ihath

Seven Oak magazine published a review of Baghdad Blogger Movie, I sent them a counter review with a different persepective but it wasn't published. I thought I would share it here.

The 2004 Vancouver International Film Festival hosted the premier of Baghdad Blogger, a series of videos shot by an Iraqi man that goes by the pseudonym Salam Pax. The home brewed documentary style footage spans a time period of 18 months that starts from the dramatic capture of Saddam and ends with the violent uprising of Mahdi militias in Najaf. Salam interviews average people in the streets of Baghdad, shows the reaction of family and friends to the capture of Saddam and goes cruising in Sader city with Mahdi army militias who brag about attacking American soldiers. On the flip side the movie shows us more irrelevant and less media worthy aspects of live in Iraq. The young Iraqi man that starts a tattoo parlor, Salam trying to find a good liquor store to buy enough stash to last the whole holy month of Ramadan, the street corner smoothie shop with a colorful display of fruit juices. So who is this Salam? some people walked out asking after the movie. Is he a ba’athist? a CIA agent? a leftist? Is he in the pro war camp or anti war camp? One thing we know for sure is that he can’t possibly be religious with the amounts of liquor we see him lugging in one scene of the movie, but other than that, the movie doesn’t give us many clues.

In a polarized world, people demand clear cut demarcations, you are either pro Bush or pro Kerry. For or against the war on Iraq. A terrorist or a freedom fighter. With us or against us. On all these questions, the movie stays radically and defiantly ambivalent. On one hand he shows us the destruction in the city of Baghdad as a result of American bombing; on the other hand he shows us the new found freedoms that Iraqis are enjoying as a result of the removal of the oppressive Ba’athist regime. His heart bleeds to see the city of peace, the famous burial site outside of holy city of Najaf, become a battle ground. Yet on the other hand he seems delighted while viewing the wide plethora of independent news papers emerging in Iraq today when before only state run newspapers existed. He seems both delighted and bewildered to see the Shea’a processions happening all around Iraq for Shea’a religious ashoura celebrations, banned under the Ba’athist regime. Happy that people can practice their religion freely yet disturbed by the self mutilation that some participants engage in.

People that went into the movie expecting clear cut answers, left disappointed because there were non. I viewed the movie differently. I compare Baghdad Blogger to Forrest Gump, the American movie about a charming idiot that kept popping up at historically significant moments. Salam found himself in Baghdad, Iraq the most talked about city in the last 3 years and he decided to bear witness to the madness as it evolved. Like Mr. Gump he does not claim to understand the chaos around him nor impart wisdom about its significance. This is daily life in Iraq raw and unprocessed, sometimes irrelevant, other times disturbing. This is not a movie about monumental heroics, nor about experts with well refined opinions. This movie is a about the idiot who dares to show it like it is, without spin, without context and without towing the party line.

Lets beat to the chase, “Was the war worth it?”, Salam asks at one point in the movie. Well sometimes you need acknowledge the truth staring you straight in the face. While I went to every single anti war rally for months, despise the American foreign policy in the middle east, believe the US’ support for Israel is equivalent to crimes against humanity and resent seeing foreign troops in my own country, even I have to acknowledge that there have been positive outcomes from the American occupation of Iraq, even in my personal life. I used to go to many demonstrations apposing US and Israel in the city of Vancouver but would not dare speak a single word of criticism against the former Iraqi regime for fear of causing catastrophic outcomes to relations still residing in Iraq. Three years ago, whenever I met another Iraqi I would approach them with suspicion, “they might be a Ba’athist”, “they might be a spy for Saddam” the little voice would say inside my head. Today I feel comfortable to talk to anybody without the need to qualify their political affiliations. And If I in Vancouver was living in fear and silence, can you imagine the horror people living in Iraq had to endure? I never thought I would be saying this, but even I have to acknowledge that there have been positive outcomes from this war. I reserve final judgment until the promised Iraqi elections in Jan 2005. Salam being the ever optimistic fool has concluded that the answer is Yes already.

During the Q&A that followed the movie, I asked Salam, who was present in person, what his hopes for the future of Iraq were. He said that he hoped he wouldn’t hear about yet another bombing or kidnapping in the next 6 weeks. I do hope his wish comes true.

Life is a box of chocolates….each filled with liqueur, if Salam had his way. My chocolates would all be filled with dates from beloved Iraq. But, you never know what you are going to get.

ihath is one year old today.

