Facts From A Country's Basement

I was born and raised in Baghdad, the capital of the Republic of Iraq, a lovely city in the heart of its country. A river called Tigris splits Baghdad in half, where both sides are connected by a number of bridges along the river’s path. Until the last year, I travelled to Canada with a study visa so I can study there and finish my education to get a better life. Living in Iraq had been challenging, not only for me, but for most of the Iraqi people. When I came here, to Canada, when people ask me, where are you from, I reply Iraq, some of them never heard of it, and some of them got into a shock and they start wondering about how did I survive there. Well, I survived as most of the Iraqi people did, but not with a good life. I had a wonderful life there, with a loving parents, and wonderful three younger brothers. I was born in 2001, in the middle of a war, the American-Iraqi war, when the Americans came and put their hands on our land. My childhood was full of scare and terror, I remember when I was a child of seven years old or so, there was an attack near my grandparents’ house, while we were there, and the only thing I was able to hear are gunshots and people screaming, while my uncle was fixing his car outside and we begged him to come inside. I remember particularly I was crying all night, and my mom was trying to calm me down, and I was frightened of the Americans coming from underneath my bed. This was not only for me, my parents also went through this, and I think it was much tougher. They were born during the ruling of the former president Saddam Hussein, who made a lot of wars against different neighbour countries. When I ask them about their childhood, they tell it as a usual storytelling, a fairytale that parents tell their kids to make them sleep. For my father, who is now a successful doctor, his father was taken as a prisoner in the Iranian-Iraqi war, and was absent in my father’s life for almost 20 years, he was taken away at the time when they needed him the most. But, however, they made it through. For my mom, who was an English teacher, she had not a bad life, but it was full with terror all the time. She described to me the situation of her family during the war, as being cut out of food, money, and other living needs. I remember the most, her telling me that when they heard the airplane sound passing above them , they hid beneath the kitchen table, scared of bombing. Regardless of all of that, they made it through, they met each other, and made a family.

Sometimes, when I tell my friends here, in Canada, about what the usual things in Iraq that happens regularly, like explosive cars, people kill each other, corruption, wars, and ISIS, their mouths fall to the ground. But for me, and for most of the Iraqi people, we got used to it. Most of the people around the world, and especially here in Canada are used to music, scientific discoveries, education, exploring space, But we are only used to death. Death became a very important aspect of our daily lives, we can’t live without it anymore, it’s what make our days. The first time in my life, I heard an explosion that happened few kilometers away from my house when I was about 8 years old, I remember then, when I heard the sound, I didn’t know it was a bomb, I thought it was a balloon exploded due to a lot of air filling, but when I saw my mom crying and frightened and saying: “It is an explosive car!” I learned then there are bombs.

I remember after the American-Iraqi war finished and Americans took over us, we left to Syria, with all of my relatives and family. We stayed there so we can get an immigration pass to Canada, while we were there, the American executed the president Saddam Hussein in 2006, and they put it on TV, I saw the execution myself while I was 6 years old, and my uncle with my father were pushing me and my cousin so we don’t see it, but I saw it. It was the first time for me I see an execution, I remember all the details of it, as a wonderful childhood painting. When I think about it, Iraq never had peace in its entire history, always was involved in wars and invasions, but even though, it is still there, on the map.

