Badr Shakir al Sayyab and surreal Arab fantasies

Today I learned about Badr Shakir al Sayyab, the Iraqi poet who wrote "The Informer", which was used by the Angry Arab to condemn Mohammad Dahlan in a post. Today a Jordanian American named Habis used the poem to condemn me as a traitor, apparently because I remind people of Saddam's horrors and I support democracy in Iraq. Habis has accused me of supporting the US invasion. I had nothing to do with the invasion, but I was always in favor of assisting the Iraqi people in overthrowing the tyrant, the mass murderer of Iraqis.

I had nothing to do with the 1991 invasion either, but I remember very well how differently the Arabs reacted to that war, during which the US and its allies bombed Iraq for 40 consecutive days and nights, with smart bombs and conventional bombs and definitely the most bombs dropped on an Arab nation in the history of the world. The Arab "resistance" did not respond by sending hundreds of suicide bombers to fight the American invaders in Iraq in 1991. The Arabs did not care how many bombs were dropped on Iraq, as long as Saddam stayed in charge, and stay in charge he did, mass murdering more Iraqis along the way and building dozens of palaces while ordinary Iraqis struggled to survive.

The Arabs were relatively happy throughout the 90s and many of them moved to America to take advantage of its great freedoms and opportunities. It was only after America toppled the hero of the Arab world, Saddam, and put him on trial for crimes against humanity, that the Arabs and "Ummah" unleashed their arsenal of suicide bombers, many of whom were convinced that killing "apostates" will be rewarded by Allah after the appropriate fatwas were issued.

Clearly the Arabs do not care about Iraqis as much as they care about Sunni domination in Iraq. Many Iraqis are shocked to see Arab poets praising Saddam, and I am shocked to see Arab Americans using an Iraqi poem to condemn Iraqis who only want peace and democracy in Iraq. It is bizarre.

To add to the surreal irony and hypocrisy, Badr Shakir al Sayyab was a Basrawi and a communist. The Ba3ath party killed communists!

In February 1963 Qasim was killed in a Baath Party coup. Morris claimed recently that the CIA was behind the coup, which was sanctioned by President John F. Kennedy, but a former very senior CIA official strongly denied this.

"We were absolutely stunned. We had guys running around asking what the hell had happened," this official said.

But the agency quickly moved into action. Noting that the Baath Party was hunting down Iraq's communist, the CIA provided the submachine gun-toting Iraqi National Guardsmen with lists of suspected communists who were then jailed, interrogated, and summarily gunned down, according to former U.S. intelligence officials with intimate knowledge of the executions.

Many suspected communists were killed outright, these sources said. Darwish told UPI that the mass killings, presided over by Saddam, took place at Qasr al-Nehayat, literally, the Palace of the End.

A former senior U.S. State Department official told UPI: "We were frankly glad to be rid of them. You ask that they get a fair trial? You have to get kidding. This was serious business."

"According to Western scholars, as well as Iraqi refugees and a British human rights organization, the 1963 coup was accompanied by a bloodbath. Using lists of suspected Communists and other leftists provided by the C.I.A., the Baathists systematically murdered untold numbers of Iraq's educated elite -- killings in which Saddam Hussein himself is said to have participated. No one knows the exact toll, but accounts agree that the victims included hundreds of doctors, teachers, technicians, lawyers and other professionals as well as military and political figures."

So Saddam learned how to mass murder Iraqis as an employee of the CIA. It was the 60s! Badr Shakir al Sayyab surely knew of these events. He died of a degenerative nervous disorder at the end of 1964, almost two years after Saddam and his gang killed Abdul Karim Qasim. His poem "The Informer" could have been about Saddam and the Iraqis who were determined to imprison or kill Iraqi communists:

I am what you want: I am contemptible
The shoe shiner for the conquerors,
and the vendor of blood
and conscience for tyrants.
I am a crow
feeding off the corpses of chicken.
I am destruction,
I am ruination!
The lip of the harlot
is more chaste than my heart,
and the wings of flies
are purer and warmer than my hands.
As you wish...
I am contemptible!.."

