IRAQIS - In Search Of Song Amid Sounds Of War - UPDATES

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                                             In search of song amid sounds of war in Baghdad






By Leila Fadel,
McClatchy Newspapers
Sat Aug 23, 2008
 


          "I am living between heaven and hell /My day is night and my night is day /Grief and pain"—



           Umm Kulthoum,
           the late Egyptian singer


 
BAGHDAD — For more than 30 years, Yousef Taleb Rashid has walked the same street in old Baghdad . Along Rasheed Street, he passes cafes named for patriotic Iraqi poets and ornate balconies that have witnessed an attempted assassination, demonstrations, and the sounds of poets and writers reading their works.

Now they're bullet-scarred. Towering concrete walls, erected to protect the road from car bombs, tell of the capital's recent tragedies.

At the end of Rashid's jaunt is a familiar cafe. He comes to it nearly every day. The 61-year-old retired math teacher has returned during curfews and gun battles, even when his family begged him to stop.

Here he meets his love, Umm Kulthoum. She's been dead for more than 40 years, but the Arab love affair with this singer has never ended. She's still arguably the most famous and well-loved Egyptian singer in history. Her songs of lost love and suffering resonate here.

Dozens of portraits of her grace the cafe's yellowed brick walls, and her melancholy voice plays from 40-year-old tapes spinning on an old reel-to-reel player. Rashid sits on the low-slung wooden benches surrounded by her watchful eyes, closes his own and lets her sorrowful voice wash over him. He feels relief from his sorrow, solace in her words.

"You will sacrifice your life for Umm Kulthoum," he recalled his family saying.

Past the open iron gate and down a small dark hallway, a gaggle of friends huddle in the back corner of the cafe. Dominoes smack the tables, and everyone listens to their small sounds. When shooting erupts outside, the manager padlocks the gate.

"Take the present for what it is," Umm Kulthoum sings. "Because it is not the nature of nights to be faithful /Tomorrow the untold will present itself but today is mine /How many times are we disappointed with what has come?"

The lyrics strike a chord.

"The end of man is death, and through her songs she identifies men through birth, pain and death," Rashid said. "I feel comfort in this tone. Hearing this melody."

The men around him, all in their 50s and 60s, are familiar to him. Their faces are lined with the worries of war, longing and remorse.

"Umm Kulthoum represents our suffering," Rashid said. "We find in her our sorrows and our tragedies."

Her voice makes grown men weep as they remember lost lovers, lost youth and lost life.

Rashid hears in her songs the life that's passed him by.

As an estimated half-million people died during the Iran - Iraq war, Rashid sat here listening to Umm Kulthoum. As sanctions choked the economy and people lived on next to nothing, he listened to Umm Kulthoum. As the U.S. invaded in 2003, insurgents sprang up and the capital became a battlefield between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Rashid listened to Umm Kulthoum. Now, as Iraqis wonder what comes next, he listens to Umm Kulthoum.

"We walk in here and the exhaustion melts away," he said. "We forget the bullets and we enter a different world."




He sits and listens and relishes his sorrows, ignoring the outside world for now and losing himself in
the layers of her voice.



"We have been in a battlefield since the dawn of time until now," he said. "But our death will be the

death of this cafe."

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                                 UMM KULTHUM




(Arabic: أم كلثوم, born أم كلثوم إبراهيم البلتاجي Umm Kulthum Ebrahim Elbeltagi; see Kunya; Egyptian Arabic: Om Kalsoum).

(May 4, 1904 – February 3, 1975).


Various spellings include Om Kalthoum, Oum Kalsoum, and Umm Kolthoum.

In Turkish, she is named Ümmü Gülsüm.




She was an Egyptian singer, songwriter, and actress.

Born in El Senbellawein, she is known as "the Star of the East" (kawkab el-sharq).


More than three decades after her death, she is still recognized as Egypt's most famous and distinguished singer of the 20th century.

She had a contralto singing range.

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Umm Kulthum was born in Tamay ez-Zahayra village in El Senbellawein, Dakahlia Governorate, Egypt.

Her birth date is extremely controversial, and even the Egyptian Ministry of Information seems to have given either December 31, 1898, or December 31, 1904.

At a young age, she showed exceptional singing talent.

Her father, an Imam, taught her to recite the Qur'an, and she is said to have memorized the entire book.

When she was 12 years old, her father disguised her as a young boy and entered her in a small performing troupe that he directed.

At the age of 16 she was noticed by Abol Ela Mohamed, a modestly famous singer, and by the famous oudist Zakariyya Ahmad, who invited her to Cairo. She waited until 1923 before acceping the invitation.

She was invited on several occasions to the house of Amin Beh Al Mahdy, who taught her how to play the Oud". She developed a very close relationship to Rawyeha Al Mahdi, daughter of Amin, and became her closest friend. Kulthum even attended Rawheya's daughter's wedding, although she has always tried to avoid public appearances.

Amin Al Mahdi introduced her to the cultural circles in Cairo.

In Cairo, she carefully avoided succumbing to the attractions of the bohemian lifestyle, and indeed throughout her life stressed her pride in her humble origins and espousal of conservative values. She also maintained a tightly managed public image, which undoubtedly added to her allure.

