Once upon a war
Sinan Antoon remembers the bombing of Baghdad in 1991 and salutes the millions protesting the imminent war on Iraq
No one ever thought that there would be another war -- not after eight years of carnage with Iran from 1980 to 1988, waged in the service of the guardians of the Old World Order. When both panting regimes agreed to a cease-fire, a three-day holiday was declared in Iraq to mark the "victory". Baghdad witnessed three nights the likes of which it had never witnessed before. People filled the streets dancing and singing, not for victory -- as the official media had declared -- but to celebrate the return of their fathers, brothers and sons, as well as a collective return to "normalcy" (if such a thing was ever possible again) and the little, bloodless, but endless wars of daily life.
But war had not tired of us yet and, after just two years, it was back salivating for more. Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990 and an American- led armada was brought to the Gulf to "liberate" Kuwait and defang Saddam once and for all -- or so the world was told! This was the New World Order! A United Nations deadline was set, and if Iraqi troops did not withdraw from Kuwait, the war would start any moment after 15 January 1991.
A deadly desert-storm was approaching, one whose effects would eclipse all previous calamities. Having nothing to say in anything, all we could do was to prepare for the worst. And so we did.
"We will die here," my aunt declared nonchalantly, when I told her that many people were leaving Baghdad and staying with friends or relatives far away to avoid the brunt of the imminent bombing. "Let's just finish sealing the bathroom and get it over with," she added.
The bathroom on the first floor of our two-storey house had just been designated the "safe" space where we were all to gather in the event of a chemical or biological attack. The tiny crack in the bathroom wall, generous enough to allow any chemical agent grand entry to our bathroom and lungs posed no technical problem for my aunt. Only a month later, there would be hundreds of thousands of American-induced cracks all over the country. I had fancied numerous exit scenes from this world, with much drama, but death in the bathroom with my three middle-aged aunts was too absurd a scenario!
Like most "citizens" we were following the regime's advice in taking all necessary precautions to survive. There were infomercials on television instructing us on precautions during chemical and biological attacks. Even children in grade school were being trained and instructed for every contingency. We were told to choose the room with the least number of windows, preferably none, and place some canned food, water and wet towels to cover our faces with during the attack. From our living room, I could see our neighbour's bathroom window sealed up. Like the soldiers, we too were grudgingly entrenching ourselves.
My eldest aunt had witnessed British occupation, the birth of the nation-state of Iraq and the monarchy, the republican period, with its successive coups, and Saddam's tyranny. Now she was going to witness the worst chapter of all. She was a devout, church-going Christian, who believed in the fate that "God had ordained for us". She was never a fan of Saddam's, but fearing that I would "disappear", like so many others, into one of the mukhabarat's labyrinths, she would always chastise me when I criticised him, or told her the latest joke I'd heard about him.
"I lit candles today and prayed to the Virgin Mary to protect us all and to bring peace," she said. But having raised two generations in our family, she was also a pragmatist. A few days before the war erupted, she reminded me to go buy candles, a kerosene-lamp, and some batteries for the tiny radio. These would be essentials for the days ahead. When it was obvious that war was crawling towards us, we went around saying goodbye to close friends and loved ones -- not knowing who would survive or what trajectory the war would take. I remember one of my friends telling me, as we hugged and kissed on the cheeks a few nights before the war, that if they -- meaning Saddam and his cronies -- would die with us, then at least it wouldn't be for nothing. An American bomb took him away a few weeks later, leaving Saddam and co. unscathed.
The bombing started at 2.37am. on 17 January 1991. It went on for hours -- relentless and incessant. Our house was near a major military camp and airbase, so with every bomb, the house, built in 1967, shook like the lotus tree standing in its garden. We'd learned from the previous war with Iran to open the windows so they wouldn't break from the pressure and deposit shards in our bodies. The cold winter invaded the rooms and every bone in our bodies. The electricity was cut off instantly once the "coalition" bombed the electricity grid. We gathered in the living room and turned on the radio.
"The liberation of Kuwait has begun," declared George Bush Sr. But all the news had to offer was: bombing of targets in Iraq and Kuwait. This would remain the mantra for weeks. Two of my aunts were praying. The third buried her head in her hands and sighed. One of them always wore the precious gold cross she'd bought from Jerusalem in 1966 around her neck. It was supposed to have a speck of Jesus' original cross. She kept kissing it as she prayed. The number and intensity of kisses multiplied as the bombing intensified. How many Iraqi lips were clinging to amulets of all sorts that night? An ancient Arab poet said once: "When death sinks its claws, all amulets are of no avail." These were the claws of a new empire. As an Iraqi, it is difficult these days not to fall into an elegiac mode.
The bombing went on until about six in the morning. When it stopped we decided to join other relatives who'd found shelter in another part of the city. We took our IDs, some money, a mattress and some pillows and left in a hurry.
The streets were eerily empty, except for a few cars rushing here or there. Traffic lights were not working, blinded by the war. Soon after we arrived, the "shelter" was full and the bombing resumed. But the shelter turned out to be no more than the basement of a restaurant. The harrowing noise outside was not even muffled and we were offered only symbolic protection.
