The Iraqi community seems rather ecstatic, my friends’ msn title all pertain joyous messages over Saddam’s death verdict, Iraqi online forums are all hyped up with happiness, and most of Iraqis are keeping busy congratulating each other over this very “happy” moment.
As for me, I feel nothing, and I do not think that I am living a glorious moment, and I am no where close enough to be a Ba’thi sympathizer, I do not like to throw personal experiences that my family lived and went through in the air for the sake of creating a self-victimized anecdote, but I have to say it, yes, my father was imprisoned and he was on the verge of losing his life, because of a simple crime that he cursed Saddam Hussien publicly, he instantly got reported by Saddam's secret intelligence, and jailed, its funny we did not know where he disappeared for a while.
No Iraqi needs to be affiliated in any political opposition to Saddam to feel Saddam’s reign of oppression, because he with quite of a magic touch, influenced and affected every Iraqi soul you can think of, the very fact that I am Canadian now, is because of Saddam Hussien, and the so many dreams I have dreamt ever since I was a child in relation to my country, like going how I wanted to go to a university in Baghdad, never took place because of Saddam, and not only those pink like child dreams, but real messy, hard life that I had to endure like changing my high school six times, I had to leave friends behind and re-make new friends again, the very fragile life my family lived before we became Canadian, from Visa issues, not knowing to what country we should go to, since our Iraqi passport and nationality did not give us that many of options, and again, thanx to Sadam Hussien, the “savior” of the Iraqi nation, and thanx again for messing and screwing up Iraq big time, one of the richest countries in the world, we Iraqis kept a stright line in queues to get our food rations, and the piece of chicken as a Makrama during Ramadan, and thanx Sadam Hussien for creating his envisaged, dreary Iraqi nation, which only gave birth to collaborators whom they brought foreign rule, and occupying our country until this moment.
But I wonder, with all the pain my family had to go through, just to get away from Saddam’s Iraq, why I find myself not so joyous over his death sentence.
I mean, Saddam Hussien is and still is, the way I curse life or whatever when I feel mad, I use the infamous life “kharab Saddam”, a lot of Iraqis use it, its cool and comes quite handy, since it is so expressive of how we feel!
But why, I do not feel joyous over this sentence.
The big, big reason, Saddam’s overthrow and deposition into the trash bin, did not become a reality through Iraqis earnest hard work, and what I mean by Iraqi, I mean real Iraqis, who lived in Iraq and endured what Iraqis went through, and not because of some dogmatic force, that will later be used as propaganda to divide the masses.
Saddam’s sentence, is America’s hard work, it is the plan that America envisaged, especially that elections are coming and they do need some sensational Hollywood moves in here, eh! So let them flex their muscle, and show what they’ve got really happening in Iraq, covering their death tolls with something even more emotionally trendy.
Saddam’s sentence is politically right, it suits power politics, hence the powerful rules, but it is not in according to fairness.
I have Milosovic, I wonder, is he still having his juice in his prison, why isn’t he sentenced to be hanged as well, wasn’t he responsible for heinous war crimes, notoriously famous for ethnic cleansing?!
And what happens to other dictators, why indict Saddam and not Mugabe, why is there still so many other dictators roaming around freely with no International rule restriction over their foul, criminal misbehaviors.
There are so many ruthless figures have gotten their ways, for example, Henry Kissinger, whose responsible for the death of a large number of south East Asians, also, he got some misbehavior in Latin America. How about George Bush, dashing in to a country with no legal claim, barging into a country with no responsibility to maintain law and order, but only to perpetuate lawlesness, the Abu Ghraib scandal, I would like to see a real trial over what happened over there, and to verify whether there was instruction from top to bottom to normalize torturous means into the investigation query.
And not only foreign bullies, how about other Iraqis responsible for killing other Iraqis, I know Saddam was a hyena, I know the Iranian-Iraqi war served no purpose, but how about other collaborators responsible for killing other Iraqis, the ones who collaborated with Iran against Iraqis, killing Iraqi soldiers during the war. It is wrong and very wrong to think that Saddam is the only one, there are the others.
Trial should include for all the ones who have killed an innocent Iraqi live, and responsible in destroying our homeland.
I would have applauded this trial process, later the verdict, whether death penalty or not, if it would have been a solely Iraqi process, coming from the ethos of the Iraqi people and nothing else, I would have applauded this verdict if it was not tailored to suit the interests of foreign occupying forces in my country, and I would have applauded this verdict, if Iraqi people were smart enough to be a unified force, and one voice, and not clashing over a death sentence that has nothing to do with them and quite exogenous to their very wants and desires!
But then again, Saddam is guilty!