"Move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. Walk in someone else's shoes or at least eat their food. Open your mind; get up off the couch; move." -Anthony Bourdain
Sorry for the radio silence over the last month or so. Life in Baghdad has been this combination of bored past having anything interesting to say and incredibly busy, leaving very little inclination to write anything. I've now been out in Baghdad twice, once for dinner on the Tigris river, which offers this beautiful, tranquil centerpoint winding its way through the city, catching me off guard by how much genuine joy it brought me.
One of many dance and music performances of the evening.
The second was for an Iftar (breaking of the fast during the holy month of Ramadan) dinner for work, with partners and supporters of our organization. The dinner itself was fine, if slightly underwhelming (fan as I am of professional, fancy outings with important people...). But after dinner, I got to stay for my friend's 27th birthday party, held in a big, open air tent behind the hotel, equipped with a stage and tv cameras doing giveaways on Gulf television for Ramadan (giving away A/C units, televisions, travel coupons, etc.), coffee, sweets, shisha (hookah-- flavored tobacco smoked out of a water pipe), music, and dance from across the Middle East. These tents are set up at hotels and parks across Baghdad during Ramadan, giving people places to go and enjoy their time after Iftar with friends and family. Ramadan essentially turns daily life on its head, especially when it falls during the longest days of the year like it does this year. For the uninitiated, Ramadan is the month in Islam where Muslims fast from sun up to sun down. This should include everything-- smoking, coffee, water, sex.. not just food. The fasting brings you closer to God, reminds you of all you have in your life, keeps your baser impulses and addictions in check, and gives you a chance to reflect and feel solidarity with the poor. How this plays out in practice, is, of course, different from person to person. Some smoke and drink coffee just to keep themselves civil for those around them (an impulse I totally understand, and, as a coworker, appreciate). Others drink water, but otherwise fast. Some don't fast at all, either for health or personal preference.
But back to the birthday party-- The heady combination of my first real, genuine outing in Baghdad with my friends, and my first Ramadan here made it feel like a prison break of sorts. Not that the guest house is bad-- but you really do start to get a little stir crazy, and getting to experience a taste of normalcy can go a long way in balancing that out. My friends here seem pretty cognizant of that, and ask me regularly if there is anything I need "from the outside," as though they are smuggling me goods.
In the meantime, I spend a lot of time hanging out in my room, listening to music, chatting with friends back home and elsewhere in Iraq, working, reading, and in today's case, drawing.
Figured I'd change it up and draw a bird instead of stick figures.
Speaking of friends elsewhere in Iraq, I have a friend deeply homesick for Baghdad, and just wanting a taste of Baghdad's air-- I'm trying to come up with something to bring him when I leave here. So far, all I've come up with is finding a nice bottle somewhere and making some sort of label for it of Baghdad air, or filling it with dirt, or something-- Baghdad in a Bottle-- and bringing that back so he can have a bit of Baghdad with him. It's hard when I can't go out either. Hard to find the right thing. The depth of homesickness that comes with displacement isn't something I can relate to, but maybe I can do something to help... Anyway, I'm open to suggestions, if anyone has any.
Baghdad really is interesting-- the one thing people keep telling me, keep reminding me, is that Baghdad isn't what you see in the news. And they are right. Baghdad isn't just bombs and destruction-- it's parks and picnics and concerts and art and markets and restaurants and birthday parties. It is fun, and lively, and active. Life continues, even amidst over ten years of pain and destruction. Baghdad is the heart of Iraq-- its epicenter for culture and history. And every tiny taste of it I've been able to get has been totally worth it. It breaks my heart to think of what this city must have once been like, and to hear my friends describe the Baghdad of their childhoods, the one that they struggle to keep alive, while the international media bombards the world with images of hatred and pain. Baghdad is so much more than that, and just like in Palestine, that is the story that people most want to share.
Now, I am definitely not an artist, and I don't think this will actually change the mind of an oppressive regime. But it's also such a small ask.
Atena Farghadani is a cartoonist in Iran who was imprisoned for 12 years for her cartoons standing up against an oppressive law. Learn more about her work, and the #Draw4Atena call put out by Comic Riffs here. To check out an actual cartoonist's amazing response, check out Zen Pencils (a favorite blog of mine for many reasons).
Before 2009, I used to ask myself: why some people can't afford their food even if they try so hard, or why some little kids have to do heavy jobs, why some people should be executed by other people, I always asked myself why I'm able to study in university but some people like "Baha’is" are devised from education because of their beliefs, or why my dad always advised me not to talk about politics in university or taxi, specially about the leader! I got lots of my answers in 2009 (elections which ended up cheating and changing the votes and caused millions of people to start protesting against government and an uncertain number of people were murdered in streets or under torture in prisons, lots of people were imprisoned and still are in prison... )
If after 2009 I was present by the graves of 2009's martyrs or I joined their funeral was because that their murderers were never found and government also insulted and treated them with a disrespectful attitude, I just tried to heal their families, because I felt we're all members of one family.
