Baghdad
By Cicero | Related entries in WarFrom Healing Iraq:(via Andrew Sullivan)
Baghdadis are reporting that radical Islamists have taken control over the Dora, Amiriya and Ghazaliya districts of Baghdad, where they operate in broad daylight. They have near full control of Saidiya, Jihad, Jami’a, Khadhraa’ and Adil. And their area of influence has spread over the last few weeks to Mansour, Yarmouk, Harthiya, and very recently, to Adhamiya.All of these districts, with the exception of Adhamiya, are more or less mixed or Sunni majority areas. They make up the western part of the capital, or what is known as the Karkh sector (the eastern half of Baghdad is called Rusafa). These areas also witnessed an influx of families displaced by the violence in the Anbar governorate, since many residents of the western part of Baghdad have roots in western areas of the country, such as Fallujah and Ramadi.
People who live in the mentioned districts claim that unknown groups have distributed leaflets (often handwritten), warning residents of several practices, ranging from instructions on dress codes to the prohibition of selling or dealing with certain goods.
The instructions vary between neighbourhoods. Amiriya and Ghazaliya have the full menu, while others stress only 2 or more of them. So far, enforcing the hijab for women and a ban on shorts for men are consistent in most districts of western Baghdad. In other areas, women are not allowed to drive, to go out without a chaperone, and to use cell phones in public; men are not allowed to dress in jeans, shave their beards, wear goatees, put styling hair gel, or to wear necklaces; it is forbidden to sell ice, to sell cigarettes at street stands, to sell Iranian merchandise, to sell newspapers, and to sell ring tones, CDs, and DVDs. Butchers are not allowed to slaughter during certain religious anniversaries. Municipality workers will be killed if they try to collect garbage from certain areas. Private neighbourhood generators are banned in a few areas. And the last I heard is that they are threatening Internet cafés and wireless providers.
As a result, the remaining Iraqi women who haven’t yet covered their heads are now buying veils and more moderate dress. My sister now covers her head when she goes out to college, as do most of my female relatives. Trousers and short skirts have long been abandoned. Guys are now either wearing Bermuda shorts that cover their knees or just plain trousers. Me? I have insisted so far to keep my hairy legs exposed.
Other Iraqi bloggers who have posted about this phenomenon: here, here, here, here, here, and here.
I will try to get hold of one of these fliers, but so far no one has produced any.
And while the fliers may be a rumour, the killings of those who failed to observe the guidelines are not.The capital is rife with all kinds of morbid rumours. Some examples below:
- An armed group stopped a minibus full of high school female students. 2 girls, who had their hair exposed, had their heads shaven clean as an example for others.
- 4 young men wearing shorts near a local bakery at Mansour were all shot in the legs.
- A young high school student at Ma’moun was shot twice in the head with a notice saying that he was killed for wearing jeans.
- A lady was forced out of her car and stripped naked near the Nida’ mosque in Adhamiya.
Why don’t they just blow up the city and erect tents instead? It would make life much easier. We could go to school or work riding on camels. We could sit at the mosque all day, stroking and scratching our filthy beards and waiving flies away, while our women recline in their harems.
In short, they are trying to take us back to the 7th century, so we can experience the simple life of the prophet and his pious companions. We should abandon everything and anything that was not available at the time of the prophet in order to be true Muslims.
Yet the followers of this simplistic, backwards ideology have no problem with using hi-tech explosives, IEDs, machine guns and RPGs. According to their sick creed, it is not against Islam to detonate a car bomb at a bustling market or to shoot a kid twice in the head because he had gel on his hair. No, that is okay in Islam.
Are we winning? At this point in the war, I am not certain where to put my confidence.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 6th, 2006 and is filed under War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 6th, 2006 at 10:10 am
You can be confident that the Chimperor’s useless and ill-thought-out invasion has done more for radical Islamic fundamentalism than any other single act in the history of the world. And it looks like the dividends for the fundies are never ending.
June 6th, 2006 at 10:46 am
And why should this be a surprise? Fundamentalist Islam and Christianist fundamentalism have theologies that differ in detail . . . but their view on social issues is essentially identical. So if an adherent of one does something that energizes and strengthens the other (no matter whether the ostensible motives were supportive), anyone looking at the situation objectively has to say: Well, they’re helping their spiritual brothers again.
June 6th, 2006 at 12:06 pm
Sure, guys. Teaching intelligent design in biology class, or having the government not recognize gay marraige is morally equivalent to killing people for wearing shorts.
Why are you so averse to assigning responsibility for evil behavior on the perpetrators themselves? Just because they are people of colour? I bet you blame Canadian society for the Islamist plot to destroy Toronto, eh?
There is a soft bigotry of low expectations towards Muslims in the middle east, deservedly so, based on their own beliefs and actions. If Chimpy McHitlerburton made a mistake, it was expecting the greater muslim world to act like decent, enlightened human beings.
June 6th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
No, Jimmy, teaching nonsense is not morally equivalent to murder. And nobody here (except, perhaps, you) has suggested that it might be.
On the other hand, even a staunch conservative (e.g. me) can see that the fundamentalists in both sects are spending a lot more effort on trying to institute their vision of a past society that never was than in bothering to follow the teachings of their founder. And, from what I have seen, the visions of those fundamentalists are a lot more alike than either is like either of the teachings that they claim to be following.