Then I started growing up, and I passed the primary school with fun years filled with terror over them. I made it to the high school, which was my toughest years before I came to Canada. I was in a process of realizing things, knowing and learning new stuff, the process to be an adult later on. These years cannot pass peacefully, there must be something to continue the war, and killing more innocent people. During my high school, ISIS started forming In Iraq and Syria, when it started, I did not know about it, I heard it from my History teacher who was telling us about them, and I was puzzled because I heard the name for the first time and I thought who is that woman, cause of ISIS name in Arabic. I actually thought it must be a Greek monster from the old Greek Mythologies. I hope it was what I expected, but it wasn’t. They were an armed group who claims to be spreading Islam in Syria and Iraq, who were already Muslim countries!. I started seeing videos for them committing murders on TV, massacres, rape, and head cuttings. They first took over the city of Mosul, which is in the north of Iraq, then they crawled to the middle into Baghdad, but they couldn’t reach it. My grandparents of my father side they live above Baghdad in about two hours, in a city called Balad. They were surrounded by ISIS, and nobody could get out or get in. When I used to hear from them, their stories of how they survived are terrifying. When ISIS came and surrounded their city, all of their people got volunteered to defend their city, from a 14 years old and older, all of them were carrying a weapon to defend their land and pride. All my uncles were involved in defending their lives, and their land. They were ready to die, as I said before we love death. Death gives us purpose to live and enjoy our lives. I remember when they kicked them out, I went to visit my grandparents and my uncles there, nearly the whole way, from Baghdad to Balad, 75 kilometers were decorated of pictures for the people who died in the war, I saw even pictures for kids bunch of times. A thought came to me that day, a thought never left my mind, and still inside my mind till now, death always like to embrace young people, who are not used to life yet, who are easy to be taken, to be stolen away from those who created them, who did not enjoy life before they can live it. At that time, when we arrived, and I met them, we were happy to meet each other after a long time. After two days, we heard explosions and saw people running in the streets and getting into their cars, I was frightened and I started crying, my mother was frightened and started crying too. These explosions were an attack on a holy tomb near the area, several people were wearing bombs wrapped all over their body, got inside it and explode it to kill as many people as they can. At that moment, at that day, I felt death is grabbing me, seducing me with its beauty and elegance. I remember I took my physics books with me, I was writing some article about some topic, and while I was crying I was with my books in a room, holding them and crying, I did not expect life to be that short. Sometimes, I start wondering about all of that, and say that’s why we have the largest graveyard in the whole world, we have all the requirement to make this graveyard and record it in Guinness, we have bodies, and we like to bury them in one place, so they can communicate after death, to be close to each other, to tell their stories of death to each other and have fun at midnights.

As I kept growing up, and learning more, I started questioning everything around me, as may some of you know, I love physics and it is my biggest passion. I started questioning my religion, Islam. Normally, this process we all been through when we were teenagers, so we can develop our own way of thinking and deducing. But, however, this was not easy for me. In the school, I had problems from both, the students and teachers, who instead of helping me answering my questions and giving me a better understanding, they stood up against me and fought me. As a loner teenager, I learned how to live alone, and to deal with loneliness, which became one of my best friends. I had both horrible teachers and wonderful teachers, as all of us had have in high school, but most of the teachers wanted to get rid of me, because they were afraid of my ideas, and my questions, afraid of them getting spread out like plague among other students, because they know deep down themselves that what they are committed to is not reasonable. I tried to share my ideas with them, but they shared their hate with me. I remember once, and I will never forget, when the teachers planned to take me down once and for all, they sent a colleague of mine, which was with me in the class, to search my school bag, and take anything weird he finds, my book that I was reading was taken away, I thought it was stolen by somebody, I went to the teachers to tell them, and they said we will look into it. I knew they will never do that, so I had to find it myself. After many investigations, it turned out that it is with the same teachers who I asked, and they told me, if you do it again you will be expelled. As if I did something wrong by reading a novel called “The Twenty Fifth Hour,” they got scared by a novel, a story, that gives us hope to live and pushes us through time to meet the future.

Even though I have came to Canada, but death still spinning around me like a storm spinning around a dead tree in the desert. It is like a curse, a curse of being born, a curse that orbits around me like the Earth orbits the sun every year, where people celebrate every new orbit, but I celebrate every new death with my thoughts and words.

In Iraq there is always an end with no happily ever after. All the stories are born out of the uterus of tragedy, that carries all the suffer and gives a newborn tragedy. My story is a simple story of a teenager, who took a short peak on the way of this tragedy was born. With every new child, a new story wrapped with the scarf of tragedy is born. That’s why we can live through all of this, because we know how to live side by side with death.

“There lies before us, if we choose, continued progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal, as human beings, to human beings: Remember your humanity and forget the rest.” -Albert Einstein