Iraqi Streets شوارع عراقية

Dr. Wamith al-Kassah has kindly contributed this article for this special issue of the
Palestine-Israel Journal on human security.

During the past five years, the lives of Iraqis everywhere have changed. Many became free of
oppression; many got out of jail and detention camps; some were able to return from exile for
the first time in 20 years; and many fell very hard. Overnight, they found themselves enemies of the state; their world collapsed. After having been the most powerful people in their country, capable of moving things with a single flick of the finger, they became fugitives and
their photos were pasted on decks of cards. They ran for their lives, pursued by a coalition of the strongest armies in the world. Ordinary people who were raised with the concept of obeying what the government says on TV, and who lived and struggled to survive under
economic sanctions for 13 years since the first Gulf War, were just trying to lead a normal life in peace. They struggled 24 hours a day to provide their families with food, clothing and a roof over their heads, and at day’s end, all they wanted was to rest in order to face another day. They had heard stories about what happened to those who stood against the government and they did not want any part of it. Life in Iraq was no paradise, but it was not as
gloomy as George Orwell’s 1984. We were not robots; we just became so good at not getting in the way of our government, or, as my mother used to say, at “standing behind the wall” — in reference to those who stand behind the wall to hide from watching eyes.
Many people — especially the youth bom during the late 1970s and the1980s — who grew up during Iraq’s long war with Iran and were called the “revolution generation,” were able to live through the long war’s hardships, but did not face the tragedy of serving on the deadly battlefields. They grew up believing in their country’s leadership role in history — especially since no liberal voices were left to tell them any version of history other than that
of the books of government schools. This was my generation. We were the
victorious army that beat Iran after a 10-year war and protected the Arabian Gulf

and the leaders of our Arab world who would lead the way towards the liberation
from imperialism and eolonialist powers of Palestine and all of the Arab lands.
Learning Human Security the Hard Way
We were tbe same generation that in 2003 stood to face the armies of the coalition forces with Russian macbine guns and a handful of bullets from the Iran-Iraq War days. Our leaders deserted us on the battlefields and, at the news tbat the troops at the front were being killed by bombs falling everywhere, soon everyone left to protect his house and family.
Looting and burning of official buildings, killings, destruction of court houses, schools, colleges, banks and hospitals took place everywhere as the doors of hell burst wide open. The Americans had entered Baghdad and opened every door: from the doors of Abu Ghraib prison to the doors of the national banks and the palaces. To this day, no Iraqi can tell you what
really happed that day. Every one would just say, “I was home and did not get out that day.” The question remains: Who were the gangs roaming the streets in those days and entering eaeh building to bum it with laser guns after tbe mobs had cleaned it out of fiarniture? And what benefit was tbere in burning official reeords, robbing Iraqi national museums and destroying 5,000 years of civilization in a few days?
This was bow everything began, the turning point, the day we were forced to Ieam human security the hard way, the real way. As Iraqis outside were celebrating Iraq’s newly acquired freedom, we in Iraq were crying beeause not a single hospital was left in Baghdad, all official buildings were destroyed, no police force or army were left, and we had no food, water or
electricity. But those were tbe least of our woes, as time showed us later as we read the papers, listened to the radio or watched satellite TV channels — a product of the new freedom.
A New-Old Reality: Ethnicities
We discovered an old reality that had been pushed so far in the back of our minds; we discovered that we were divided into ethnieities. This became our new reality as the eoalition-supported new state of Iraq was built on the principle of the distribution of positions according to the percentage of each of the major ethnicities. As we were trying to
leam and understand democracy, and the law that removed the old Ba’ath members from the
govemment and shut down large institutions ‘ belonging to the former govemment, such as the Defense Ministry, the Ministry of Industry and Minerals, the General Intelligence Agency, the armed forces and the police. You may think those people deserved it, since they were the hand that tightened the government’s control on the country, but, in reality, 70% of these people were just official employees. And I can understand that the man who was torturing innocent people in jails had no place with us, but what is the idea of firing a typist or a janitor who worked in the government?
As you may have seen on TV or read about it in the past five years, there are millions of unemployed people in Iraq; there is in effect no police and no army; there is a total collapse of the services; the borders are extremely permeable, allowing every power in the worid that has a problem with America to come to Iraq to fight it there. We began to be divided into two groups: those in support of American intervention in Iraq and those against, those wanting the Americans to stay and those wanting them to leave, and those wondering whether to kill them or to work with them. Then there are
those with al-Qaeda or with the Iraqi resistance.
Coping with Violence
We were forced to retrench, as the lack of security brought chaos, and
the intense struggles among political groups attempting to gain as much
as possible for their own faction or ethnic group did not help to defuse the
situation. Each day we had a new conflict; with each explosion we had
another tragedy, and time passed without any tangible reconstruction. In
fact, as time passed, we longed more and more for yesterday; as days passed,
more conflicts caused more damage; more innocent people got killed — for
no other reason than that their names pointed to a certain ethnicity, or that
they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The legacy of 30 years of
oppression had come to payback time as, day by day, the Americans proved
that they had no real long-term plan in Iraq, as the surrounding countries
interfered more in Iraq, as the political players proved that they had problems
with their priorities — the benefit of all the Iraqi people or the benefit of
their party and followers — in short, we had a humanitarian crisis.
In dangerous times people run for cover; our cover was to stay home,
close our doors and not to go out for anything other than necessities. But
as the situation worsened, sectarian violence increased; militias from
different sides took control of the streets, and the concept of displacement became
the daily reality of our life and a fear that made our hearts bleed. In Iraq, most people believe that the best investment is in real estate — to own a house — and also a car.

