Kill Yourself & Just Talking

     



      There is a story in the Chapter "Kill Yourself" about the young man named Ra'ad, who accepted western education and culture, but finally bomb himself up in Iraq.

     He is a sympathetic figure. One the hand, he move out of the culture of Iraq and wanted to live in the culture of America. However, 911 came and deteriorated the discrimination to  muslin in America so that he was sent back to Iraq.This means, the American culture refused his joint. Ra'ad lost his standing and became completely alone. His desperation of getting lost in struggling and fighting for nothing is beyond understanding, as the same as his decision and action of bomb-suicide.
   

    Democracy? when Ra'ad came to America, learned what it was and began to enjoy it, he was exiled out of the paradise. Then, he went to hell.


     What is democracy? What do Iraqis think democracy is? The questions just get harder and harder.
     Democracy means more and more communiques?
     Democracy means the devil in their religion?
     Democracy means the paradise of the United States or one of its tricks to   enslave Iraqis and their oil?

     But we can say one way of democracy is election.
     Actually, in these two chapter, the wisdom and high-standing perspective of Iraqis win my respect.
     None of Iraqi interviewees agree to self-bombing and they continues to state that "Iraqis don't do this sort of thing." This kind of thing doesn't only kill Americans who are not favored by Iraqis, but also killed the locals whose life should not be the target of their neighbors and fellows. And these bombing destroy their markets, government, architectures,schools and hospitals.At this time, Iraqis wish for construction but not destruction.

     Different with the common belief, those bombers are not Iraqis but foreigners. And many of these people are probably not contributing their life willingly but are tied to bombings or bomb carriers. The idea of extremists appear in my mind. Democracy is hijacked by the religious extremists and politicians.

(An unrelated question occurs to my mind: who back up terrorists? where is their money from? If they are making money by trading, who are trading with them? Does our world seeming anti-terrorism have hidden relationships with terrorists?)

     The chapter "Just Talking" is only one of few chapters which gives me hope of having hope. It talks about Iraqis' braveness and enthusiasm in face of life-threat from anti-election parts. They are determined to execute the rights of election regardless of age, gender and social status. They are eager to let the world hear their voice and let their voice determine their own destiny.

     But I'm still worried. The party UIA is trying to win the voters by declaring preference from Sistani who is not happy with that. Parties are not credible.
Voters are voting with negative mentality to America, which might make them vote to object the United States but not vote for the Candidates' advocacy and Iraq's own interests.

About Essay 3--Interview about World Wedding Ceremony!!

     Time flies. The day of going back to China is closer and I become more and more exciting even when this idea just flits over my mind. Meanwhile, looking at my planner, I realize there is only a super busy schedule left for me: few trips, a few presentations, several essays, and many exams. And I want to make them nicely done. But I tell myself to calm down. Wisdom and Effort, that's all what I need.




     This morning, looking at the category of feature story topics, I was still struggling with my choice for our essay three. When I stopped at the topic, "the number story", I suddenly realized I could write about a list of countries' wedding ceremony.


      First,it's possible for me to do interviews since I only have limited interviewer category: international students and staff. But I do know a lot of friends from each corner of the world, such as, the United States, Canada, Britain, Kenya, Cape Verde, Sudan,Jordan,India,Nepal,Philippine,Japan, Korea, Belize, and Brazil.

      Secondly,  through interviewing,I can not only show different customs of wedding ceremony, but also reveal their attitudes on love,marriage, religion, money, society and so on.
   
      I believe it'll be interesting to talk and write about.

      If anyone has any suggestion, please feel free to tell me! I really appreciate your help!
      Best wishes!

Do in Rome as Roman does!

"Some days I thought we had broken into a mental institution. One of the old ones, from the nineteenth century, where people were dumped and forgotten. It was like we had pried the doors off and found all these people clutching themselves and burying their heads in the corners and sitting in their own filth. It was useful to think of Iraq this way. It helped in your analysis. Murder and torture and sadism: it was part of Iraq. It was in people's brains."

     How can we ask a patient with mental disorder to behave as a normal people. 


