born 1976, political Scientist and freelance journalist
[26/02/2010]
"In Khadamiye we owe a lot to Hussein Al Sadr". Salah Mahdi Al Anbari is the owner of a blacksmith where Sunnites and Shiites work together and he wants to mention him specifically. This cleric, one of the most respected ones in Khadamiye, is responsible, to a large degree, of having kept his area of influence free of the consequences of the sectarian war. "Even if he belongs to the family of Muqtada Al Sadr (leader of the Sadr tendency, of the Mahdi Army, now latent) Hussein has never been drawn towards violence. He even opened a blood donation bank to which we contribute during these festivities. We do not shed our blood, we donate it. Donating blood is a private, non-sectarian, act. Shedding blood is public, insincere, so that other people see it. This country has shed to much blood already, more should not be thrown around the streets". This is not a vision of the Ashura with much publicity in other countries but it exists and it is quite significant because it comes from exactly the same streets that surround the mosque and from the family of its most respected cleric.
"Hussein Al Sadr has always said that those who wage war from their own homes must pay for it and he has asked us to stop the sectarian war from coming here. We have tried, in a common effort, to achieve that" Salah, the blacksmith, proudly proclaims. He has been working from the same workshop for the past 42 years. The reason behind our visit, however, is not only because of the alternative to the blood of the Ashura offered by the donations. Salah adopted three orphans who work with him in his workshop. Sunnites. In the Shiite district. Who have never abandoned their rites or the Kurdish language that their parents taught them before they died. - Have you had any problem with them or the militias during the sectarian wars?. - "No, none. Why should I? My family belongs to this district and nobody can threaten or pressure us". When Arkan, the youngest of his adopted sons, comes back from participating in the night parades, he seems quite laconic.
"-¿Problems?. None. Why should I have any? Here we live all together. Nothing has happened here". It seems that the foreigner is the only one surprised by the story. "Do not turn what we consider normal into an oddity because it is not. There are thousands of stories that prove that most of the population, even with everything that has happened here, do not care about what politicians say or what the militias have done. We do not want to go into the game of sectarian separation".
It is obvious that Al Khadamiye is one of the best preserved districts of the city; a privileged area both in services and in security. The Al Sadr family has always represented the rational and humble clerics of Al Khadamiye. Only Muqtada al Sadr's father moved to Najaf, while the other members of the clan stayed in their place of origin. The leader of the Sadrist tendency, now in Iran, is the only member of the family who can be openly identified as a leader of a group involved in the sectarian war, the Mahdi Army.
The rest, with Hussein Al Sadr at their forefront, managed to keep out of the civil conflict, avoiding the images of hooded men spreading terror in the streets without any restraint. "The secret was managing to keep the security of Al Khadamiye in the hands of an agreement between the local families" says Zaid, my host and my guide around the district. "Now it is the army and the federal police who have the control. Except in the house of Hussein al Sadr. There, even if they are wearing the same uniform, all the soldiers belong to trusted families".
From Zaid's house, next to where the Sadrist cleric lives (heavily fortified, with two checkpoints and an enormous metallic door), you will find the Iraqi Army's Hummers every 100 meters. Zaid Al Wardi, as a storekeeper, and not as a professor, does an approximate recount. "From the very first day we insisted that there would be no revenge in Khadamiye. Many Ba'athist simply went away without being attacked -like they were in other places. They simply crossed the bridge to Adhamiye, the last place where Saddam was seen in public. The situation was relatively calm, and it only changed during the Ashura celebration of 2004. The Americans were received with flowers when they got here but, afterward, when they were asked to let the local citizens guarantee the security of the religious celebrations, they refused. There was a terrorist attack and the people threw their shoes as a display of disapproval. The Mahdi Army burst into the streets and fought against them".
