Vultures on a Carcass...by Layla Anwar

Vultures on a Carcass...

Layla Anwar

 

An Arab Woman Blues, July 9, 2011 The carcass is Iraq, the vultures are you. I will NEVER swallow what you have done to Iraq. NEVER. And it has nothing to do with patriotism, nationalism or any of the concepts you keep regurgitating like idiotic parrots. What has happened to Iraq, through your contributions; your efforts, your silence, your apathy, your indifference, your political correctness, your...your...your filth...this can never be swallowed. NEVER. For I know...I know and I have seen, I have witnessed...what was before and what is now. You can't take that away from me. You can't take that truth away from me. And I shall post it, plaster it on every wall...because I will not let go. I will not let go of you and your crimes. I will pursue you, by whatever means available...and I will keep hammering it, as long as it takes... I will never ever forget that first premonitory dream I had about Iraq and what was going to happen to us, to our children. It was a message from God. A message showing me in full colors what and who you are. I will go back in time, back to 2003. I dreamt of two American soldiers lifting up a young Iraqi boy to be crucified on a cross, in the middle of the desert. The sun was setting, there was dust everywhere, everything looked blur, covered with sand, they left that crucified Iraqi boy in the middle of that desert and walked away... You crucified our children and covered up the truth with dust... There will be no escape for you. None whatsoever. As Bob Marley said it ' you can run but you can't hide. I am here to make sure that nothing remains hidden...I make it my mission, my vocation, my calling...I am not in a hurry, I have all the time in the world...but demised you shall be...no one crucifies a child and gets away with it...no one. My ink shall be like drops of water, drops of blood, eating away at the rock lodged between your breasts... No matter - the insults, the threats, the mockery...no matter. I will not let go. I was one of the first to write about the rape, trafficking of Iraqi Children. I was one of the first to say - Iraqi children are being sold, I wrote about the trading of organs, I wrote about the sex slavery of Iraqi children, I wrote about pedophile rings, I wrote about marrying off 5 years old girls, by exporting them first into brothels for "training". I wrote about the daily abduction and kidnappings of Iraqi children, I gave you numbers, figures...precise ones. I said there are over 5 Million Orphans in Iraq, 500'000 totally orphaned with no father and mother living in the streets of Baghdad. I said this is something WE HAD NEVER SEEN BEFORE your liberation. I said and I repeat and I repeat and I repeat.... Today a courageous woman, Ashwak Al-Jaf from Iraq, says it publicly...HERE. I was mocked, insulted, threatened, with numerous attempts at silencing me...none worked. The message is out, the truth is out. The truth...I have told you nothing but the tip of the iceberg of the truth...I have all the time in the world...but you don't.

Too Little, Too Late... by Layla Anwar

Painting: Iraqi artist, Mohamed Ali Shaker.

http://arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/

Friday, May 30, 2008

Too Little, Too Late...

We have a popular saying in Iraq and it goes this way "Ba'ad Kharaab Al-Basra"??!!How to translate that? Literally it means "After the destruction of Basra" ?!


Kharaab comes from the verb kharraba, which means to destroy something that worked before, to irreparably damage it...Kharban-the adjective, means damaged, rotten, not functional, not working, failed...Simply put, kharraba means to screw up something so badly, rendering it useless...So this proverb is used when someone comes along with either an admission, an apology, or to rectify some wrong after colossal damage has been inflicted...



So you tell the person in Iraqi "What's the use, after the destruction of Basra?!"In the same vein, the latest admissions from Mc Lellan ex-press spokesman for the White House and from other media voices like this CNN reporter, who both finally admitted that their reporting on Iraq, was "less than candid". In other words they fucking lied...The CNN reporter added that they were "forced" to report in a particular fashion that was not detrimental to your government's image.

Excuse me, but am I supposed to feel better now or what ?



For 5 fucking years, no for 18 years, you've been buying the lies and suddenly you admit that it was "less than candid" and am supposed to feel OK with it ?



Like what do you expect me to do? Rush and embrace you for your "honesty"? Or maybe you expect me to forget our ruined lives and our filled to the brim graves ?



Or maybe being the fucking hypocrites that you are, you expect me to say "well after all, there are some good people left in America. It's not their fault really, they were forced..."



Oh, the bullshit! Oh, your bullshit that knows no limits.



Oh, you compulsive liars, bad faith, deceitful, dishonest lot !



You did the same thing in Vietnam.



After over 10 years of murder and mayhem, you took to the streets with your flowers and peace signs and cried about "poor" Vietnam.



It took you 10 fucking years. And you only moved your big fat asses after your brave boys came back in body bags and you could not stop the counting.



All throughout the 10 years, the pictures of the napalm burned kids did not move you, oh no they did not...you were too busy singing in Woodstock thinking you're so fucking cool...when you were and are nothing but a screwed up bunch of mental retards and morons...



And do you think you learned anything ? Nothing. You learned nothing and you will never learn. You only learn the hard way, when you get your asses kicked big time and people start talking your language. This is when you open those rotten ears of yours and listen.



The problem with you people and I've experienced over and over, you mistake the words and demeanor of basic human civility for weakness. You know nothing about civility or civilization, you understand only one language - violence. Because that is the only language you are proficient at.



And I being a "good Muslim", I follow the saying of our Prophet who said "talk to people in the language they understand".



So you come now and tell us that the whole thing was dishonest? "After Kharaab Al-Basra"? Ya awlad al Kalb - sons of dogs. But dogs are too noble to be compared to you. You are less than dogs. Less than animals. Less...much less. You are scum and vermin.



God, I fucking hate your hypocrisy ya awlad al sharmoota - you sons of whores.



