Leaving Baghdad By Ahmad Fadam

Leaving Baghdad

http://baghdadbureau.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/leaving-baghdad/?hp

May 21, 2008

By Ahmad Fadam



On my last day in Baghdad, I drove across the city trying to memorize each and every part of it. It is where I was born and raised, where I studied and worked, where I loved and married, where I have been happy and sad. It is where I buried my mother and father. It is my whole life.

I’m going to be away for a long time, and I don’t know if I’m going to see my city again. I wanted to see it all before I went, every street and building, every tree and every corner, to say goodbye to everyone living in it, to my fellow Iraqis, the people I loved and was loved by.

Before, in Iraq, you could not get hungry. You could knock on any door and ask for food. Before, you could not feel lonely, because everyone was friendly. Just smile to them and they would smile back to you.

And in Iraq, there is the magic of the Tigris, the immortal river. You can sit on its bank and feel the great history of Iraq, see it sparkling on the water, passing in front of your eyes with glory and pride.

I wish that the war didn’t happen. I wish that Baghdad was still the same city where I opened my eyes for the first time.

I was driving and seeing all the destruction that happened, and I can say that the war never brought freedom or happiness. Seeing it like this broke my heart.

I haven’t left Iraq since 2003. Since then, I have been working as a reporter, and I have been mostly everywhere in Iraq, from north to south. I can say that I have seen most of what happened, and I know the difference between now and before.

At first, I used to drive in the streets of Baghdad just following the columns of smoke to see what parts of the city had been destroyed. I remember someone asking: “Why don’t you take your family and get the hell out of the city? The city is burning and you and your family may die.”

I said: “NO, I’m going to stay even if I get killed, at least people then would know how I am, and also, I want to see what is happening, I don’t want to be told about it. I want to tell it to my children when they grow up, to tell them that I saw it and to have them know the truth of what really happened.”

I remember a radio host who interviewed me. He was American, and he asked, “What bothers you the most in this war?”

I said, “Seeing the Iraqi Museum getting looted and the National Library getting burned.”

The man said, “You have no electricity, no water, you are jobless and half of your city is destroyed and all you care about is the museum and the library?”

I said, “Yes, because electricity and water can be fixed, a job can be found and the destroyed buildings and factories can be build again, but if I want to tell my children about their country’s great history, and they asked me for proof, what am I going to show them?”

“The museum has been looted, four thousand years of history are gone, and also the library has been burned and all the old scripts, the priceless manuscripts have been destroyed. Everything is lost.”

Baghdad and its people are divided into sects, killing each other and fighting over what is left of it. I’m leaving a city full of fear, hatred and sadness, and it is not a pleasant story to tell to my kids. The city that I used to know is now gone, and what is left is nothing but a mutilated, destroyed and corrupted city that people call Baghdad, but it is not my Baghdad.

The minute I set foot in the Damascus airport, I felt safety in the air.

I’m not saying that Syria is a perfect country, but you can feel order in the city, the people are living peacefully, not caring about anything except their daily life. It is the same that we used to do in Baghdad.

We didn’t care who is Sunni or Shiite, we were all Iraqis. Now, walking in the streets of Damascus without seeing any guns or concrete walls, or hearing any sirens, reminds me of the old days of Baghdad.

The problem is that I got used to living amid war in Baghdad. Now in Damascus, I feel strange not hearing the sounds of the helicopters and gunshot. I keep listening, waiting to hear if there will be an explosion, and then I remember that I’m not in Baghdad anymore.

I hope that Baghdad will recover, and I know that one day it will. I hope that its people start loving each other again, I hope to see it shining and proud again. I hope, I hope….

Hope is all that I have left right now, and I pray to God every day to see it happen. I hope to come back to Baghdad and be able to drive in its streets without fear and without the concrete blocks the army have put everywhere, without seeing any guns, and without hearing about explosions and dead bodies being found every day.

To be able to park and go to a shop without anyone asking me to move my car because it may be a car bomb. To be able to sit on the Tigris bank and enjoy eating a fish with my children, to be able to visit the museum and show my kids the glorious history of their ancestors, to be able to smell the roses in its gardens and to see its sun fall and hug the waves of its river. And the most important of all, is to see the faces of the people whom I love.