When they started to redraw Baghdad and Iraq into sectarian areas, killing
people or kidnapping them to force them to leave their neighborhoods, or
just knocking at the door and telling them to leave on the spot, they were
destroying our social fabric and our economic security, causing people to
become, in a matter of hours, refugees in other countries or displaced inside
their own country, living in camps in conditions less than acceptable by
any humanitarian standard.
We began to live in zones: the area zone, the block zone. If there were
two bakeries in the same neighborhood, it was better to buy bread from the
nearest one. During 2005 and 2006 the violence increased, and the statement
“He was kidnapped and later found floating in the Tigris River” became the
normal way to describe the state of a friend or a relative The highest death toll was paid by Iraqi academics, scientists and thinkers. Intellectuals and doctors were shot in the street, and the father of pharmacology in Iraq and the Middle East was kidnapped and thrown into
the trunk of a car, to be rescued by a coalition forces patrol that happened
to be passing nearby. Great humanitarian workers were killed in front of
their houses; colleges were bombed; dismembered students were left in front
of the oldest colleges in Iraq. Death and violence became so brutal that no
amount of sadistic cruelty to the soul and heart of the Iraqi civilization and
to the innocence of the Iraqi family will ever be able to astound us.
Needed: A Government-Civil Society Partnership
Security was in the hands of 150,000 American soldiers and untrained
and inexperienced Iraqi forces. The humanitarian crisis was fought by
international organizations and Iraqi civil society. Iraqi civil society began
to grow with the onset of the 2003 events. Its growth was fast, but few of
its players were efficient. Many people joined civil society because they
thought it would be a means to becoming part of the new system; others
just wanted to help, but lack of experience or grasp of what civil society is
about became an obstacle to their playing an effective role. Additionally,
the absence of a volunteer culture, the bad reputation of NGOs as rumors of
corruption spread, and the lack of efficacy of the few affected negatively the good
intentions of the many. The real burden was thrust upon the shoulders of a few .
organizations that were not only trying to fill a gap caused by the lack of state-sponsored services but also genuinely believed that building Iraqi democracy should start by building people’s