I know you are all shaking all your heads with disbelief, how could have a one year old child written all this nonsense. Ok! I am not one year old but the name ihath is. It was about one year ago about this time of the month that I went to bed tired and restles. As I was half awake and half asleep I heard a voice whisper the word ihath into my ear. Two weeks later I registered the name and shortly afterwards started to blog.

Two years ago, had somebody told me that I would want to write, I would have laughed at them. Me? write? But I can’t write, I am just a computer geek, plus I have nothing that I want to say, nothing that I want to write about. And then, just like that, in one moment all of that changed. I remember that moment vividly, there was electricity in the air everything felt intense and multiplied by 100. I wrote a letter to somebody that came straight from the heart. I was expecting that person to ignore my letter and throw it away, instead he reacted is such an emotional way that it completely surprised me. I realized that when you write straight from the gut that it can influence other people in positive and constructive ways. I realized that the keyboard can be mightier than a tank. And that was that, I never stopped writing since. It all was just a fluke. It came out of nowhere. I never dreamed nor wanted to be a writer before that.

And then I published the first article in a magazine. Seeing my name in print gave me such a rush, I have no idea why. But I just wanted more. Welcome to the crazy house of writing. Self doubt, self loathing, I am too stupid to write this, everything I write is trash, people will laugh at me, nobody would want to read this garbage. When I started writing I went to see the movie Adaptation. It is a movie about the messed up crazy process called writing. It made me realize that I am not the only one who finds it torturous. Writing requires hours and hours of being completely inside your head listening to your own inner voice. Spending that much time inside your head can drive one crazy. My friend Alyson tells me that I should quit my job and dedicate myself to writing alone. I completely disagree with her. I think, thank god I have a job, kids, and other activities that provide some sane, normal life balance to my life. If I was doing nothing but writing I know I would go crazy. I would become one of those weird people that talk to themselves on the bus. In fact, I don’t think that writing is my ultimate goal, dream and passion. My ultimate dream is something else. I think I just have a limited number of things that I feel compelled to say and explain and once that is done I will stop writing. One thing for sure, is that I will not write for the sake of writing. In fact I think my ultimate dream and goal is something completely different and that will require complete dedication when the time is right.

And then came the letters. I get fan mail that is so sweet and so wonderful that I sometimes have to wonder if it wasn’t intended to somebody else and ended up in my hands by a mistake. I sometimes read the fan mail to my husband, hoping he would be impressed by his wife once he hears what other people write about her. Most of the time he just shrugs his shoulders and tells me not to let it get to my head. There have been many more surprises along the way as well. When I started writing I expected that only women would respond to my writing because of the inwards and emotional nature of my writing. I was surprised time and again by long letters from men who were sharing with me similar experiences, thoughts and feelings. Turns out that the inner world of men is just as complex as the inner world of women….who knew?.... what a gift to discover that. Then there was the playful fun that I discovered I could have once I had my own blog. Many of the posts on my blog are really aimed at a single person. They contain keywords and references that only that person would understand, disguised as yet another post to everybody else. It has been so much fun. I discovered that a blog can be a great way to pull somebody’s goat. I also discovered that people now fear me, because they are afraid that if they annoy me that I will blog about it and cause them public embarrassment. I frequently hear from a friend “ You are not going to blog about that, are you?” right after he says something really stupid. Or “I kept checking your blog all day long because I was sure you would blog about that stupid thing I did yesterday” from another person. Wow! it is like I have this power or influence that I never had before. Then there is the positive influence it had on my family. Every week I print out my post and give it to my mom and dad, usually the post becomes the source of lively discussion on our family weekly lunch get together. My mom says it has helped her understand me better, and we had a few cries together. My husband thinks that I use the blog in order to get back at him for the few times he upset me. My dad delights in finding factual and historical mistakes in my writing. When I started this I told each member of my family that they have a veto right to remove anything from my writing that concerns them if they find it upsetting. My family frequently disagrees with me but non of them have used their veto right, not even once. Which made me realize what a cool family I have. And then right out of the blue I get an email from Atheby of moodless.net fame telling me that he created a new design for my website. Wow! ihath gets a new dress for her first birthday. I can’t think of a better or a nicer gift you could give a blogger. I am still working out some of the kinks out of the new template so please be patient.

There are also unaswered questions, are virtual friendships real friendships or are they more like having imaginary friends?.... I am still thinking on that one.

Frequently people ask me if it bothers me when they link to my website. Why on earth would it bother me if you link to my website? The more links the better. Each time somebody links to my website, I do the linky linky dance, which is similar to the Macarana dance. I would be willing to teach it to any new bloggers.

