[Reader-list] Fwd: [GRASSROOTS-in-action] Arab woman's blues

[Ravikant]

forwarding a blog write-up sent by a friend. Would like to give a title: The 
Look of Freedom. 

Ravikant
-----

 I am "Free". He is "Free". She is "Free". They are "Free". And you are only
a spectator...
Free, Freedom, Democracy. I shudder at these words.
I want to burn Plato's Republic and spit on your Constitution, on your
Founding Fathers, on your Laws...

Free limbs, detached, solitary limbs, scattered to the four cardinal points
and a bleeding heart in the middle, like a compass.
An arm to the West, a leg to the East, a head down South and a torso up
North...And that damned bleeding heart in the Center.

Free, so free...
Free, free in Prisons. Free, so free in Detention centers...
Detention centers in the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Defense and
Ministry of Justice!
Crammed, packed, jammed... The smell of blood, urine and feces...covering
the infected wounds. Wounds of torture born on transparent skins covering
rib cages...
Free, so free.
Tortured and Free in American camps. Sodomized and Free - American democracy
flavor. Tortured and Free, whipped by sectarianism - Iranian flavor. Oh so
Free.

Free to die. Free to cry. Free to mourn. Free to flee. Free to escape. Free
at the borders...jammed, packed.

Two thousand "free souls" flee a day. They amass at frontiers, waiting for a
stamp on that damned Green passport...that cursed passport.
The passport with a broken winged eagle as an emblem. Clipped wings of
Freedom.
It reads "Republic of Iraq."
Republic of whom? Iraq? What Iraq?

Two thousand a day. Grave faces, desperate eyes, lost voices...
A forgotten, abandoned people. A despised, humiliated, tortured, stolen
people.
A raped people.
Lost voices in the wilderness of your indifference. The Lost voices of
Freedom and Democracy...

*" I have 8 children. Look at how I am living. Has anyone asked me how I
feed those kids. I have been without a job for 2 years. I tell you how I
feed them...I can't feed them. I spit on the U.N. I spit on the thief Bush.
If I ever return to Iraq it will be to free my country from those criminals.
I will either kill or be killed by them. There is no other way "* says this
worn out father who looks 3 times his age.

*" The Iraqi government helping us? Are you insulting me or what? The Iraqi
government has not and will never do anything for us. These are the most
corrupt people in power that Iraq has ever known. They are sectarians and
thieves. I don't want this passport. Take it now. I don't want this
nationality. I am even willing to go to Somalia. Just find me a solution.
Take that passport. Take it." *says another father of 32.

*" The Americans bombed my house. My 9 year old son was inside. Look at his
face. He is burnt all over. His eyes are stuck and he cannot open them. His
tongue is stuck to his palate and he cannot talk or swallow. And his head
was stuck to his shoulder. *
*He has already undergone 9 operations and he needs another 9... He is only
9 years old. Look at him. I, myself, have 3 bullets lodged in my body. I
served the Iraqi Army for 24 years. One in my thigh. One below my ribs and
one in my back. I need surgery too. But I am not important. My son is. How
will I manage? On my way here, highway bandits took all my money. I sold the
house to come here. Now I have nothing. The boy needs treatment. No school
is willing to accept him. One school did but the other students rejected
him. They said he frightened them with his looks." *

The father wipes his tears and you can see the look of being stuck in
"Freedom".
Ah the look of America on his and his son's face. The look of " Freedom ".

Another one plays the lute. A melodious tune that makes your heart quiver. A
languorous tune of longing that fills the empty space like smoke. A smoke
soon dissipated into that nothingness of " Freedom ."

A couple with a paralysed little girl who needs urgent treatment. They have
been there, waiting since the crack of dawn, at the gates of some embassy or
the UNHCR. Others take to the pavements. They sit and wait some more... Long
hours of waiting in the space of " Freedom ".

Free, Freedom...
Free comments on a blog.
And the rats crawl from the gutters...Rats droppings, Albert Camus's "the
Plague". The same kind of rats that rule Baghdad with their droppings...
Rats everywhere, crawling the streets, crawling on this page, leaving behind
them a trail of excrements wherever they pass.

Rats on the go. Rats exiting. Rats entering again through a different door.
The rat with the grey steel eyes. The eyes of lies and deception has exited
only to re-enter again after having ruined our lives with Freedom. Now
another rat has taken up his place.
The fat rat of Baghdad. The rats of Iran. The rats of America...
The plague of Freedom.

Free, Freedom, Democracy and forever Ruined lives...
Forever Ruined.



*Painting : Iraqi artist, the late Faik Hassan.*


Posted by Layla Anwar at 4:43
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