The Arabs apparently do not understand that Saddam was an informer, that he became the tyrant, the conqueror wannabe. Saddam led Iraq to destruction, to ruination! Saddam and his gang of thieves and thugs were contemptible!

Update: Badr Shakir al-Sayyab "started his career as a Marxist, but reverted to mainstream nationalism without ever becoming fanatical."

What would Sayyid Qutb say today?

What would he say about the Muslims who've killed and maimed tens of thousands of Iraqis in the name of Islam? What would he say about the Muslims today who are so willing to murder Muslims in Mosques?

'Sayyid Qutb (Arabic: سيد قطب‎; October 9, 1906[1] – August 29, 1966) was an Egyptian author, educator, Islamist, poet, and the leading intellectual of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and '60s. Some Muslims even consider him a martyr (shahid) because of his execution by Nasser's government.

Author of 24 books, including novels, literary arts’ critique, works on education, he is best known in the Muslim world for his work on what he believed to be the social and political role of Islam, particularly in his books Social Justice and Ma'alim fi-l-Tariq (Milestones). His magnum opus Fi Zilal al-Qur'an (In the shade of the Qur'an), is a 30 volume commentary on the Qur'an that has contributed significantly to modern perceptions of subjects such as jihad, and ummah.

Even though most of his observations and criticism were leveled at his own society and culture, Qutb is also known for his intense disapproval of the society and culture of the United States[2][3] which he saw as obsessed with materialism and violence, "animalistic desires," and "awful sins."[4] In his estimate, "Civilization should favor humanity, not act against it"[5].

There are widely varying opinions on Qutb. While his supporters normally see him as a great artist and intellectual who died for his principles[6][7], many Western observers say his writings helped shape terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda[8][9][10][11] or Islamists in general.[12] Today, his jihadist supporters are often identified as Qutbists[13] or "Qutbee", though they do not use the term to describe themselves.'

Ayad Jamal Aldin

From Wikipedia:

'Ayad Jamal Al-Din (in Arabic : إياد جمال الدين) is an Iraqi member of parliament as part of the Iraqi National List. An islamic state secularist, he advocates the separation of church and state. He is quoted as saying:

We are like a bird born in a cage — America broke the cage open, but the bird does not know how to fly.

He is a young, Shia cleric, best known for his consistent campaigning for a new, secular Iraq. He first rose to prominence at the Nasiriyah conference in March 2003, shortly before the fall of Saddam, where he called for a state free of religion, the turban and other theological symbols. In 2005, he was elected as one of the 25 MPs on the Iraqi National List, but withdrew in 2009 after becoming disenchanted with Iyad Allawi’s overtures to Iran. He wants complete independence from Iranian interference in Iraq. He now leads the Ahrar party for the 2010 election to the Council of Representatives, on a policy platform to clean up corruption and create a strong, secure and liberated Iraq for the future.

He was born in Najaf in 1961 which remains home for most of his family, although he now lives in Baghdad. He has several brothers and sisters and his late father was a literary scholar, with over 50 books to his credit, and his uncle was the famous poet Sayed Mustafa Jamal Aldin. Although he eventually trained as a cleric, he was brought up in an environment where science, culture, poetry and religion were studied hand-in-hand. That is where his belief that our problems are ‘human problems first’, and not Sunni or Turkmen or Kurd problems.

Well known in Iraq for his stand against corruption, he is on record as saying that his mission is to see an end to the corruption that has seen politicians subvert religion to their own needs, and use their sects to determine their success.

His first public appearance was at the age of 16, when he protested against the state’s attempt to prevent other Shias from making a pilgrimage to Karbala. And that is why he campaigns for ALL parties to declare who is funding them, how they are controlled, and for an end to outside interference in Iraq’s politics.