At this point in her career, she was introduced to the famous poet Ahmad Rami, who wrote 137 songs for her. Rami also introduced her to French literature, which he greatly admired from his studies at the Sorbonne, Paris, and eventually became her head mentor in Arabic literature and literary analysis.

Furthermore, she was introduced to the renowned lute virtuoso and composer Mohamed El Qasabgi. El Qasabgi introduced Umm Kulthum to the Arabic Theatre Palace, where she would experience her first real public success.

In 1932, her fame increased to the point where she embarked upon a large tour of the Middle East, touring such cities as Damascus, Baghdad, Beirut, and Tripoli.

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By 1948 her fame had come to the attention of Gamal Abdel Nasser, who would later become the president of Egypt. At one point the Egyptian musicians guild of which she became a member (and eventually president) rejected her because she had sung for the then-deposed king, Farouk of Egypt.

Nasser did not hide his admiration for her. When he discovered that she was no longer allowed to sing, he reportedly said something to the effect of "What are they? Crazy? Do you want Egypt to turn against us?" It was his favor that made the musicians' guild accept her back into the fold. In addition, Umm Kulthum was a dedicated Egyptian patriot since the time of King Farouk. Some claim that Umm Kulthum's popularity helped Nasser’s political agenda. For example, Nasser’s speeches and other government messages were frequently broadcast immediately after Umm Kulthum's monthly radio concerts.

Umm Kulthum was also known for her continuous contributions to charity works for the Egyptian military efforts.

Umm Kulthum’s monthly concerts took place on the first Thursday of every month and were renowned for their ability to clear the streets of some of the world's most populous cities as people rushed home to tune in.

Her songs deal mostly with the universal themes of love, longing and loss. They are nothing short of epic in scale, with durations measured in hours rather than minutes. A typical Umm Kulthum concert consisted of the performance of two or three songs over a period of three to six hours.

In the late 1960s, due to her age, she began to shorten her performances to two songs over a period
of two and a half to three hours. These performances are in some ways reminiscent of the structure of Western opera, consisting of long vocal passages linked by shorter orchestral interludes. However, Umm Kulthum was not stylistically influenced by opera.

The duration of Umm Kulthum's songs in performance was not fixed, but varied based on the level of emotive interaction between the singer and her audience. A typical improvisatory technique of hers was to repeat a single phrase or sentence of a song's lyrics over and over, subtly altering the emotive emphasis and intensity each time to bring her audiences into a euphoric and ecstatic state, and was considered to "have never sung a line the same way twice". Thus, while the official recorded length of a song such as Enta Omri (You Are My Life) is approximately 60 minutes, a live performance could extend to many hours as the singer and her audience fed off each other's emotional energy. This intense, highly personalized creative relationship was undoubtedly one of the reasons for Umm Kulthum's tremendous success as an artist.

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In parallel to her singing career, Umm Kulthum at one point pursued an acting career starring in six films; however, she quickly gave it up because of the lack of personal and emotional contact with the audience.



Umm Kulthum was rumored to have had a romantic affair with Sharif Sabri Pasha, one of the uncles of King Farouk in the 1940s.

By the mid-1950s, public speculation regarding Umm Kalthum's sexuality focused on her alleged love affairs and courtship of other women.

In 1955, in what was perceived as a possible attempt to quash rumors surrounding her personal life, she hastily married a dermatologist named Hassen El Hafnaoui, taking care to include a clause in the marriage contract that would allow her to initiate a divorce if necessary. The couple had no children.



In 1967, Umm Kulthum was diagnosed with a severe case of nephritis. She gave her last concert at the Palace of the Nile in 1973. Tests at that time indicated that her illness was incurable.

She moved to the United States, where she benefited for some time from the advanced medical technology, but in 1975, upon re-entering her home country, she required hospitalization due to declining health. Umm Kulthum died in a Cairo hospital on February 3, 1975.

Her funeral was attended by over 4 million mourners – one of the largest gatherings in history – and descended into pandemonium when the crowd seized control of her coffin and carried it to a mosque that they considered her favorite, before later releasing the coffin for burial.

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LEGACY



Umm Kulthum has been a significant influence on a number of musicians, both in the Arab World and beyond. Among others, Jah Wobble has claimed her as a significant influence on his work. Bob Dylan has been quoted as saying "She's great. She really is. Really great", Maria Callas, Jean-Paul Sartre, Marie Laforêt, Salvador Dalí, Nico, Bono and Led Zeppelin are also known to be admirers of Kulthum's music.

One of her best known songs, Enta Omri, has been the basis of many reinterpretations, including one 2005 collaborative project involving Israeli and Egyptian artists.

She had been referred to as "The Lady" by Charles de Gaulle, and is regarded as "The Incomparable Voice" by Maria Callas, Umm Kulthum is remembered in Egypt and the Middle East as one of the greatest singers and musicians who have ever lived.