George Orwell wrote thought provoking stories. But more importantly he bravely lived out his believes. He participated in the second world war against the nazis and volunteered in the spanish civil war against Franco. He actually wrote very little, but wow! what impact. George Orwell wasn't a writer, he wasn't a man of words, he was a man of deeds. His writing wasn't even that great from a pure literary sense.

Two years ago, I went to a party at a friends house. It was during the time Iraq was being bombed in this last war. I met there a woman and started chatting with her. She was telling me about her husband, who is an american and was serving in the army and was involved in the Iraq thing somehow. She told me that his real dream was to write a book. That when he retires from the army (which was due in a short time), he will take a whole year off and finish his novel which he has been thinking about in a long long time. Later this woman asked me where I was from, I told her that I am from Iraq. She looked nervous after I told her that. She then started to apologize, she told me that her husband didn't believe in this war and in fact was only participating in it so that he wouldn't lose his pension. I wanted to ask her "What will your husband's book be about? Will it be about a man who went against his beliefs in order not lose a salary?" I didn't say anything. I just nodded my head. Needless to say I am not going to read his book.

If I am going to be a writer, then I want to be a george orwell not the wimpy military guy. To tell you the truth, I don't think that I have that sorta courage or strength. When push comes to shuv and things get tough and bullets start to fly, I am just a big chickenshit. So, I don’t think that I am going to become a full time writer. I will finish up the few remaining things that I have to say and zip it.

Happy first birthday ihath, you are only one year old but you have already done so much and made my life richer along the way. Not bad for a cheeky little fellow.

I felt violated.

As if he was able to read my innermost thoughts. The ones I didn’t tell anybody about. Private thoughts that I didn’t disclose to anybody not even those closest to me. My secret was out in the open for everybody to see. To be exposed in such a public way. How did he know? Did he read my mind? How did somebody who has never met me read my mind?

These were my thoughts as I sat down to watch yet another movie at the Vancouver International film festival. I had just settled down in my seat in anticipation of yet another Palestinian movie. I had seen several Palestinian movies in the past, some sad, some light hearted, some good and some really lousy. But I have never in my whole life seen a movie of any nationality that gave me goose bumps, this one had me galvanized from the first few seconds till the very last.

يد إلاهيه – فلم لإليا سليمان


Divine Intervention, a movie by Elia Suleiman. In the opening scene a man drives though the narrow streets of modern day Nazareth city. As he drives slowly he encounters pedestrians that he is familiar with. He waves and smiles as if to say “Hello there old friend”, but in the privacy of his car’s bubble he curses at each on “You stupid mother fucker” he says under his breath while waving and smiling in a friendly way. “Fuck all your sisters you son of a bitch” when he encounters the next person, “may you burn in hell you sad prick” on and on he goes, each time a wave and a friendly smile. The people sitting behind me in the cinema were laughing at this, but I was horrified.




I remembered a particular day I had while living in Jerusalem. It started with me taking my daughter to kindergarten, where I encountered her teacher.

“Good morning you stupid useless, good for nothing bitch”-- my private thought.
Instead, I force a smile and say:
“Good morning, how are you today?”

On my way to work I stop at the gas station to fill up the car with gas. Out comes the gas station attendant that always gives me creepy looks, like he has never seen a woman before.
“Hey you perv why don’t you go and fuck your self you stupid idiot. Only a desperate woman would even look at you, you prick” – private thought.
Instead, I half smile
“Fill the tank please, and thank you”

Then I go to work and meet one of my coworkers
“Here comes the stupid fuck who is going to make me miserable all day with his useless whining. Oh how I wish I could kick you.”- a private thought.
Instead, I force a smile
“Good morning buddy, nice day isn’t it?”.

Later on I have a meeting with my boss. I walk into his office.
“You pathetic loser, only an idiot would make you a boss of anything. You wouldn’t know how to run a shoe store.” – private thought.
Instead, I smile.
“Hello dear, here is the updated project plan document. As you can see we are making good progress.”

In the afternoon, I drive home for work, I am driving in the usual Jerusalem city traffic jam.
“All these stupid drivers honking like idiots, like that is going to make a difference. I am gonna buy a tank and drive on top of all of you.”
Instead, I exhale and attempt to be patient while the car nudges gradually.

I stop at the corner grocery store to buy bread and milk and encounter the store owner.
“You pathetic loser, wasting your life in a grocery store. If I was you I would be miserable too.” – private thought.
Instead I node my head
“Just the milk and bread for me, thank you.”

