Page 2 of 2 THE ROVING
EYE In the heart of Little
Fallujah By Pepe Escobar
the Ministry of Economy and Trade.
He sold everything in his native Baghdad - except
his house - and left with his whole family six
months ago, "because of the bombings", mirroring a
detailed survey by the International Organization
for Migration according to which most Iraqis leave
after their lives are directly threatened.
Ammar is emphatic: "There is no Sunni
against Shi'ite. The Americans provoked it. Since
the beginning they started talking
about
separate areas. In Baghdad most marriages are
mixed." That's exactly his case. He is Shi'ite,
his wife is Sunni. He says that "in all Arab
countries we feel comfortable", but anyway he has
entered a demand for a long-term visa to
Australia. "We don't want to put pressure on the
kindness of the Syrian people."
The
solution for Iraq is "the Americans out, all
foreign troops out. But even after they leave, we
will need a strongman. I don't trust any of these
political parties or groups. The only solution
would be new, really free elections." He insists
"al-Qaeda destroyed the country", but in the same
breath adds, "Al-Qaeda is an American creation."
Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr may not be the
solution either: "He's too young, has a lot to
learn. His father [the late grand ayatollah
Mohammad Sadiq al-Sadr] was good."
It's
easy to forget that Hafez Assad's Syria and Saddam
Hussein's Iraq had no diplomatic relations
whatsoever from 1980 to 1997. Now every Iraqi
showing up at the Syrian border automatically gets
a one-month visa; they then apply for a
three-month resident visa. Visa runs are common.
Unlike in "liberated" Iraq, in Syria there's
virtually no unemployment for Iraqis.
Overqualified, young, educated Iraqis at least
survive with dignity as Internet-cafe managers or
restaurant waiters. Iraqis are admitted to Syrian
schools and universities with no special
prerequisites. The Syrian state pays half of their
medical bills. No wonder there is also a boom in
mixed Syrian-Iraqi marriages.
Compare this
situation with Jordan, which has become a de facto
Hashemite kingdom of refugees - first the
Palestinians after 1948 and now no fewer than 1
million Iraqis, almost 20% of the total population
of 5.5 million. But unlike Syria, US-backed Jordan
now is not exactly exhibiting its welcoming face.
Iraqis in Syria swear that only the sick and the
elderly are allowed to cross the border into
Jordan. Soon Iraqis may be barred from buying
property. Collective-taxi drivers plying the
infested-with-bandits Amman-Baghdad highway say
that Jordanian police constantly repatriates
busloads of Iraqi refugees to the border: they are
in fact treated as illegal immigrants. Unlike in
Syria, they don't have the right to work, have no
discount on medical expenses, and can't even put
their kids in school.
A walk on the
wild side Little Iraqs are now part of the
latest layer superimposed on Damascus - arguably
the oldest city in the world (Aleppo in northern
Syria begs to differ). And this after the low
skyline saturated with prehistoric terrestrial
aerials and rusty satellite dishes was
superimposed on the narrow, medieval lanes and
alleys of the fabulous Old City. Syrians are in
essence very proud and very honest - as are
Iraqis. As the calcified Syrian regime remains
immersed in corruption, for real people corruption
works out merely as a survival tactic - as it did
and still does for Iraqis.
The inflation
of trendy girls from Mesopotamia may have
contributed to an inflation of lanjeri
(lingerie) boutiques side-by-side with shops
selling veils, not only in Little Fallujah but in
the venerable, monstrous souq (market)
al-Hamidiyah. The mix is terrific: chador
(robe) on show, silk bikini underneath. The best
clients happen to be from the Maghreb region in
North Africa.
All roads do lead to
Damascus. The Speaker of the US House of
Representatives, Armani-suited, Hermes
scarf-enveloped Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
discreetly toured the Old City on Tuesday night,
before her meeting the next morning with President
Bashar al-Assad. Pelosi does not play the scratchy
White House CD according to which "Syria is a
supporter of terrorism". So she might have had
time for a little meditation on an empire fading -
as the souq magically merges with the
remains of the western gate of the 3rd-century
Roman temple of Jupiter and opens the view to the
fabulous Umayyad mosque with its courtyard, like
in a psychedelic dream, converging all the faiths,
all the colors and all the accents of the world.
Syria recognizes - formally - that Iraqis
are refugees who need to be protected. The
administrations of George W Bush and Tony Blair,
on the other hand, could never admit to the world
they are the source of all this - "the
fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world" as
defined by Kenneth Bacon, president of Refugees
International.
Pelosi would have learned
much more about the effects of the war on Iraq -
and what Syria is actually doing about it - if she
had traded the historic wonders of the Old City
for a stroll in all-too-real Little Fallujah.
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