Diário de uma Iraquiana

The Beginning...

So this is the beginning for me, I guess. I never thought I'd start my own weblog... All I could think, every time I wanted to start one was "but who will read it?" I guess I've got nothing to lose... but I'm warning you- expect a lot of complaining and ranting. I looked for a 'rantlog' but this is the best Google came up with.
A little bit about myself: I'm female, Iraqi and 24. I survived the war. That's all you need to know. It's all that matters these days anyway.

Riverbend

Foi assim que em 17 de Agosto de 2003 uma iraquiana deu início a um blog/diário pessoal.
Nunca, como hoje, senti tanto orgulho e tanto prazer em colocar no meu blog um link para o blog de outra pessoa. Este é mesmo obrigatório.
Porque nos faz perceber como é viver todos os dias num país em guerra. Porque nos mostra a diferença entre estar lá e estar do lado de cá; do lado de cá da televisão.
Esta iraquiana, que decidiu chamar-se Riverbend, é uma actriz num filme do qual nós somos meros espectadores. E como espectadores que somos, assim que o filme acaba vamos à nossa vidinha, esquecemo-nos quase imediatamente do que acabamos de ver e vamos ver montras enquanto assobiamos para o lado.

De realçar também que este blog está nomeado para um prémio internacional de literatura.

Não resisto a terminar este post com uma passagem de um dos últimos textos de Riverbend.

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Three Years...

It has been three years since the beginning of the war that marked the end of Iraq’s independence. Three years of occupation and bloodshed.Spring should be about renewal and rebirth. For Iraqis, spring has been about reliving painful memories and preparing for future disasters. In many ways, this year is like 2003 prior to the war when we were stocking up on fuel, water, food and first aid supplies and medications. We're doing it again this year but now we don't discuss what we're stocking up for. Bombs and B-52's are so much easier to face than other possibilities.I don’t think anyone imagined three years ago that things could be quite this bad today.
The last few weeks have been ridden with tension. I’m so tired of it all- we’re all tired.(...)

(...) Three years after the war, and we’ve managed to move backwards in a visible way, and in a not so visible way.
In the last weeks alone, thousands have died in senseless violence and the American and Iraqi army bomb Samarra as I write this. The sad thing isn’t the air raid, which is one of hundreds of air raids we’ve seen in three years- it’s the resignation in the people. They sit in their homes in Samarra because there’s no where to go. Before, we’d get refugees in Baghdad and surrounding areas… Now, Baghdadis themselves are looking for ways out of the city… out of the country. The typical Iraqi dream has become to find some safe haven abroad.
Three years later and the nightmares of bombings and of shock and awe have evolved into another sort of nightmare. The difference between now and then was that three years ago, we were still worrying about material things- possessions, houses, cars, electricity, water, fuel… It’s difficult to define what worries us most now. Even the most cynical war critics couldn't imagine the country being this bad three years after the war... Allah yistur min il rabba (God protect us from the fourth year).