In Iraq, one small victory at a time
Game between Suleimaniya and Baghdad reflects real-life tensions
-Marty Gervais
Sunday, August 19, 2007
The last thing I expected in my travels to Iraq was winding up on TV.
It happened in the biggest game of the year when two elite handball teams squared off in the final for the Iraqi championship.
There I was stationed behind the net, and the ball toppled over the wall of netting and landed at my feet. I casually went to toss it back but its resin coating made it stick to my hand like flypaper, and there I was caught on a live feed to homes all over the country desperately fighting to toss it back to the goalie, but it wouldn't let go. It finally jolted out of my hand.
The incident got a few laughs from the crowd, but especially the goalie.
If that wasn't enough, at the end of the match when the awards were being handed out, I accidentally found myself wedged between a couple of brutes who had to be body guards for the president of the Iraqi National Olympic Committee.
I couldn't get out of the picture.
Imagine viewers in barber shops, hotels, tailor shops, tea houses and homes all over the country scratching their heads in wonder about the identity of this man in shorts -- the only one wearing shorts except for the children as a matter of fact -- and what he had to do with the championship.
No self-respecting male would dare wear shorts in Iraq, or anywhere in the Middle East. It's not only a sign of disrespect, but it's also unsafe in some parts of the country.
Naturally, our Canadian contingent wore them daily, only to learn that a year ago, an Iraqi tennis coach and two of his players were killed because they had not heeded the warning issued in Baghdad against wearing them.
Islamic extremists consider it a sacred violation.
"But this is Suleimaniya ," argued Flah Ahmad, a former Olympic boxer who is assisting Windsor's Josh Canty in training the Iraqi boxers for the Pan-Arab Games in Cairo.
"It's different here," he said, but conceded it's not at all common to find men wearing shorts.
In Baghdad, radical Islamists distributed leaflets -- mostly handwritten -- warning people to fall in line with this suggested dress code. As far as wearing the hijab for women and the ban on shorts for men, this is consistent in most areas of that city.
Sulimaniya ignores such bans. It embraces both the old and the new so that you see the traditional abaya, or over-garment worn by Muslim women everywhere, but also women wearing slacks, even low cut blouses.
As a matter of fact, one of the first things Andre Gorges, the 22-year-old boxer from Windsor discovered was not only the presence of young women wearing western-style clothing, but seeing them shopping during the day.
"When I first got to Iraq in Erbil, I didn't see women anywhere. But here they work in hotels and take buses and drive cars," he said.
In Baghdad, the rules are stricter and include women being prohibited from driving or using a cellphone. Men are also prohibited from wearing jeans, shaving their beards, wearing goatees, using hair gel or wearing necklaces. It's also forbidden to sell ice or cigarettes at street stands, or Iranian merchandise.
Now the latest target is Internet cafes.
Oddly enough, in watching this handball game, it was clear this was more than a game. It was symbolic of the rivalry and clashes in culture that exist between Suleimaniya and Baghdad.
Suleimaniya won the match for the first time in its history, and the place exploded in celebration as fans roared on to the arena floor and ripped off their shirts and waved them frantically. They also bounced up and down and danced and waved the Iraqi flag. Some carried gigantic posters of John Talabani, the president of Iraq and a Kurd. One cannot imagine teams in Canada winning some crucial game and jubilantly waving pictures of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
But the face on those posters was the face of a Kurd, and so Kurdistan isn't so anxious to secede from the rest of Iraq, at least not as long as he is president.
That scene witnessed at this arena, said Lt. Col. Douglas Chapman, stationed outside Suleimaniya, is that of unity and fierce loyalty found everywhere in Kurdistan.
He sees the biggest difference between the two rival cities is fear -- the absence of it in Suleimaniya, and "the in-your-face presence" of it in Baghdad.
But this absence of fear in Suleimaniya, he said, was hard won with the Kurds making sure they kept terror away from their doorstep after the fall of Saddham.
"They like us here," Chapman said. That was obvious on the street as Chapman, accompanied by a handful of fellow soldiers, made his way through the tangle of streets crammed with shops hawking melons, scarves, cellphones, lighters, cigarettes, chickens, even car tires.
Chapman would stop and chat in Arabic with the Iraqi shopkeepers and occasionally permit them to be photographed with him.
"These people would love for us to establish a large base here. We're here with some of the coalition forces but we're a small unit, about 60 Americans."
By contrast, the Baghdad population is two-faced in its attitude toward the invaders, he said.
"When they smile at you, they want something. All you ever hear are complaints -- they want water, electricity, and they want us to leave. But they're not ready to help themselves, and that is the problem."
By that, Chapman said, he means they must stop "trading with the devil." He explained, "The big problem lies with the police and the (Iraqi) military -- they're on the take." They assist the terrorists, and not just the al-Qaida, but also those simply seeking to profit from abductions.
Baghdad, Chapman said, is a population besieged by terror, and it cannot survive, and cannot build itself back up -- at least not until it can move about without fear.
In Baghdad, the city is crumbling. Huge parts of the city are limited to two hours of electricity a day. Self-imposed curfews of 5 p.m. are strictly adhered to out fear. Many areas lay decimated and destroyed by car bombs and mortar shells. The place is dominated by zigzag concrete checkpoints with military guards, making travel for even a few blocks nearly impossible.
"The city is dying, and so are its people," said Ahmed Maan, who has moved to Suleimaniya to aid in building a new medical centre.
Normalcy has returned to Kurdistan, and its people aren't willing to give it up, said U.S. Army Lt. Larry Gawrys, who served in Baghdad but now is stationed near Suleimaniya.
The city is perhaps the most western in Iraq with children wearing Nike T-shirts and running shoes and signage for American goods in the streets. What is different are some of the signs posted outside of business establishments. Along with the "No Smoking" sign, you will find "No Weapons."
"We're open for business," said Maan of Kurdistan's bigger cities, like Erbil and Suleimaniya where new construction dominates. In both, condos, giant supermarket buildings and outdoor recreational centres are rising up around the old neighbourhoods. In Erbil, the population of the original historic walled city has been relocated so the government can begin restoring these crumbling antiquated homes to create a museum park.
"No one should go near Baghdad," added Chapman who went on to say, "What you see on television back home isn't the worst. You see car bombs, but you don't see the lynchings where people who have been abducted have been tortured and strung up in the open street."
Chapman said this is not occurring in Suleimaniya because both the military and the people won't tolerate what he termed as "nihilistic terror."
The measures taken by the Kurds are so extreme that even when Chapman was going to the airport, they insisted upon taking away his weapons.
"So, I didn't go in -- I wasn't letting anybody take this," he said, patting the semi-automatic rifle that he carried on his shoulder.
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