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 

    

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 

We & Them

There is an Iraqi quote says "me and my brother against my cousin and me and my cousin against the stranger"I think all the Iraqis raised on that quote...so I was raised to be Iraqi first and then I'm Arab I don't remember that someone talks to me about how to be human... no act like Iraqi and then act like Arab so the world for me it's two half there is Us and there is Them and of curse I'm not spouse to talk with the Them side that makes me always think in the other side or how I should be living on that side "the grass is greaner there" until I got the chance to be in an exchange program took me to the (them) side and my shuck was they are just like us and then I got an AHA moment when I realized that there is no such a thing call we and them it's all of us ...on that moment I understanded my humanti...the point is don't ever let any one decide for you  and it's about time to change its now what the world call it "the youth awakening " and yeah it's about time to try to speake at loud I think this is the most important massage I got from a youth form under the name of (next generation speaks) there was alots of young people from all over the world speaking about the youth and their problems ...their life...and how to work together as youth.

Noof 

Baghdad

5\6\2012