Sean McAllister » Page 23

Author: Sean McAllister

Documentary Filmmaker from Hull, England, specialises in giving the voiceless a voice

Gun Rage

Samir came into my hotel room shaken this morning. He was caught up in another bout of road rage, Baghdad style. Despite the new Iraqi Government taking control on the 1st July things are still relatively lawless here. A driver was arguing with another driver both pointing a gun at each other. Samir’s car was sandwiched in, he couldn’t move. The police arrive grab the man’s hand and he starts firing.

The daily perils of living in a country where most households have guns. I remember when I first arrived, it seemed crazy. But now having lived here for over 6 months it makes sense. I would want a gun if I wasn’t living in my well fortified hotel. And when Samir’s neighbour was murdered on her doorstep back in March I took ‘the law’ into my own hands. Fadi, Samir’s 25 year old son had sold the family Kalashnikov thinking things were going to get better. Samir was worried about his son and daughter living in the resistance stronghold neighbourhood with only a hand pistol in the house. So I gave Fadi $120 to buy a Kalashnikov. He got one the very next day. It seemed a sensible thing to do at the time.

But Fadi has temper tantrums. He was involved in a punch up the other week with a driver who cut him up. Thank God he didn’t have his gun with him. There is a hole in the hallway of Samir’s home where he let a round off from the Kalashnikov I bought him. He had been arguing with his sister about the Muslim girl who he hopes to marry. Samir’s family are Christians and he feels it will bring shame on the family if Fadi marries her. He will have to become a Muslim himself in order to marry her. Anyway when the subject was raised, it led to an argument and Fadi grabbed the gun. Samir fought with him trying to pull it off him and a bullets fired into the ceiling. It could have killed either of them. I thought of taking the gun back but then thought about the risks they are living under in this part of Baghdad. In the end I decided to leave him with it hoping that he can marry his Muslim girl without the loss of any life.

I came back to my hotel to find the guard standing proud with a golden plated Kalashnikov. It looked like something out of James Bond. “Where did you get that ?” I asked. “$300 on the street.. it is beautiful isn’t it?” In a funny sort of way it was.

IRAQI’S NEED ANOTHER SADDAM

“Hide that camera will you..” Samir screams. “I told you my area is full of insurgents, they will kill us both. These bastards are destroying everything now. They should kill them all.” I pull the camera down, we continue driving to Samir’s, listening to Mozart on the stereo, the baking heat making us both drip with sweat. Samir’s air conditioner in the car is broken, he doesn’t have enough money to buy a new radiator, he lost all his piano students after the war a year ago. It is not safe to travel anymore, and the roads here are gridlocked since the American’s closed so many main streets.

“You know I wish you could have seen me a few years ago. I was never like this. I had $200,000 in the bank before the 1991 war, then the sanctions came and the money was devalued, and so was all our lives. We were a first world nation reduced to a third world country. Can you imagine that? all the luxuries you like having in Britain suddenly being taken away from you overnight’.

We pass an American patrol. “But I blame Saddam for everything, he gave the American’s the excuse to be here now. He stole 30 years from every Iraqi’s life’. There is a road block, now guarded by Americans and Iraqi soldiers. this is new Iraq.

So why are the insurgents still fighting then? I ask him. Samir believes they are Saddam loyalists and foreign fighters. But many tell me they are ordinary Iraqi’s fighting to liberate their land from the American occupation. We reach Samir’s home, I quickly disappear inside the house, keeping a low profile. The house is hot, the electricity is not working and the generator is not strong enough to power the air coolers. Then the electricity comes on and the air coolers work.

We watch an interview with an Iraqi minister from the new interim government, defiant words on tackling the insurgents. “We will deal with them in our own way, in a way only the Iraqi people know” he smiles, and so does Samir. His words send a shiver down my spine. I see Ariel Sharon appear momentarily in his face. Samir gets agitated, “Iraqi’s need another Saddam, they need a dictator here. There are too many little Saddam’s out there to control.”

Then the electricity goes out again. Samir is angry. “They’ve had a year to get this right… Saddam sorted this out in 3 months after the war in 1991 and look at the place…” he goes off into another rant. I looked out of his window at the war torn neighbourhood, riddled with bullet holes, a US tank lies on a roadside destroyed.

Samir puts his arm around me. “Saddam knew how to run this country. He knew how to deal with his people.”

Small World

Sean McAllister and Samir Peter covered in mud
Sean McAllister and Samir Peter from The Liberace Of Baghdad enjoy some mud
Floating on the Dead Sea looking out to the promised land, it was quiet, peaceful, like biblical times. Then Samir got water in his eye, it burned. We were both covered in black mud, I had to guide him to the shower over the hot burning sands. For a moment I was Jesus and he was the blind man, then I heard him scream. I wasn’t looking and he hit his head against a pole, stuck out there in the sand.

Back home in Amman, a friend of Samir’s calls round. An out of work saxophone player who left Iraq 10 years ago after his house was taken from him by Saddam’s men. He is depressed so we drink some beer, then we end up here in the Sheraton where I write now. We watch the musicians play and then the singer comes over smiling at Samir “Are you Mr Peter?” “yes” Samir answers, he holds a card out, “Do you know this man?” we look at the card, it is Robert’s card. The billionaire mystery from a couple of weeks back.