If I did anything against execution is because I think that execution is an inhumane and false punishment, doesn't matter if it's a drug trafficker's execution or a political activist. I imagined my family in their families' position and I felt we're all one family!
If I objected that why our Baha’i (a religious belief) compatriots don't have the right to study was because I imagined myself in their position and I felt they're a member of my family and each person with any nations, beliefs, and thoughts should have the same and equal rights and equality should run in society.
If I drew that cartoon of assembly representatives was because I believe that if someone choose arts as their subject but do not criticize the issues of their society, have betrayed themselves, their superego, and their society.
But about insulting the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and three branches during the interrogation, the IRG officers put lots of pressure on me by repeating this statement that Ms. Farghadani you should be ashamed of God that you sold out your family to your beliefs and you're not giving up and you're not telling us your friends' names! They also repeated this sentence that your mother is in hospital because of you, so because of the pressure I screamed the fact that has been in Iranian people's hearts for years...
Is it not true that we're a number of families which belong to a united family named society? Or the slogan that all the humans are parts of a body made from the same soul? Or the quote that whatever you wish for yourself, wish it for others as well!?
Is it my fault that I tried to do what these slogans are saying? After all I have to say that in my inside court, my superego was my judge, and I'm honored and proud.
I kiss every each of my family members' hands, a mother who taught me pride and resistance, a father who taught me manhood, a sister who taught me toleration, and a brother who taught me curiosity and insistence.
Women like this, with so much courage and strength, amaze me every day.
First of all, I've made it to Baghdad and settled in! Our house here is older and not quite as nice as the one in Erbil, but it's comfortable enough and I'm pretty well nested into my new dwellings.
Now, onto adulthood. I was reading this article on the New York Times today, and as a 26 year old, I have to say, I find it a little amusing every time I read something written by someone in their fifties about the plight of "kids today."
I'll be totally honest, I don't always necessarily identify as an adult, and it's not because I'm lost and misguided, or because I lack financial resources, or because I still depend on my parents (love you, mama! Thanks for raising me to be independent). It is, by and large, because I don't necessarily or inherently want those things that are the big markers of adulthood--- a house, a spouse, children. Not that I don't want those things, but they are definitely not the milestones by which I measure my life. I want a career, and yes, as mentioned in the article, I want one with meaning. As the American work week has increased, and the likelihood of social security for my generation has decreased, I fully understand that I could be working 60 hours of my week for the rest of my life, and so yes, I want a job that I enjoy and that gives me a sense of passion and purpose. But this isn't a mindless endeavor on my part, or wishful thinking. I understand that to be able to do this effectively, I have to cultivate skills to make it happen. And I'd like to think that I have done so. (I am here, after all).
There are aspects of "adulthood" that really appeal to me, and it's only been since I've been here that I've really thought about how to define my own version of adulthood. There are a lot of adults, as I think of them, who I really admire, but few who I look up to as a potential model for my own life. My life, my adulthood, is going to look different than the adulthood that came before me. And as long as that's true, and I lack something to model it after, I struggle to define myself as an adult.
This is something I've been thinking about a lot since I've been here, and after watching Aja Monet's "What I've Learned," I wrote my own version. So here's what I've learned in my short time here...
I know that the human brain is still developing to age 26. I think about this a lot, because at 26, my brain is solidifying into the person I will be for the rest of my life. I hope she's someone I like.
I know I'm young, at times needlessly brash and at times painfully subdued. Even at my age, or maybe because of it, I know the system in which we live is broken. But a glass of red wine after a long day and good conversation can put one of the pieces back into place. A protest can too.
The sound of laughter, unbridled, is beautiful, and the turn of a page is entrancing, and a certain mix of spices can evoke just about anything-- fear, travels long forgotten, my childhood kitchen.
I know that 6 elements make up something like 80% of the planet's composition. I am, literally, stardust. And rain. And science is the closest thing I understand to the divine. Don't get me wrong, it is divine. Magic exists, in the atoms that create our universe, in the shapes of clouds, in the sounds of rain and the minerals in dust.
I've learned that death is a consequence of living, that life is best spent engaged, and that I know how to disengage with the best of them. Waiting is a luxury afforded to the living.
I know art has the power to connect people through its beauty, and that power should not be used frivolously, but to draw attention where it is needed most. I don't use art enough as a means of self-expression. Sometimes I wish I still did. I know that graffiti and tattoos are the strongest form of visual art to me. Maybe it's the contrast between the fleeting and the permanent. I know that a pen is a powerful weapon, and mine seems to be low on ink. Too often, I don't wield my pen carefully enough.
I know the game is rigged against me as a woman, but that the rigging isn't tied as tight on me as it is on others. Even with dice loaded, I know I want to play, to try to make it better for the next person. I know that desperation looks the same around the world. It looks like scared children, hungry men, rocks pitted against guns, and women with loads too heavy for their backs to carry.
I know that anger and disillusionment is an easy default in this world we live in-- for me as much as anyone. But I know people, against all odds, survive.
