On the "Great" Wall of Baghdad
Zuheir Kseibati Al-Hayat - 23/04/07//
Because the separation wall is an Israeli product, Arabs, who can never believe until they touch the truth with their naked fingers, can now rest assured of Israel's infiltration of our homelands, and, perhaps, our minds as well after it has erased from the minds of many the memories of calamities, wars and defeats. This way, its resounding victory has come through a means that is much worse than wars; by making Arabs kill Arabs and accuse each other of treason.
When Ehud Olmert condemns the Jews' self flagellation, by digging up facts behind their failure or success in the July war on Lebanon and the Lebanese, he is actually urging the Israelis to draw lessons from the continuous episodes of self flagellation of all kinds - in Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq and Palestine - some of which one would not wish even for his enemies. So is there a bigger victory for Israel than this?
The separation barrier is an Israeli product imported by the Americans to the heart of Baghdad, to 'protect' the Iraqis from Iraqis!
In the first case, Israelis came up with the apartheid barrier to protect themselves from what they called Palestinian terrorism. In the second instance, US President George Bush claimed the Azamiyah wall in the Iraqi capital was for the protection of the Sunnis from the Shiites and vice versa.
Around the Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah, a new 'Great Wall of China' will rise to protect dwellers from suicide operations, car bombs, and endless cycles of reprisal killing, as the Americans seem to be unaware - or perhaps they are - that they were actually turning civilians there into hostages locked in a huge cell, and that they were accelerating provincial projects awaiting the outcome of the decisive battle over Baghdad.
Since it is impossible to settle the situation in favor of one group, the occupation - after the failure of its security plan - seems to have settled on the option of the 'fait accompli' portioning of the Iraqi capital into ghettoes.
Thus, many walls in the Arab region rise, like the Berlin Wall once did. As a consequence, anyone standing before the barbed fences at the heart of Beirut would fear that the Azamiyah wall is only a rehearsal for spreading the Iraqi spirit. Then, the buffer zone between the two parts of Cyprus would be only a small, docile example, or, as time passes by, a tourist attraction.
Away form self-flagellation, after the scenes of killing and beheading have become a daily routine in Iraq and, once again, in Somalia, and as concerns over a possible Lebanese explosion grow, many tend to forget that each move toward the abyss and the abysmal fragmentation of the region has been fueled principally by the US recklessness and the selfishness of those screaming day and night to fill hearts with hatred of every thing the US stands for. This is as though this verbal animosity alone, along with death of the largest number of people, would be enough to defeat Washington.
In fact, nothing seems to better reflect the essence of the current situation than the image of this so-called 'hero', who massacred his family members, thinking it was the best way to prevent them from falling into the hands of the 'enemy'.
In Mogadishu, the second Baghdad, corpses pile on streets filled with the stench of murder. Who knows, maybe in a year or so the government there would like to try separation barriers. Then, Somalia's unity would come to an end once and for all, thanks to the US war on terror and the heroism of the Islamic courts.
These are the same kind of the heroic acts that led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Somalis, driving them out of their capital in the course of the struggle against Ethiopian invaders and the wars between brothers.
Displacement…?! Those who optimistically claim to undermine the moral of the Israeli enemy and the stability of the Jewish State, citing figures suggesting that the Jewish entity had lost 5,000 new settlers - who are the difference between those who immigrate to Israel and those who leave it in fear of the future, are strongly advised to have a look at figures from a Lebanese opinion poll that showed that 60% of the Lebanese want to immigrate.
For those, the nightmares of Iraq and Somalia are hell. The bet on our leaders to learn from the 1975-1990 wars seems to be a very risky adventure. For how could there be hopes or dreams while barbed wires cut through the heart of the capital, or how could there even be freedom?
To everyone in Lebanon and the region, what they used to hear of speculations and unsubstantiated accusations are now turning into realities. Wherever the walls of separation rise high, the search for the culprits becomes a futile effort.
Away from self-flagellation, perhaps the Arabs now have the right to hope that the Azamiyah shock will become a slap on the faces of Iraqi leaders that would force them out of their suspicious silence before it is too late.
It may also wake others up from their 'comfortable' slumber to face the swarms of extremism, which uses innocent people as firewood to fuel the scenarios and plans of fragmentation and the real key players in those scenarios.
Eighteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, history seems to be moving backwards here in the Middle East. More than a single wall of separation and suppression are now in demand for each country, once in the name of sects, and another time in the name of extremism and moderation, but always with the aim of redrawing maps.
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