The Liberace Of Baghdad » Page 4

Tag: The Liberace Of Baghdad

The man without an eye

I’d always seen this man, the man without an eye. I’d always admired how he cared for the NBC T.V network’s fleet of cars that he cleans each evening. I’d noticed how he scrubbed the tires, so the car looks brand new again. This man just works, and works. Then sleeps on the ground in the open air next to his cars. He is happy to have a job, a good job, with the Americans.

Today I stopped and let my curiosity end. I wanted to know who he was and how he lost his eye. Samir always says “Every Iraqi has a story.” So what was this mans? The man lost his eye in the Iran war. He was taken to war in his late teens. One night Iranian bombing killed most of his friends, but a few, like him, were found alive amongst the dead. For some reason they were not executed but taken prisoner, and that was his story for the next 18 years.

He was released from prison in 1998 and received $300 from Saddam for his troubles. He spent the money on fixing his blind eye. He looks up from a dirty tire he is scrubbing in the unbearable heat.. “You know some people here resent me having this job.. you know, working with an American network, but what have I ever got from this country after all I’ve given it..?”

LOVE

We are driving in Baghdad, looking for pizza, Danielle is on Samir’s mind today.. “Sean, I keep thinking of her. Really I still love her.” I point out to Samir that he said he still loved his ex wife a couple of days ago.. “Yes.. I love her as well..” Later we open an email, it is from Angela, another NGO worker.. “Really Sean I love this woman also!” Samir is passionate about love.

“Sean we need love to live.. that is why we are alive. If we don’t love what are we? You know every year I’ve been in love. And every year I’ve composed beautiful ballads for the girls I love.” Samir’s face changes. “This is the only year that I’ve not been in love.. that is why I’m so miserable.. look at me.. not composing.. nothing..”

He plays me a medley of his own compositions; A Ballad for Danielle, Ballad to Marie, Ballad to Angela….

Danielle worked for a charity in Saddam’s Iraq, in a time when Samir enjoyed a life of ‘fun with fear’. She was a piano student of his, but when they fell in love he became her student. “She used to push me, encourage me to play, to write. After years in a stale marriage she gave me my life back.”

Samir has sacrificed many things in life for his women, but nothing compares to what he gave up for Danielle. 3 years ago he had an invitation to go to America, to join his daughters and ex-wife. America has always been Samir’s dream, he wants to be famous there. Danielle was leaving for a new job in North Korea. Samir had his papers to leave as well. He waited to spend a little more precious time with Danielle before leaving. But as he waited, events that would change the course of history took place on September 11th in New York. Samir was refused entry into the USA as all visa’s from Iraq were withdrawn.

They stood kissing, in floods of tears in a crowded airport and Danielle left forever. Samir was lost again waiting for his way out to America. He bought a packet of cigarettes and started smoking again. He smoked the whole packet crying for Danielle, sat on the kerb of the busy airport road. As her plane left he made his way back to Baghdad, to his piano, the empty restaurant, his empty life. Samir has made a new application to live in the States which has been agreed, he is waiting for his papers to arrive before he will leave Iraq forever.

Each night he counts the days, the hours and minutes to the moment he can leave. Staying here is painful, seeing what is happening to his country upsets Samir. He worry’s about the future, “This place is finished now… I blame Saddam for giving the Americans an excuse to put their dirty feet on our soil and soak the land of it’s oil.”

The great Iraqi sale

New Iraq sometimes feels like Woolworths Christmas sales. I met an American guy the other day who called himself the ‘only true carpet bagger in Iraq’. The American had been here over a year and lives in a dangerous part of Baghdad, he touts work trying to win the many lucrative contracts. This guy is on commission only and hasn’t made a buck in a year. If he does win one of the many lucrative contracts he stands to become a millionaire over night.

But the risks are great. I always look out for people like him when I turn on the news each day to see who has been kidnapped or beheaded in the ritual slaughter that takes place here every day. Of course only westerners make international news. I met an Iraqi girl yesterday who has been working as a translator with a US company for 6 months. She hasn’t seen her Iraqi driver for 5 days now. He was kidnapped and no news has emerged. But there is little ransom on his head. The truth is that they are simply waiting for his body to be found in the gutters soon. He will be dragged into the hospital fridge waiting for identification from his family.

Like the only time I visited the hospital with a French journalist friend after a suicide bomber had killed scores outside Samir’s music school. Then, a man in his early 30’s was dragged in from the street with a single bullet to the back of his head. He’d come to find work from outside of Baghdad – to support his family. As we went through his belongings we found pictures of his young children, a boy and girl that didn’t yet know their father was dead. He had been killed for working with the Americans. A simple crime in country where the only source of work – real work, is with the Americans.

So it is a tough choice here; to work and be killed for $1000 a month, or work in safer jobs, like the swimming pool attendant at my hotel who is married with a child and earns a meagre $20 a week. My swim costs me $5 a day, my favourite pizza $4. But here in Iraq most families are spending that in one week. They eat basic simple food, just enough to get by. They drive clapped out cars, queue for miles for fuel in the raging heat, get home to find they have no electricity for air coolers or money to feed the family. All this in a country built on oil, where a litre of petrol is cheaper to buy than a litre of water.

