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| Iraq | |
| Voices of Baghdad Etched on Its Walls | |
| 2003-11-19 | |
| Newsday. EFL Thousands of slogans in the Arabic script snake across acres of gray walls that line city squares, apartments and office buildings [in Baghdad], a perfect canvas for the outpourings of a population intoxicated by new freedoms. Hussein loyalists shout their yearning for the deposed dictator - "Saddam will come again" - followed by the coda on the same line from a detractor: "Through my behind!" Score one for the detractor. "I walk around reading these writings, and some of them move me so much I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry," said Amir Nayef Toma, 52, a retired radar operator in the Iraqi army. "You want to know what Iraqis are thinking? Read these walls." In a place where reliable surveys of the public mood are difficult to gauge, the writings on the walls are one way to peer into Iraqis’ minds. Hussein is naturally a lightning rod for all sides, but the other issues that preoccupy the nighttime scribblers are their daily struggles for survival, their Arab neighbors and the new men in charge of their lives. "Some are ironic, some are funny, some are artistic," said Muhir Edan, a bookseller in the Old Baghdad section of the city whose friends teasingly say he is a Colin Powell look-alike. "Even now, some are afraid to say something in the newspapers. I am still afraid," he said. "But at night, in the cover of darkness, you can write what you want." Edan’s favorites are the back-and-forth graffiti repartee: "The masses are stronger than tyrants," one slogan declared. Next to it a skeptic asked: "When? Before or after liberation by the Americans?"
Hussein’s family also comes in for abuse: "Where are your wife and daughters, Saddam? Are you pimping them in Jordan?" Syria, more likely. "I like what I read," said Karal Nadji, a Shia street vendor who sells shoes. "We appreciate Mr. Bush. We’re all waiting for the fruits of change." Critics of the Iraqi Governing Council and Ahmad Chalabi, founder of the Iraqi National Congress, are frequent targets of barbed witticisms. A popular slogan comparing the politician with an Iraqi chickpea dish declares: "Neither Bush we want, nor Chalabi; we want beer and lablabee." Buy that man an adult beverage! | |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #2 |
| Posted by: BH 2003-11-19 2:56:08 PM |
| #1 |
| Posted by: Matt 2003-11-19 12:33:10 PM |