Zaid talks in front of the river, the only place where, by just looking right or left, you can see the bridge and the two mosques symbolizing the war that has divided Sunnites and Shiites in Baghdad. Khadama and Adama. Shiite Khadamiye and Sunnite Adamiye. We are now at the point where Akad street ends in front of the river Tigris. "In this street is the mosque of Fatah Pasha, belonging to the Sunni, built next to what used to be a cloth factory. Here, in the 40s and 50s, Shiite businessmen would employ hundreds of Sunnite workers, less qualified and cheaper, in those days. This area was one of the most important strongholds of the Communist Party of Iraq". There is nothing left of that era. Instead, there is an enormous board with the photo of Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki and the symbols of his party, Al Dawa. In the same place where the secular parties used to be so powerful, now the religious parties are dominant. Despite this fact, Zaid insists that Al Khadamiye, and specially these streets, have recently recovered their liveliness. "While before they used to interchange shots and mortars with Sunnite riverside the shops now flourish, specially the clothes shops".
Khadamiye has around 300.000 inhabitants. During 2006 and 2007 around a 1000 Shiite families, displaced from other Baghdad districts settled here. They brought money, economic activity and commercial dynamics with them. The security they brought to the neighborhood acted as an incentive for the establishment of a commercial network that is still there. This meant that it was no longer necessary to cross the city through dangerous and complicated areas. Baghdad functioned, for two years, like a collection of closed compartments. This, apparently, is about to end. Now, only the security, police and military facilities are closed to the general public.
Just dozens of meters away is the former headquarters of the 5th brigade of the Iraqi Army. The fearful detention center of Saddam's secret police. The place where he was brought by helicopter hurriedly, a few minutes before being executed. Ali Kareem and Zaid do not feel comfortable in what is now called "Camp Justice". According to Zaid, "Saddam had to have the worse punishment possible. If our laws contemplate the death sentence, then he had to be executed. But they way in which it was done was a humiliation for many Iraqis who saw it simply as an Iranian revenge. Nobody can be proud of Saddam's hanging. Other high officers of the Ba'athist regime who have been condemned to death will not be executed, following a pact of stability and respect between the Prime Minister and his Sunnite partners. It is better not to put to much pressure on the situation". Zaid is talking about Chemical Ali who was finally executed, against all odds, just about 15 days after this conversation.
Once the Ashura festivities are over, the General of the Iraqi Federal Police in charge of security in the area has summoned me to give the permit that will allow me to record in the streets that he controls. "Here you went in to never go out again. I do not want to spend a minute more than necessary in this place" says Zaid while Ali takes some photographs, surprised, with his mobile phone. Nobody thought that we would be led straight to the offices of General Dafer Al Mohamadaui, who waits for us in his office. It is impossible for my companions to refuse his invitation despite the obvious discomfort it causes them. Two Generals in less than 48 hours is not exactly what any what an average Iraqi would consider enjoyable.
No high security officer in Baghdad refuses to meet a foreign journalist. They insist on boasting about their achievements in the field of security. "The first thing we did when the Americans handed over the security control was change the placement of the checkpoints, which are now fast and secure" the General assures in contradiction with the average of one hour (or one hour and a half maybe) that I have had to wait in order to get into Al Mansour, where the Spanish embassy is. "The material we have in order to detect arms and explosives is more sophisticated than before". The Iraqis call the sonar that the police and the army use in the checkpoints "the perfume measurer", because it always detects the perfume flasks that every Iraqi driver, in a detail of vanity, keeps in his glove compartment. It is probably the only thing it detects. "We are not affected by the electoral calendar or by the festivities and we have our own timetables in the application of the various security operations" he proclaims, even though, in the day after the end of the Ashura festivities, once the most intense risk is over, the relaxation in all the checkpoints is more than obvious.
The general of the first body of the Iraqi Army who has just come into the office in which we are offers to take me with him on an anti-terrorist mission for various days in the province of Diyala, the present hot spot of the insurgence. I politely decline his offer. Once the interview is over and we have obtained the required permit, I politely ask if is possible to visit, due to its journalistic interest, the room where Saddam Hussein was executed. They all stare at me as if I was mad. Zaid answers quickly trying to soften the General's anger. "You know how foreign journalists want to see everything with their own eyes. They do not know the rules", and the visit ends tensely. But I did have to give it a try. It is not every day that you get into Camp Justice. And even less to waste time. The General made a theatrical phone call telling someone to "let the Spaniard record". It is useless, it is an impossible task. Every time the camera is out of its bag, we get the same reaction of questions and problems.