Page 2 of 2 THE ROVING
EYE Night bus from
Baghdad By Pepe Escobar
Islamists, nationalists and former
Ba'ath supporters of Saddam Hussein.
For
the Syrian government, having its own Islamists
crossing the border to fight the Americans in Iraq
has always sounded like a good idea: a way of
sweeping a problem under someone else's carpet.
But to imply that Syria has become a sanctuary of
Islamic fundamentalists and radical Ba'athists at
the same time is also
nonsense.
Those who
made it Not many jihadis take
the night bus to Baghdad, but thousands of
Iraqi families do take the night bus from
Baghdad. Middle-class Iraqi Sunnis who have made it across
the Syria-Iraq border tend to establish
themselves in such areas as "Little Fallujah". For
lower-middle-class Iraqi Shi'ites, the favored
area is around the spectacular, Persian-style
Sayyida Zaynab shrine, in southeast Damascus, with
its turquoise arabesques and glittering
geometrical mirrors. Inside, pilgrims from Iran,
Afghanistan and Central Asia mingle with mullahs
and hojjatoleslam, praying for hours or
just meditating. There's always a whiff of perfume
in the air.
But outside, everything
revolves around the war in Iraq. In a small shop
owned by the Damistani family from Bahrain, in
front of the renamed, derelict Iraqi Square,
facing a huge street banner which would be prime
Pentagon target practice (both Assads, father
Hafez and son Bashar, alongside Hezbollah's Sheikh
Nasrallah), a loquacious girl and a burly man come
to grips with the Iraqi side of the road.
"Commandos abduct people," she says. "It
happens sometimes," he adds. "The Americans can
stop our buses for one or two days," she tries to
prevail; "No, they stop the bus only at the
border, and then in front of Abu Ghraib," he
mumbles. They sell bus tickets to Baghdad. A
one-way ticket costs 900 Syrian pounds (roughly
US$18). In the "busy" season - ie, last summer -
it was 1,500 pounds. The lone bus departs at 9pm
and, depending on the collective good karma,
arrives the next day at 5pm. The same trip in a
GMC truck would cost at least $50 per person.
At the end of 2005, well before the "surge",
traveling was "safe". Now it's "not safe". A
glance at the log says it all: there's only one
registered passenger for tonight's bus. Virtually
all passengers are Iraqis - unwilling returnees
because they ran out of money. There is also the
odd Iranian, trying to make his dangerous way to
Najaf. Every passenger coming from Baghdad, they
say, arrives petrified with fear but thanking
Allah for having escaped in one piece.
The
neighborhood around Sayyida Zaynab is
lower-proletarian poor - far from the dusty glitz
of Little Fallujah. As many as 60,000 Iraqis are
now residents. At Al Kazimiyah shop, Imad,
formerly a math teacher in Baghdad, has
practically given up on selling bus tickets. His
salary is $100 a month, but he has been spending
$300 on his family of four since he arrived six
months ago.
He confirms that thousands of families
are running out of money, and will have to
go back. He is hoping for "Baghdad to get better"
so they can go home, but he harbors no
illusions. His wife's brother has a British
passport. He has entered a visa application for
England. But he would be more than happy to
relocate anywhere in the world.
Outside on
the dusty road a man is wailing. He is actually
speaking, but not on camera, to a Syrian TV crew.
He thanks President Bashar for his hospitality
toward all Iraqis, and he blames all Iraq's
problems on "Amrika, Israel and the Mossad"
- not before stressing there was never any problem
in Iraq between Sunnis and Shi'ites.
Nearby, in an improvised bakery
- basically a stone oven - a man with
a disconcerting smile is producing sublime
bread with capsicum. He arrived in the neighborhood just
before the "surge", with his whole family. The baker
of Baghdad actually has a degree in "technology
studies". But what matters is that he survived
Baghdad, and that night bus from Baghdad - so his
smiles of joy had to be imprinted in the daily
little miracle of baking the perfect bread.
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