It is hard to accurately measure her vocal range at its peak, since most of her songs are recorded live, and she was careful not to strain her voice too much due to the extended rendition of her songs. Even today, she has retained a near mythical status amongst young Egyptians. She is also notably popular in Israel among Jews and Arabs alike, and her records continue to sell around a million copies a year.

In 2001, the Egyptian government opened the Kawkab al-Sharq (Planet of the East) Museum in the singer's memory. Housed in a pavilion on the grounds of Cairo's Manesterly Palace, the collection includes a range of Umm Kulthum's personal possessions, including her trademark sunglasses and scarves, along with photographs, recordings, and other archival material.



It is known that she had the ability to sing as low as the second octave, as well as the ability to sing as high as between the seventh and the eighth octave at her vocal peak; yet she also could easily sing over a range surpassing two octaves near the end of her career.

Her remarkable ability to produce approximately 14,000 vibrations per second with her vocal chords, her unparallelled vocal strength (no commercial microphone utilized for singing could withstand its strength, forcing her to stand at a 1-3 meter radius away from one), her ability and capability to sing every single Arabic scale, and her voice’s unique and breathtaking beauty that surpasses convention that never deteriorated with age, arguably makes her the most incomparable voice of all time.



FROM


WIKIPEDIA

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WEEKEND EDITION:


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90326836

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                                                        Going Home in Baghdad







By RANIA ABOUZEID
/ HAY AL-FURAT
Sept. 15, 2008
 
There's an eerie silence as Brigadier General Baha' Nouri al-Azzawi leads his six-truck convoy of armored vehicles through the narrow unpaved side-streets of a former insurgent stronghold on the western fringes of Baghdad - even the capital's ubiquitous din of power generators is absent. "These streets, we used to call them death streets, because they would kill somebody and put the bodies here," the Iraqi police commander says. "Now everything is calm and quiet."
 
Perhaps a little too quiet. Hay al-Furat, along with other neighborhoodsalong the once-perilous road leading to Baghdad's airport, had been one of the capital's many sectarian fault-lines. The north of the district wascontrolled by Shi'ite strongman Moqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army, while the south was in the hands of extremist Sunnis of al-Qaeda. But the shifting lines of demarcation trapped residents in the ferocious bloodletting and prompted some 5,000 families to flee, joining the estimated 4.8 million Iraqis - almost one fifth of the population - that has been displaced by the war. Of this total, some 2.7 million remain inside the country, while the balancefled abroad, mainly to neighboring countries.


Still, one Iraqi's hell can be another's haven, and as sectarian warfare split Hay al-Furat's once-mixed community into separate Sunni and Shi'ite enclaves, Iraqis displaced from other parts of the city sought shelter in its militia-protected homogenous zones.


Now that the sectarian killings seem to have abated, the government is keen to re-establish mixed neighborhoods. The Iraqi police have begun a campaign to evict squatters from homes abandoned by theirowners. The government is offering cash incentives to both squatters anddisplaced homeowners alike, and has earmarked $195 million for theresettlement campaign.


Azzawi hasn't yet had to forcibly evict anyone in the area under his control, even as some 2,760 families have returned in the past few months. His office receives about 20 complaints a week from displaced homeowners wanting to evict those who have taken over their homes, the general explains, but most squatters leave after an initial warning.


The mustachioed police commander (who drives himself in the lead car) turns into a dusty alleyway riddled with potholes, where most of the low-rise beige homes hidden behind high walls remain empty. Many are littered with the debris of half-collapsed walls, while others are burnt wrecks. Grade-school math equations scribbled in chalk on the green metal gate of one home are a stark reminder that children once lived here.


Azzawi's men have been in this street before, checking the homes for IEDSand other unexploded ordnance. Many of these homes had been insurgent safe houses, he says, adding that his men regularly uncover arms caches in the zone. Once a house has been cleared of any potential threats the word "empty" is spray-painted on its gate.


The general stops his truck abruptly. A young man in his 20s is hurriedlyloading furniture into a pick-up truck in the otherwise empty street. "Theowner of the house wants the house back so we're leaving," says the young man, Ammar Abdel-Karim. His family of six moved into the drab home eight months ago from Hay al-Risalah, a once-mixed district further south that fell under the Mahdi army's control. "The security situation wasn't good," he says, shuffling. "We were threatened."


"The Mahdi army killed two of my sons," his chador-clad elderly mother wails from beside a rusty white gate. The general assures the family that it's safe to return to their old neighborhood, and tells one of his men to help the family load its belongings. "They are Sunnis and they came here thinking they'd be safe," Azzawi says.


Although many Iraqis are slowly returning to their homes, fear and sectarian distrust linger. Some people, like Awataf Mahmoud Taher and her four teenage daughters, are returning to homes where loved ones or neighbors were killed. Although improved security is encouraging some people to return, others are forced to do so by financial or legal difficulties.


A friendly woman in an embroidered black abaya and plain black headscarf,Taher fled her leafy two-story home in the predominantly Sunni district ofAs-Sayidieh after her 65-year-old husband was shot in the head atpoint-blank range as he cowered in the kitchen. She has no doubt why he waskilled. "Because he was Shi'ite," she says as Azzawi listens silently. "I'mstill scared of this," she whispers.