He paid for his protest with his freedom, being exiled to Syria and later Iran, where he studied the Qu’ran and Shari’a for eight years and earned his masters degree in Philosophy. He is on record saying that he does not want a secular state in order to reduce the role of God in people's lives; he wants to liberate religion from the state. He wants to see an end to the political sectarianism that puts Kurd against Shia and Turkmen against Sunni, believing that “we have a shared history, and we have a shared destiny”. He has consistently argued that freedom, tolerance and security walk hand-in-hand.

He is the father of six children – three boys and three girls.'

Iraqi Poet Criticizes Arab Nationalist Poets for Supporting Tyrants

Another Iraqi recalls the methods of torture and murder by Saddam's regime and criticizes Arabs who praised Saddam. A must read, although gory and sad. Thanks Gilgamesh for posting the link!

Iraqi Poet Abbas Khidr Recounts His Experience of Torture in Iraqi Prison Under Saddam, Criticizes Arab Nationalist Poets for Supporting Tyrants

..."Renowned Arab Poets and Authors Kept Talking About Love and Freedom... They Lauded Saddam Hussein"

"I found it strange that renowned Arab poets and authors kept talking about love and freedom. They went to Iraq and lauded Saddam Hussein. Take Nizar Qabbani, for example. He wrote that the most beautiful poetry emerges from the [Iraqi] Revolutionary Council?! Is it conceivable that the number one poet of the Arabs mentions in the same breath poetry and the Iraqi Revolutionary Council, which waged war and executed people in the streets in Iraq?!

"Take a poet like Su'ad Al-Sabbah - the Kuwaiti princess who came to Iraq, and wrote a poem dedicated to Saddam Hussein... or rather, she wrote an article dedicated to Saddam Hussein. She wrote: 'A poet who does not write in favor of the war and the leader is a traitor. We must persecute him and burn all his poems.' Imagine that this woman, who should be talking about emotions and beauty, talks about burning and killing?! She was Kuwaiti and she said this in the 90s. She wrote in a poem about the sun and the sea: '... I feel like marrying a sword.' Sister, what is this? What is this cruelty? You want to marry a sword?! She dedicated the poem to Saddam Hussein."

Angry Arab points out sectarianism in Tikrit

Kudos to Professor As3ad Abu Khalil for pointing out the sectarianism in Saddam's home town:

"Tikrit University in US-occupied Iraq rejects a PhD dissertation because it deals with a poet who is Shi`ite born, atheist and communist."

However, instead of stating that Tikrit is Saddam's home town and discussing the history of persecution of Iraq's Shia, he says that Tikrit is in US-occupied Iraq, as if the US presence in Iraq is somehow relevant to the sectarianism in Tikrit University. The implication, I suppose, is that there is injustice in Iraq because it is occupied by the US. No mention of unfairness towards Iraqi Shia before the US "occupation".

The sectarianism would of course exist in Tikrit without the US presence, and if Iraq was not "occupied" by the US, the professor would probably ignore the sectarianism out of Tikrit, as most Arab and Arab American intellectuals did before 2003.

PS: The Tikrit Uni PhD student who was brave enough to base his dissertation on a Shiite communist atheist poet deserves much praise.

Great Poem

An Iraqi Brit slams Al Jazeera and the Arabs for their support of Saddam Hussein. I don't have time to translate it, but he says America is a liberator, not an occupier.

Iraqis laugh at Al Qaeda

After all that Al Qaeda has done to Iraq, it is good to know that Iraqis can laugh at the scum buckets. There is no translation for this comedic poem, but in the first few lines he says: "They made the Islamic religion hated. They made everything forbidden. Only the beheading of humans they made halal (permissible)." If any Iraqis would like to add to this, please feel free to do so.

Mutannabi

Click to enlarge:

Thank you Beau.