At the end of that particular day, I was lying in bed taking stock. I had spent my whole day in a heightened state of mental anguish and agitation. I had negative thoughts about almost every single person I encountered and it was exhausting. I felt completely drained. I wasn’t always like this. What happened to the positive and cheerful woman that I was? What happened to young woman that believed that most people were essentially good? What happened to the person that was eager to meet new people and have new experiences? I was only 29 years old yet I was turning into a grumpy cynical old woman. What remained was the shell, on the outside I was still the polite, smiley and pleasant person. I still said my please and thank you. Luckily nobody could see the manure stream running on the inside.

At least I thought that nobody could see my private thoughts until I saw that movie. I was terrified. Things only get worse after the opening scene. The main character is a Palestinian living in Israel dealing with the daily frustrations of life. He is passing a tank while driving in his car and throws a peach pit at it from the window and it explodes destroying everything around it. He is fantasizing about extraordinary events that help him deal with his frustration. One fierce look destroys a check point tower, a flying ninja woman character attacks a whole army …etc. The fantasies keep getting more absurd as the movie progresses. I remembered my own crazy fantasies while living in Israel, they frequently involved the army base located behind the Hebrew University campus. A toy remote control airplane lands right in the middle of it and blows it to pieces, a flood wells from underneath and washes the whole military base away, the mountain edge breaks away in a massive land slide and the military base ends up in the valley …etc.

Before I moved to Israel, I read the famous Israeli novel “My Michael
” by the known novelist Amos Oz. It is about the life of an Israeli women in Jerusalem around 1948. The novel ends with her fantasizing that the whole city is engulfed in a huge explosion, she watches the city destroyed by fire. I didn’t understand the novel when I read it. Why would somebody fantasize about the destruction of the city she grew up in, the city she called home. When I finished reading the story I thought to myself
“she must be crazy”
“the writer must be crazy”
Now I was joining the craziness and I didn’t even grow up there. In previous posts I told you about how much I disliked living in Israel, what I haven’t told you is that what I disliked the most was the person I was becoming in it. I was terrified. Mostly because my own image of myself was challenged. I assumed that I was a good, loving, caring and rational. I always admired people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King and others. What I realized while living in Israel is how special these people are and the fact that I wasn’t one of them. I certainly didn’t have their strength. I don’t give people advice about how they should follow the example of Gandhi any more; only because I know I myself failed despite best intentions. And if a pampered privileged educated middle class never touched a gun idealistic woman like myself started to have violent thoughts after only 4 years of living in a war zone, was it any wonder that those growing up in refugee camps were having more than just thoughts?

Luckily I had the choice to leave and go back to Canada before more insanity set in and leave I did.
In Arabic we have a saying “May god have mercy on a person who realizes his own worth” – رحم الله إمرأ عرف قدر نفسه
May god have mercy on me indeed.

Divine Intervention is the only movie that I saw were I wished I myself had made movie. I know nothing about movie making and never dreamed of making one. But if I was ever to make a movie it would be Divine Intervention and since it has been made already I guess I am not gonna bother now. I felt the movie was my movie in a weird kind of way. It is also the only movie were I wished to shake the hands of the director. If I could meet Elia Suleiman in person I would tell him: “you are a brave brave man and I admire you for letting us into your inner world. I am relieved to discover that I have a companion in dark dark world I dewelled in for a while.”

As for Amos Oz, my favorite book of his is "Perfect Peace", which I find more hopeful. I still find "My Michael" too depressing even though I understand what it is about at last.

It was the day of the talk.

I was about 15 or 16 riding on a train in Europe, far away from the middle east. On a vacation. Since we were going to be in this train for few hours with nothing to do. My father decided that it would be a good time to have the talk. He decided that I was old enough to know the secret.

No, I am not adopted. And no my dad didn’t have another wife back in Iraq with older brothers and sisters that I never met. It was nothing like that. But, what he did tell me, had equivalent amount of identity confusion associated with it. I might as well had been adopted, I might as well had discovered siblings I never met before.

It was the day of stunned silences. Gasps. One heck of a story.

“I am a communist”, said my dad.

I am the daughter of a communist. Surprise!

“Communism is a sinister ideology invented by Jews in order to corrupt Islam”, I was taught at school in Kuwait. Just one tidbit of nonsense out of many I was taught and believed while young.

“Communists are infidels”
“Communists are dangerous”
“Communists are evil”
“Communists will go to hell”

Given the valued education that I have received in Kuwait, it should be no surprise that I had a tough time adjusting to the idea of being the daughter of a communist. I was a good Muslim right wing girl, brought up with proper Arab nationalistic values. That is what I thought I wanted to be at the time.

