Baghdad

Who Cares About a Dead Iraqi Anyways?

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On a week like this, when 55 persons in Baghdad has been killed by bombs in a vegetable market; outside a mosque and in residential areas, I feel with the Iraqis, and I feel with the families of the assassinated civilian people that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The 55 persons of yesterday were not the only ones: last month almost 1.000 people were killed all over Iraq.

And I’m relieved that I’m not working for an Iraq mission as I have in the past, even though safely tucked away in the comfort of Kuwait or Iraqi Kurdistan. Relieved because I don’t have to work Skype and the phone to make sure none of my Iraqi colleagues are among the murdered. Because what would happen if they were?

No one would be hunted down by the local police and tried in front of the justice system, where they would get their rightful punishment, that in turn would discourage others from committing the same crime. No office or NGO would close for the day or a minute of silence be demanded in order to respect the dead. No debriefing would be given to the other staff to help them cope with the loss. Work would carry on as normal and the organization would send their condolences to the family while starting the recruitment process for someone new. Years back in an Iraq mission, my expat colleague whose team member was taken from his own house under gunpoint by one of the many militias, and tortured for hours before being killed, was left on her own to choke back tears in front of her laptop after the murder. Because who cares about a dead Iraqi anyways?

The colleague of ours was actually a person, a real human being. He happened to be friendly and everyone in the office liked him. He had a family that loved him, a mother and a father, sisters and brothers that missed him deeply when he was gone. But in the eyes of many he was a nobody, just another dead Iraqi. I rest quite assured things remain the same for the Iraqis whose lives are lost today.

What Iraqis Think About Sweden

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Irakier i sverigeSince the American invasion and the following gradual collapse of Iraq, many Iraqis has applied for asylum in Sweden and in 2007 constituted the largest group of asylumseekers among the many different nationalities that applied.

In my city Malmö, sometimes called “Little Baghdad”, many Iraqis have settled and formed their own communities. In small shops in the middle of our city you can now find things like halal meat, wonderful carrot-marmelade with 80% sugar (that Swedish health freaks would report to the police if they could) and other products that I would find in my local baqala in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan. Globalization is a great thing when you can find your favourite marmelade from another part of the world in your own hometown.

Host communities usually has opinions about newcomers, but I think the other way around can be more interesting. Iraq I dare to say is quite the antithesis of Sweden: a large country with a weak central state, where religion plays a major role for many, hospitality is highly valued and your family is the main social network to rely on. The clash is quite big for some – Sweden being very secular with a strong legal system where many people can feel controlled by the authorities; from the housing market to the humiliating procedures at the unemployment agency. If I ask though I might not receive the true answer – critizicing someone’s home country being such a taboo for most people. But what does Iraqis really think about Sweden?

A while ago I joined this interesting Facebook page, “Iraqis in Sweden“, to see what was going on. The group is nicely illustrated by a Swedish and an Iraqi flag intertwined, with updates in both languages. On the page news about Sweden and Iraq are posted, often in an informative way about Sweden. One of managers of the page, Mohammad, tells me that the aim of the page was to create a meeting point for Iraqis in Sweden/Europe and that the group aims to serve people who might need help in Sweden, for example legal assistance or to rent a flat. Quite a nice idea, isn’t it, especially if you think about the many hate groups online, dedicated to bring down other people?

Checking the updates, one post caught my attention: “What advantages/disadvantages are there in the Swedish culture/society do you think?” The answers to this post arrived quickly.

“That everyone pretends to be PERFECT while they’re worth nothing!” one man writes, the comment getting three likes.

Someone replies:

“There is no disadvantages everyone goes his own way, and there’s nothing better than the Swedish society!!” Two exclamation marks, 15 likes.

