Sunday, December 16, 2012

The Land of the Poor, the Government and the Inconsiderate

In a country where 60+ and even 70+ years old men clean the streets for living! In a country where a 50+ Years old woman with four grown up girls make a living from selling pins and combs on the side walk of one of the busiest streets in the city out of a pushed cart which she pushes for at least 6 kilometers from and to her spot every single day! In country where a person who was born with a birth defect is called crazy and left for the streets to raise them! In a country where countless families make less than 10 dollars a day! In a country where breaking the law is applaud and where thieves are respected and feared! In a country where the locals are considered second class citizens and foreigners are treated as royalty! In a country where people are deprived of the simplest rights, Iraq, that's where I live.

A country that has been through so many wars and so much destruction and never managed to quite rise back and now after almost eleven years of the so called liberation we still haven't managed to carry on a conversation without going back to the same old story of kidnapping, ransoms, killing, bombs and, destruction, all kinds of it! this is until lately where The Voice the Arabic version started airing in the Middle East and every conversation I've heared ever since has got to have something to with the show. Every Friday my Facebook news feed would be filled with nothing but status messages and pictures of the contestants and the coaches and lots of passionate words and prayers each person for their favorite.

If a bomb goes off and hundreds of people die only a few people will write about it but when neither the Iraqi contestant nor the Iraqi coach won a bomb of cursing and name calling exploded on my Facebook news feed, I was amazed by the number of people that were affected by the show and the final results! Those people have spent hundreds of dollars voting through text messages for their favorites! those are the same people that never even bother to look at the lady's cart on the street in this cold weather and I bet they never even noticed the old men cleaning the streets!

The only explanation I can come up with is that we have become numb to anything and everything around us and after having bloody-every-day- of the week days and after all we've been through we'd rather not talk about it, not think about the people who's lives have been completely shattered, go and spend so much money voting for some one who will never acknowledge the effort rather than helping a person who will probably remember it for as long as they shall live! and the middle of this storm of superficiality the Iraqi government have donated FORTY MILLION AMERICAN DOLLARS for the Syrian refugees and not a single person has wrote about it today! Of course they would, I mean the country is clearly well taken care of so why shouldn't we take care of our neighbors and be the first to do so, right?

And don't you worry about the poor, the have Allah ...

نامي جياعَ الشَّعْـبِ نامي حَرَسَتْكِ آلِهـة ُالطَّعـامِ

4 comments:

  1. We have became numb... and given our background, I would excuse Iraqis to have become so. Remembering how hard our lives have became wouldn't change anything, and if voting for The Voice makes someone happy, why not!
    But you know what, if history does repeat itself, then we are off to a very bright future Tukaalis. With all the mistakes you mentioned and the mistakes that you didnt, call me optimist if you wish, but I see Iraq going the right way.
    People working hard purely for the country exist, and people working hard to help their fellow Iraqis also exist... just not under the spot.

    I hope I am right, and I know you hope that too...

    Sincerely

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I do Hope you are right, but on the other hand I've lost all hope in a better Iraq and you should know that it's neither easy for me to say this nor am I proud of saying it, but after all we've been through, looking back and looking at where we are can you honestly say that we are heading in the right direction? and if you do could you please explain how so?
      I've always been an optimist until recently, I simply no longer see the light at the end of the tunnel, I hope it's because the tunnel is too long not that the light doesn't exist!

      Thanks for stopping by.

      Delete
  2. Good morning how are you?

    My name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.

    I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because trough them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately it’s impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.

    For all this I would ask you one small favor:
    Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Iraq? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Iraq in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:

    Emilio Fernandez Esteban
    Calle Valencia, 39
    28903 Getafe (Madrid)
    Spain

    If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.

    Finally I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.

    Yours Sincerely

    Emilio Fernandez

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your comment my day. I'd love to help you, but it might be a little while before I send you my letter since I'm in a place where traditional mail is pretty much not functional, but I promise I will send you.
      Good luck with what your doing.

      Delete