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Chaos still reigns in the Iraqi capital and the large cities surrounded by Americans

Translated from Libération (Paris), April 12:

By Jean-Pierre Perrin
Saturday, April 12, 2003

http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=103237

The towering minaret of the Abu Hanifa mosque was pierced by an American
shell, and now you can see the sky through it.  When the Marines attacked on
Thursday, the imam, Sheik Wathic, was arrested, along with several other
clerics.  So the next day there was no Friday prayer.  Standing in front of
the sanctuary, a small crowd of very angry men are examining the sacrilegious
destruction.  One word is in every mouth: "vengeance."  Then a man with wild
eyes starts to yell at us:  "We've been coming to pray in this mosque forever.
 This is the first time we can't go."  Brutally, the loudspeakers start to
crackle.  And a thick voice coming down from the wrecked mosque issues a war
cry: "We should resist.  We are the sons of his country's revolution.  Iraq
will remain.  And we'll drive out the invaders, Inch'Allah."  The call to holy
war was issued in the teeth of the Marines, who were in position with Abrams
tanks a few kilometers further on.  "They have defiled this place."

Standing in front of the sanctuary, the men are furious.  So much so that it's
impossible to tell them about Thursday's battle, which killed one Marine and
wounded twenty others.  Everyone is expressing his rage.  "They have defiled
this place," cries one witness.  "If anyone tries to resist, their response is
to shoot at people and their homes," another adds.  "The Americans said the
war would be clean, that the people would be spared.  But what happened on
Thursday was the opposite," continues a third.  The fighting between the
Marines and some militia groups, perhaps even Saddam's fedayeen, holed up in
the mosque, lasted for several hours.  In the square in front of the building
can be seen burned-out vehicles and a throughly torched shop.  Another witness
swears he saw American helicopters arriving to drop soldiers in front of the
mosque, which is one of the oldest and most venerated in Baghdad.  Erected on
the tomb of Abu Hanifa, a theologian of the 8th century and founder of the
school of law whose precepts and rites well-known throughout the Muslim world,
it dates from the 17th century.  [Translator's note: an entry in the 6th ed.
of the Columbia Encyclopedia (2000) reads: "Abu Hanifa, 699-767, Muslim
jurist.  He founded the Hanafite system of Islamic jurisprudence, which gives
the judge considerable discretion when the Qur'an and the Sunna (traditions)
are inapplicable."  The 11th ed. of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1911)
reports: "[Abu Hanafi] was buried in eastern Baghdad, where his tomb still
exists, one of the few surviving sites from the time of al-Mansur, the founder
[of Baghdad]"; in its article on "Mahommedan law" the 11th ed. of the Ency.
Brit., Prof. Duncan MacDonald of the Hartford Theological Seminary wrote:
"[Abu Hanifa] tried . . . to construct a system of rules to answer any
conceivable question.  After his death his pupils elaborated it still further,
and accepted public office.  The 'Abbasids adopted his school, and threw their
influence on its side; its philosophic breadth and casuistic possibilities
evidently commended it to them.  Later, the Ottoman Turks also adopted it, and
it may be said to hold now a leadership among the four rites.  Its influence
has undoubtedly tended to broaden and humanize Moslem law."]

Suddenly, we hear cries and shots, and see some men with long sticks burst
from the sanctuary.  There is general confusion.  Everyone runs away.  No one
knows what's happening.  One young man thinks they're settling scores with
some carpet thieves who came into the mosque.  The Azamyyia district, however,
inhabited mostly by the Sunni middle class, doesn't have much crime.  It's
very different in the Al-Qasr district, where pillaging is common.  Little
girls are seen pushing footstools, little boys play with an operating table
with wheels, fat women dressed in black manage with ease armchairs that they
carry on their heads without compromising their veils.  So many chairs have
been taken from administrative buildings that you can find dozens of them
abandoned on the sidewalks.  A big red bus goes by, its windows broken, and
you might think that public transport has resumed.  "Not at all!  It was
stolen.  All these buses on the street are being used to plunder the city,"
says Imad, an interpreter, visibly upset.  Policemen are nowhere to be seen.

Sermon for unity

In Al-Rachid Street, the Rafidan Bank is burning, and the fire is spreading to
the neighboring house.  In the nearby Gailani district, flames have almost
finished consuming the Ministry of Commerce and a tall police building.  In
the garbage-strewn streets, stationary cars are either burned or without
wheels.  In the Gailani mosque, about 150 worshippers, of whom 15 are women,
are attending Friday prayer.  The Friday before, there were several thousand.
The ceremony is held in the courtyard, since the building is closed "for
reasons of security."  There is a new imam.  It's no longer Sheik Baqer
al-Samaraï, who last week promised victory to Saddam Hussein, summoned angels
to the rescue to defeat the "infidels," and promised that God would cause the
earth to swallow them up and would "freeze the blood in their veins."  "Sheik
Baqer has fled to his city of Samaraï.  Because he had good relations with the
government, especially with the secret services," explains Ibrahim, a computer
science student.  The new imam, Sheik Mohammed Abdel-Baqi, an old man wearing
dark glasses, is a Sufi (a mystic).  He does not speak about holy war: "You
must all be as a single person.  No more difference between Sunnis and
Shi'ites, because they (the Americans) attack them both.  You must help your
neighbors, watch their homes, protect their women as if they were your
sisters."  He adds: "Do not steal money, whether the government's or other
people's."  While the mullah speaks, you can hear intermittent bursts from
Kalashnikovs.

"The looters are now pillaging the arsenals.  How long is this horrible period
going to last?  How long will it be before they come to my house and kill my
children?  And if the water stops tomorrow?  What are the Americans doing?
Why don't they come reestablish order?" asks Hamid Jacem Mohammed, a
shopkeeper, as soon as the prayer is over.  The other worshippers ask the same
question.  "It's the responsibility of the Americans to reestablish security.
Look, there's not a single shop that's open.  How long can we live without
bread, without vegetables, without meat, on rice alone?" one of them exclaims.
 They all say they are shocked that the American army is letting gangs of
looters run free.  One hysterical woman screams that it makes sense, since the
Americans haven't come to drive out Saddam Hussein but to destroy the Iraqi
people.

Self-defense militias

This fear of chaos is sometimes accompanied by another fear concerning the
American army.  In front of the UNICEF offices, completely sacked, which are
on a street near the surprisingly intact French embassy, Hamid begs for the
American soldiers to be called to come protect his family: "I can't go to
them, because I'm an Iraqi.  They'll kill me if they see me coming up to
them."  For lack of anything better, he and his neighbors have blocked the two
entry points of the small thoroughfare with masses of flowers and branches.
Many Baghdadis are doing the same, piling up whatever they can find at the
beginning of their street.  The first self-defense militias are organizing,
too.  Imad, an agricultural engineer, is glad that there's one in his
neighborhood: "We have Kalashnikovs but we're not shooting at looters.  Only
over their heads."

--
Translated by Mark K. Jensen
Associate Professor of French
Chair, Department of Languages and Literatures
Pacific Lutheran University
Tacoma, WA 98447-0003
Phone: 253-535-7219
Webpage: http://www.plu.edu/~jensenmk/

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