Ali al Amari, the head of As-Sayidieh's local council, acknowledges thedistrust that many people still feel. He too, fled this former al-Qaeda stronghold. When he returned several months ago, the 26 members of thelocal council, 13 Sunnis and 13 Shi'ites walked hand in hand through thetown's streets in a show of unity. The lanky councilman checks in on Taherdaily, as well as on the other families that have trickled back to hisneighborhood. "We haven't forgiven, but we have reconciled, not with thekillers, the terrorists, but with our neighbors," he says. "There was a timewhen Sunnis would seek protection from al-Qaeda and Shi'ites from the Mahdi army, but when we discovered that they were all just criminals, we all turned on them."


Azzawi nods his head in agreement. He congratulates Taher on her homecoming and gets back into his armored vehicle to continue his patrol. He understands the difficulties of displacement. His wife and three teenagechildren fled to Syria months ago, he later wistfully confides, because ofincreasing threats against him by both Sunni and Shi'ite insurgents. But he says they will return. "It's my Iraq, my country. We should return to it. No matter where we are, we will one day come home."




View this article on www.Time.com





Related articles on Time.com:



Waiting for a Shi'ite Civil War

Why Iraq's Shi'ites Aren't Retaliating

Even Churchill Couldn't Figure Out Iraq

America's New Shi'a Allies

Making a Move Against Shi'ite Militias 






                                    

                                     Brigadier General Baha' Nouri al-Azzawi







VIDEO:


"Displaced Families Return To Baghdad"


http://www.time.com/time/video/?bcpid=1485842900&bctid=1784553742

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                                          Iraq hopes shrine rebuild can reconcile sects






By Tim Cocks
Oct. 6, 2008
 
SAMARRA, Iraq (Reuters) - A ring of scaffolding around charred bricks is all that now stands in place of the golden dome that adorned one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest shrines.
 
Militants bombed the al-Askari mosque in the Iraqi city of Samarra in February 2006, destroying the dome and setting off a wave of sectarian bloodshed that killed tens of thousands of people and nearly tipped the country into all-out civil war.

Now, with violence sharply down and Iraq's coffers swollen with oil revenues, officials hope the mosque can be restored to its former majestic glory in a few years.

That could help heal bitter divisions between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunnis, they say.

"It's so important for Iraq," Samarra Mayor Mahmoud Khalaf, who is closely involved in the project, told Reuters. "But it's also a lot of work. We are working 24/7 to get it finished."

The al-Askari Mosque, also called the Golden Mosque, was built in 944 and is one of Iraq's four holiest Shi'ite shrines. The dome of the sanctuary was completed in 1905 and had been covered by 72,000 golden pieces.

Two of the 12 revered Shi'ite imams are buried in the shrine -- Imam Ali al-Hadi, the 10th Imam, who died in 868 and his son, the 11th Imam Hasan al-Askari, who died in 874.

Getting the shrine back to how it was is a huge task -- officials say Iraq expects to spend around $60 million for the project in this mainly Sunni Arab northern city.

A big part of the challenge is that there are no original drawings to work from, said an architect on the site, who declined to be identified for security reasons.

"We're working from old photographs, but there's a lot of guesswork. We're effectively building the design from scratch," the architect said. "But we have to get it right: for the shrine and for the imam -- and for Iraq."

No-one claimed responsibility for the bombing of the mosque, although the government blamed the Sunni Islamist militant group al Qaeda, which regards Shi'ites as heretics.

Al Qaeda had long been accused of trying to spark a sectarian war in Iraq. This time it worked.

Shi'ite militiamen took vengeance on Sunnis within days of the bombing; Sunnis retaliated. In Baghdad, residents were forced out of neighborhoods if they were of the wrong sect.

In June 2007, suspected al Qaeda militants also blew up the mosque's two minarets, which had survived the 2006 bombing

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PAIN OF THE BOMBING



UNESCO, the U.N. agency for education, science and culture, is helping restore the shrine. Disagreements between Shi'ite and Sunni officials over how to carry out the work had previously held reconstruction back.

But in midday heat during the holy month of Ramadan a week ago, a dozen workers mixed concrete and laid bricks on the roof of the mosque where the dome once stood. Most of Samarra was deserted as people fasted and stayed indoors.

"I'm so happy to work here. It's a holy place and I want to do a service to Imam al-Askari," said Hisham Qassim, 26, an electrician, adding he didn't care about being paid.

"I came here before as a pilgrim and it was like paradise. I felt so much pain when it was bombed."

Some of Samarra's Sunni residents feel the Shi'ite-led government held them responsible for the mosque's destruction and hope a restored shrine will heal the mistrust.

"We always felt the government blamed the Sunnis for the bombing, but it wasn't us: it was al Qaeda," said Wasmi Hamed, who leads a Sunni neighborhood patrol that has helped drive al Qaeda militants out of the city.

"I was devastated when it happened. I wanted to find whoever did it and cut his head off. Now we want it to be repaired."

Sunnis, while they don't attach the same religious importance to the shrine, are keen to see a centerpiece of their ancient city -- once a tourist attraction for thousands of Shi'ite pilgrims -- restored.