Which is why I suggested that having one group do things that help strengthen the other (and both have) is not surprising. Do I think that they consciously did so? Not really. But the results remain.
June 6th, 2006 at 1:55 pm
The difference between teaching “nonsense” and murder is just a simple detail of theology then?
Sounds to me like you are suggesting equivalence, unless you think penalizing short-wearing with death is not a social issue.
If it comes down to evangelical protestantism vs. radical Islam, I would choose Joel Osteen over Zawahiri any day. When its all said and done, at least you can reason with the former, and they don’t face a penalty of death for changing their mind on things.
June 6th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
Pentagon Spins the Situation in Iraq (again)
Iraqis Believe Violence Will Abate, New Report Says
Pentagon Finds Hope Is Tied to New Government
Attacks and casualty levels against civilians and military personnel in Iraq have risen “substantially” since the December elections, but Iraqis hav…
June 7th, 2006 at 12:09 am
Joel Osteen doesn’t exactly count as a pernicious fundamentalist. Jerry Falwell does. Pat Robertson does. Tim LaHaye definitely does. And if you ever sit down and read a Left Behind book and see the kinds of things these Fundamentalist Christians fantasize about, it isn’t far off from Zarqawi. Are they putting it all into action? Not at this point, and hopefully they never will (though the new Left Behind video game allows children - yes children - to play the role of Christian terrorist). But both Christian and Islamic Fundamentalists suffer from the same epistemological error. They use ancient texts literally (and selectively) to prescribe social behavior today. Once you accept the Fundamentalist epistemology, you can be led to believe anything that will actuate the ancient text. Read through Leviticus and you’ll see exactly the sort of bizarre rules that current Jihadists in Baghdad are enforcing. Thank goodness Christian Fundamentalists haven’t reached the depths of the Islamic Fundie cousins and started murdering people for playing with dead pig skins or mixing threads of cloth. But the very fact that these ancient tribal proscriptions would be granted some sort of sacred value, as they are written literally, is dangerous in itself. The Bible is allegorical, pure and simple. It is a source of inspiration. But to use it as a science book, or a literal guidepost for behavior is catastrophic.
June 7th, 2006 at 10:18 am
I agree with just about everything you said Elrod, but keep in mind that fundamentlist Christians also fundamentally interpret the New Testement, which would indicate the covenant described in leviticus has been fulfilled. Thankfully, Jesus tried to stop people from stoning adulterous women in the streets. How many evangelicals are circumcized or don’t eat pork?
June 7th, 2006 at 7:22 pm
OK. If this site is supposed to be “centrist”, then why does it seem that most of the posts concerning Iraq/war on terror are the “doom and gloom” variety? Maybe it’s a wrong impression on my part. But how can anybody, even those high IQ types, reach any logical conclusion about Iraq without getting a larger view of the whole picture? And if we don’t have an accurate picture of the situation, how in the world are we ever going to figure out what to do next?
To do this of course, we need to be discussing BOTH the negative and positive. My perception is there exists a bias toward the negative. To me this reflects a desire to prove what you think is right, instead of a desire to seek the deeper truth. Those who throw around terms like “Chimperor”, in my opinion, have a closed mind like steel trap welded shut.
I also challenge those who aren’t of the Christian faith or have spent little time in church and then liken Christians to Islamic fundamendalist to get more Christian educated. You demonstrate your total ignorance of the attitudes and desires of mainstream Christians. If you would put the same amount of effort into understanding Christians as you do to slandering them and the Christian faith in general, I predict that you might actually be as embarrassed by of some of those more outrageous comments. I feel embarrassed for you as it’s really obvious you don’t understand Christians whatsoever.
Plain and simple: ignorance=prejudice
June 7th, 2006 at 9:09 pm
I find your link on My friend’s (Karl Szeiner) site. The informations and layout of you blog is amazing. Congrat.
Quincy
June 9th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
Lewis - first of all, they’re not talking about just any Christians, they’re talking about the rabid fundamentalists who do things like shoot abortion doctors and listen to Anne Coulter. They are the ones whose primary issues are abortion, gay marriage, and licentiousness of any variety (while ignoring slasher and gore films), and are the “whackos” that DeLay’s aide Scanlon talking about duping in that delicious memo the inquest turned up.
Secondly, how can anyone objectively look at Iraq and the fiasco that this administration’s mismanagement has caused there and have any response other than doom and gloom? Even moderate Shiites over there are now saying it was better under Saddam. The only people I’ve heard with much optimism about the situation are usually Bush apologists.
Thirdly, Bush has repeatedly earned the moniker Chimperor with his usurpation of congressional rights, heavy handed political browbeating, moronic decisions and speech patterns, and Rove’s “if you can’t find a scandal manufacture one” campaign style, among many other debacles. I’m amazed the man hasn’t been impeached yet, and I go even further in thinking he deserves to be shot for treason. Our country, our economy, our reputation, the environment, and the world will take decades to recover from the damage he has perpetrated.
Frankly in my opinion, anyone who still thinks Bush is a good or competent president fits the definition of someone with “a closed mind like a steel trap welded shut.”