دعوا الكرادة تعيش بسلام

ان تولد في بغداد هذا... هكذا هو اسم حكايتي 

رغم شعوري انني اختلف عن اشقائي بمسقط رأسي... هم ولدوا في ميسان وان في بغداد جعلني اشعر بالاختلاف 

ان اولد في زمن اخر بفارق العمر الكبير بيني وبينهم جعلني اشعر بالاختلاف اكثر 

لكن ما جمعني بهم هو حبنا لبغداد

هذه المحبه الكبيرة التي اصر والدي ان يزرعها في داخلنا 

ان يعلمنا كل شاردة وواردة في تاريخ المدينة الكبيرة 

بغداد دار السلام... بغداد المدينة التي سميت كذبا بهذا الاسم 

المدينة التي تحملت الحروب والغزوات والدمار واختلط ترابها بدماءها 

رغم ذلك لم يتغير شيئا فيها لم تضمحل او تصغر 

وهذا ما يتسائل عنه الجميع... كيف لها ان تصمد ... كيف لها ان تبقى كبيرة راسخة 

بغداد واهلها لم يستسلموا يوما للحضات الضعف والالم

ربما ايضا ان تأخذ وقتا اكثر للحزن... ان تصغي لصوت السكون والهدوء...ان تبتسم بوجه الحرب والدمار

ربما يجب ان نتعلم الدرس الاكبر منها امنا الاكبر 

ربما ان نقف بابتسامة بوجه كم الحزن والالم داخلنا 

هل من السهل ان نقوم بذلك لا... اصعب الالم ان تبتسم وانت تنزف 

ولكن تلك هي رسالة دار السلام عبر التاريخ 

ربما ان نتعلم الدرس 

اننا كلما ابتسمنا اكثر كلما قوينا اكثر وثبتت اقدامنا راسخة في الارض اكثر 

كلما ابتسمنا اكثر كلما سنكون دافعا اكبر لنشعر ببعض من سلام تلك المدينة 

رغم الامنا لما حدث في الكرادة 

لكننا لن نقاوم اكثر بدون الابتسامة 

لذا دعوا الكرادة تعيش بسلام بعيدا عن مظاهركم 

ابتسموا ... وانصتوا جيدا لصوت السكون الصادر من اعماق الكرادة 

BedTime Stories

just like all the girls in the world...the man of my dreams is my dad... but it is for real the man of my dreams is my dad...
my dad was the best story teller, I remember when sometimes he was away my mom takes the lead to tell me the bedtime stories but it wasn't interesting like dad's.
Mom's stories was all about fairy tales and prince charming, but dad's stories was all about history, I knew all the prophets stories from him, I knew all about how Baghdad was created, and all the civilizations of Iraq, and what was really great is that  when dad tell me a story then he takes me after that to see the historic places where the story took place at that time.
I still remember when he first took me to the Baghdadi museum how I was scared but in the same time amazed by the history and the main thing was all these stories are true... all what he was telling me about is true, also I was heart breaking in the same time because there is no real places for Mom's stories and I was really shocked that prince charming is not existing in real life or even there is no talking animals.
anyway, the idea is that I'm from a country full of history, and I lived my life with that history,because I just love the feeling when I see what my great great grandparents did, and how they changed the world because of their or our civilizations, and during the last 13 years I have witnessed how that history being destroyed, but today while I was seeing the videos and photos of destroying our legacy in Mosul, I started really thinking that I will not be able to tell bedtime stories on my Dad's way...yes I still memorizing all of them but I will not be able to proof that all these stories are real stories and maybe the new generations will think about these stories as a fairy tales, maybe the great king Ashor Panipal's story will be the next prince charming story...

that no one will believe in it anymore.      

Goodbye and good luck

once I asked my mom why some countries change their presidents, how these presidents accept this, how the people can live like this since Sadam was the one and the only at that time in Iraq the idea of elections was to say yes we wants Sadam for more years,my Mom smiled at me and said "this is democracy hun,you may not get it now but one day you will understand".

fifteen years later I understand that democracy have 2 meanings :

the first is creating change and give chances to everyone to represent the people which is lame idea, and the other is that having the same people leading the country to hell.

so here I am spent 13 years from my life in Sadam`s regime, 3 years in war, and 8 years and the next 4 years under Maliki`s regime.