"We used to get so many visitors from all over Iraq to see the shrine. Samarra was a beautiful, rich city. It can be again," said Sheikh Khalid Hassan, a Sunni tribal leader.




(Editing by Dean Yates and Dominic Evans)

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                                   Innkeeper's log chronicles ebb and flow of Iraq war






By Tom A. Peter
Mon Oct 6, 2008
Yahoo News
 Baghdad -

The Johara Hotel was a backpacker's delight. Rooms were just $12 at the tiny, 10-room inn that was part youth hostel and part rooming house. European, Asian, and American tourists stayed there, even as embargoes tightened on Iraq ahead of the invasion.
 
When war came, the Johara was the unofficial residence for freelance reporters, aid workers, and activists. But eventually they checked out – or left Iraq altogether – as Baghdad grew more dangerous.

Osama Johara has been forced to close his hotel twice during the war. Today, however, he has a full roster of guests. All of them are Iraqis, however, who for one reason or another have been driven from their homes and are still unable to return.

In many ways, Mr. Johara's hotel registry tells the story of the war. When the insurgency terrorized the city, guests vanished and the Johara closed. Now that car bombings and kidnappings are scarcer, he faces one of Iraq's biggest unresolved issues: What to do with its refugees from the war.

Located in the heart of downtown Baghdad, just a short walk from Firdos Square – home to the Saddam Hussein statue that US Marines toppled in 2003 – the inn has become a high-end refugee camp.

In early 2007 guests began arriving regularly again after Johara shut his doors in mid-2005. With virtually all foreigners staying in major hotels with large security budgets or private compounds, only some of Iraq's 2.7 million internally displaced people were willing to stay in Johara's inn in the city's Karada district.

"Although sectarian violence spread across the country, people thought that Karada was safe," says Johara. "Some people didn't want to go to Syria or another country, so they came to Karada and our business came back to life."

The refugees, predominately from different neighborhoods within Baghdad that are less stable than Karada, represent Sunni, Shiite, and Kurd. Johara says he's never had a problem with ethnic tensions among his guests.

His major concern about the refugees is whether they'll continue to make rent every month. While he usually manages to collect, he occasionally has to reduce rates by the equivalent of a few dollars per night.

"We lose with these Iraqis, because they don't pay their rent, so I've had to lower prices," he says.

Like millions of Iraqis, the innkeeper has been hostage to the ebb and flow of violence in Iraq, which has been anything but consistent.

"When the Americans entered Iraq, we closed up the hotel and left it because there was a war and there was no one in the building," he says. "I expected it would take at least a year before I could reopen."

But, when signs of calm began to appear only several months after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, Johara saw a new group of potential foreign clients arriving: journalists and aid workers.

Initially, most gravitated to the country's two landmark hotels, the Sheraton and the Palestine Hotel, the most secure accommodations available at the time. But at roughly $80 a night, it wasn't long before a number of freelance journalists and aid workers on a budget needed something more affordable.

Soon the Johara Hotel was once again an international mixing place.

"When I saw foreigners coming back, I hoped it was going to be a sign that the situation was improving in a big way, but the opposite happened," says Johara.

Although he wanted to make improvements to the hotel in the wake of the war just keeping it running took all his energy. For example, city power was too irregular to rely on, so he had to start using his generator more, which meant doing daily maintenance on it and buying more fuel. Purchasing more fuel meant possibly spending the night in gas station lines or taking his chances with black market gasoline.

"We never raised our rates, because we didn't want to drive away customers," he says. But when he had to hire two guards for the hotel, it forced him to increase prices by $4 a night.

It wasn't until guests began having run-ins with insurgents, though, that Johara's business began to suffer. Militants abducted three Australian aid workers who lived in his hotel when they made a trip to Fallujah. Fortunately, the insurgents released them unharmed, but unfortunately for Johara within two weeks they'd checked out of the hotel and left Iraq all together.

Several weeks later, a Korean checked in. Within two days he'd been kidnapped and beheaded by the insurgents.

"I was afraid the insurgents would come after me," says Johara. "I thought they might accuse me of being his [the Korean's] translator or question me about why I let foreigners live in my building. I was afraid they would try to kill me."

Soon there was only one Westerner left in the hotel, a French aid worker, but in mid-2005 the French embassy forcibly evacuated. Shortly after that all the Iraqi guests checked out as well.

In the interim, until the refugees began checking in in 2007, he supported himself by working as a generator repairman, occasionally opening the hotel in case anyone came.

Although he's not certain when his international customers will come back, Johara looks forward to their return.

"Life is a circle," he says. "Iraq is still open for everyone, and the Iraqis still welcome anyone who comes here.… Now I'm just like a farmer waiting for my crops to sprout."

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                        Saddam now seen as the "Father of Martyrs" by visitors to his grave





By Leila Fadel,
McClatchy Newspapers
Oct. 7, 2008

AWJA, Iraq — In the hometown of Saddam Hussein , they still call the late dictator The President. Inside a hall that once held an office Saddam used once or twice a year lies his tomb. A sheet embroidered with gold covers the burial site: "There is no God but God and Mohammed is his messenger."