I think when most people (myself included) envision life in other countries, we imagine adventure. Travel. We don't envision doing the same mundane things we do back home. But the reality is I spend most of my time in an office, sitting in front of my laptop. In fact, my daily routine here looks startlingly like my daily routine back home. I wake up (usually later than I mean to), make coffee, take a shower, get ready, go to work, sit in front of a computer for eight hours, come home, cook dinner, think about (but end up putting off) going for a run, hang out with roommates, and go to bed. The one difference is that I am watching way less tv here than I do in the States (I blame the Roomate for the copious amounts of tv I watch back home). Which is not to say that I don't watch much tv.
In any case... I am just always struck by how normal life is everywhere in the world. I know I shouldn't be. I know it's probably a little ethnocentric of me to somehow think that my routine is drastically different from the morning routines of Palestine, or Iraq, or Prague. But I am always a little surprised to find that mundane routines are the most universal thing. Life here is no more an adventure than life in the States. Which is to say, I suppose, that life is an adventure no matter where you are. I just happen to like it here.
1. Given enough repetition, I will answer to anything. Two of my coworkers call me (in Arabic) "Arab Girl", which I now answer to as though it's my name.
2. It only takes a couple weeks to adapt to 106 degree weather. I doubt the same will be true of 120.
3.I'm inherently vaguely suspicious of other Westerners who speak Arabic, despite speaking it myself. Especially if they're better than me. It might be jealousy.
4. After several years of reasonably avid wine drinking, I realized upon arrival that I can't open a bottle of wine with a normal corkscrew. Instead, I required the one with arms (thanks, mom!). This has since been remedied.
5. Indian food in Iraq is better than Portland. And Indian food in Portland is pretty spectacular, right Shaun?
6. Ordering food for delivery is a bitch in a country with no addresses. I still do it pretty often.
7. Humor is most definitely NOT universal. I went to see the Avengers movie with coworkers, and was very often the only one laughing at jokes. Some of this may have been the quippy nature of the jokes, but then the rest of the theater laughed at things that remain a total mystery to me. And as a coworker leaned over to another and whispered (audibly) "Megan laughs at the weirdest things."
8. The Black Mamba snake lives in a one square mile radius, and is highly territorial. If you build your house in that mile, it will come right on in and make himself at home. If you remove him, he'll be back. (I learned this from a coworker who previously worked in South Sudan-- they don't live in Iraq).
9. The expression "The journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step" is used in Arabic as well as English.
In the early days of the Iraq war, civilian casualties were due especially not to a carelessness of troops, but to a careful strategy on the part of people who desperately wanted to maintain their own power within Iraq, even as the tides were turning against them.
Imagine this--- you are sitting at home, in your capital city, and you know that things where you live aren't great. The government is corrupt, but you and your loved ones are relatively well off and are all getting by just fine. You hear that the military of Foreign is planning to come in with intent to overthrow the current, corrupt government. Knowing what you know, you have no particular feelings about this, one way or another. As long as you and your family continue to get by on a daily basis, who is in charge of the government isn't really a top concern, and you have nothing in particular against Foreign or their government.
One day, as your child is walking home from school, she is killed by shelling in the area by Foreign's military. How do you feel about Foreign now? In all likelihood, your "Foreign meter" has gone from "neutral" to "negative," right?*
That shift, from neutral to negative, was essential in maintaining resistance, if not outright violence, against the US military. And how do you accomplish this, if you are a combatant? Easy, you move into a civilian area and you fire outward. The response from US forces might take you down, but it will probably take a couple innocent civilians down with you, and that will cultivate the kind of anger needed to keep the war moving and to hang onto any vestiges of power your family might have. That strategy is the reason the quote in the title of this post is so essential. The death of innocents creates enemies.
That strategy is also why Iraq continues to fall apart-- as people exact revenge against one another's religious sects, tribes, families, communities, or ethnic groups, trying to even the score, everyone is becoming the enemy of everyone else. There is no greater driver of hatred than revenge, and without access to a justice system that sees everyone equally, revenge is the only way to balance the books for a lost loved one. People here aren't violent, nor are they uneducated. In fact, Iraq is an incredibly well-educated country as a whole, for men and women alike. Rather, with no appropriate way to obtain justice, they seek their own. It's not good, but it is understandable.
What would you do if your loved one died, and nobody did a damn thing about it? Nobody looked; nobody cared? I'd hazard that even the most peaceful among us would at least contemplate lashing out. Now imagine this has happened not once, not twice, but tens of times in your family and among your community. Still nobody sees. What would you do then? How long would it take for you to turn to violence?
The violence that continues to grip this country is hard to understand as an outsider. But as a human, looking at human relationships, it is all too simple, It's painful, and unfortunate, but the ultimate breakdown to a unified Iraq is a lack of a strong, functional, representative government that hears everyone equally. From the US, it's way too easy to write off conflict as "over there"... as in "do those people over there just love fighting?".... but is it really so different? What would you do in their shoes?
How different would your life look? I'd guess not much.
*The basic framework of this explanation and sentiment comes from the book The Baghdad Blog, which I would highly recommend to anyone interested in an intelligent, sarcastic, deeply cynical first-hand Iraqi account of the onset of the Iraq war. To read the actual blog post, check it out here.