The Bombing of Mutanabbi Street
Baghdad, Iraq
March 5, 2007
A CALL TO OUR FELLOW BOOKSELLERS

On March 5th 2007, a car bomb was exploded on Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. Mutanabbi Street is in a mixed Shia-Sunni area. More than 30 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded. This locale is the historic center of Baghdad bookselling, a winding street filled with bookstores and outdoor book stalls. Named after the famed 10th-century classical Arab poet, Al-Mutanabbi, this is an old and established street for bookselling and has been for hundreds of years. Mutanabbi Street also holds cafes, stationery shops, and even tea and tobacco shops. It has been the heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community.

This tragedy is part of a wider and continuing tragedy, but one that we want to isolate and address---not only for the loss of lives but also for the implications underlying the destruction of a street where books were sold. Bookselling on Mutanabbi Street is no different from bookselling here. We traffic in memory, ideas, and dreams. In that sense, we feel that Mutanabbi Street starts at the front door of all of our bookshops. We strongly feel a need to respond. For that reason, we are putting together a memorial poetry reading for Mutanabbi Street, with any money raised to go to Doctors Without Borders. We have also started to form a coalition of booksellers, writers, artists, printers and readers. The reading will take place in the San Francisco Main Library Auditorium, August 26th, at 1 P.M.

These are some of the things we ask of you......
to put up a poster announcing the memorial reading
to perhaps host a small reading at your store dedicated to the book sellers and readers of Mutanabbi Street
to become involved in the coalition, in any way possible
and finally, to not allow the grim reality of this tragic bombing to slip into the numbness that has come about due to the daily horrors of this war.


Contact: Beau Beausoleil
The Great Overland Book Company
345 Judah St. San Francisco, Ca.
(415-664-0126)
overlandbooks@earthlink.net

Tribute to Rahim al-Maliki

From Ali's post Arab Wein Wo Tanboora Wein! Thank you Ali and Omar for posting this video.

New Iraqi blogger Ali has just published a post about Rahim al-Maliki and the Iraqi government's response (or lack of one) to his murder, compared to the response to the bombing of the shrine. The video is quite moving: Arab Wein Wo Tanboora Wein!

Iraqi poet killed in bombing

Powerful Words From Rahim al-Maliki
Famed Iraqi Poet Who Called for Unity Became Casualty of War

WISSAM AL-OKAILI/AFP/Getty
Baghdad, IRAQ: Iraqis weep over the coffin of Iraqi poet Rahim al-Maliki during his funeral in Baghdad's impoverished district of Sadr City, 26 June 2007

A famed Iraqi poet who used his art to call for healing and unity in his home country lost his life in the Monday bombing of the al-Mansour hotel in Baghdad.

The tragedy of Rahim al-Maliki's death imbues a new poignancy and power to the words he wrote in life.

"If you do not love Iraq

Then do not pray with me

You, Iraq, the land of well-being

When you stand tall, we stand tall

They throw stones at your windows

But your glass has destroyed their stones."

The Burning of Mutanabbi Street

An excellent post by IraqPundit about the Burning of Mutanabbi Street:

'On Monday, a car bomb exploded on Baghdad's Mutanabbi Street, killing 26 people and injuring scores more. Wanton murders like this remain frequent in the capital, with "insurgent" ghouls intentionally blowing up young schoolgirls and women in outdoor markets. Still, there was an extra ache in the terrible news from Mutanabbi Street, an old byway dear to the memory of all Baghdadis for its booksellers, its bookbinders, its stationers, and its cafes. The poignant image of the wrecked street, with countless bits of burning paper floating down on the stunned residents, reflected an attack not only on Baghdad's people, but on the city's heart and memory as well.

Yet all sense of poignancy vanished for me when I saw The Washington Post's account of the bombing, which included the following breathtaking assertion: "When Saddam Hussein was in power, Mutanabi [sic] Street exuded a defiant spirit that reverberated through its bookstores and the famed Shabandar Cafe. Here, intellectuals, over cups of sweet tea, engaged in lively debates."