The old flag of Iraq , with three stars and "God is great," written in Saddam's handwriting, covers the head of the gravesite. The room is now a shrine to the man hated by many but also loved. Some love him only because life has become worse since he was deposed, they say. Others even think of him as an Arab martyr who died for his country.

On his old desk a small television screen flashes pictures of Saddam — Saddam smoking a cigar, Saddam speaking with dignitaries, Saddam shooting a weapon, Saddam smiling and Saddam on trial. At the end of the slideshow a verse of Quran rings out and the show begins again.

Poetry about the late dictator adorns the room.

Behind the desk are pictures of the shoes he wore the day he was hung. Now the execution is considered a day of infamy likened to a lynching, at the hands of the Shiite-led government.

Saddam was hung as he recited the Islamic creed and other men chanted "Muqtada," the name of the firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr .

Here at Saddam's gravesite men slip off their shoes in a show of respect and walk into the hall of Saddam. They walk to the tomb, hold up their hands and pray. Then they take pictures next to his grave to mark the occasion.

The room is quiet save the clicking of cell phone cameras. The curtains are woven with the words, "The Hall of Martyrs," and a guestbook is signed by hundreds, with little notes to the man who once ruled here with fear and intimidation.

"God rest your soul, father of martyrs and a crown on the heads of Iraqis always," one says.

"Visitor of the grave of the Sheikh of the Mujahedeen — the martyr of the Arab Nation," another reads.

Falah Hassan al Neda , 35, the son of the head of Saddam's tribe, stands near the tomb.

"When I come here, it is like I'm coming to the grave of my father," he said. "Put aside the political mistakes ... he was our father, he was generous."

The site is maintained by volunteers from the tribe who also welcome visitors and oversee the hall.

"The people who come here loved Saddam," one of the tribal members said. "They respect this place."







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                                     As violence drops, Iraqi tribes begin to make amends






By Scott Peterson
Thu Oct 9, 2008
 
Baghdad - Tears rarely roll down Iraqi farmer Hassan Mohammed Hamoud's proud, sun-creased face.
 
But as this Shiite father describes his losses to war, the impact overwhelms him: a brother, two sons, two nephews, all killed by Sunni militant neighbors during the peak of sectarian violence in 2006.

Instead of seeking revenge, though, Mr. Hamoud is trying to forgive. He wants to end this feud and restore peace using a traditional process that is revitalizing the role of tribes in halting the cycle of violence.

"If reconciliation goes well and [the Sunni families] swear on the Koran, I think fighting will end after that," he says.

The effort is one example of how Sunni and Shiite tribes are meeting to accept responsibility for atrocities committed against each other during the war – in face-to-face talks between tribal elders – that involve mediators and often the paying of blood money by the guilty party.

In this case, which only relates to the killing of one of Hamoud's nephews, the Sunni tribe may pay Hamoud's tribe at least $40,000, though the initial request will be 10 times that amount.

"All the leaders of the big tribes are working for reconciliation between Shiites and Sunnis – we need to solve this problem for our people," says Sheikh Fayeq Hassan al-Taiee, a Shiite peacemaker who wears three rings of the type favored by Shiites, one with a polished white stone the size of a stuffed olive.

"They don't want to return back to killing," says Sheikh Taiee, who is representing Hamoud's family in the blood feud negotiation. "Revenge means killing again, so we decided to seek peaceful ways."

The tribal talks are the result of a nationwide call from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and senior religious leaders earlier this year to bridge differences between tribes to prevent future bloodshed.

This push has been enabled by improved security and a dramatic fall in violent attacks over the past year due to several factors: the US military surge, the decision by Sunni militants to join the US in fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and a stand down of the Mahdi Army, the main anti-American Shiite militia.

"When we start this tribal reconciliation, it should be the seed of reconciliation for all of Iraq," says Taiee, who began his efforts five months ago. "The Shiite and the Sunni people, each one stole the rights of the others, and now must solve that in a peaceful way. They should return to their senses; they found that killing is not a good way."

That dynamic has been noted far beyond Iraq's mixed areas, where sectarian killings surged after the bombing of the Shiite Askari shrine in Samarra in February 2006. Shiite militia death squads rampaged through mixed Baghdad neighborhoods, forcing out and killing Sunnis.

Likewise, Sunni militants imposed a reign of terror in rural areas and urban districts where they had the advantage, forcing Shiites completely from areas like Hamoud's family farm in Tarmiyeh, north of Baghdad. Sheikhs from Tarmiyeh have compiled a list of 190 Shiites killed from that one district.

The result was a peak of more than 3,000 dead in Iraq each month and a violent separation of mixed communities that had often been bound by marriage and proximity for decades. Three of Hamoud's sons were married to women of the three local Sunni tribes, for example, but that did not prevent a bitter tribal war for months, that finally saw Hamoud's family abandon their farm after a mortar attack. They haven't moved back.

"The people realize more and more that they do not want to return to the ethnosectarian violence that had their country on the brink of civil war," the former US commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, said in Washington Tuesday of the national trend. "With each passing day there is a little bit less of that fragility as progress takes on a slightly more enduring nature."

