In the Growing Shadow of War: Letter from Baghdad

Baghdad at night hasn't lost its beauty. Palm trees are still standing high; maybe the palm trees represent the strong will of the Iraqis to survive. As soon I arrived here, I connected to the people. Iraqis are still very generous, loving and giving—and persistent. Few nations have endured what the Iraqis have faced for the past thirty years. Despite the devastation and the insecure situation on the streets of Baghdad, I feel safe here and for some reason, I am not scared.

But the more I visit the city of my birth, the more I conclude there will be no hope, at least for the near future. Baghdad now has no sprit. Yesterday I went to a salon to have my hair done. There were two brides in the salon. I looked at the faces of these two lovely young women, but there were no emotions whatsoever. Their faces reminded me of the faces of Egyptian mummies. I thought of their future and how hard it will be for them to raise their families here.

Many of the Iraqis who did not become refugees are illiterate, and religion is eating their brains. Religious people are ruling the country, and they are dragging it back to the old ages when women were oppressed and had no say. There was a religious celebration a week ago. The entire city closed for five days; is there any other country in the world where this could happen? When I was a child growing up in Baghdad, the Iraqi people were so civilized and open. But now it feels as if life has been sucked from them and replaced with fear and pain. Death is their shadow day and night.

Yesterday I visited a relative. Even though he was kidnapped a few years ago, he refused to leave Iraq. He is a famous surgeon, and his wife is a doctor. When I visited him two years ago, he was very happy and optimistic that things might change for the better, even if slowly. But the sadness on his face struck me. Last week, he said, he and his family were only a step away from car bomb explosions. Now he is thinking seriously about taking his family to another country. But he doesn't know where to go. Wherever he wants to settle, he will need a visa, which is becoming harder to obtain. Iraqis are cornered and surrounded by agony, death, and horror.

Most Iraqis are imprisoned in their own homes. They are afraid to leave if they don't have to. Kids are bored from watching the TV. Many people have gained weight because they have nothing to do but eat and sleep. Of course there is life in the streets. People need to go to work, to shop and perform their daily chores. When people do leave their homes, they go out with a death certificate in their hand, and they come back home holding a birth certificate, which will only last a few hours.

It is such a mixed feeling being here. I love being here, but I hate myself because I feel helpless; there is nothing I can do to help the people. The electricity is better than before, but there is garbage everywhere. Cleaners are still cleaning the streets with big brooms. Overall, there is a slight improvement in services but not enough for a country that sells millions of barrels of oil. Revenue from these sales could secure a descent life for all Iraqis.

As for the health services, they are horrible. My cousin had cancer, and she had to travel to Jordan for her operation and chemotherapy, and had to use her life savings to pay for the therapy in Amman.

There is some reconstruction, but the buildings look very odd. You see a new house or a building built beside an old house or an apartment building. Flowers spread on the fences of old houses, and palm trees stand tall and full with baby dates which will ripen sometime soon.

I keep wondering why the Americans are not willing to help the Iraqis rebuild their country after they destroyed Iraq’s infrastructure. Their unwillingness to help rebuild the country reflects who they are. When Iraq was a British colony, we had the best medical college in the Middle East.

I will never forgive the Americans for the atrocities they committed in Iraq. The ones who are still here are protected in their Green Zone castle. For them, Baghdad has become another American city. I had lunch a week ago by the river Dijlah (Tigris), and there was a long wall—the Great Wall of America—facing the restaurant. I told my friend that it will be hard for me to swallow my food knowing that my people’s killers are facing us and are safe behind that wall.

Nesreen Melek is an Iraqi woman, a mother, and poet who lives in Canada but has an abiding love for and devotion to her homeland—Iraq.

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