What an astonishing thing to claim. Suggesting that Saddam's regime tolerated a "defiant" café culture is, in its own way, another blow at Baghdad's heart and memory. It isn't merely that the statement is untrue, it's deeply unjust to the Baghdadis of intellect who had to live through Saddam's years of unrestrained brutality. Far from enjoying openly defiant cafe debates, such figures risked prison, exile, and even death because of their views. Furthermore, even if the Post's reporter is writing out of simple ignorance, the result is another sign of a revisionist "softening" of the memory of Saddam's rule, one that suggests that even he had his saving graces.

It's certainly true that Mutanabbi Street was once a gathering place for Baghdad's intellectuals. If Cairo is the great city of Arab writers, Baghdad was once the great city of Arab readers, and Mutanabbi Street was where they went to browse the new arrivals, Arab and foreign. The street goes back to Ottoman times; the bakeries that made the bread for the Turkish garrisons were nearby. Under the British-imposed monarchy that ruled the newly created Iraq, the city's journalists, poets, and thinkers would gather there to debate the changes that were sweeping across a modernizing and then-optimistic Middle East. By mid-century, the monarchy was gone, and Iraqi poets were advancing a "Free Verse" movement that was revolutionizing Arabic poetry. They too gathered in the street's cafes. But that was before Saddam tried to paralyze the Iraqi mind.

Saddam banned many books, and filled Mutanabbi Street with informers. Suggesting that a defiant café culture flourished there under his rule is not only absurd, it's cruel. Baghdad featured brave and defiant men and women, but they certainly weren't expressing their subversive ideas in public cafes, or requesting dangerous books along Mutanabbi Street. This was a world where Sartre was banned, Kafka was banned, Orwell was certainly banned, even Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 was banned. The most interesting books one might find along the street appeared when Baghdadis who had been impoverished by the sanctions regime were forced to sell their beloved old volumes.

Iraqi intellectual life was a tragicomedy under Saddam. Don't forget that he fancied himself a great novelist, and that Baghdad's literati had to shower him with praise for his embarrassing junk, proclaiming him the flower of Iraqi letters. Do you suppose they made even carefully veiled jokes at his expense at the Shabandar Café?

After Saddam was overthrown, and before the "insurgency" began its almost daily massacres, there was a spate of stories about the revival of Iraqi intellectual life: a suddenly multiplying Iraqi press, revived university activity, newly free writers and playwrights, etc. Among the most frequent such stories, because it was easy to do, was the revival of Mutanabbi Street, where the booksellers quickly were enriching their stocks. A touching detail of those reports was that among the newly available books most in demand were up-to-date technical volumes. Saddam had made even those unavailable. Now it has become possible to assert that such a regime tolerated a defiant café world.

By revisionist increments, sometimes (as in this case) by apparent ignorance, the memory of Saddam's brutality may be giving way to a softer image of his rule. A major example of this process is the common claim that , after all, women could pursue relatively liberated professional lives under his regime. But women owe no more to Saddam than do intellectuals. Baghdad women began removing the veil and entering professions in the early 20th century, when women throughout the region were challenging traditional barriers. When Saddam came along, successful careers remained open primarily to those women who embraced Baathism. It was not liberation, it was a setback, just as the supposed tolerance of a defiant Mutanabbi Street is an illusion.

By the way, Mutanabbi Street is named for one of the greatest of Arab poets, a 10th century native of Kufa whose most famous line is, "I am known to night and horses and the desert, to sword and lance, to parchment and pen." His is an apt name for a street of poets and booksellers, his line an apt evocation of the poet as warrior, and the power and resilience of the word. The Iraqi word has had much to survive in its modern history. Those Baghdadis now clearing away the wreckage of Mutanabbi Street, and sweeping up its precious, charred pages, know that it will survive this too.'

Thomas Friedman

Many people don't like Thomas Friedman, but it's hard to ignore him when he's spot on.