You sons of a thousand whores, will your fucking Mc Lellan or your CNN marry the 3 million widows ? Or feed the 5 million orphans ? Or bring back the 5 million refugees home ? Or heal our cancer patients from your criminal weapons of mass destruction? Or grow a limb and an eye back to the 1000's lost, from your bombs ?



Or maybe your admission will revive the 1 million plus, dead ?



Or restore our 7'000 years old archaeological sites, homes, buildings, fields, infrastructure, electricity and water ?



Or maybe you short lived fake, phony meaculpa will disarm the sectarian pathological turbaned shits who are ruling us now-thanks to you ?



I am too angry to finish this post...and there is nothing left to finish...you bastards. I hate your fucking guts all of you.

Strings of Sadness - by Layla Anwar

Painting : Iraqi Artist QUTAIBA SHEIKH NOURI


Strings of Sadness
by Layla Anwar, Uncensored Arabwomanblues

May 11, 2008

Someone sent me a piece from a song by Marcel Khalifeh. He asked me to translate it for him. He also said he suffered a bad psychotic episode some months ago, and he wondered how the Iraqis must feel like in their heads...I translated the piece for him.

The song is called "ya oud" - o'luth"

ya oud, the night's companion.

you weep on velvet and you hurt,

you travel to the farthest distances of the world and return,

you write and erase borders, ya oud...

tell me about your evenings in your marble castles

tell me of the fountains and the clinking of glasses,

tell me of the hips that sway and the silk that flies...

you wander not sleeping,and your voice is like rain...

and you voice drips of sweetness ya oud"

I love the Oud, for many reasons.

One is that the Oud-Luth, was introduced to the West via Al-Andalus from Mosul, around the 11th Century by an Iraqi called Zeryab.

From the Oud, other string instruments were later developed.

The Oud was later taken on by the Troubadours in the Middle Ages and became a symbol for Love ballads.

And today you have the luth, the guitar-son of the luth, the violin and the cello who has its origins in the Rababa - another musical instrument from the desert.

And today you have music. Music to your ears...It was an Iraqi who first gave it to you. He was the first one to move you and an Iraqi will be the last one to move you as well.

Hence the Oud has a strong symbolic meaning for me. It touches me beyond anything you can imagine...

I will therefore share with you, the Joubran Trio from Ramallah, the West Bank, Occupied Palestine.

I discovered them about a year ago, when I was browsing CD's. And I secretly kept this discovery to myself, selfishly so.

But today, I will reveal it to you.

I will reveal it to you for many reasons.

For the past two days, Gaza has been without electricity, fuel or bread.

Palestinian infants have already died in the only Pediatric hospital in Gaza. Infants relying on machines to breathe...to live.

Today across the Rafah border, a little Palestinian girl, not more than 6 years old, was waiting to receive treatment in an Egyptian hospital, for kidney dialysis.

She spoke on TV. She looked 60 years old. Her eyes were puffed and she had huge brown bags underneath her lovely eyes. She explained to the spectator which is you, that she's been without dialysis for over 3 days, due to the embargo imposed on Gaza by the criminal called Israel. She said, it was important for any patient to have treatment otherwise he/she would die. She is only 6.

Another woman had a retina detached, and she was hoping to get some treatment as she was going blind...A third had severe burns and wounds from Israeli jet explosives...

And so it went...

This reminded me of the sanction years, this reminded me of today's Iraq.

This reminded me of the half a million Iraqi babies in mass graves from 13 years of sanctions. A huge cemetery...little white tombs placed next to one another, thousands of them...and the Silence whistled...

the Silence whistled among the trees and the tombs...

It even composed a song,

It also played the oud,

singing ya Oud, ya Oud,

you weep on sand

you weep on walls

your tears water the earth

like the dusk's dew

droplets...

and there grows

a thousand flowers,

a million flowers

from your tears

ya Oud...

If half a million Iraqi babies did not move you then, a million Iraqis do not move you today, Gaza does not move now, will Zeryab and his oud move you ?

I doubt it.

P.S: For those who were moved by the Joubran Trio from Ramallah-Occupied Palestine, you can check more of their oud pieces here , here and here.

And do thank Zeryab from Mosul - Occupied Iraq.

Link to Layla Anwar's blog:

uncensoredarabwomanblues.blogspot.com/2008/05/strings-of-sadness.html

CONCOCTING SECTARIANISM

by Layla Anwar

http://arabwomannews.blogspot.com/2008/02/concocting-sectarianism.html

Saudi Shi'ites oppose plans to settle Sunnis (Reuters.18.2.2007)

"Saudi Shi'ites have asked the authorities to scrap plans to settle Sunni Muslim Yemenis in southern Saudi Arabia to change the demographic balance in an area where they are the majority..."Excuse but what is this nonsense ? Since when Shi'ism and Sunnism have become a race or an ethnicity that might change the demographic balance in any one area ?

If I recall correctly, both "sects" are MUSLIMS and in this particular case ARABS.And let me remind the reader that Ahl Al-Bayt, i.e Al Hussein, Hassan, Fatimah al Zahra, and Ali - personages venerated by the Shia, happen to be next of kin and blood relatives of the Prophet Muhammad and they all came from Najd/Hijaz and not Qum.

I guess the Iranian "Professor" Vali Nasr famous for his Shia Revival and who acted as an advisor to Bush on Sectarianism in Iraq, as well as the other "Professor" by the name of Chomsky who has been harping on how much the Shia have been oppressed in Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia -- must be very elated by now.

Their theories have been tested and applied by none other than the White House.

Above is a Middle East map presented by a U.S Congressional Research Report from the U.S Congressional Service, headed by "expert analyst" on Gulf issues-- Dr.Kenneth Katzman

Might give you a foretaste of what is concocted next. And of course the layperson never questions figures coming from the U.S Congress. And we have seen what this has produced so far -- The Iraqi Genocide.