Other people add upp to the bad list: the politicans, the wheather, there is no summer, it’s hard to find a job. Then another one, the profile picture showing the face of a young woman in a hijab, comes up with a long, reflective post:

“There are both advantages and disadvantages in each society and this is the case for the Swedish society. But I think that the advantages in the Swedish society are more than the disadvantages (…) The RESPECT, FREEDOM, EQUALITY (social), HELPFUL etc… The disadvantages are that parents have some problems raising their children here since the parents wants to raise them according to their traditions/religion. This often leads to a big problem that in its turn is a big disadvantage!! Me myself I have all love and respect for SWEDEN”

Who knew that such a subject could bring on such strong feelings? I wouldn’t, if Ihadn’t found this page. Or as a post reads when scrolling up to another heated discussion: “Do you think you can say anything just because now you’re in Sweden?”

Well on this page, obviously yes. And what better is, everyone gets to share their views without censorship or feeling held back. How I love the dynamics of the diversity sometimes. In Iraq or in Sweden.

Photo credit: Irakier i Sverige

My Friendship With a Man From Kurdistan

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Nabaz

During a night out in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, I ended up sitting next to a man in the crowded garden of the Deutsche Hof, the kind of pub that pops up wherever American troops make their way into countries: the smoky garden made a healthy person develop asthma and at the other table a group of soldiers pounded their glasses on the table, chanting army songs. I didn’t think the evening would provide the starting point for a friendship, and I might not have thought that I as a European woman could be close friends with a man from Kurdistan – but your own prejudices sometimes prove you wrong.

The man was not as happy in Erbil as I was. I soon realized that a life of sudden escapes and being a refugee didn’t create a positive atmosphere around a place.

“I’m quite a negative person”, Nabaz bravely introduced himself. “I always expect the worst.”

Despite our different perspectives on things we started to talk. His stories from Baghdad where he grew up made me curious – he was obviously not the regular young guy showing off his money in this newly wealthy area. He had finished a degree in security studies, politics and sociology were his passion, and he had received a scholarship to do his master in UK. We talked politics and travels, mocking the quick development of Kurdistan that created a new bar in every corner, but with a lack of printed books that made students develop eye problems from too much staring on their Ipads.

It was fun to hang out with Nabaz and his friends, they mixed easily women and men from different ethnic backgrounds, but it was Nabaz that I came to be close with. He cared about his friends – his girlfriends without car he picked up and drove back home in the evenings, sometimes spending hours touring around the city, not to leave anyone out. We went to the café Tche Tche’s for a sheesha with friends, spent evenings in the garden of the magnificent Lebanese restaurant, or hung out in the car, driving around the city talking.

“I don’t know how we would have survived if civilians didn’t help us”, he once told me about the bombings of Kurdistan in his childhood. “People just poured over the border to Iran and the families on the other side of the Iranian border took us in.”

He remembered seeing women holding up their babies to overcrowded trucks, begging them to take only the babies, but there was no place. Other stories he told me, on love and control in a society that I was just to get to know, amazed me. Few men I know dare to open up so much about their emotions.

How could it be that a woman that had travelled all over and had all sorts of relationships, lent on a younger man for support? A guess is that his experiences provided a depth of knowledge on how life can treat or mistreat you, and therefore how situations might be solved. I found myself texting at different times for advice. He was always ready to talk (except from when he was in trouble himself and went off to get drunk somewhere. Hopefully the roles could be reversed at such times): A man that didn’t call back? He was just insecure next to an independent woman. A meeting with an old friend that ended in disappointment? “Jenny, people change. Usually to the worse”. I couldn’t have paid a counselor to get the life advice Nabaz provided me with.

In this blog I’m writing about women that have made an impression on me, but when it comes to women’s rights it’s important also to mention the men. To me Nabaz is an example of someone who empowers the women around him. To this day I’m also surprised with the fact that a person is willing to invest so much in a friendship with someone who only touches base in their hometown, a person that it will take time to get to know. I hope I’ll be able to provide the same response to someone else one day, on an evening when I don’t expect to meet someone new. At least I’ll be keeping my guards down; not thinking a friendship cannot be possible.

Photo: Copyright Sweden and the Middle East Blog