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 We learn more about the logos of Layla Anwar In "Why is Half of Iraq in Absolute Poverty?" Layla quotes a BBC radio show, which in turn quotes an Oxfam report stating that over 70 percent of Iraqis no longer have access to clean drinking water. Before 2003, all Iraqis had water to drink. The same Oxfam report stated that today more than 50 percent of Iraqis are malnourished and one out of three Iraqis is starving. Fifty percent live in abject poverty. She provides more numbers for us. Ninety-two percent of Iraqi children have learning impediments due to mental trauma. And ninety-nine percent of Iraqi children are traumatized for life. The logic, the statistics are all documented in the Oxfam report.
In the blog "Some Thoughts on Forgiveness," she explains very simply that the predator is still in her country, still killing, torturing, plundering, raping and sodomizing her people. The reality of the continuation of imperialist occupation cannot be disputed by anyone. Hence, does the question of forgiveness arise? The ethos, the moral character of Layla Anwar is unknown. She lives in Baghdad, thousands of miles away from America, and as per internet norm, it is unlikely that we will ever meet her. We cannot know in detail about her character. We know from other blog entries that in her helpless, hopeless rage, she does not hesitate to tell the reader at regular intervals, "Fuck you all." We know from reading more of her blog that she is a highly educated, literate and articulate woman. Frankly, in this particular context, the assessment of the moral character of Layla Anwar borders on criminal in comparison to the mighty crimes and tortures being committed on Layla herself, on all her family members and their family members, on the entire population of Iraq, on the rivers, the date palms and soil of Iraq. What right does the critic, any critic, have to discuss the moral character of Layla Anwar in view of the American imperialist occupation of her country with all the suffering that inflicts on her people? Pathos is pervasive in Arab Woman Blues. No other Arab, man or woman, appeals to the conqueror, the occupier, the invader, the rapist, with the depth and the agony that Layla Anwar appeals. She spews wrath and fury at us all for bringing such colossal destruction to her people. But sometimes she appeals. Perhaps in every human being, even in the worst of circumstances, in the nadir point of their existence, the flame of hope continues to feebly flicker. She recounts how Raoul's wife begs and begs his captors to please release her husband. And then she writes, "So when some bastard writes to me calling me a 'negative, whining, drama queen' because I am not using my 'talents' to 'uplift' the arrogant western minds into 'Forgiveness and Beauty' – Notice how the occupier asks the occupied to uplift him/her! I offer this postcard from Iraq instead of my usual 'whining'… Yes, take it all and forget about us. Just forget us … and let us breathe a little. For it hurts to breathe, really hurts to breathe in Iraq."
"700,000 killers roaming around. 1 for every 30. The biggest army in the world. The No. 1 army in the world. Sophisticated, developed, techno-logically advanced, surge after surge…applying "professional Darwinism" as one of your Senior officers likes to call it. And four years down the line, with its logistic support teams, its soldiers, its militias, its contractors, its mercenaries, its peshmergas, it has not been able to control and secure one neighbourhood, not one alley way, not one street corner.... Now what do you call that? I call that DEFEAT. Some of you think of Defeat the Hollywood way. Like soldiers head bent down, with bags packed walking away into the sunset. That is the movies, Dears. DEFEAT is when you have at least 700,000 assholes working for you and you keep increasing their numbers and you still can't make it. See what I mean? Now the flip side of defeat is RESISTANCE. Four years down the line, if you do not call that RESISTANCE, I do not know what is. And you are supposedly the No. 1 army in the world. You can surge all you want, bring in all the mercenaries in the world, pay trillions and trillions of dollars, hire every contractor possible, wheel and deal with every enemy you like, make pacts with militias, thugs, drillers, torturers, snipers … You are DEFEATED." Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, that is called RESISTANCE." So I ask you again – why? What have Iraqis done to you? Did they invade you? Did they steal your homes? Did they imprison you? Did they torture you? Did they rape you? Did they occupy your lands? Of course, some of you will come and present me with your usual condescending, paternalistic, patronizing lists of political theories, attempting to explain the inexplicable. Save your time and energy… I know all about your theories of imperialism, neo-cons… I also know all about your handy explanations regarding oil, cartels, monopolies, globalization. None of that satisfies me. I still need to know why? Why us? Why Iraq? Why this? Why now? If you fail to answer that question, then you would have not learned one single thing about yourselves. And I say yourselves because your governments are a reflection of who you are, your aspirations, your mindsets, your thinking, your illusions. You are part of it and it is part of you. And I can see right now there are nothing but murderous thoughts – yours…I don't care for your 'yes buts'. I truly don't. And that applies to all of you. All of you whose governments have a finger in the Iraq pie. If you had really wanted, you could have easily gone en masse, in front of your government's offices … if only 5 million of you, not more, only 5 million, had done that and had thrown your passports in a huge bonfire in front of your White House, 10 Downing Street or wherever the hell you happen to be, then I am sure, we would not be experiencing what we are experiencing now." She begins slowly, casually, with a flippant comment as if speaking to the wind outside her door. But then she begins to insert the searing intensity of her own character, throwing more and more statistics in our face, naming more and more varieties of torture, talking about this rape and that rape of her Iraqi sisters, and asking over and over, why? It will not be possible to forget that question, along with her hundreds of other questions, to the occupiers. She begins, almost sweetly sometimes, but with the bitterest of ironies, describing the gentle Raouf, his lands and gardens, birds and animals, and then she reaches the climax of his torture followed by the slaughter of his soul. And we are the cause of that slaughter, we are the cause of all the suffering in her country. We stand indicted again and again. We are the invading imperial army, we are the shallow, indifferent Americans living an easy, comfy life back in America. Who would forgive us? Is there anyone who would forgive an army for its invasion, with all the rapes, tortures, crimes and genocides that invariably accompany every invasion in history? Layla's delivery is abusive, derisive and denigrating. She is highly articulate in the English language, and she uses words to humiliate the occupiers to the maximum. She uses every word to shame us, to compel us to put our faces to the ground. She asks us: Will Iraq ever forgive you? I am the wrong person to ask forgiveness from. Ask Her. But before you ask Her, stop doing what you are doing. You cannot continue in your ways and ask for forgiveness. It is simply not possible. In the meantime, She will continue driving you out by the same equal sheer force that you have used on Her. Read Her history and you will know. And trust me, you will come begging for Her mercy." Garda Ghista is a freelance journalist, author of The Gujarat Genocide: A Case Study in Fundamentalist Cleansing, and Founding President of the World Prout Assembly, a movement dedicated to transferring political and economic power from corporations to the common people.
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