It was only the deployment of the Iraqi Army and US-backed Sons of Iraq militia across Taji Province, that includes Tarmiyeh, that has enabled any chance of reconciliation.

"There was no Iraqi Army, only Al Qaeda in Iraq controlled everything," says Taiee. "When Taji was liberated by the Army, people could start looking for the killers of their sons."

But it takes more than this to make peace, according to a report this week on Iraqi reconciliation strategies by the US Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington.

"Moving toward reconciliation in the context of severe and widespread violence requires [breaking] the pattern of revenge and transform[ing] relationships," notes USIP. "These steps include mourning, confronting fears, identifying needs, acknowledging responsibility, envisioning restorative and operational justice, and choosing to forgive."

Finding that combination among the date-palmed farms north of Baghdad has not been easy.

The example of the Taiee tribe, to which Hamoud and his family belong, illustrates the challenges facing all would-be peacemakers in Iraq. They are tentatively coming to terms with the vicious nature of the killing, at the hands, in the case of Hamoud, of people they have lived among for the 37 years.

Hamoud ran his 500-hectare farm with the help of his six sons and four daughters. But in early 2005 they received a letter from AQI – Hamoud still carries the leaflet, worn through at the folds – that warned "Shiite infidels living in Tarmiyeh" to flee or risk death.

Their troubles deepened in the spring of 2006. Hamoud's brother was killed in his home. One son was kidnapped and killed after taking his pregnant sister to the hospital. Another son was killed while shopping; the death certificate describes "several shots to the head."

Two nephews were kidnapped, one was killed, another released after the family paid a $50,000 ransom. Hamoud still keeps images on his phone of the results of constant beating of the man with cables.

Also on his phone is the confession video of the man who killed yet another nephew. The insurgent confessed to killing Hamoud's nephew during a spate of six attacks he carried out as part of the Islamic Army, an AQI-affiliated group.

The insurgent remains in custody, and at first in reconciliation talks, his family denied their son was responsible. Now they have agreed to pay, though will haggle over the price before a final meeting is held in a few days in which 150 to 200 people will gather to close the deal.

"The insurgents' fathers have woken and want to fix what their sons have been doing," says Hamoud. "We want the relationship [between Shiite and Sunni tribes] to come back like before."

The peacemaker hopes such a price will make potential killers think twice, before starting any new blood feuds.

"We need to work in a way that we do not lose the little people," says Taiee. "This has been an exceptional period. So many people lost so many things."

[Bianca]

                                 Hip, new Baghdad hangout is a byproduct of war


     




By Tom A. Peter
Nov 17, 2008
Top Stories AP

A group of four teenage boys sharing two mopeds buzz up and down Baghdad's trendy Akkad
Street and covertly gawk at passing women.

Lined with hip restaurants, coffeehouses, and clothing stores – including the latest in Western and Islamic fashions – it is the place to be seen.

It's now the Iraqi teenagers' equivalent of the American mall.

Before the invasion, Akkad was a residential street without so much as a corner store. But along
with a handful of other new commercial districts throughout Baghdad, Akkad Street was born of necessity.

When suicide bombers began targeting major markets, residents no longer felt safe leaving their neighborhoods. Local entrepreneurs responded by converting the lower levels of their houses into bakeries and barber shops, giving their neighbors a safer alternative.

Today, even though violence has fallen to a four-year low in Iraq, many residents and Iraq experts agree that such changes to Baghdad's commercial and cultural topography will be permanent.

"The sectarian violence changed the map of Baghdad's commercial centers," says Abbas al-Tememi,
an economics professor at Baghdad University. "The problems in the big markets created new, smaller markets, but these markets have not replaced the main ones."

Ahmed Sadiq, who works in an upscale clothing store on Akkad Street, says that "the worst situation imaginable pushed people to start this street."

Like many of the other residents of Khadimiya, Mr. Sadiq is a displaced Shiite from the south of Baghdad. But he's not your typical down-and-out refugee; he comes from a relatively affluent family.

Even before displaced families began arriving in the neighborhood at the peak of sectarian fighting in 2005, Khadimiya was a relatively upscale neighborhood. But when folks like Sadiq began arriving, they brought investment capital and healthy consumer spending habits.

Marwan Sabah was among the first to open a business on Akkad Street several months after the US-led invasion of Iraq. Initially, he hoped his coffee shop would compete with other popular hangouts in the Adhamiya district just across the Tigris River.

Though his shop was an underdog when it first opened, by 2005 Al Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni insurgents had shut down Adhamiya, indirectly giving Mr. Sabah's business a boost. Shiites who used to relax in coffeehouses across the river didn't feel comfortable driving through Adhamiya, let alone hanging out there.

"The situation helped us," says Sabah, who adds that his shop has become a destination for many of the young people who cruise the strip.

Despite these periodic incidents of violence, in the last two years the residents say the commercial strip has blossomed, growing from a handful of businesses to more than a half-mile strip of shops.

