Too Sad to Speak

I've been trying to write this post for the past three days but I didn't know how to start or what to write about exactly. So much is going on and I'm too sad to speak. But when I finally decided to speak out and started to type, the electricity went off! So have to complete this on paper now and copy it to the blog later.

The setting: - My room at midnight. I'm sitting in bed holding my diary book and a pencil to write. The room is dark, and there is no enough light for writing or reading coming from the famous Iraqi "Lala" [lantern]! I turned on the radio to break the silence of the night. I'm listening to Radio Nawa, one of the so many Iraqi radio stations which started broadcasting after the war. The station is playing the song "Foug Al-Nakhal" for Nathum Al-Ghazali, a famous Iraqi old singer.

There is war out there!

In the last three days, I used to wake up every morning to shocking and horrifying news. It all started on Wednesday, and I'm afraid that it won't stop! On Wednesday morning, we all heard the news of the damaged holly Golden Shrine in Samarra. I was shocked and didn’t believe the news until I saw it on T.V. some hours later as there was no electricity in the morning hours. Mom mesmerized before T.V. waiting the news, and I mesmerized at the computer checking the web and newspapers for photos and more details.

I first read in Washington Post that eight Sunni mosques were attacked after spreading the news of the damaged shrine, but the number suddenly rose on T.V. to reach 129 mosques, and them it raised even more! Could this be real?! When someone looks at the situation for the first moments he can think that attacking the mosques is an angry reaction from the Shiites after damaging the Shrine. But the truth is far away from that. It's planned well and played well this time! However, one thing I'm sure of is that the ones who damaged the Shrine are the same ones who attacked the mosques. Terrorists, insurgents or whatever you want to call them who did this terrible thing are trying to bring the country to civil war. Lebanon suffered a terrible civil war for fifteen years, and it seems that Iraq is becoming like Lebanon more and more everyday!

More news started to spread in Baghdad the next day about people taken from their houses in the middle of the night by men in black and shot to death in the streets! Who are those men in black?! I don't know if those news were all true or just some rumors to cause sectarian conflicts between the Iraqis, but some of this is really happening in Iraq. The situation got out of control!

On Thursday morning, I woke up feeling so gloomy after the previous day's bloody events, and I followed my Mother and sister to the garden to have our breakfast. Everything seemed so dark and we couldn't stand it inside home anymore. We tried to start a new day. Mom asked me if I remember Atwar Bahjat, the Iraqi reporter who was reporting from Samarra all time the day before. I said yes I remember her, and that she was teaching one of my cousins at school sometime before the war. I was shocked when Mom told me that she was killed! They found her dead with other two assistants who were with her. She was reporting from Samarra all the time during the previous day, everyone followed her reports. She used to wear a golden necklace with Iraq's map on in, and she used to show it on her all the time. I have a similar one and I wear it all the time as well. She graduated from my same university and college but from a different department. She studied Arabic language and literature. She was so brave and she risked her life to go to the dangerous places to tell the truth to the whole world right from the scene. She is a victim of terrorism, brutality and conflicts in the country. May she rest in peace.

Now as I'm writing this, I hear gunshots out there. Baghdad has become a city of ghosts. But even in the city of ghosts there are some ghosts walking down the streets, while in Baghdad even ghosts are afraid to go out!! It was called The Land of Peace. How ironic is that! Where is the government in all of this? It's nowhere to be seen. It even failed in protecting the dead people in their Shrines!!

I am a true Morbid Smile now! I'm watching my country being destroyed little by little, its holly places are attacked severely, and its people are killing each other. A great civilization of more than 7000 years is going to waste. It's the country that once was!

I started writing this at about 12:30 midnight, and now it’s 2:30. The radio is still on. I kept switching the stations and the gunshots are still in the open air out there in the city of hell. The radio voice cannot swallow the sounds of explosions anymore.

And at the end, I woke up in the morning to screams and cries of my neighbors. Their old sick father died in his bed last night!

Are you still asking why I am a "Morbid" Smile??