case one of your bullets does not get to her, you have ensured that she will finish it off herself...

Come and see them stutter, hear them shout at night during their sleep and see their wet beds...

This is no lost innocence. This is a raped innocence, a murdered innocence...
Raped and murdered by you. I will net let you off the hook that easily. I guess you know me by now.

As for the little assholes (I guess am losing my composure again) who call me a whining Arab bitch, let me not wish the same on your children...
Because by God, if I did, you would strangle yourselves in grief and...remorse.


An article in Haaretz states that the Holocaust is still affecting the granchildren of the survivors...and that is well over 60 years, later.

How many decades, centuries would it take our surviving little ones to get over being freed by "Democracy" ?


In the meantime, the little survivors of your Holocaust, those who were born under your bombs, under your occupation, under your destruction, in your ghettoes, in your prisons, in your new Iraq, and who have known nothing else but you, their primal "caretaker", if they ever make it to adulthood, will bear witness on the day of Eid...

They, who have not known the Spring, Summer, of their lives. They who have witnessed nothing but the cold of the Winter. The coldness of Death...

They will remember, as I am doing now, the blown up cart of toys, the overflowing morgues, the rubbles of their homes, the mortars falling on their heads, the noise of explosions squatting their ears, their sisters and brothers in pieces, in front of their very eyes...
They will remember it, like some ugly melody, like some ugly lullaby...you lulled to them during their "liberated" childhood...

And those who have not and will not survive your "Liberation", will be flying high above like the pastel colored balloons of the Eid, like the kites made of pastel colored paper, like some white feather plucked from an innocent Dove...
Only to fall on the ground like dying, dried up, Autumn leaves...


Painting: Iraqi artist, Mohanad Al-Hayali.