"Starting in 2007, each day you could see at least two or three new shops being built," says Abu Sajad al-Jabouri, who opened a restaurant on Akkad Street early this year.

Initially, Mr. Jabouri worried whether his kabob and hamburger restaurant would stay afloat, but today he's expanding the dining area. "People feel safe investing their money again," he says. "Now it all depends on God, but every day is better than the last."

As security has improved across Iraq, the main markets are beginning to revive. With half as many deaths from suicide or vehicle attacks compared with last year, as of Oct. 22, according to iraqbodycount.org, many Iraqis are venturing out of their neighborhoods and back to the traditional meeting points.

But even if violence continues to decline in Iraq the war has drastically altered traffic in Baghdad. Road closures, checkpoints, and maintenance issues mean that a drive that might have taken only five or 10 minutes before the war, could, on a bad day, take more than an hour.

[Bianca]

                                      Amid Iraq's violence, a radio station gives people hope
 





By Corinne Reilly
| McClatchy Newspapers
Dec. 7, 2008
BAGHDAD


VIDEO

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/55116.html


— Inside a spacious studio with purple and yellow walls, Hana Abdulkadhim, a well-known Iraqi radio host, is preparing to take her first call of the day. A few minutes into Good Afternoon with Hana, the switchboard is already flooded with listeners eager to chime in on the day's topic.

"This afternoon we're talking about circumstances in your life that caused you to lose something or someone you love," Hana says. "Were you able to overcome the situation, or were you defeated?"

A woman named Samma is on the line. "I lost my closest friend when she left our neighborhood," Samma says.

Hana asks if her friend was forced to flee.

Samma says yes. "Before, we had lots of time together. But now it's too far to reach her. We talk on the phone but it's not the same," she explains. "The circumstances defeated us."

Hana tells her caller not to give up on the friendship. "I'm going to play a song for you, sweetheart," she says.

This is Sumer FM, Iraq's most popular independent radio station. It broadcasts from a state-of-the-art, brightly decorated studio in Baghdad's Karrada neighborhood, and its signal reaches every corner of the country.

"It doesn't look like Iraq in here, does it?" the station's manager, Ammar Naji, says with a smile.

In a city overwhelmed by the complexities and uncertainties of war, Sumer FM is one thing its listeners can count on. Launched by a Lebanese businessman in November 2004, the station has stayed on the air every day since, even through Baghdad's most violent months.

A year ago, it was so dangerous here that many Iraqis were afraid to even leave their homes, and the cost of living in Baghdad has skyrocketed since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. But staying in and listening to the radio has remained safe and cheap.

Even when the electricity is out, as it still is for large portions of the day here, the radios stay on.

"No matter what's going on, we can give people something to enjoy, something to take their minds off everything else," says Jaffar al Zubaidi, Sumer's program director. "And we don't take money from any parties. We are for all Iraqis," regardless of politics, ethnicity, religion or sect.

Named for one of the earliest known civilizations in the world, Sumer employs 14 people, half of them on-air talent. All of its revenue comes from advertisement sales.

About half the time the station plays popular Arab and Iraqi music. The rest of its programming is filled with news, variety shows and talk.

Most of the station's discussion topics come from listeners. The goal is to give Iraqis a venue to vent their frustrations, Zubaidi says. The U.S. occupation, the constant power outages, the violence, the traffic jams and the long lines at security checkpoints are among the topics that draw the most callers, he says.

"We let people talk about their suffering so they don't feel like they are the only ones," Zubaidi says. "And we try to stop the suffering, too, by exposing the issues."

Recently a listener called to complain about how the government suddenly stopped paying his pension.

"We heard that same problem from many callers, so we made it the topic one day," Zubaidi explains. "And we invited (an official from) the pension directory to come on the show and hear the suffering."

Hani Haroon, a 29-year-old unemployed Baghdad resident, started listening to Sumer FM three years ago. "It is different from other stations," Haroon says. "They talk about the real issues that Iraqis care about. We need that. It gives people hope."

Haroon calls the station often, but gets through only once in a while. "It's hard because so many people want to be heard," he said. Sumer takes about 11,000 listener phone calls each month.

Though the station has continued to operate in spite of the violence, it hasn't been immune to it. In 2006 one of Sumer's employees was shot and killed by a sniper as he drove home from work. Another was kidnapped the year before.

Sumer's sister television station, Sumaria TV, has also lost several employees. The contemporary office complex they share is surrounded by tall metal gates and blast walls. It's guarded by men with assault rifles.

"Yes, we worry about violence," says Naji, the station manager. "But that doesn't mean life stops."

Even at the height of violence, Sumer was expanding. A little over a year ago, the station began broadcasting on satellite radio.

"I think Iraqis love our station because it is so close to the people," says Abdulwahd Mohsen, who hosts two shows on Sumer, a talk program called Talk of the Night and a music program called Immortal Tunes, which features classic Arabic songs.

"There is no divide between the station and the listeners," Mohsen says. "They know we are truly here for them, and that is rare here."



(Corinne Reilly
reports for the Merced (Calif.)
Sun-Star.

McClatchy Special Correspondent
Jenan Hussein
contributed to this story.)