Martin Luther Al-King?
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
The New York Times

By Thomas L. Friedman

It's hard to know what's more disturbing: the barbaric sectarian murders by Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, or the deafening silence with which these mass murders are received in the Muslim world. How could it be that Danish cartoons of Muhammad led to mass violent protests, while unspeakable violence by Muslims against Muslims in Iraq every day evokes about as much reaction in the Arab-Muslim world as the weather report? Where is the Muslim Martin Luther King? Where is the "Million Muslim March" under the banner: "No Shiites, No Sunnis: We are all children of the Prophet Muhammad."

I can logically understand the lack of protest when Muslims kill Americans in Iraq. We're seen as occupiers by many. But I can't understand how the mass slaughter of 70 Baghdad college students last week by Sunni suicide bombers or the blowing up of a Shiite mosque on the first day of Ramadan in 2005 evoke so little response. Every day it's 100 more.

I raise this question because the only hope left for Iraq - if there is any - is not in a U.S. counterinsurgency strategy. That may be necessary, but without a Muslim counternihilism strategy that delegitimizes the mass murder of Muslims by Muslims, there is no hope for decent politics there. It takes a village, and right now the Muslim village is mute. It has no moral voice
when it comes to its own.

"The Koran describes the Prophet Muhammad as a Prophet of Mercy," said Husain Haqqani, the Pakistani-born director of Boston University's Center for International Relations. "Muslims begin all their acts, including worship, with the words: `In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful.' The Koran also says, `To you, your faith, and to me, mine.' But unfortunately, these mercy-focused, peacemaking ideas are lost [today] in the overall discourse in the Muslim world about reviving lost glory and setting right the injustice of Western domination. .

"For a Muslim Martin Luther King to emerge, Muslim discourse would have to shift away from the focus on power and glory and include taking responsibility as a community for our own situation."

In fairness, for a Martin Luther King to emerge requires some free space, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, the courageous Egyptian democracy campaigner, remarked to me. But right now many liberals in the Arab world are in one way or another under house arrest by their regimes. "While Islamists in Egypt have access to thousands of mosques and can meet with their followers five times a day," Mr. Ibrahim said, liberal members of his own institute "can barely move in Cairo, let alone organize a march."

The Arab regimes want America to believe that there are only two choices: Islamists and the regimes, so it will side with the regimes.

This is one reason Mr. Ibrahim hopes the Islamists will take up the democratic agenda. They could carry it to the masses. One of the most popular Islamist leaders in the Arab world today, he notes, is Hezbollah's Sheik Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon. Up to now, though, the leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas seem to prefer being of pawns of Syria and Iran than agents of democratic change and Muslim reconciliation.

There's a lot at stake. If Iraq is ultimately unraveled by Muslim suicide-nihilism, it certainly will be a blot on our history - we opened this Pandora's box. But it will be a plague on the future of the whole Arab world.

If Arab Muslims can summon the will to protest only against the insults of "the foreigner" but never the injuries inflicted by their own on their own, how can they ever generate a modern society or democracy - which is all about respecting and protecting minority voices and unorthodox views? And if Sunnis and Shiites can never form a social contract to rule themselves – and will always require an iron-fisted dictator - decent government will forever elude them.

The brutally honest Syrian-born poet Ali Ahmad Said, known as Adonis, gave an interview from Paris on March 11, 2006, with Dubai TV, and warned of what's at stake (translation by Memri):

"The Arab individual is no less smart, no less a genius, than anyone else in the world. He can excel - but only outside his society. . If I look at the Arabs, with all their resources and great capacities, and I compare what they have achieved over the past century with what others have achieved in that period, I would have to say that we Arabs are in a phase of extinction, in the sense that we have no creative presence in the world. .

