four years on

the following post made me want to cry.

By Baghdad Burning, 'End of Another Year'

You know your country is in trouble when:

1. The UN has to open a special branch just to keep track of the chaos and bloodshed, UNAMI.

2. Abovementioned branch cannot be run from your country.

3. The politicians who worked to put your country in this sorry state can no longer be found inside of, or anywhere near, its borders.

4. The only thing the US and Iran can agree about is the deteriorating state of your nation.

5. An 8-year war and 13-year blockade are looking like the country's 'Golden Years'.

6. Your country is purportedly 'selling' 2 million barrels of oil a day, but you are standing in line for 4 hours for black market gasoline for the generator.

7. For every 5 hours of no electricity, you get one hour of public electricity and then the government announces it's going to cut back on providing that hour.

8. Politicians who supported the war spend tv time debating whether it is 'sectarian bloodshed' or 'civil war'.

9. People consider themselves lucky if they can actually identify the corpse of the relative that's been missing for two weeks.

A day in the life of the average Iraqi has been reduced to identifying corpses, avoiding car bombs and attempting to keep track of which family members have been detained, which ones have been exiled and which ones have been abducted...

Here we come to the end of 2006 and I am sad. Not simply sad for the state of the country, but for the state of our humanity, as Iraqis. We've all lost some of the compassion and civility that I felt made us special four years ago. I take myself as an example. Nearly four years ago, I cringed every time I heard about the death of an American soldier. They were occupiers, but they were humans also and the knowledge that they were being killed in my country gave me sleepless nights. Never mind they crossed oceans to attack the country, I actually felt for them.

Had I not chronicled those feelings of agitation in this very blog, I wouldn't believe them now. Today, they simply represent numbers. 3000 Americans dead over nearly four years? Really? That's the number of dead Iraqis in less than a month. The Americans had families? Too bad. So do we. So do the corpses in the streets and the ones waiting for identification in the morgue.

Is the American soldier that died today in Anbar more important than a cousin I have who was shot last month on the night of his engagement to a woman he's wanted to marry for the last six years? I don't think so.

i feel a need to apologize profusely to the iraqis, but i am not sure what i am apologizing for.. or what difference it would possibly make..

nostalgia

two days ago i had lunch at a lebanese restaurant with sanjee, who had just come back from geneva. i cannot remember the last time i had felafel and baba ghanouj. george wassouf was playing in the background, and sanjee was talking about rumi. sigh. those two hours were bliss, stolent moments of another time.

since graduating in 2003, i have not been back to cairo. i really want to be back there, but i am waiting for a reason .. i simply cannot go back for a holiday, that would feel weird. what i mean (i think) is that i don't want to be a tourist there. i want to belong. i want to live there, be a part of the city as i once was. plus, many of my friends are no longer there, others come and go.

perhaps i should try to find some conference to attend : p

saddam's death = victor's justice

before coming across some strange reactions to saddam's execution, i had no intention of blogging about the issue. i have no great insights to offer, but i at least know the difference between the icc and the world court. if persons unaware of this difference can make statements regarding saddam's death and the tragedy of iraq, i should be brave enough to blog. particularly since this blog was meant to aid me in articulating my thoughts.

yes, saddam's execution bothers me. yes, his farcical trial bothers me. what bothers me the most however, is that there are so many people who are not concerned by (or are unaware of) this.

if saddam's trial had truly been fair, he would not have been prosecuted for only the dujail massacre. if he had been prosecuted for all his crimes, including the destruction of the iraqi communist party and his invasion of iran, the terrible roles played by america, britain and other nations would have been revealed. saddam was a terrible dictator, but those who supported him are no better. genuine justice demands that all those involved in crimes are punished. and genuine justice is not the same as victor's justice.

i am astounded when i hear comments such as 'of course his trial was fair' or 'yes, there are other dictators who were not punished for their crimes, but anyway, it was saddam's time to die'. how can i argue with someone about saddam's sham trial when she is unaware of the principles of fair trial? and how can i argue with the notions of karma and fate?

brave new world

Joan Martinez-Alier, writing in 2025:

Instead of counting in money, it was more sensible to count sometimes in calories and sometimes in hours of work, and sometimes not to count at all. Instead of working for the market, it was better to work for family, friends, neighbours and communities. Reciprocity and redistribution were preferable, socially and ecologically, to the unlimited expansion of the generalized market system. Was it Herman Daly or Leonardo Boff who in the bad old times reminded us: 'Our blessings cannot be counted in money'?

research from my last paper of this term (yay). 2025 sounds like a good time (but i'm not sure how counting in calories would work exactly. very intriguing though).

the spirit of giving

those of you looking for gifts during the holiday season (or at any time in fact) may like to check out this site http://www.changingthepresent.org/

as gifts to your friends and family, you can buy toys for sick children, hire lawyers to free prisoners, provide micro-loans to women or counselling to cancer patients. what a great concept: 'changing the present, one gift at a time'. it is, indeed, the thought that counts.

closer to home: http://www.changingthepresent.org/nonprofits/show/204

please spread the word.

new projects

so i started working on a new lesson at work yesterday--about constitutionalism, with particular reference to thailand; its 1997 constitution and the recent military coup. i am excited, i know very little about constitutionalism, and am ready to immerse myself in a v dicey, federalist papers and more.

elaborating on the theme of constitutionalism and the rule of law, i will also be working on a research project covering other asian countries until mid january.

another topic that is fascinating me at present is the idea of green taxes (check out this link for more info). in fact, i'm thinking this could be what i want to write my thesis on..

all in all, i have some great food for thought. i just have to finish up with boring exams and assignments before i can jump into all this!

(i have to add however, that it is always the ideas and research part that interests me more than the actual working on stuff ; )

alone

despite the fact that i live with my family (five/six other people to be exact), i feel increasingly alone. in fact, i feel more alone when i'm with them than when i'm not. linked to this is a sense of alienation as well..

this can't be normal.