The Assyrian Democratic Organization
Here, things are booming — in a good sense. The TV monitors blare Egyptian music videos while a line develops at the counter for the house favorite — huge ice cream sundaes.
Ice cream in Baghdad?
The news from Baghdad and Iraq is usually about bombing, terror and bad things these days — like the horrendous twin bombing in Erbil that killed close to 60 people Sunday. But one must be careful to make a distinction. For the foreign journalist, soldier and others targeted by the terrorists who are determined to block any progress in Iraq, it may be dangerous. But for the average Iraqi hope is in the air.
The William sisters — Venus 23 and Florence 21, the Lazar brothers — Raymond and Simon, 25 and 21, and Robert George, 25, are digging in.
To the question, “how does al Jaiha compare to when Saddam was in power,” they are quick to respond. “When Saddam was in power we would be watching one of the three Saddam TV channels with him on TV or some old, boring black and white movie. Nobody would be talking freely and we would quietly eat and leave,” says Raymond.
“We lived in constant fear,” said Robert George. “You never knew when someone would be taken away for saying the wrong thing. It was a constant state of terror.”
He shared the story of his friend, Amir, who was imprisoned for three years for simply trying to assert he was an Assyrian and promoting the use of the language of the indigenous people.
Ice cream is not exactly a necessity, and when people have enough extra money and hope to pack the ice cream parlor on a Sunday night, things must not be too bad.
A quick look outside the window shows the real problem in Baghdad these days: massive, hourlong traffic jams, crammed stores overflowing with everything imaginable for the Iraqis finally freed from decades of oppression.
And the future? “We are getting married in July,” say Raymond and Venus.
“Everything is completely better,” says Robert George.
“For the first time in our lives we have hope. We are getting jobs — and not for $60 a month, but for $600 and more. It is because the Americans cared for the people of Iraq and were the only ones with the courage to set us free.”
“For the first time we can travel overseas, we can watch satellite TV, we can surf the Internet freely, we can buy cars and things from all over the world. Most of all, though, the best is we no longer live in fear.”
The value of the Iraqi dinar is rising. A house that would go for $30,000 months ago is now selling for $100,000. The dinar that before the war traded at 2,500 to 3,000 to the U.S. dollar is now nearing 1,200.
For the average Iraqi it is the best of times. Something they never even dreamed of.
Twenty-seven-year old Weena Aref, a Kurd, agrees. She is the manager of an Internet shop. “Business is booming. On a recent afternoon all the terminals were occupied with customers paying $3 to get online.
“It is wonderful Saddam is gone. We always lived in fear,” she says. “As Kurds we were always persecuted and although we had our own relative autonomy in the north it was difficult for those of us living in Iraq.
“The best part is that we no longer live in terror. We do not fear somebody being taken away,” she says.
It is the best of times, but at the same time the worst of times.
The bad? It is the deep, palpable, undercurrent of fear that is gnawing at everybody, although few speak of it. “It” is the planned July 1 handover of power. The original plan was to, as in Japan and Germany, have a constitution, elections and a government in place prior to the handover.
“If the current plan goes forward, there will be civil war in Iraq beginning on July 1,” says an American official who asked not to be identified. “I have been told privately by both senior officials of the Coalition Provisional Authority as well as the Iraqi Governing Council,” he warns.
“I do not understand why the United States, the champion of freedom and democracy, wants to leave Iraq before the job is finished — before a secular constitution, elections, government and local autonomy are in place and risk undoing all the good it has done in liberating Iraq,” says Hekmat Hakem, a member of the Constitutional Committee charged with drafting Iraq’s constitution.
“The members of our committee do not want a Muslim government. We do not understand this at all.”
Robert George goes further. “I am an Assyrian. The Assyrians are Christians and we are the original people of Iraq. If the July 1 schedule goes forward we will be massacred. The last time this happened two-thirds of the Christians of Iraq were slaughtered in the Assyrian holocaust. We will not allow it to happen again. We cannot understand why the Christians of the world do not support us and demand that Iraq be free, democratic and secular.”
A trip south shows the reality on the ground. In town after town in southern Iraq, the Iraqi flag does not fly over government buildings. Instead, they display the green flag of Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the leading Shiite leader in the country.
“Why does the American government talk to this man?” Robert George askes. “He is not even Iraqi — he is Iranian. The Americans should simply say that only Iraqis can have a say in the future of Iraq and send him back to Iran where he came from.”
“We do not want to become like Iran. We do not want a Muslim government,” says 36-year-old Sadek Tarik, a Shiite Muslim. We just want to be normal. We are finally free.”
Ahmed Tarik a Sunni Muslim, says: “We just want to be left alone. Saddam was terrible, but becoming like Iran would be worse.”
As the July 1 date nears, a sense of doom is quietly replacing the optimism, hope and joy that once came with the fall of Saddam’s government.
“Did the United States go to war and lose so many lives to create an Islamic government in Iraq,” asks Robert George? “I do not think the American people would ever agree to that. I think they want for us what they have — freedom, opportunity and a better life. As Christians we get along good with our Muslim neighbors, and as the original people of Iraq we pray for autonomy in our homeland in Nineveh and Dohuk provinces, so like the American Indians we can administer our local affairs.”
(The Rev. Ken Joseph Jr., an Assyrian, brought the first postwar relief truck into Baghdad and directs assyrianchristians.com.)
(United Press International’s “Outside View” commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)
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Copyright 2004 by United Press International.
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