Barefoot in Baghdad Read online

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2010 by Manal M. Omar

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  Cover design by Kirk DouPonce/Dog Earred Design

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Omar, Manal M.

  Barefoot in Baghdad : a story of identity—my own and what it means to be a woman in chaos / by Manal M. Omar.

  p. cm.

  1. Women—Iraq—Social conditions. 2. Muslim women—Iraq. 3. Muslim women—United States. 4. Iraq—Social conditions. I. Title.

  HQ1735.O43 2010

  305.48’89275670090511—dc22

  2010010666

  Table of Contents

  Front Cover

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Author's Note

  Introduction

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Reading Group Guide

  About the Author

  Take Action

  Back Cover

  Dedication

  To my parents, Dr. Mohammed and Mrs. Lamah Omar, and my husband for supporting me even during times of madness.

  First and foremost to my parents, Dr. Mohammed and Mrs. Lamah Omar, for supporting me always.

  A special thanks to my Iraqi staff, past and present. I wish I could name you one by one, but I know how precious your anonymity is. You remain the true silent heroes behind all the great work. Thank you for providing me with the access to know your country intimately, and for always making me feel at home.

  Thanks to my editor, Shana Drehs, for her endless patience, and to all the staff at Sourcebooks for their time to make this happen.

  A few shout-outs:

  To Nadia Roumani for being my rock and mentor and, more specifically, for locking me in her apartment in New York for ten days to write out the first few chapters. And none of that would have even happened without Rhonda Roumani and Annia Ciezadlo convincing me I had a story to tell.

  To Corey Saylor, Elizabeth Detwiller, Negina Sawez, and Shirin Sinnar for reading through the entire manuscript and taking the time to give me all the wonderful, and not so wonderful, feedback. Special thanks to Nadine Ajina, Talib Mukhlis, Dr. Anas Ali, and Aisha Ali in the UK for being our family when we were in exile, and for pushing me to finish what I had started.

  To Khitam and Saja, for being the powerful Iraqi women that you are and restoring my faith in true sisterhood. To Amena Chenzai, Dalal Al Toukhi, Aunt Vicki Al Toukhi, Tannaz Haddadi, Muna Shami, Nicole Correri, Tooba Mayel, and Tariq Ammous for the constant support.

  To Inayet Sahin and Zeena Altalib for being my moral compass.

  To Hani: I will always see you as my baby brother and continuously look to you for your wise words.

  To the amazing women who constantly remind me of our inner strength. I am blessed to have had your support on Iraq: Lady Anne Greenstock, Edit Schleffer, Khanim Latif, Laila Noureldin, Lucie Aslou, Magda El Sanousi, Oroub Al Abed, and Zainab Salbi.

  To the future: my nieces and nephews Noor, Jude, Mohammed, and Abdul Malik Omar; Raya, Marya, and Petra Mufti; Adam and Zaid Omar; Fatima, Ali, and Hamza Al Dubaisi. You are the source of all my optimism.

  And most importantly, thanks to my husband. I would not have remembered half the stories or the details without you. Thanks for being my solid foundation, and keeping me grounded always.

  Names, geographic locations, and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect those whose stories are shared. This is my personal journey; the views expressed are my own and do not represent the policy of Women for Women International.

  Barefoot in Baghdad takes its title from a popular Iraqi-Turkmen proverb that says, “Walk barefoot and the thorns will hurt you.” It is often used as a warning to those who challenge societal norms.

  Throughout my childhood I struggled to answer the simplest of questions: where are you from? I was born in Saudi Arabia to Palestinian parents who moved to Lubbock, Texas, when I was six months old. During my childhood, my parents would uproot me every few years, from Texas to South Carolina to Virginia. Living in the American South, I was far from the image of a Southern belle, and yet the summers I spent in the Middle East only emphasized my American identity and made it clear to me that I would also never exactly be an Arab poster child.

  By the time I was in high school, I had learned to embrace and love all parts of my joint identity with the fervor only a teenager could feel. I was an Arab and an American. I was a Palestinian and a Southerner. I was a Muslim and a woman. As I grew, I accepted that the emphasis on each facet of my identity would shift with the phases of the moon. Growing up in a world struggling to understand multiculturalism, I saw this ability to move among my many identities as my own secret superpower.

  Propelled by the conviction that my identities provided me with a competitive advantage, I embarked on a career in international development. My mother argued that somewhere along the way I became delusional, perhaps because my desire to make a difference in the world led me to a career in humanitarian aid in conflict zones.

