We don't speak enough about Iraq on this blog..
To begin to atone for that, I am sharing 2 interesting sources I have come across this week - no car bombs here. Just people.
Baghdad, City of Walls is an excellent documentary by an Iraqi journalist who went to the 'new' Baghdad, with its ethnically cleansed configuration, those religiously pure neighbourhoods now separated by walls.
After an absence of several years, Ghaith Abdul Ahad returns to his home city and hops from the Sunni to the Shiite areas, changing his name to go from one neighbourhood to the other, from the 'killing fields' of Baghdad to its orphanages.
But it might be getting better, and in the words of an interviewee - بغداد رجعت تتمكيج - 'Baghdad is putting her make-up again'. Perhaps. Maybe not.
Watch it.
Secure Enough to Sin, Baghdad Revisits Old Ways is a quick dive into the Baghdad underground. Booze, hookers and gambling are an interesting way to gauge the 'normalcy' of an urban setting..
Preview:
'Nightclubs have reopened, and in many of them, prostitutes troll for clients. Liquor stores, once shut down by fundamentalist militiamen, have proliferated; on one block of busy Saddoun Street, there are more than 10 of them.'
8 comments:
Actually, City of Walls is a good documentary for the whole ME region, not just Baghdad.
Even Egypt, where there was only several conflicts between Christians & Muslims since the 80's - now we have a Sunni-Shiite conflict.
I think that what's happening is a war by proxy,between the rising Iran & US in a land of rich resources & poor thinking.
Ya Jupiter! Long time no speak. I hope you're very well. :)
Sunni-Shiite conflict in Egypt? You mean the Hezbollah cell thing?
In any event, let's hope we don't end up shooting at each other and building walls.. can you imagine, El Daher being surrounded by a wall with a checkpoint 3ala awwel share3 el geish? :-)
we are fine.
It's not just about the cell thing.
The whole story of Sunni-Shiite is new in Egypt, now you start to hear the whispering about WE & THEM (whether THEM means Christian,Shiite or even Baha2ein).
Egypt is going through a rough & hard change
You know the Missile Eat is doomed, ya Mo, save for a few small and very well-fortified places. Iraq is not one of them. Even Kurdistan will be lost once Americans betray the Kurds for the Nth time.
And the Shia-Sunni conflict has a major role to play in this doom. Dooooom, I tell ya! Doooom! :)
Jupiter,
Well we don't have enough Shiites in Egypt to even have a conflict. But i do agree that it seems that people are getting more and more comfortable in their identitarian seclusion.
But is it a change, really? Has it not always been the case? Haven't the Baha2is always been 'them', and if it weren't for the recent ID card issue that brought the whole thing to the forefront?
Abu Sa'ar,
Interesting. And what are the fortified places? The republic of Tel-Aviv, ani choshev? :)
Kurdistan is bound to be re-absorbed in Iraq anyway. It's just a matter of time.
Mo -
Israel will survive as as a fortress. Some other places can also survive if they're smart and lucky - perhaps some of the Emirates, Qatar...
Do not count on the people who produced Salah ad-Din to vanish into an entity like Iraq. The passions of independence are high among the Iraqi Kurds. They were fighting with some success against a genocidal Iraqi Arab army for decades until the Americans saved them. They got a comparatively strong economy going, with proper order, security, and something resembling a democracy.
Culturally, they might be capable of independence and even success if they can overcome their tribalism. But they're as besieged as Israel and not nearly as fortified...
I really don't expect the kurds to have a real autonomous entity any time soon. First we must remember that their territorial ambitions include parts of Turkey and of Syria. And Turkey is probably far more valuable to the West - NATO, baby - than a 'Kurdistan' is.
As for the Gulf countries - wait til the oil runs out. No, better: wait til we find an alternative energy. We'll watch these city-states sink back in the desert they sprang from.
Mo -
Kurds in Iraq are not into declaring independence for all of Kurdistan. Unlike the Palestinians, they understand that something is better than nothing. An independent Iraqi Kurdistan is possibly viable even now, if they can develop fast enough and fortify themselves well enough. But they're experts of fortification these past thousand years.
So yeah, Turkey will continue to fight against Kurdistan, but what the hell are they going to do? Invade and gas the Kurds? They'll just hide in the mountains, blow up Turkish military convoys and destroy Turkey's standing in the free world.
Iranian Kurds can wait until the theocracy crashes down or until they finally succeed in revolting against the Persians. Or they can wait for ethnic and social pressures (or Israeli nuclear missiles if shit really hits the fan) to tear Iran apart.
Syrian Kurds will have to wait for Syria's disintegration.
And as for the Turkish Kurds... first of all, their leadership is tainted with a communist ideology that relies on violence and terror. Nothing is going to help them until that changes. I suspect Turkey's Kurds can be rallied around Kurdish nationalism on a tribal level, bypassing the leadership. But there're going to be massive problems with them once Independent Iraqi Kurdistan is up on its feet.
As for the Gulf countries -
Some of the Emirates seem to realize where they're going. I see definite (perhaps even desperate) attempts to build slave-powered fortresses funded by international services industry by some Emirs. These might be viable if they:
Manage to cement the said industry in their areas of influence and if they:
Find a way to control the slaves (or at least to repress them sufficiently) and if they:
Can seal the borders.
None of these conditions is unattainable, and such fortress-states could probably exist for decades if not centuries.
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