Democracy means there is no such a thing called change, this will be my last words talking about a dream called IRAQ, this was a page in my life and I'm now looking forward to remove it from my life.

goodbye and good luck 

Noof 

from a strange place called Baghdad 

    

The Show Most Go On

I saw a post today on Facebook saying that "why our live is hard? because we dont let go the sad memories"

it is true it is hard because we keep remember the bad and sad memories, we even carry it with us all our lives and we don't think of the good memories in the same level of details like the sad ones.
and this is one of our problems as Iraqis we keep carrying the bad sad history.
I was once asked to create a timeline for Iraq and the first question was what was the biggest change in Iraq History? my answer was the Mogul occupation to Baghdad, I didn't say for example Iraq being the first country in the middle east who become a member in the United nations countries, or having the first TV station in the middle east...etc, it most be bad and sad thing to start with.
but I realized that we should be happy and live our lives, so I decided that from today I need to start thinking always in the good memories and also start creating good happy moments for me to remember in the future, so I hanged out with my friends and had really a good time,and then I get back home with a smile,and as usual my dad is watching the news and as usual the news in Iraq shows you only the stories of death, so to change the mood in the house I was showing my dad a YouTube video on one of the Iraqi dancing bands who dance Chobi traditional Iraqi dance, so his reaction was yelling and saying that "these are bad people are dancing while people are killed, its not a good time to dance or celebrate", I was as well trying to pass to him the inspiration of today and was trying to tell him dad yeah I know there is people get killed today and every day and we spend our lives seeing people getting killed but that dos not mean we should stop living and have a normal life,

(THE SHOW MOST GO ON)

Ordinary Day in Baghdad

Baghdad Today

Months ago I decided to stop blogging and write anything any more since its wont change any thing.

but here I am again start writing again, I'm going to write about an ordinary day in Baghdad the city I am from and the city I love, once I heard someone says 'it is hard to be in love with the city you cant love to live in it any more"

it is hard... for me I love Baghdad but I reached a point when I can say that's it I cant take it anymore I need to have a normal life, its not worth it to be optimistic all the time.

so lets go back to the Baghdadi ordinarily day.

my ordinary day starts with a huge traffic jam made by security checkpoint who are not doing anything just look or not  looking at all these cars, so basically my day starts with 2 hours driving in a suppose  to be 5 min driving road.

arriving to the office pissed off until I got my morning coffee and cigarette 

 started working, and then email popes up from our security manager to let us know that crazy 6 suicide bombers taking hostages in the human rights ministry building and ends his email with (ALL OUR STAFF OK)

but their staff are not this is what it comes to my mind and then remembered I know a friend who works there. 

trying to reach that friend but cant reach him, after lots of phone calls and reaching out to people not even in Baghdad we reach him, he is OK nothing wrong with him and he is not in that building who is full of people wants to kill everybody to have a meal with the savior of their believes and have nice time with virgins maybe.

any way my friend ends his call by saying (don't worry we are all OK and we DON'T KNOW anyone from the hostages).

but again there is someone knows them and they do have families care about them.

then work hours are done and its time to go home so since I live in the other side of the river I have to cross the bridge and I always like to look quickly at the river on that time when the sun become shy and tries to hide in the water I turn my head to see big smokes coming from one of the buildings, I think to myself its only an ordinary explosion.

reached my home and get out of the the car to open a chain my neighbors put to protect our neighborhood from the monsters outside (silly idea I know) but its only to make us not feel guilty when that monster attacks and we tell ourselves at least we tried 

little girls pass by me with smile and asks me with a strange accent to help me open the chain after a small chat I understand they are from Syria, and I asks myself are they really coming to Baghdad to seek peace???

what should I care at least they are smiling, and that smile was the highlight of my ordinary day.

Noof

30-1-2014

You Are Next

Sitting in the taxi with my sister ... passing by a picture of Saddam, defaced ('Saddam you son of a bitch you will never come back') ... me laughing and then turn my head to the taxi driver, my laughter subsiding ... ten years later sitting in a bus passing by a picture of an Islamic leader, me laughing with all my heart ... someone turning to me: 'are you laughing at our great leader?'

I was born in 1989. My generation was raised on the idea of loving the great leader, raised to be the great soldiers needed to kill the enemy; not that we needed to know who the enemy was - the great leader would handle that. The same goes for any ideas or opinions we might have. After 2003 this idea is over - it's up to my own decisions from now on. Ten years later, nothing has changed here, except for seeing every day numbers of people killed, by different methods, such that it makes no difference to me if ten or a hundred are slain. They are numbers, and I need not think of them. At this point I start to realize that I am losing my humanity. I should be affected by these numbers. They are real people, with real families, just like me. From this moment I started to think that if I remained silent, I would be the next to be killed, another number to be added to all the others.

                                                     YOU ARE NEXT 

انت التالي ...you are next

انت التالي عشر سنوات على سقوط الصنم ومازلنا في خندق الموت لا للارهاب نعم للحياة سنرتدي اليوم تي شرتات نكتب عليها (انت التالي ) لتنبيه الصامت من انه ممكن ان يكن التالي كن معنا الساعه الخامسه في ساحة الفردوس واجلب معك تي شيرت وسبري للكتابه وشموع للذين رحلوا "You Are Next"..5 pm..at Firdaws sq....bring a T shirt to write this slogan on..with candles to light..for the martyrs..daily increasing count..the gathering organized by the young..who are not sure if they will be next as target...join us..we will be there