  With my secret superpower tucked away, I was among the first international aid workers to arrive in Baghdad in 2003. I would also be among the last to leave. The two intervening years inside Iraq would transform my life forever.

  Many writers have attempted to capture in words what happened in Iraq during the watershed years of 2003 through early 2005. Some authors have written about the political maneuvering behind the walls of the Green Zone or the military strategy as seen by journalists embedded in the armed forces. But until now, none of them have written from the viewpoint of an international aid worker who had access to both everyday Iraqi citizens and the people in power on the U.S. and Iraqi sides.

  In Iraq, I was finally able to put my superpower to full use. A wave of my American passport at
the checkpoint of the fortified Green Zone allowed me access to the representatives of the U.S.-led coalition. My adherence to Muslim dress and my fluent Arabic made it possible for me to live in an Iraqi neighborhood with no armed security. This unique access allowed me to see an Iraq that was accessible to few others. With each passing season, the country would shed its skin from the past and emerge as a completely new place. Who was better positioned to adapt within a country experiencing a period of tumultuous change than someone who had been raised with an ever-shifting identity? In Iraq, I found a place with as many complicated contradictions as I had in myself. Here, though, my internal complexity was manifested in an entire society. My international colleagues were struggling to force Iraqi culture into convenient boxes, but I simply accepted its unique, fluctuating shape. International journalists marveled over the fact that women who were covered head to toe walked side by side with women with orange-colored hair and wearing tight jeans, but I simply shrugged. It was natural to me. The mosaic of identities inside Iraq was not hypocritical or schizophrenic; it was what made the country powerful.

  Nevertheless, that mosaic was shattered by the eruption of violence that followed on the heels of the U.S. invasion. From weapons of mass destruction to suicide bombings, the lives of everyday Iraqis became inextricably linked to violence. The hopes and dreams that Iraqis once dared to share evaporated in the smoke of car bombs. The diverse peoples who populated Iraq—Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians, Muslims, Christians, Sabaeans—had once sipped tea at their doorsteps, but now they had disappeared from the streets. Women hid behind closed doors. The only images from within Iraq were of death and destruction. The only feelings people described were betrayal and despair. Overnight, that brilliant diversity—Iraq’s own secret superpower—was forgotten, buried under the rubble left by bombs.

  ***

  My story is not one of statistics and death tolls or descriptions gleaned from short visits to the Green Zone. Instead, my story outlines the journey of a nation determined to rise from the ashes of war and sanctions and to re-create itself in the face of overwhelming obstacles. But this is also my own story of struggling to understand my identity against the backdrop of a country in turmoil. What I experienced internally reflected what the country as a whole was enduring. As a woman, I could not bear to see the erosion of the simple freedoms Iraqi women had gained decades earlier. Gone were the days when Iraqi woman could walk in the streets unaccompanied or choose what they would wear.

  As a non-Iraqi Arab, I felt apologetic toward the Iraqis, who were baffled as to why Arabs from other countries were coming to Iraq to act as suicide bombers in crowded markets and on buses. And I was angry to witness the most powerful nation in the region being torn apart.

  As an American, I was speechless. I could neither attack nor defend my country, although I found myself desperately wanting to do both. My parents had realized the American dream, and I refused to believe that freedom and democracy were empty promises. But I could not exonerate the United States for its role in allowing Iraq to devolve into violence. The military’s most basic mistakes—not securing the borders, dissolving the Iraqi military, and fast-forwarding the nation-building process—had catapulted the country into chaos.

  In addition to coming to terms with the war and the violence that unfolded before me, I also had to deal with the implications of my growing personal attachments. My Iraqi staff, my neighbors, and local women’s organizations were taking great risks of being labeled traitors or Western puppets just by being associated with me. And yet I found myself developing my own family circle inside the country. The Iraqi women I worked with side by side became my sisters, and the men who risked their lives for my security became my brothers. I desperately wanted to prove my worth by making the lives of the Iraqis a little better, if not those who lived in the communities where I worked, then at least those closest to me. I avoided the thought that one day I would have to leave the country. And I refused to admit that my growing feelings of trust and admiration for one of my male colleagues could actually be love. Eventually, I would be both punished and rewarded for allowing the lines between work and my personal life to blur. Personal tragedy began to strike everyone I knew, one family at a time. People with whom I was close began to disappear without a trace.

