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Why Are You Here? by Jessica Andersen Some things were better before the war than they are now... For instance security was better... Psychologically, security is an essential part of life and it was available, aside from many other things. - Mohammed, 21 years old, Baghdad, Iraq In Firms Square where the now famous statue of Saddam Hussein once stood surrounded by tall white pillars, an Iraqi version of Lady Liberty has been erected, a sign of hope in an otherwise dismal landscape. But while hope may have risen from the ashes of war, so too has impatience risen from occupation. Protests are beginning to fill the streets and below Liberty's perch on her concrete pedestal, protest signs hang from the pillars, flapping in the occasional wind of the honking cars zooming by, trying desperately to get through the square without traffic lights or direction.
Many of the signs are written in English and therefore obviously directed at American and British troops: Iraq for Iraqis; American Colonialism: deconstructing democracy, reconstructing capitalism; Six months and the killing continues; When will Iraq be Iraq? Every Iraqi I have met has told me that their biggest complaint about the occupation is the lack of security. The United States has 140, 000 troops stationed in Iraq. Despite the U. S.
presence, crime against civilians is still rampant. Prior to the war, Saddam opened the prisons, filling the streets with violent criminals. Add to that increased unemployment, frustration and hunger and you have a recipe for chaos. After the war, the U. S. forces appointed some local Iraqis as guards at the ministries and other important buildings but the training of Iraqi police is at a trickle and they are no match for the increase in rapes, murders and robbery.
Those who accept Iraqi police jobs risk death at the hands of resistance fighters or others angry at the U. S. presence. The change in security has been especially devastating for women. Women who had previously not worn even a simple hijab began covering themselves in ankle-length black alias for fear of being kidnapped or raped. Unable to leave home without a male escort many women have been forced to drop out of school and quit their jobs.
At Baghdad's Al-Mansour Hotel, inhabited these days mostly by foreign contractors and journalists, I meet Janan, a 22 -year-old student here to use the computer lab. The change in security has made Janan afraid to go out on the streets alone. She is almost afraid even to speak to me, talking in a very low voice across the table at the hotel dining area, glancing around the room before admitting, The people in Baghdad are afraid. They are feeling fear, really. She pauses for emphasis and then leans in closer. I swear, they are feeling such fear and they want to one day have Saddam Hussein back because at least there was security.
Even under Saddam Hussein we had security but nowadays, she shrugs her eyebrows and waves her hand towards the window overlooking the road outside, there is none. The window takes up the entire wall and we can see clearly another Baghdad morning playing out on the streets below. Janan points through the palm trees beyond the neighborhood. My house is over there.
She gestures in the opposite direction. And my university is a long way away and the American armies cut up the all the streets with checkpoints. So how can I go? So you are still in school? I ask, surprised.
No, she shakes her head sadly, all the universities are closed now. But they say they will be open the first of October... maybe. She sighs. But even if my university opens, I have a problem when I go because there is not security in Baghdad!
And it is a long way to go. I cannot go with my own car. I have to go in a very very cheap, broken down car now because of the thieves... she stops, gazing in the direction of her home before continuing. The girls in Baghdad are really not very happy right now.
The boys too but especially the girls, because if they are walking in the streets, the thieves are stealing them. All the time. So! Janan sighs loudly and shrugs her shoulders. She turns to face me and asks, What can we do?
Then, imploring, What do we do? ! She looks away again. Though she is gazing outside I know her thoughts are elsewhere. This is the last year in my university, " she says. "I want to study. I want to be a teacher. I want to live good and happy but I cant...
she stops, searching for the right words. I live I cant... my life... I cant live.
Janan shakes her head as she looks at me and repeats, her voice lower, her eyes searching. I cant live. Beyond her, through the window, I watch two young boys interact with a journalist below. The boys are selling wooden flutes for one Saddam apiece. (The only dinar still used these days is the 250 bill, now referred to simply as a Saddam. One Saddam. Two Saddam. " Eight Saddam's make a dollar. ) Each flute is carved by hand and fitted with a reed sheath pierced by six holes.
I know the craftsmanship and resulting sound is not that bad but the journalist isnt interested in a flute. He waves them away but the boys persist, following him, entreating him to buy. From the hotel steps, a security guard comes out onto the street and chases the young boys away. They run, barefoot, behind a row of shops that have all been looted, their windows smashed in.
Like many Iraqis, Janan blames the looting following the war on the Coalition forces who, though numbering in the thousands, stood by and did nothing to stop it. I do not understand, she says. What good is it to remove Saddam Hussein for this? She gestures at the burned out buildings. It is as if the looting was a part of the plan, to sit and let these people do these things. Maybe this is their plan.
It does seem odd that such destruction and vandalism was able to take place in a city filled with soldiers. The ensuing fear after the looting's has worked conveniently to American interests, by pitting Iraqi against Iraqi and putting any sense of cohesiveness under attack. A Baghdad native working with Occupation Watch witnessed a hospital being looted after the war broke out. U. S.
soldiers announced to the gathering crowd that the building was to be set on fire, she told us, so if anyone wanted anything from it they had better get it out right away. As people had then removed every last mattress, a young soldier sat watching from his tank, chewing gum. He sat there like a child blowing big bubbles and popping them. And everything was gone. Everything. Near Baath Square in the Kerala District of Baghdad, burned shells of former department stores and government buildings still stand like skeletons stripped of all clothing and essence.
Outside the Ministry of Transportation and Communication, we are beckoned in by a security guard named Haidir, who shows us where to climb under a break in the barbed wire and enter the destroyed building. Inside, Haidir shows us his cot on the outdoor concrete balcony above where he sleeps in between shifts. He then points to his own apartment blocks away from the window, where his wife and child live, and shrugs as if to say, What can I do? Its work. Around Haidir's neck hangs a laminated identification card given him by the American troops that designates him as trained in security and therefore qualified to carry a weapon. He displays the badge proudly, standing tall as he navigates us through the destruction back inside.
When the war started, this building along with so many others was completely stripped by looters of all interior objects, right down to the light sockets, before being set on fire. Once, long white corridors stretched row after row, floor after floor. A large staircase started at the center lobby on the first floor and circled upwards. Now, all that remains are the blackened shells of former offices littered with a few broken chairs, ripped-out wires, shattered glass, a ladys shoe and someone's typewriter. Piles of tattered, half-burnt papers line the floors and stairwells.
A telephone dangles from the ceiling, its wires removed. A metal file cabinet has melted inward, twisting itself in to some bizarre art piece. Other than these few items, I can find nothing larger than a scrap of paper the size of my hand. Nothing is left but paper and ash. Every computer, every document, every scrap of information that a country would need to rebuild its transportation and communication systems after such a war was utterly destroyed when this and other ministries went up in flames while the occupying power just stood by and did nothing. How can the Iraqi people now possibly recreate their own liv...
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