Its been a while. So time for something new.
A friend turned me on to an article in the NY Times detailing the post-Iraq life of Shaheen Khan, a Pakistani woman who is now paralyzed after a few months as a laundry worker in the Green Zone in Baghdad. KBR, formerly known as Kellogg, Brown, and Root, and recently delinked from Halliburton’s family, is supplying non-Iraqi contract labor to create another kind of army, one that is without the privilege of combat training, ultra protective gear, tanks, and guns. Perhaps the only shield besides the vest and other government issue nominal gear that Shaheen has is the color of her skin, easily blending in with Iraqis. But in the Green Zone, I’m not sure it makes a difference.
Shaheen is living in a nursing home, and her insurance provider, AIG, is not willing to provide her enough to cover moving out of the nursing home and being cared for at home. This has strained her marriage. This has made life in Houston so different than anything she could have ever imagined. She was asked, “What are you looking forward to?” and she responds with a blankness with the words “nothing” flitting off her lips. When reading, I stopped for a moment to think about those being contracted out to Iraq, and realized its as if the American dream can be found in the Green Zone, that everything that is used to lure immigrants to the United States - the clean homes, suburbs, grocery stores with aisles of fresh food, the calm parks and sunny shores - are maintained by war and oppression abroad. Working for KBR is a chance to see first hand what it takes to maintain the America everyone knows and loves.
And I looked it up - how many jobs does it take to show people what America is all about? As of this post, there are exactly 1019 jobs available in Iraq through KBR. Electricians, IT folks, laundry workers, truck drivers. Salaries are not listed. But everyone knows that you can get a pretty penny. I know because someone close to me works for KBR.
This got me thinking about the level of influence that we have, and what we are influenced by.
I’ve realized that one’s life is filled to the brim with influence, and if one isn’t careful, it can be swayed by corporations like KBR, AIG, Halliburton, and any others. By Starbucks. By Microsoft. By any product we buy that holds a brand. Of course, many of us don’t have much choice; Shaheen was in loads of debt when she signed up to clean the underpants of the US Army. And it wasn’t her fault that both KBR and AIG screwed her over, and vicariously the US Government for generating and stoking the fire that is Iraq. But the corporations that saturate the landscape of the American and Global economy have sway over our daily lives to an extent that we likely won’t be able to realize until years from now. Unfortunately for Shaheen the influence the corporations had on her lives were horribly negative and violent, emptying her of the hope that led her to cross an ocean once again in pursuit of an economic dream.
For me, I have always had a distrust of corporations, beginning from the first time my father was laid off by a company, forcing our family to uproot to a different state, a different set of strangers to try and befriend. The distrust multiplied each time the pink slip would arrive. It got to the point where I would remain distant from those around me so I could easily pack my bags and jet off when the lay off would come.
Although not as violent, but perhaps as disturbing is the recent iPhone phenomenon, when I saw the man who slept and shat outside the Manhattan Apple Store for a week, and whose exuberance at shelling out obscene amounts of money was matched by another kind of obscenity, with him yelling “This is amazing! I can’t believe it!” when interviewed by the media mob. People were dressing their kids up as iPhones. The media fed at the trough provided by Apple, forgetting that bombs are dropping in Baghdad, Gaza, Kabul. That HIV is eating South African families alive. That the courts are chiseling away desegregated schools.
I am trying hard not to forget that which is important.
LA Times: “The Only Toll that Matters”
November 18, 2006
THE moment is fixed in his mind.
Ghaswan Mohammed is holding his son, Haider, in his arms, feeding the toddler pickled cucumbers. His closest friend, Khadim, is laughing. At the tables around them, breakfast diners pack the Qaduri, a waterfront eatery.
Ghaswan notices a couple of policemen leaving. Something is not right, he thinks, before an explosion rips through the restaurant on Abu Nuwas Street.
When Ghaswan comes to, he is no longer holding Haider.
SINCE THAT DAY in November 2005, there have been more than a thousand other bombings in Baghdad and at least 20,000 other violent deaths nationwide.
None of those lives was more precious than another. There is no ranking in such carnage. Unless you are Ghaswan Mohammed. Or Sawsan Mohammed. For them, the only number that counts is one.
GHASWAN STILL SEES Haider crying that November morning. The boy doesn’t like saying goodbye to Ghaswan, who drives to Jordan regularly to import household goods. When Ghaswan is at home, Haider insists on sleeping in his parents’ bedroom. When Ghaswan is away, he waits for him on the balcony.
Like her husband, Sawsan, 33, dotes on Haider. The precocious boy is speaking his first words: “Mommy,” “Daddy” and “food.” He imitates those around him, pretending to drive the family car. Sometimes he plays with tools, posing as a mechanic. Haider is named after Sawsan’s brother, a 23-year-old university student who was accidentally killed by U.S. forces at an east Baghdad checkpoint on April 8, 2004. Sawsan gave birth to her son two days later.
On this morning, Ghaswan is to meet Khadim, his closest friend since childhood, to talk about an upcoming business trip. Although Ghaswan and Sawsan try to convince Haider that Ghaswan will be back shortly, the boy is inconsolable. He wants to go with his father.
“OK, take him,” says Sawsan, “but don’t be late.”