I guess the signs were on the wall. I should have figured it out on my own. Why else would my dad be studying in the Czech republic? Why else did my dad leave Iraq in sixties never to return again? There were also other sighs. Like the fact that servants in our house always ate with us on the same table despite the strong objections of all family friends, who thought this to be odd. There was all the lecturing about how all people were equal. The way my dad would be deeply disturbed if my brother or I treated somebody from a minority group in a derogatory way as was common in Kuwait.

At that point I had a choice, either continue to believe that all communists are evil and will go to hell and by default my dad would be with them. Or adjust my believes and learn a little bit more about it. It was very hard for me to continue believing that the man who raised me and taught me that I was equal to any man despite the society around me indicating otherwise, could possibly be evil.

I found out many things about my dad during that train trip that I never knew before. He couldn’t talk about it earlier because it was dangerous to tell a child information that could get you killed. You thought my life story is amazing? Wait till you hear my dad’s life story. But that will be in another post.



Ten years later, I am living in Vancouver and I get a phone call from my dad. He asks me to go shopping with him on Saturday. I agreed to meet him at the time and date he specified. When I hang up the phone I had the following discussion with my husband.

ihath: I just had the strangest conversation with my dad.
Za’atarah: what?
ihath: My dad asked me to go shopping with him.
Za’atarah: What is wrong with that?
ihath: My dad hates shopping, plus my mom always buys all his clothes for him. The man hates the shopping mall and he is asking me to spend the whole afternoon with him in the shopping mall. You don’t think that is strange?
Za’atarah: Maybe he just wants to talk with you about something.
ihath: So why wouldn’t he just come over and talk to me?
Za’atarah: Maybe he wants to talk to you in private.
ihath: Must be something serious then, do you think that maybe one of my parents is ill? do you think that maybe my parents are getting a divorce? It must be something big. He sounded really odd on the phone.
Za’atarah: Don’t think about it like that. Just wait till the weekend and you will find out. No point is speculating.

The dark thoughts wouldn’t leave me alone. I kept thinking about all the dark things that my dad might want to tell me. Perhaps I was adopted? Perhaps, I do have siblings I never knew about?

Saturday finally came and I met my dad in the shopping mall. “Ok dad, so what do you need to buy?” I asked him eagerly, pretending that I bought the bit about me helping him do shopping . We walked around looking at trousers, jackets, sweaters, and shirts. My dad would look at different things and never show much interest. He didn’t try on anything and didn’t buy anything either. When we finished looking at all the men’s clothing my dad said. Lets go find a coffee shop, I will buy you a cup of coffee.

“Ok, this is it, he will tell me now, It must be something that is really tough to say”, I thought to myself.

In the coffee shop we had a generic discussion about world affairs.

“Come on dad, spite it out, you are driving me crazy, just tell me already, I am dieing here”. I kept thinking but I thought that I should just let him tell me when he is comfortable. I thought I should not push him.

Then my dad got up and said: “lets go to the makeup counter”.

“Oh my God! my dad is losing it, I never heard my dad say he wants to go to the makeup counter” I thought to myself.

So we go to the makeup counter and my dad keeps asking me which lip stick I like, which perfume I like. “Do you like this one? Would you like me to buy you this one?”, my dad kept picking different articles of makeup and showed them to me.

“Ok, something is definitely wrong, I have never seen my dad even notice makeup in my whole life and now he is recommending the Christian Dior Sumptuous Fuschia lipstick, something is definitely up.”

Suddenly my dad looked at his watch and said: “ok it is time to go home, I will give you a ride”.

“Maybe my dad didn’t feel comfortable telling in the mall, maybe he wants to tell me at home where there is more privacy”.

So he drives me home and he parks the car telling me that he wants to come in with to say hello to my husband.

“Ok, maybe he want to tell me and my husband at the same time”, I thought to myself.

So we walk together to my place and I walk into my apartment.

Hey! what are all these people doing here.
My friends, my mom, what is going on?

“Surprise!” they all shouted

It was my 25th birthday and my husband and my dad devised this whole plan together in order to give me a surprise party. I started to laugh hysterically, I was so relieved that my dad’s odd behavior was nothing more that a stalling tactic to keep me out of the house while my husband prepared food for the party. On one hand I wanted to hug them both for making such a huge effort, on the other hand they nearly gave me a heart attack in the process.

Hey! Families, full of surprises. You think you know somebody because you have known them all your life and then you realize that there is a surprise in store.

Yeah he is a commie, but he is still the best dad in the world.