Christmas Eve yesterday in Baghdad, Iraq. The photos are from the Iraqi photographer Ahmad Mousa, founder of the @everydayiraq project. The captions are the original ones from Ahmad Mousa’s Facebookpage.
Iraqi Christian girls light candles on Christmas Eve at a church in Baghdad
Christmas mass in Baghdad, at Our Lady of Salvation church
Christmas mass in Baghdad, Iraq
After Donald Trump’s horrifying statements regarding Muslim refugees, tensions have been high in social media, and therefore I was happily surprised to see a different kind of action.
A Jewish women’s group in US decided to start a movement under the hashtag #welcomethestranger, with this aim in mind:
“…to counter the rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric and corresponding legislative action recently taken by Congress (HR 4038) that would keep refugees in limbo until they are “certified” as not being a security threat. People who are fleeing for their lives. We must not let this come to pass in the Senate. please join us in this action of writing your representatives, and share additional actions you are taking. Now is the time.”
It will be interesting to see how far this campaign can reach. In this polarised and intolerant times, I decided to share this small, but for humanity so necessary action, with you.
Photo copyrights: Leah Katz Ahmadi
Iraq doesn’t belong to IS, Iraq never did. Don’t get fooled by the news.
If you follow anti-IS activists online you see plenty of resistance everyday, resistance that rarely make headlines in the Western news. The lack of international recognition for these activists is a reason I share these news on this web page.
This is Tourism in Iraq‘s, the page I have written about on previous occasions, latest, subtle, response to the so-called Islamic State, in form of a Facebook status update:
“Iraq is the cradle of civilization with great history and magical beauty. lraqis and Iraqis only own this land.”
Photo credit: Tourism in Iraq
After the Paris massacre a photo popped up in my Facebook news feed, signed the Kurdish security forces, Peshmerga, that I follow. A photo of a murdered young man, clearly shot dead while on the move, probably fleeing for his life. His face is frozen in a frightened expression, his hands curled up in spasms, his face covered in blood.
In front of him another young man is peeking in to the camera and cheekily sticking out his tongue. The photo caption reads “Gift of the Peshmerga heroes to French people“.
The comments are almost exclusively overwhelmingly joyous and sarcastic:
“Nice shot”
“Stay Frosty”
“He’s throwing ISIS gang signs LOL”
I didn’t hit the like button for this photo. I didn’t share it. I did consider potentially stop liking Peshmerga forces, despite the information the page provides me.
It might be obvious to you why I reacted like this, but to sum it up, here’s the comment from the one follower of the page, a young man too and I believe he is Kurdish, who did not agree:
“By posting this you bring shame on the Kurdish people.
We should not be driven by hate, but by humanity and our love to freedom.”
If only more young men were thinking like him.
I have never and will never share photos of murdered or injured or caged IS terrorists. We might be approaching the third world war, we might be in the middle of it, but at one point, this still needs to end. And peace will not come faster by seeking revenge and mocking the dead ones.
I will not be the person to prolong the wait.
The fighting over flags is ridiculous.
The fighting over who suffers the most is ridiculous.
The fighting over where people come from is ridiculous.
The fighting over refugees is ridiculous.
We are all tired, afraid.
We all want to live.
Photo credit: Wikipedia.org
Iraqi school girls paddle a small wooden boat across a river, as they head to school.
Najaf, Iraq
Photo credits: Tourism in Iraq
The Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet
Congratulations Tunisia! We were many who were overwhelmed by joy when the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet scored the – Swedish! – Nobel Peace Prize of 2015 a few days ago. Finally, a light at the end of the tunnel!
Now, what does a Tunisian person think of this? My friend Firas, who usually is happy to share his ideas about politics, especially the Tunisian ones, gave me his ideas, in a typical Tunisian style of mixing English with French vocabulary. He was, for once, very optimistic. A trait that is not very common among Middle Eastern and North African people nowadays.
He is happy to say that the quartet deserves it:
“They negotiated for a year in order to take country to the end of the tunnel. 2012 and 2013 were tough years. Radicals were in the government, economy was down and terrorism and unemployment up. The Nobel Peace lauréates managed to make a deal, through dialogue that allowed peaceful power shift.
They lobbied and conducted a dialogue that almowed power shift from mainly islamist government to a next one made of technocrats. This lowered social tensions… Each part of this quartet represented a part of the society. When politicians failed to agree on conducting country’s affairs, the quartet helped them.”
Firas says that the quartet helped in avoiding dictatorship and power vacuum, and points out that they negotiated around nine months to facilitate the power shift to a technocrat government and to prepare for the first democratic election:
“They negotiated around nine months the power shift to technocrat government, a non-politicised one whose mission is to keep the government afloat, and prepare for the first democratic election that will bring first democratically elected government.”
I share Firas’ hopefulness too. This quartet helped Tunisia in avoiding the fate of Egypt and Libya: where sectarian tensions has taken over and terrorism replaces politics. These days I think we should celebrate the victory over terrorism, or as the player would put it: Dialogue vs Conflict: 1-0.
Photo credit: cnn.com
Beiruti graffiti, captured with someone’s smartphone and posted online.
Is it maybe a comment to the ongoing protests against the uncollected garbage in the city, the so called Garbage Crisis? Or is it a comment to the terrorist groups in the region, pretending to commit crimes in the name of God? Or maybe it’s just the people being fed up with not being listened to by anyone in power?
The graffiti reads, in translation:
“There is no God but the people.”
Did you get the reference?
“There is no God but God.”
Photo credit: Charbel Maydaa’s Facebook page
From the artist Alfa in Gaza, together with the rapper Sami Bakheet, who usually plays in Darg Team, here is the song “Refugee”.
The lyrics are on how the journey begins in Gaza, and where it ends. The reasons you have for leaving Gaza in the first place, until you meet reality.
Even if you don’t understand Arabic, I still hope you find the song nice to listen to.
Update August 5:
You can now read the subtitles in English if you click “settings” -> “subtitles” on the Youtube clip.
I was going to write about something else, I have done research for a Middle Eastern topic, as some readers know I love the Middle East and am dedicated to write about sides of this region that usually are unnoticed in the Western media.
But then there was the terror attack in Turkey. This photo supposedly shows activists from the Socialist Youth Association Federation, snapping a group selfie before the bomb blast in Suruc. Turkey, the country that has sailed up from poverty and created a large middle class and that hosts a vivid civil society – now pulled back by the murder machine of we-know-who.
Before that, it was the Eid blasts all over. On a holiday that is sacred to many.
Before that, there was Tunisia, a country where I was supposed to go visit friends in a few days time, in Tunis and Sousse, only having to cancel it when Sweden’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs changed their travel recommendation.
Before that there was the Charleston massacre.
So I lost my inspiration tonight. In this very moment, this is what I feel:
I think we will remember this time as a dark turning point in history, when dark powers started to outweigh the good ones, and terrorism conquered co-existence. May God help us, if he exists.
Photo copyright: unknown
Sweden and the Middle East Views 