February 5th - Back to Sha’ala
We went back to Sha'ala to do an Eid show for the camp and give them the money people sent for them to build the drain.
The Sha’ala kids came running out to meet us, arms out. The girls joined in with the parachute games this time, asked to be picked as cat or mouse, lying on the fabric to be lifted up and run around on it. The women watched through the reed fence of the house next to the concrete square where we performed. They wanted the scarves that are tied to the broom handle for twirling but I didn’t have enough for all of them.
Tanks came by blasting out some message over a loudspeaker and throwing brightly coloured leaflets behind them. A couple of the boys ran to pick them up, cartoons depicting a man planting a bomb in a newly built school, while the kids were happily dancing about. An Iraqi person sees him, finds an Iraqi Police man and reports it. The bomb gets safely removed, the school is saved, the criminal is arrested and everyone but him is very happy.
“We think probably half of the bombs are planted by Americans,” Abu Bassim said. The recent party office bombings in the north they are sure were the work of American provocateurs trying to create divisions; likewise the bombing in Najaf of Al-Hakim a few months ago. “There is no division between us and Sunnis. We are all Moslems, but the Americans trying to create divisions. They have done it all over the world, everywhere they go.
Marwa came to me with her eyes shining. I think you already know how much I love this child. She wants to be a doctor. It seems impossible because she hasn’t been to school in months and she’s from a very poor family, without even a real home, and I don’t know how long free university education will continue, but I can’t bear the thought of her becoming a housewife like the other women there, hidden under a headscarf, producing child after child and trying to keep them all alive, looking out through a reed fence and hoping her daughter will have better chances than she did.
We were meant to be meeting a sheikh this morning who represents the 4,500 families or about 25,000 people, living in 35 squatted former government buildings. They’re expecting that the new government, when elected, will want those buildings back and will evict them. There’s no housing for them to go into, so they’ll be on the streets. There are some rights for squatters, which is what we were going to talk to the sheikh about – the rights they have and what support they want, but for various reasons the meeting was to be in the Convention Centre and was cancelled because of ‘an important ceremony’ in the Centre – apparently more important than people’s right to have somewhere to live.
Still Abu Ahmed and Abu Bassim say they want elections as soon as possible. Like all the Shia people I’ve met in the camps, they follow Sistani . an Iranian, he won’t be a candidate himself, but they will vote for the man he backs and if he calls for jihad, they say, they will leave their families and fight. Over lunch in Abu Bassim’s compartment, made out of a corner of a roofless farm building, they said they’re not backing the current resistance because it’s killing innocent people and, as Abu Bassim explained in response to the leaflets, they are convinced that a lot of the attacks are American-perpetrated.
Jihad, they said, would include attacking the Americans, with bombs aimed at their bases, not at convoys in the street, where innocent Iraqis get hurt, but the main focus, Abu Bassim said, would be unarmed jihad: refusal to work with the Americans, total non-cooperation and so on, that all Iraqis could participate in.
“The Americans are the same as Saddam,” Abu Ahmed declared, “They are from the same line. We can criticise the Americans, that’s true. We went on a big demonstration a few weeks ago and chanted against the Americans and the British and the Governing Council and we were not stopped. We can complain, but that is all.” They’re not represented by anyone at them moment but there are four section to the camp, each with its own sheikh so, with Abu Ahmed, there’s a committee of five.
We gave them the money for the drain at the end of the show and explained it was from ordinary people, in solidarity. The place was full of smiles: they will start preparations straight away and then get the digger in. It will be built within a week.
Today is the long awaited day off. There’s been no electricity for most of it and no internet throughout the city because of the thunderstorm, apparently. I did my washing in the dark and hung it out in the rain. It was even cold and wet enough to drive Fatih off his balcony opposite.
Tanks came by blasting out some message over a loudspeaker and throwing brightly coloured leaflets behind them. A couple of the boys ran to pick them up, cartoons depicting a man planting a bomb in a newly built school, while the kids were happily dancing about. An Iraqi person sees him, finds an Iraqi Police man and reports it. The bomb gets safely removed, the school is saved, the criminal is arrested and everyone but him is very happy.
“We think probably half of the bombs are planted by Americans,” Abu Bassim said. The recent party office bombings in the north they are sure were the work of American provocateurs trying to create divisions; likewise the bombing in Najaf of Al-Hakim a few months ago. “There is no division between us and Sunnis. We are all Moslems, but the Americans trying to create divisions. They have done it all over the world, everywhere they go.
Marwa came to me with her eyes shining. I think you already know how much I love this child. She wants to be a doctor. It seems impossible because she hasn’t been to school in months and she’s from a very poor family, without even a real home, and I don’t know how long free university education will continue, but I can’t bear the thought of her becoming a housewife like the other women there, hidden under a headscarf, producing child after child and trying to keep them all alive, looking out through a reed fence and hoping her daughter will have better chances than she did.
We were meant to be meeting a sheikh this morning who represents the 4,500 families or about 25,000 people, living in 35 squatted former government buildings. They’re expecting that the new government, when elected, will want those buildings back and will evict them. There’s no housing for them to go into, so they’ll be on the streets. There are some rights for squatters, which is what we were going to talk to the sheikh about – the rights they have and what support they want, but for various reasons the meeting was to be in the Convention Centre and was cancelled because of ‘an important ceremony’ in the Centre – apparently more important than people’s right to have somewhere to live.
Still Abu Ahmed and Abu Bassim say they want elections as soon as possible. Like all the Shia people I’ve met in the camps, they follow Sistani . an Iranian, he won’t be a candidate himself, but they will vote for the man he backs and if he calls for jihad, they say, they will leave their families and fight. Over lunch in Abu Bassim’s compartment, made out of a corner of a roofless farm building, they said they’re not backing the current resistance because it’s killing innocent people and, as Abu Bassim explained in response to the leaflets, they are convinced that a lot of the attacks are American-perpetrated.
Jihad, they said, would include attacking the Americans, with bombs aimed at their bases, not at convoys in the street, where innocent Iraqis get hurt, but the main focus, Abu Bassim said, would be unarmed jihad: refusal to work with the Americans, total non-cooperation and so on, that all Iraqis could participate in.
“The Americans are the same as Saddam,” Abu Ahmed declared, “They are from the same line. We can criticise the Americans, that’s true. We went on a big demonstration a few weeks ago and chanted against the Americans and the British and the Governing Council and we were not stopped. We can complain, but that is all.” They’re not represented by anyone at them moment but there are four section to the camp, each with its own sheikh so, with Abu Ahmed, there’s a committee of five.
We gave them the money for the drain at the end of the show and explained it was from ordinary people, in solidarity. The place was full of smiles: they will start preparations straight away and then get the digger in. It will be built within a week.
Today is the long awaited day off. There’s been no electricity for most of it and no internet throughout the city because of the thunderstorm, apparently. I did my washing in the dark and hung it out in the rain. It was even cold and wet enough to drive Fatih off his balcony opposite.