After Ghaswan leaves with Haider, Sawsan begins cooking. She is still in the kitchen when the phone rings an hour later. It’s Ghaswan . She has trouble understanding what he says.
All she hears is “Haider is dead.”
AT the restaurant, the men are waiting for their food when the explosion blows out the windows and bits of the wall, overturning tables and chairs, covering the floor with blood.
When Ghaswan regains his senses, he is walking in a daze outside. He finds Haider and clutches him in his arms, refusing to believe the boy is dead. Ambulances arrive but there are not enough to transport all the dead and wounded. Ghaswan finds a taxi.
At Kindi Hospital, doctors bandage Ghaswan before turning to work on many other wounded. Chaos reigns. Ambulances and taxis bring more casualties. Relatives scream in grief. Outside, a man throws up. In the morgue, another man gently folds a flowery bedspread tightly around a body, as if tucking a child into bed.
Inside a makeshift emergency room, Ghaswan is sitting on a bed without sheets, staring at the wall. Tears mix with blood in his eyes.
ALONE in the house, Sawsan is screaming.
Her cries give way to an unanswerable prayer: “Dear God, don’t let him die,” she says of her son, as she drives to the hospital.
At first she doesn’t recognize her husband when she sees him, bandaged and bloody.
“Where is Haider?” she asks before her legs collapse.
At least 33 people die in this explosion — seven of them police officers. Among them are Ghaswan’s friend Khadim, 33, and their business partner, Qussay, 25.
Sawsan staggers to the morgue. Under the blanket, Haider is covered with blood. His head is smashed. One of his eyes is still open. She starts shaking him. “Wake up, Haider,” she calls. “Wake up, dear.”
SAWSAN holds Haider in her lap as they drive to the Khark cemetery the following day. The boy is swaddled in white cloth, like he was right after he was born. Sawsan wants the road to go on, so she can keep holding him.
At the grave, she imagines her relatives are giants as they take away her child for burial.
After a few days, Haider’s maternal grandmother returns from a pilgrimage to Mecca, bringing presents for Haider. Ghaswan and Sawsan can’t bring themselves to tell her about his death. Instead, Sawsan’s sister breaks the news.
Weeks later, Ghaswan goes to buy diapers, momentarily forgetting that his son is dead.
Haider used to sleep between them in their bed. With the child gone, the distance between Ghaswan and Sawsan grows. Usually, they would spend their evenings playing with Haider. Now their evenings are empty. They worry that their happy eight-year marriage may crumble, that death will undo love.
They turn against each other. They argue. On a couple of occasions, Sawsan tells Ghaswan in anger, “You’re the reason that my son died.”
He relives the explosion every day. He has trouble sleeping at night, and cries when he does sleep. Getting up in the morning is difficult. His mind is hazy with grief. All he wants is sleep. Sitting next to Sawsan, he’ll call her name but then say nothing, his mind gone elsewhere.
After a couple of months, they move into a new house.
The memories move with them.
Sawsan knows that her son is dead — she saw Haider’s body at the morgue, she held him at the grave — but still she fantasizes that he’ll come back.
Sawsan’s mother cries herself to sleep, clutching pictures of the two dead Haiders, son and grandson.
“I want to see him,” says Hanin, Haider’s sister. Her parents have stopped sending her to kindergarten, fearing something might happen to her. They don’t want to scare the 5-year-old, but they have told Hanin how her brother died. They want her to be cautious.
Vigilance, however, is making their life increasingly secluded as the violence worsens around them.
Sawsan thinks about others caught in the crossfire, losing loved ones. “It’s not just us.”
At first, Sawsan doesn’t notice. But in the new year, she realizes that she is pregnant.
IN August, she gives birth to a boy, Mustafa.
Ghaswan and Sawsan love the boy, and are grateful. But the newborn doesn’t heal all the wounds. He reminds them of the baby they lost.
Hanin calls her new brother Haider. Sometimes they correct her and she becomes petulant. “I want Haider, not Mustafa,” she says.
Sawsan is preoccupied with the newborn and tries to concentrate on the future. But some days she breaks down. She tries to hide her tears from her husband.
Ghaswan no longer drives to Jordan. But he occasionally drives a taxi. Sometimes, his fares take him past the Qaduri restaurant on Abu Nuwas. The lights haven’t come back on.
He can’t seem to let go of the past. But he knows he must shake off his apathy.
In their east Baghdad neighborhood, Shiite death squads roam the streets, killing Sunnis. In the early fall, Ghaswan’s 17-year-old Shiite nephew is gunned down on his doorstep across town.
There’s a civil war in his country, says Ghaswan, a Sunni, as he prepares to attend the one-year memorial feast for Khadim, his Shiite friend killed in the explosion.
Ghaswan’s family will not mark Haider’s death. They have done that every moment of the last year.
A few days after the memorial, Ghaswan makes a decision. He has lost so much. But he needs to save what’s left: his marriage, Hanin and Mustafa.
Together, Ghaswan and Sawsan pack their belongings and lock the house. Holding their children, they set out for a new beginning in Syria.
Their life in Iraq is over.
louise.roug@latimes.com
Times staff writers Shamil Aziz and Zeena Kareem contributed to this report.
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The day I read this article, I cried and was angry all afternoon. I’m still angry. I too am trying hard not to forget that which is important.
Left by jhiphopgirl on July 29th, 2007