are we building a concentration camp in baghdad?

Observations of an Iraqi blogger about the wall being built to separate Shia from Suni in Baghdad, and why she’s finally decided to leave her country:

…The wall, of course, will protect no one. I sometimes wonder if this is how the concentration camps began in Europe. The Nazi government probably said, “Oh look- we’re just going to protect the Jews with this little wall here- it will be difficult for people to get into their special area to hurt them!” And yet, it will also be difficult to get out….

I remember Baghdad before the war- one could live anywhere. We didn’t know what our neighbors were- we didn’t care. No one asked about religion or sect. No one bothered with what was considered a trivial topic: are you Sunni or Shia? You only asked something like that if you were uncouth and backward. Our lives revolve around it now. Our existence depends on hiding it or highlighting it- depending on the group of masked men who stop you or raid your home in the middle of the night…

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2 Comments

  1. edweird
    Posted April 28, 2007 at 9:02 pm | Permalink

    I’ve been keeping up on Riverbend’s site for awhile now and reading this the other day really struck me hard. Hearing that she and her brother E. would try to leave the country and go somewhere, anywhere, else is heartbreaking. Their family has been through so much already and then to possibly seperate for the chance to MAYBE get to a place they can have running water and electricity on a regular basis… mere words aren’t enough. If Bush could read and it were within my power, I would make him read the book compiling her blog entries over and over again until he dies a slow bitter death of old age. He and his deserve nothing less.

  2. egpenet
    Posted April 28, 2007 at 10:11 pm | Permalink

    The latest I’ve heard is Maliki stopped the wall in Baghdad, much to Petreus’s dismay.

    I don’t get the wall thing … walls that separate a family’s house from their olive trees or orchard or from the school.

    It’s still common in Ireland, when people meet to lean abit toward the other person and ask: “Now, what are’ya?” Meaning, are you Catholic or Protestant?

    It’s like here … “You live in Ypsi City or Ypsi Township?” … like it makes a difference. Hmmmmm.

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