"We have the quantity. We have the masses of people, but a people becomes extinct when it no longer has a creative capacity, and the capacity to change its world"

Duleimi Iraq's Most Sectarian Politician

In-Depth Report

Adnan Duleimi Condemns Shias, Wants Help for Sunnis

By NIR ROSEN Posted 13 hr. 53 min. ago

 

The Conference in Support of the Iraqi People

In a December 22nd interview with the American sponsored Radio Sawa, Iraqi Sunni politician Adnan al Duleimi continued to show his true sectarian colors. Duleimi, who heads the Islamist Iraqi Accord Front, angered Shia politicians when he spoke at the Istanbul conference of Sunni Iraqi politicians held on the 13th and 14th of December. Duleimi angrily condemned the "Safavid threat" to Iraq, referring to the Persians and implying that the Shias of Iraq were in league with them. His tearful outburst not only incensed Shias but even the Islamic Party of Iraq was upset. Duleimi taught at the University of Zarqa in Jordan while he was in exile prior to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime. Zarqa's most famous son is Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Although there is no evidence that Duleimi was ever linked to Jihadist Salafis such as Zarqawi who were engaged in acts of terrorism against civilians, Duleimi and his movement are close to other groups in the resistance. The Istanbul conference may have been intended merely to raise funds for the resistance but during Duleimi's speech several audience members interrupted him and stormed out.

The Radio Sawa interviewer pressed Duleimi on why he avoided criticizing al Qaeda in Iraq but regularly criticized the Shia Mahdi Army militia. "Is al Qaeda a terrorist organization or not?" demanded the interviewer. "I will not and will never answer this question," said Duleimi, "and if you ask me again I will hang up the phone." The interviewer persisted and asked the question once more. "Al salamu aleikum," Duleimi said, or 'peace be upon you,' and he hung up the phone.

In his December 13th speech in Istanbul , Duleimi thanked the hosts for inviting them and asked God to help them make decisions that would lead Iraq's Sunnis to believe that they have brothers supporting them. He told the audience they should have named the conference "the conference for supporting Sunnis in Iraq." Iraq is worth nothing without Sunnis, he said, because Sunnis are the owners of Iraq and are the people behind Iraqi unity. Iraq's Sunnis built Iraq. Again he demanded that the conference's title should have been "supporting Sunnis" and mocked their fear of being called sectarian. "Yes we are sectarian," he said, "if you do not take care and awaken then Iraq will be gone and Baghdad will be gone too. It is a sectarian war. It is a sectarian struggle aiming to exterminate all Sunnis. And if anyone does not believe that then he is wrong and must rethink it and must study all the daily events in Iraq. We are suffering in Iraq. Be careful Arabs be careful Muslims. Your brothers in Iraq and especially in Baghdad will be destroyed and will be trampled by the Shias. And Baghdad is emptied of Sunnis. This is the exclusion of Sunnis, be careful."

In the background a voice chanted: "Iran, Iran, you Jews. Iraq's army will return".

Duleimi continued: "These slogans are worth nothing. We want your support. Where is your support? Where are you, sons of Islam? Baghdad is going to be lost if you do not get up in the right time and stop the threat, exclusion and destroying of Sunnis. We live a tragedy everyday. Our last tragedy was Hurriya, before that was Shuula, before that was Thawra (1), before that was Shaab and Hai Ur. Sunnis have been swept out of all these cities and you are here saying the struggle is not sectarian. I swear it is a sectarian struggle and a very sectarian struggle. It is not a basic political struggle but it is a sectarian struggle veiled as a political struggle. Get ready to defend Iraq, to defend Sunnis and if you do not do so, they will be crushed by the Mahdi Army and the likes of the Mahdi Army. Our mosques have been burned, destroyed and they call it the mosques of the Nawasib (2) which must be burned and destroyed. You are inattentive saying this is not a sectarian struggle. I swear it is the ultimate sectarian struggle. Awake and arise oh Arabs, the danger has flooded you up to your knees (3). We are suffering, our cities have been hit by mortars. Do you know what is happening to Adhamiya? Sliekh, Fadhil, Hai Al-Adil and Hai Al-Jamia are hit daily by artillery. And we are here saying it is not a sectarian struggle! It is a sectarian struggle and it is the peak of sectarian struggle and you are calling this conference to support Iraqis! Which Iraq? The Shia's Iraq? Iraq is going to be Shia and this will expand to the lands surrounding Iraq. Then you will all regret it but your regret will be worth nothing because it will be too late. Where is Saudi Arabia? Where is Kuwait? Where is Jordan? Where is Pakistan? And where are the Muslims? Sleep and keep sleeping while Iraq is destroying. You sleep while Sunnis mosques in Iraq are being destroyed. Sleep while Sunnis mosques in Iraq are burning. Is not this sectarianism? It is the maximum sectarianism."