By night time the shelter had come to resemble a funeral home, except that we were both the mourners and the mourned. Bodies huddled together as if to ward off death. Each of us was a potential corpse. I could not help but think of my existence as a mere dot on the screen in front of the hundreds of pilots in the bombers and fighter jets hovering over Baghdad's skies. (After I arrived in the US in late 1991, I watched many an American pilot describe, with unfettered ecstasy, how "the sorties were like computer games" to them ... how Baghdad lit up like a Christmas tree!)
Some men stood near the shelter's door pontificating about the war's aftermath. Others sat enveloped in pensive silence when they weren't trying to comfort the crying children. Many were praying. I had unencumbered myself of the last remnants of any faith a few years before. I still think that we, atheists, are bound to be lonelier, if not the loneliest in such times. I clung to the radio, but the BBC promised weeks and weeks of bombing.
In those first few weeks, the only glimmer of hope was something mentioned en passant about the thousands who stormed the streets oceans away protesting the war and the bombing. The knowledge that so many took to the streets to register their anger and refusal gave me some hope. For them, we were not dots on a bomber's screen, or pixels on CNN's screens! To those men and women who protested 13 years ago, and to the millions who did this year on 15 February, a salute from my heart of hearts.
To those who think that protesting against the war is, in effect, condoning Saddam's tyranny I say: Iraqis desire nothing more than a Saddam-less Iraq. If I have had one wish in this world, it is to see Saddam fall. However, it seems that even the joy we have awaited for so long will be short-lived. Our respite from totalitarianism will be too brief to savour. A series of American-made nightmares await the country and its people. First and foremost, not unlike the 1991 Gulf War, this war will be yet another opportunity for the Pentagon to try its new weapons on Iraqi guinea pigs. It is also clear by now that the US intends to occupy Iraq for years to come (eight was the latest estimate). After all the hollow promises the US made to "free Iraqis" (I take "free" to signify the price of their subservience to Washington) and offer democracy and freedom, now we are told that the US intends to keep the Ba'ath's infrastructure intact, but spice it up with American generals. (One of the candidates is said to be Lebanese-American, as if that makes any difference!) The US speaks of appointing a consultative assembly made up of Iraqis that it will pick and choose to draft a new constitution. I'll leave the reader to imagine the characters willing to participate in this neo-colonial tragicomedy!
American hegemony and imperial desires necessitate aborting any and all genuine democratic attempts and aspirations inside Iraq. Any responsible and democratically elected government (not one introduced under military rule) would surely call for the immediate departure of American troops and would not agree to American corporations and oil companies sucking the country's wealth dry. Alas, the prospect of a free and democratic Iraq is now more distant than ever. We will, at best, have a US puppet/dictator or a market-friendly team of corrupt Iraqi Enronites and ex-thugs hand-picked by Washington. There will be some cosmetic sprinkling of aid and a few emergency programmes here and there, but the bottom line is clear: to rebuild the country insofar as it can produce as much cheap oil as -- making OPEC irrelevant -- and making it a fertile market for American corporations.
Ironically, it was the US itself that destroyed the entire infrastructure of the country back in 1991. That destruction was continued through draconian sanctions, which have killed more than one million innocent civilians while keeping the regime intact. Now, after more destruction and countless civilian deaths, the US will rebuild some of what it destroyed, but using Iraq's own resources and wealth to fill the ever- gluttonous bellies of its corporations. Will the US ever admit to using depleted uranium in 1991? Will it begin (and pay for) the massive clean up urgently needed in and around Basra?
Sanctions deprived the great majority of Iraqis from the most basic necessities of life. One need only look at the list of prohibited materials, from pencils to syringes. Baghdad's more than four million inhabitants did not have many operating ambulances. Ambulances, you see, were "dual-use" items. According to the (il)logic of sanctions, ambulances can potentially be converted for military use. My aunt had a stroke in 1996, but she could not be taken to hospital. The few available and operating ambulances had to be reserved for younger patients. She died the next day.
My aunt's story pales in comparison to thousands of others, much more tragic, like the five-year-old girls in and around Basra who have breast cancer, thanks to the depleted uranium. She always used to say that things would only get worse in Iraq. I hope she was wrong! The last time I spoke to her on the phone, she said: don't forget us! That I cannot do, as I take the "us" to be much more inclusive than what she had in mind.
My heart goes out to those who will take my place in the shelter for days or weeks and whose future has already been hijacked by both Saddam and the US. Once again, they will be mere dots on the various screens while the "showdown with Iraq" or the "liberating" of Iraq is played! They are the potential corpses. The producers at the Pentagon, CNN and Fox News will make sure their deaths do not disturb the carnivals of patriotism and victory.
So, try, if you can, to look beyond the dots and pixels! Visualise the thousands of innocent civilians who will bear the brunt and pay the price. The ghosts of war are fast approaching, but once they arrive, they never leave! After piling up the corpses, they dwell in the psyches of survivors. Both Saddam and the US have already piled countless corpses and unleashed thousands of ghosts in Iraq. Need there be more?
How much blood will suffice as ink for empire's new maps?
Sinan Antoon is an Iraqi writer.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 20 - 26 March 2003 (Issue No. 630)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/630/sc8.htm