"How would you like it if I were to cut up a poster of President Bush?" (79)
     
     Put yourself into the local culture and show respect. Help and educate local people to think through the issue by themselves but not put pressure on them to accept the outsider's belief. If the truth is not shown to them in a right way and not accepted in the right mood, it will turn out to be hatred and rebellion. That means American troops might make  barbarity out of truth, if they are not careful with their ways of showing truth. Hatred and rebellion to truth, beauty and kindness. Losing the confidence in truth is unforgivable for truth and destructive to the world.


What is Iraq like?--the biggest theme of the work.


      "Iraq might have been a traumatized country, it might have been broken, it might have been atomized--it might have been a mental hospital. But whenever the prospect of normalcy presented itself, a long line of Iraqis always stood up and reached for it."


      However, when everything is getting better, they begin to destroy. 
This is what happened after the hope in 2003.
"And they went to the slaughter. Thousands and thousands of them:editors, pamphleteers, judges and police officers, and women like Wijdan al-Khuzai.The insurgents were brilliant at that. They could spot a fine mind or a tender soul wherever it might be, chase it down and kill it dead. The heart of a nation. The precision was astounding."


Hatred to the United States


     As a fellow of a country which ever suffered invasion, I can fully understand status of Iraqis. Whatever reasons are of the invaders, they are considered as excuses. 


     Try to imagine this situation: You are living with your parents, brothers and sisters in your house.You own your house, family value,and family structure, etc, which all of them are not ideal. But one day,which is as exactly same as any other day, someone totally unknown comes to your house, and tells you that: all treasures you've saved in the basement are theirs; your father is a tyrant who should be killed because he removes all your freedom including not wearing hats from you; your mother is an evil who should have a life sentence for she saved all money in the basement instead of buying presents for you; you and your brothers and sisters are idiots because of your backward education from your parents or your grand-parents, and you should rebel your parents and pursue the equality you deserve with them; you should go to their schools which  values more democracy, equality, and individuality; you should learn their language and a broad view of world. What would you think of this unknown guy? At first you might suspect if he is right. But if he really kills your parents and occupy your home, you must hate him to death. That's where Iraqi hatred comes from.

Review on "The Man Within"

       


This chapter is a profile of Nathan Sassaman, who was a forty-year old colonel in Balad, Iraq, in 2003. His main feature is summarized well as,"Sassaman himself sometimes seemed like two people, the visionary American officer setting up a city council, and the warrior who took too much joy in the brutalities of his job."

This means in his body, mind and personality exist confusing conflicts. He was trying to help with transforming Iraq into a democratic nation, for example,establishing modern election system in his presiding area.
However, he showed totally different image to Sunni and Shia. In Shia area, he is smiling and general to locals. But in Sunni area, he had much less patience in developing relations. The major reason is that people in Shia area agreed his opinions well and did what they are asked to do. Wherever, the Sunnis were more suspicious to his initiatives and sincerity, which lead to frequent insurgencies and destruction. To make it simple, Sassaman adopted a policy of tit-for-tat.

In addition, the book reveals more about what American military did to Iraqis with Sassaman as an example.He turned his eyes off the "non-lethal" policy, initiate night attacks to common people in pajamas, and cracked down walls after walls. To a I'm wondering if democratic Americans are really democratic to Iraqis. And how can we grow seeds of love in Iraq by money, projects, fear and violence,but only except with love. At this point, the concerning attitudes in the book are careful and ironic.

In a degree, I can understand military violence in the field when I depict the situation after a ten-year living in bullets and fires. Moreover,facing huge cultural shocks, soldiers must have difficulty keeping patience and kindness to the opposite people. But wars are about life which is of the same value and respect everywhere. Shouldn't we ask for solutions showing more humanity other than just a understanding to contemporary bad situation? Aren't we suppose to learn more about Iraqi language, culture, religion,and customs,etc, to solve Iraqi problems in Iraqi ways? A saying going as, "Do in Rome as Rome does."


And I come up with another question. In this chapter and many of the previous ones, some wits are talking to the Americans that they should do things in an Iraqi way if they really want to help. I'll start to look for the answer to the question:" What is the Iraqi way to solve conflicts?"