‘Blame Saddam, blame Saddam!’ Yes.. but it’s over a year now since ‘the liberation’ of this land, with no hope in sight, people are looking back to Saddam. ‘Remember the ‘good old days’ under Saddam, when you could go out at night without fear of being killed robbed or kidnapped… the days when you didn’t have to camp outside school all day in raging heat waiting for your children in fear that they are kidnapped. Even Samir has started looking back to the days when ‘we had fun with fear.. but at least we had fun’. Now my Iraqi friends tell me to be careful on the streets with my camera. The microphone looks like a rocket propelled grenade. ‘Be careful please Mr Sean.. the Americans will kill you without question…they think later..’ All Iraqi’s know that the Americans ‘deal’ to remain here after the handover of power is that they cannot be prosecuted for killing people. But of course the more people they kill the more the resentment rages, the longer they stay the more animosity builds. Iraqis have had years of war and oppression and see this American occupation as just one more. There will be no peace in this land until America leaves. There will be no rebuilding until they realise, as Samir says, “Only Iraqi’s can rebuild Iraq.”

So where is there hope in Iraq today? I look around the pool at the reporters drinking beers, the mercenaries sitting with the contractors responsible for rebuilding Iraq. I wonder if they know what is actually going on here. They are part of the ‘rebuilding process’. I want someone tell me where the rebuilding is going on. I want to be able tell the many Iraqi’s that ask me day after day. “What are all these people doing here? We haven’t seen anything in over a year..” My clever answer used to be ‘these things take time.. have patience..’ but now having been here and seen Iraq in the hands of the Americans, I am less clever, more real, more cynical. How much longer can people wait? In true American style Iraq is a catastrophe that is only getting worse. I met a French Businessman who has come here to win a contract. He wants to earn some ‘good money’ before he retires. He visited the Coalition Provisional Authority to see how he could tender a competitive bid, but he wasn’t allowed. The ‘sale’ was closed. The selected companies were chosen. The American’s only deal out the contracts to their friends. They decide who gets what in the Great Iraqi Sale.

But the French man has hope. He is giving himself 5 years here to make friends with the right people, he is hopeful of getting a contract and securing his pension back in France. Lets hope he makes it through the stormy days ahead, for the sooner the Americans distribute their contracts and leave this land, the sooner there will be hope for ordinary Iraqi’s to have a peaceful normal life.

The best pizza in Baghdad

Samir was tired, we’d been doing lots of swimming today but I was intent on pizza. We travelled over to 52nd street to a place where we’d eaten yesterday. Samir was impressed by the young women there. But when we arrived the electricity was out and the emergency generator was not working.

I decided to go for ‘The best pizza in Baghdad.’ but Samir wasn’t happy. It was on the other side of town, and near the massive American base, very close to where a suicide-bomber killed many recently. Despite all of this (I’d heard so many good things about the place), I wanted to go. I persuaded Samir to drive.

The pizza parlour was wonderful, authentic, but expensive for Iraqis like Samir, about $4 a pizza. It had been a favourite with the Americans. But the owner wasn’t happy, business was down since the Americans were told they could not eat outside of the heavily fortified ‘green zone’ where they live. They fear they may be poisoned.

I sat enjoying the very authentic pizza. It tasted great… until I started reading the newspaper cuttings on the wall, of the recent suicide attack outside the American camp opposite. It had done $1000 worth of damage to the pizza parlour and killed scores of people. This is ‘Pizza Hut’ Baghdad style. I sat on my stool at the window concentrating less on the wonderful pizza, and more on the variety of strangers pulling up in their cars..

The price of alcohol

We’d gone round to Samir’s brothers home. Mahar was angry and worried. He hasn’t worked since closing his alcohol shop shortly after Iraq was liberated.

In New Iraq it is almost impossible to find alcohol. The shops are targeted by religious extremists, like the Mehdi – Army. Mahar tells me that 3 days ago they killed his neighbour sitting in his alcohol shop. They came in and shot nine bullets into his body. Mahar wipes his worried brow. It is hot and sticky, the electricity is not working again. “His blood is gone with the wind now.. Mr Sean.. he left two daughters and one son.”

Mahar goes into the backroom and comes out with 3 bottles of Spanish wine. “$5 to you Mr Sean… but believe I sell these at $15 each now.. since these killings alcohol has more than doubled.” Samir looks concerned. “This bloody country is going to be like Iran.. I tell you I’m counting the days and minutes for my papers to come through and I’m leaving here.”

Mahar looks sad. Samir is his closest brother. “You know 20 years ago Baghdad was paradise.. we would have never dreamed of going to America.. we had discos, bars, cabaret.” Now Mahar is unemployed, selling alcohol to friends from his back-room. Like many Iraqi’s who work in shops, hotels or drive taxis, Mahar has a degree. His two sons both have degrees, but no-one in Mahar’s family is working.

We buy 3 bottles of wine, 10 cans of beer and one bottle of vodka. Samir looks at Mahar.. “Stop selling alcohol.. it is dangerous.. these religious crazies will kill you.” Last week five Christian alcohol shops were blown up, many people were killed. The alcohol shops were left to burn, in the morning the gangs wrote ‘Shop To Let’ on the charred walls.

A beauty salon was blown up for selling ladies underwear. “You know, the Medhi Army are in control of Iraq now… they say we have an interim government but they are powerless. They are the thieves who returned to Iraq after Saddam, and now you see them giving jobs to their relatives. They are all in the hands of the Americans.. and what have they done for us? Nothing.. I tell you Mr Sean we were a lot better off under Saddam. If you were an honest man Saddam would not touch you. He used to protect the Christians..”