Robert had promised to ship Samir’s grand piano to America, but we never heard from him again. He was an enigma, we explained to the singer that Robert had made Samir play the piano down his mobile phone to friends in America. He told us they were important White House people, then the singer smiles at us, “He told me to do the same.” Samir looks embarrassed. Well it is a small world.

Today fresh air

Samir made it through the desert with his daughters and granddaughter. I made it through the air, the dangerous airport road was empty, the corkscrew take-off exhilarating. We met for hummus in Hashem’s, the best hummus out here, drank wine and smoked cigars in the Four Seasons hotel, pretending we were rich for half an hour then went back to the humble apartment Samir has rented.

Tomorrow we see lawyers and plan for Saha’s visit to the US embassy. The weight of the war zone has been lifted from all of us and although we face impending goodbyes we are on holiday doing normal things like shopping in Safeway’s.

Cradle of Civilisation

Samir the pianist was angry today, he was blaming Saddam for taking 30 years off every Iraqi’s life. He became more inflamed when he saw a protest supporting Saddam, shown on the BBC today, “look I told you, they should not allow him to speak, he knows how to reach his people.” The gang were leaping around chanting for Saddam holding pictures of him above their heads. It is one year after the fall of Saddam and 3 days after the new interim government took power.

“These Iraqi people need a strong leader. They need a dictator like Saddam, there is no other way” he laments. Then I get angry .. “look democracy cannot happen over night.. these things take time” then the lights go out, the air conditioners go off. It is 50c here in Baghdad. We are stood in the sweltering heat without light or fans. Samir’s mood switches. “What have the American’s been doing here for a year? we still only have electricity for 6 hours a day and the generators out here are not powerful enough to power the air conditioners..” I decide to carry on filming in darkness, the curtains are closed to keep out the unbearable heat. “You know Saddam rebuilt Iraq in 3 months after the Gulf War in 1991.. then Iraq was really destroyed. this time it wasn’t and still we are without electricity.” I began to think, you know if the Americans wanted the Iraqi’s to support them, it is easy, they should just provide the basics for them. Earlier we had passed one of the many motorists pushing their clapped out cars in the street. Samir was laughing, “look we are country of petrol, why are these people pushing their cars.” We pull up for fuel joining a half mile queue, 30 minutes later we get to the top of the queue but we are sent away. Our number plate ended in ‘even’ numbers and today only those ending in ‘odd’ numbers could get fuel, but Samir’s tank was low, so we pull over to one of the youngsters on the roadside selling black market fuel from cans. Samir can fill his tank for less then a dollar here, petrol is cheaper then water. But not on the black market, we paid 5 times the price. Samir often buys from the black market, sitting in fuel queues for hours in the unbearable heat, the air conditioning is not working in his car. The boy pouring the fuel is joined by his sister, she starts tugging on my shirt, then her mother comes over and speaks in Arabic to Samir. He is laughing, “this mother is asking if you want to marry her daughter and take her out of Iraq.”

We drive off. Samir looks at me, “you know the Iraqi people deserve better then this, we are not a nation of beggars, we are an educated nation, this is the cradle of civilisation. I wish you could have seen me 15 years ago.. I was a rich man and so were these people.”

postscript

Samir is sad. Rita his daughter and his lovely granddaughter Lulu are leaving back to the States. Samir thought they were crazy to come in the first place, but 3 months ago at the height of the siege of Fallujah they came. They hid their American passports and passed safely through Fallujah.

But now they are leaving back to the States, to join his ex wife and other daughter who is married there. Saha his eldest daughter and Fadi his only son are saying goodbye tonight. Although Saha, a pro Saddamist surprised me, she wants to try get a non immigrant visa to the States to join the others. She’d always teased her father who has dreamed of living there all his life but now she is trying when we go the Amman tomorrow. She has been crying a lot over the last few days, the empty house seemed full of life with Rita and her child. Saha always carries a deep sorrowfulness in her eyes, she really doesn’t want to leave her home, but with all that is happening here she seems to have changed her mind. She also knows that her sick mother will never come back. Conflicted isn’t the word for Saha, she looked at me saying, “yes.. I’m going to give it a go,” then looked back to the wonderful Iraqi food she is cooking and looks up sheepishly, “but you know, Rita has been there 5 years now and she doesn’t like it.”

Anyhow it is too dangerous for me to travel on the road so I’m flying with my friend Marla, the American aid worker who looks after families bereaved by the Americans. We are going to meet Samir and his daughters in Hashem’s Hummus Bar in downtown Amman, and I can’t wait. Simply the best hummus outside of Abu Shukri’s in the old city of Jerusalem, where I used to breakfast daily when I made a film there. We will float in the Dead Sea, try get Saha a visa for America and finally say goodbye to Rita, Lulu, and possible Saha.

Oh, how is poor Samir going to feel. He is waiting for his papers, not getting any younger, desperate to taste the American dream, discover success or as he says ‘simply die in peace.’