capacities: educating them with the new concepts of conflict resolution,
gender equality, human rights and peaceful coexistence; and teaching them
how to mobilize people to participate in development and that the road to
building the country goes through the rule of law, strong legislation, justice,
equality and an understanding that the majority in government should be
the group that represents the goals and interests of all the Iraqi people and
not the majority of an ethnic or a special interest group.
The struggle for a peaceful and democratic Iraq remains a long and
arduous road. The coalition forces were obliged to reach a deal with the
Sunni tribal leaders so that they could enforce their security plan, and so the
Awakening Councils were created. They forced armed groups to evacuate
their areas, leaving the councils In sole cotitrol there and in spite of the fact
that the state was enforcing its official presence there. The tribal leaders
became a force to be reckoned with. As these councils are in charge of trained
armed forces, they need a real strategy to transform the forces in these areas
into a government. But this requires strong governmental forces, a target we
have not reached yet, as in spite the wide operations in Baghdad, the Iraqi
south and Mosul in the north, they are still backed up by coalition forces,
and beset by rumors of random arrests, disobeyed orders and desertions,
especially during the 2008 battles in Sadr City.
The government is aware of this state of affairs; it has started a campaign to reorganize its own forces, many officers with no military background have been discharged, and the importance of academic military experience has become a priority, which is good, but must be executed as soon as possible because the security plan has reduced violence but has
not eliminated it.
In spite of the fact that we have reduced the presence of militias, their extensive branches and sleeper cells have yet to be defeated. The worst ideologies, mindsets, seeds of fanaticism, feelings of bitterness andjealousy are also still there, and this requires the political and
governmental establishments to rethink their working strategies to reach the
masses, to improve their services and to start planning for the foundations
of a strong economy and the modalities for an equal distribution of wealth,
and to consider the media, education and religion in Iraq and the negative
or positive impact they can have on Iraqi society.
We have reduced the violence and many areas have become accessible
because the people wanted the change and wanted to stop the bloodshed,
and because many people have left and there remained no one to displace
or kill. And although security has improved, services have not, and there is
no feeling of long-term stability in the air. The situation remains fragile and
everything can collapse in a few minutes; therefore, a strong state based on

the rule of law is essential for security in Iraq. This can be achieved throtigh real collaboration between the government and civil society, and a real partnership free from attempts by each party to take credit for itself; then the government can concentrate on
security issues and civil society can fulfill its role of reaching out to the Iraqi people, to rehabilitate, to assume the responsibility of rebuilding Iraq.
Both parties are trying to do this, but both still need to cross many bridges to begin trusting each other and respecting each other’s roles. In many instances, the government had good intentions, but corruption, bureaucracy and sectarianism are becoming the stones that are weighing it down.
Believing in a Better Tomotrow
As for civil society, the absence of a volunteer culture and the doubts
besetting the Iraqi youth about joining it remain obstaeles, especially for
the ordinary people “standing behind the wall” mentioned above, who
are now trying to stand on the pavement or as I do in the middle of street,
and who really want to shout out loud and make their voices heard around
the world. They really believe in a better tomorrow, especially as they see
friends and rclalivcs forced to leave Iniq and live in fear of deportation.
Members of Iraqi women’s civil society forum organize to oppose violence in the
streets.

These people are all intellectuals; they read the papers daily and watch all
the news, and if you give them a pack of cigarettes and a hot cup of tea,
they can engage you in a debate on what is wrong in Iraq and how to solve
it, but their problem is that, other than writing on the Internet and talking
with their friends, they have no means of channeling their energy into an
effective course. They have no interest in joining any Iraqi party because the
parties are restricted to certain groups and none have a real strategy to reach
the masses; they depend on their positions in the government to help people
who need recommendations to find jobs. And these youths do not join civil
society (most of them, anyway) because they have doubts that the NGOs
serve any interests other than their own. Moreover, most of this segment
of society has been severely traumatized by all the wars and pressures, and
most NGOs have no strategy to rehabilitate them. The conservatives want
them to think and act as conservative as possible, and the laymen want to
laicize them. Most of these people had never participated in a workshop or a
seminar or in any activities outside their daily lives, but they took time to work
online on a private initiative to discuss their country’s conditions and how to
improve them, so this required sponsors and local and international NGOs
to take a stand and ask themselves: How
We wiil change our lives and turn ^an we get those people to work with us?
our country into a better place, it required time, energy, a great deal of
because if we have faced all this tolerance and patience. In the end, you
suffering, we deserve to spend the ^ç working with smart people who have
rest of our lives in peace. been living in a competitive, violent
world for 30 years; change is not easy,
but if you change them and make them part of the team, they will be the ones
who will build Iraq. They have the energy and the drive and, most importantly,
the faith to do so. In the end, they have nowhere else to go but Iraq.
We are living in Iraq; the security conditions are good for survival,
but you do not know when you will pay for your efforts towards change.
We may be alone or neglected, and many have no faith in our abilities. We
have done many wrong things, taken a few wrong turns, lost people, gained
knowledge, sometimes lost the urge to fight and wanted just to escape,
but we are staying here, hoping for the best, and we will change our lives
and turn our country into a better place, because if we have faced all this
suffering, we deserve to spend the rest of our lives in peace.