  Barefoot in Baghdad is not a story of the war in Iraq. It is the story of the women in Iraq who are standing at the crossroads every dawn. It is the story of my time working with Iraqis as they struggled to create a new nation and a new identity. It is informed by my years of living and working within communities throughout the country. It recounts my own experiences and the stories of the men and women I encountered, each of them players in one of the most complicated political struggles of our era. It is also a memoir of the discovery of my many identities and the strengths and weaknesses inherent within them. Finally, it is a story of finding love in the most unlikely place. As my life became intertwined with the lives of the Iraqis around me, I lost sight of where my horizons ended and theirs began. Their expectations became my expectations; their disappointments, dreams, pains, and losses became my own.

  She was hiding. Then again, everyone seemed to be hiding. It was October 2003, eight months into the disastrous U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

  But she was practically a child. And her enemy proved to be more insidious—and heartbreaking—than the ones we read about and saw on television.

  Getting to her was my first hurdle. That meant having to clear a checkpoint, one of thousands erected across Baghdad. These makeshift sites were thrown together like a neighborhood potluck, except instead of franks and beans, it was a somber medley of military sandbags, Iraqi and American police, and machine guns.

  One of the police officers—an older one, with a thick trademark Iraqi moustache—stood to give me the third degree. Who was I? What did I want? The veil wrapped around my head did nothing to assuage his concerns. After all, Baghdad was teeming with American journalists and aid workers who wore the veil out of respect for local customs. He had no reason to believe that I was Muslim just because I said so.

  Having to prove myself was nothing new to me. I am a Muslim American, an oxymoron according to some. Back home, I’d grown accustomed to pledging my allegiance louder and more often than my peers. But affirming my allegiance to Islam? This was a first.

  The police officer leaned forward and demanded that I recite the first chapter of the Koran, something Muslims recited five times a day during prayer. It was like asking a Christian to say the Lord’s Prayer.

  Yusuf, one of my colleagues, lit a cigarette and stared, curious if I would pass muster.

  The semicircle of gun-toting men, combined with my light-headedness from abstaining from food and drink all day—this incident occurred during the holy month of Ramadan—was making it difficult to recall the seven verses. But I closed my eyes, and within seconds the words came spilling out.

  My questioner—to borrow a phrase—was shocked and awed. He returned my passport and waved Yusuf and me through. But not before raising one salt-and-pepper eyebrow: “Ikhtee, al bint moo raaha (My sister, the girl is shady).” It was the worst thing a man could say about a woman, that she lacked honor. He, of course, was referring to the girl inside. But his words also served as a warning to me. He was suggesting that I should think twice before cavorting with such people.

  I grabbed my passport. The chapter he’d chosen to test my identity—and my faith—was called Al Fatiha (the Opening). Indeed, it had served as my opening to gain access to the girl.

  Once inside the police building, an Iraqi police officer and a U.S. Military Policeman (MP for short) practically tackled me in an effort to argue their case. Their words were a cacophony of conflicting reports. The Iraqi officer insisted that U.S. soldiers had no legal right to hold the girl in custody. He argued that she was underage, and should her husband or father appear, her male guardians could accuse the Iraqi government of kidnapping her. The American MP laughed at the mention of the gov
ernment and stated that the United States was in power now. He believed the girl’s allegation that she’d be killed the moment she was released from the police station.

  Both men were right. She would be killed if she were released. But the police had no authority, under Iraqi law, to hold her.

  Luckily for me, I didn’t have to make any decisions. I wasn’t there to judge or referee. My sole purpose was to ensure that the girl was safe, clothed, fed, and healthy.

  “I’m only here to speak with the girl. May I please see her?”

  The Iraqi policeman stepped forward and pointed to a room behind him. I nodded to Yusuf, indicating that he should stay and try to get the Iraqi policemen’s version of the story.

  I opened the door to a small room furnished with the bare essentials: stove, teapot, refrigerator, and square folding table. The girl sat in the opposite corner, her knees pulled into her chest, her chin resting on top. She rocked back and forth, barely noticing that I’d entered. I’m not sure what I’d expected, but the sight of her shocked me. Her skin practically hung from her bones, and the long, thick black hair stretching down her back emphasized her frailty. She was a child trapped in an old woman’s body.

  I quietly walked toward her and sat next to her. I wasn’t sure how to begin, so I said hello and introduced myself.

  She continued to rock, saying nothing.

  The two of us sat together in silence for what felt like hours, but probably only a few minutes passed. She finally spoke and told me that her name was Kalthoum. Then she offered me tea.

  When she stood, I realized why the Iraqi policeman said that he couldn’t protect her, not even against his own officers. The way she was dressed—in tight Capri jeans and a low-cut tank top—would have offended even the most liberal Iraqi men.

  The elite women in Iraq refrained from donning the veil. The liberal ones wore jeans or short skirts. Kalthoum reached far beyond these bounds.