"My brothers ... who do you depend on? The Sunnis in Iraq will be destroyed, will be killed. What you have just saw in the film (Duleimi points to a screen inside the hall) is a small part of what is happening in Iraq. What have you offered to Iraq? What have you offered to your brothers in Iraq? Sleep and keep sleeping but the fire of Iraq will expand to you. What is happening in Iraq has been planned for over fifty years in order to convert the region into Shiism and create the Persian Empire under a Shia cover or under the cover of Islam while Islam is free of them (4)."

"There is an agony in my heart. We in Iraq live a scathing life. We are suffering to keep our composure, and you are here. What have you offered us? Conferences, decisions and advice. What are we going to do with these things you have offered? My dearest brothers, I do not want to speak more to increase your anxieties but I cannot turn off the fire in my heart. There is an agony in my heart about Iraq and about Baghdad which is going to be lost. Baghdad of Abu Hanifa (5), Baghdad of Al Mansur (6) and Baghdad of Harun al Rashid (7). Baghdad of Ahmed bin Hanbal (8) is going to be Baghdad of the Safavids (9), Baghdad of the Buwayhids (10), and Baghdad of the new Qarmatians (11). Why are you saying it is not a sectarian war? It is a sectarian war. Everyone who says it is not a sectarian war is wrong and must change his opinion."

Notes:

(1) Thawra was the old name for the Shia slums known as Sadr City in Baghdad. Saddam then changed the name to Saddam City. Following the Samara Shrine attack of February 2006 and the intensification of the civil war, Sunnis began calling it by its old name, Thawra, or Revolution, City.

(2) Nawasib is a pejorative term for Sunnis

(3) This is a reference to the 19th century poet Ibrahim al Yaziji, who issued the first call to Arab nationalism. Al Yaziji's poem was one of the first expressions of proto-nationalism as a political identity in an Arab world then dominated by the Ottoman empire.

(4) Meaning that Shias are not Muslims

(5) Abu Hanifa is the Islamic scholar who founded the Hanafi school, one of the main schools of Sunni Islam. His tomb lies in Baghdad's Adhamiya district, in the Abu Hanifa mosque.

(6) Abu Jaafar al Mansur is the Abbasid caliph who built Baghdad

(7) Al Rashid is an Abbasid caliph associated with the idea of the "golden age" of the Arab-Islamic civilization

(8) Ahmad bin Hanbal is the founder of the most austere of Sunni schools, Hanbalism, Wahhabism is an offshoot of Hanbalism

(9) The Safavids are a 16th-17th century Azeri Dynasty that ruled Iran and converted its population to Shiism

(10) The Buwayhids are a Shia dynasty that submitted the Abbasid caliphate into a state of de facto protectorate and ruled large parts of modern-day Iran

(11) The Qarmatians (Qaramita in Arabic) are an Ismaili sect that built what is sometimes called the first communist society in history, extremely radical, rejected contemporary notions and institutions of Islam, attacked the Abbasid state and raided Basra several times. They were based in the Eastern Arabian peninsula (today's Saudi Arabia and Bahrain) and raided Mecca and destroyed the Kaaba.