"’Black locusts’ are taking over Morocco!" So ran the September 12, 2005 headline of al-Shamal, an Arabic-language Tangier newspaper, describing the forays of masses of in-transit sub-Saharan Africans trying to scale the security fences separating Morocco from the Spanish-ruled enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. Moroccan authorities immediately banned al-Shamal for employing this racist language, but the press on both sides of the Mediterranean continued to use terms like “massive invasion” and “plague” to denote the sub-Saharan migrants’ repeated attempts in September and early October to escape from Africa into the territory of the European Union.
On October 19, 2005, in a former presidential palace that had been hastily refurbished to resemble a respectable courtroom, Saddam Hussein went on trial.
The pages of US newspapers are full of opinion pieces about Iraq — almost none of them penned by Iraqis. Americans might be forgiven for believing that Iraqi writers are stunned into silence by the chaos enveloping their country, but that is far from the case. Below are two offerings, translated from Arabic by Sinan Antoon, from writers representing important currents — though certainly not the only ones — in contemporary Iraqi opinion.
Labor practices in Iraq are under scrutiny, as contractors hire poor non-Iraqis to work low-wage jobs in a deadly environment. Migrant workers are employed through complex layers of companies working in Iraq. At the top of the pyramid is the US government, which assigned over $24 billion in contracts over 2004–2005. Laborers are often deceived with false promises of lucrative, safe jobs in nations such as Jordan and Kuwait, only to find themselves working in unsafe jobs across the border. Some source countries have banned workers from going to Iraq, but, with little regulation, labor brokers are finding loopholes.
“Life would get better.” Women throughout Iraq told themselves that constantly during the first, cautiously hopeful months of the US-British occupation of their country.
As the electricity blinked on and off, the water stopped running and desert-camouflaged tanks churned up the narrow streets of the ancient capital, women consoled themselves with the thought that these troubles could only be temporary. Especially for women, the Iraqi future was bright.
At a press conference two weeks before the US-led invasion of Iraq, flanked by four “Women for a Free Iraq,” [1] Paula Dobriansky, then undersecretary of state for global affairs, declared: “We are at a critical point in dealing with Saddam
Hussein. However this turns out, it is clear that the women of Iraq have a critical role to play in the future revival of their society.” For the Bush administration, Iraqi women would not only be “helping give birth to freedom” in the post-Saddam
order. [2] US officials spoke publicly about rape, torture and executions of women under Ba‘th Party rule, implicitly linking
The international occupation of Afghanistan is in bad shape. US casualties are up — at times the ratio of killed and wounded to troops deployed is equal to that in Iraq, though of course the total numbers are not. Taliban attacks are intensifying, and now include frequent suicide bombings. Kidnappings are becoming more common. NGOs are being attacked and pulling out. Over 200 schools have been burned down and closed. Each year, fewer roads are safe to travel. The country’s economy lies in ruins and its government is a largely dysfunctional kleptocracy. A new round of aid is coming — at a February 2006 donors’ conference in London, $10.5 billion was pledged through 2011 — but the long-term prognosis looks bad.
To hear American politicians and the commercial news media tell it, the greatest military power in world history hastily launched an ill-conceived invasion because of intelligence failures and wishful fantasies of sweets and flowers. It is as if, to paraphrase a sentiment heard in White House hallways on September 11, 2001, history really did start on that day, and nothing that happened beforehand mattered.
On November 26, 2005, Tom Fox and three other members of the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) based in Iraq — James Looney, Harmeet Singh and Norman Kimber — were kidnapped by a previously unknown group calling itself the Swords of Righteousness Brigade. Nearly four months later, on March 10, 2006, Tom’s corpse was found in a ditch. It appeared he had been killed the previous day. On March 23, the other three kidnapped members of the CPT were released unharmed.
Tom’s murder is particularly poignant because CPT’s efforts in Iraq have been focused entirely on supporting the Iraqi people as they determine their own destiny. CPT is a violence reduction group that has sent trained peacemakers to conflict areas such as Palestine, Haiti, Chechnya and Colombia.
Mohamed Sid-Ahmed (1928–2006), a long-serving contributing editor of this magazine, was born in Cairo into a cosmopolitan family whose landed wealth dated to the era of Mehmet Ali. He was a life-long activist in the communist and progressive movements, one of Egypt’s leading political writers and intellectuals, and a person of extraordinary integrity and generosity.
Diyarbakır, the political and cultural center of Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeastern provinces, displays its beauty in springtime. The surrounding plains and mountains, dusty and barren during the summer months, shine in shades of green and the rainbow colors of alpine flowers and herbs. Around the walls of the old city, parks bustle with schoolchildren, unemployed young men and refugees who were uprooted from their villages during the Kurdish insurgency in the 1990s.
A low-key but injudicious war of words briefly broke out between Israel’s two most senior judges in the wake of the May 2006 decision by the Supreme Court to uphold the constitutionality of the Nationality and Entry into Israel Law. A temporary measure passed by the Knesset in July 2003, the law effectively bans marriages between Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and Israeli citizens.
“All options are on the table,” says President George W. Bush when asked about press reports that the Pentagon is drawing up plans to bomb Iran to derail the nuclear research program there. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei shoots back: "The Iranian nation will respond to any blow with double the intensity." Even if Bush’s saber rattling is merely a psychological ploy, and even if the Iranians are also just blowing smoke, the danger is that the cycle of threat and counter-threat could spin out of control.
04.28.2006
In the early morning of April 14, 2006, Mahmoud Salah al-Din Abd al-Raziq, a Muslim, entered the church of Mar Girgis (Saint George) in Alexandria’s al-Hadra district and stabbed three parishioners who had gathered for a service. Abd al-Raziq then proceeded to attack worshippers at two other churches, according to police accounts, before being arrested en route to a fourth. Nushi Atta Girgis, 78, died from his stab wounds, while several others were injured, some severely.
By giving up his bid to retain his job, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari of Iraq raised hopes on Thursday of a way out of the political impasse that had prevented the formation of a new government. But the premise that this political process will put Iraq onto a path to stability is doubtful.
A deeper problem compounds the sectarian differences plaguing Iraqi society: Iraq’s middle classes are under severe attack, and with them the prospect for real democracy. These middle strata, especially the educated and professional, form the backbone of any mature society.
As President George W. Bush said in his second inaugural address, and as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last summer at the American University in Cairo: “America will not impose our style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, to attain their own freedom and to make their own way.”
Contradicting their lofty rhetoric, the Bush administration, along with the European Union, is undermining democracy and U.S. credibility in the Middle East by sabotaging the result of the January 25 Palestinian elections. In completely rejecting the outcome they are also effectively giving up the biggest “carrot” in their arsenals for influencing Palestinian Authority policy.
