A Star from Mosul

About 5 days ago, dad divorced his second wife.. For sure she took too much of his time, and he wasn't being fair enough to mom when it comes to dividing time between the two wives.

I came downstairs, looked at dad who was writing a post... he was declaring that he is divorcing his second wife at last! A big smile was drawn on face, since I was the most in the family who hated that wife.. She took too much of his attention, and too much of his time. And since there seemed to be no use discussing things with her, dad decided to divorce.

I was the one who said the last words..

And so, dear readers, no more comments for you..

I wanted to put a smiley face, but dad didn't allow me to be so mean :)

I love you dad.. And thanks for divorcing her :) And thanks for putting up with me..

You can never please the crowds..
Najma

I wish I heard Khalid and didn't have hope..
He told us so.

Let's see what the future holds for you, Iraq.. Let's hope what we fear wouldn't happen this time! It always did though. It always did...

The last carnival of the relatives was written by Hassan.. And now, this is this month's carnival:

Dad (A citizen from Mosul):

• Who will answer these questions?
• Take a walk.
• We and the constitution.
• A trip to the north of Iraq.
• What happened in Kurdish Halabja.
• Yesterday British, today American, who's next?
• Saddam never gassed his own people.
• No proof Saddam gassed the Kurds.

Mama (Emotions):

• Birthday parties.
• The truth.
• Sunshine and I.
• Although....
• More losses, more pain..
• An interview between an Iraqi and an American blogger.
• Good night.
• What a day!
• For Iraqis only.
• Tomorrow is a big day.
• I made up my mind.
• My life joy.
• To be honest..
• Childhood difficulties can be hurdled.

Hassan (An average iraqi):

• A woman's life in Baghdad (Part 1).
• A woman's life in Baghdad (Part 2).
• Ramadhan kareem.
• IN HER EYES: Another big day.
• 10 days to the referendum.
• 7 days to the referendum.
• A not-so-average dinner for the average Iraqi.
• Just had to break the rules.
• One day to the referendum.
• Yes with a capital (Y).
• Assumptions: Constitution seems like passing.
• Another Iraqi joins the blogsphere.
• Assignment.

Moi (A star from Mosul):

• أقتل داء
• Treasure of baghdad.
• Comics.
• What's happening?
• محاولة اكثر يأسا :)
• Ramadhan kareem.
• Take a walk.
• Voted.. Not me though.
• شر البلية ما يضحك.
• Saddam is on TV.
• One more assignment done!
• The trial of the century!?

HNK (HNK's blog)

• بوست بالعربي.
• Al-Salamu Alaykom.

Sanyora (A blog unnamed yet): A new blog by the way..

• Who I am?
• Interests.
• Introduction.
• My primary school.

Sunshine (Days of my life):

• Thank you Olive.
• Happy birthday Olive.
• My primary school.
• Ramadhan kareem.
• Mama and I.
• Please welcome Cazza and GeeOh.
• Too much to endure.
• Interview between Mama and Jennifer.
• Can't be worse.
• When I was a little ray.
• The referendum day.
• I don't know yet.

Raghda:
Cat photos everywhere..

Finally finished... GOOD NIGHT!

On the 19th this month, the trial of Saddam Hussein (Former Iraqi president, or الرئيس العراقي المخلوووع) began. An interesting timing, a try to distract Iraqis from the referendum results. Which were supposed to be announced after 5 days of the referendum, if no serious problems occured!!

Anyway, I was chatting with a friend from Canada yesterday, talked about the trial since he didn't have the chance to see it live himself.. Well, he thought he hasn't missed much, but he did, you too if you haven't seen it!

The "trial of the century" was broadcast around the world on TVs from 20 minutes after the hearing started. It began before most of us were able to come home, but we managed to get home before Saddam came in.. Mom and dad didn't though.

The whole thing was some kind of a silly play. Bad actors, badly organized theatre and a very ignorant director.

The first to enter the court hall were the defendant attorneys followed by the notaries and the representatives of the public prosecution in the court.

Chairman of the court, Judge Razkar Mohammed Amin (A Kurd from Suleimania, seemed really patient, acted politely and nicely) started the trial by carrying out some legal procedures concerning the defendants' attorneys then Saddam entered and was placed in the front cage facing the judge.

Saddam Hussein was asked by the judge to identify himself and about his occupation. But the former Iraqi leader stalled, demanded to know the name of the judge and challenged the authority of the court.

Saddam started by "In the name of God, the most merciful.. I preserve my right in the constitution as president of the Republic of Iraq," and "What was built on injustice is injust." He was interrupted many times during that by the judge, who kept asking him to identify himself, and told him that he'd listed to what he has to say when it's his turn to talk.. Saddam wouldn't submit and so Justice Amin ordered him to return to his place.

The Judge then asked the second suspect -Awwad Al-Bandar- to identify himself, but he also refused, wanting back his traditional costume (3gal, the black round thing worn over a white peace of cloth on the head) taken by the guards.. This scene was very much like what would happen in a kindergarten if the teacher or some kid took your toy..

The judge: - Please Identify yourself.
Awwad: - But they took my 3gal.
- Just identify yourself.
- I don't have an identity. My identity is mu 3gal and they took my 3gal.
- Who took your 3gal?
- The court took my 3gal, they said I can't wear it.
- There can't be such thing.
- They took my 3gal!!
- Bring them back their 3gals.. The defendants should be able to wear whatever they want in the court as long as it is ethical.

This was then followed by about 10 minutes of silence, the judge ordered Awwad to sit and waited for the 3gals, while the lawyers told him that they weren't even allowed to bring in a pen!

Then few 3gals were brought and Awwad, along with other defendants (Like Taha Yasin Ramadhan) wore their 3gals.

The judge then resumed and questioned Awwad.

Justice Amin then adjourned the session for a few minutes for a sound default in the court. The lawyers asked to meet the defendants at that time, the judge accepted.

When the sessions were resumed, ex-Iraqi president Taha Yassi Ramadan also refused to identify himself saying, "I laud the speech of the President Saddam Hussein." Abdullah Kazem Ruwayyed and Mizher Kazem Ruwayyed identified themselves and their former occupation and place of residence.

Saddam then informed the judge that he will be defended by Khalil Al-Dulaimi.

The judge continued by questioning Mohammed al Azzawi Ali.

Justice Amin appointed one of the court's attorney's to defend Barazan Al-Tikriti as he has not appointed an attorney for himself yet.

Following legal procedures taken by the judge and after he read the defendants' rights as granted by the Iraqi law, he indicated the identities of the witnesses will remain undisclosed for security reasons!

Judge Amin then read to the suspects' decree one on the referral to court then the evidences of the witnesses.

The prosecutor was supposed to read the facts and figures about what happened in Dijai, but he started talking about everything Saddam has done, he was then silenced by the judge after many objected that the prosecuter was not talking about the case.. Then he got to the point...

Then the judge asked Saddam if he is innocent or guilty where he replied saying, "I said everything I have and I am not guilty," whereas the other suspects said they are innocent of the charges against them.

The opening session ended with Saddam shaking off and then struggling with two guards who tried to hold his arms after he asked to step out of the room. Eventually Saddam walked out on his own with the guards behind him.

The first session of the former Iraqi dictator's murder trial lasted three hours before the judge adjourned until November 28.

The White House said President Bush was too busy to watch the opening of the trial, but a spokesman praised the trial as an important step towards democracy for Iraq.


Although I was sitting infront of the TV for the whole time, I got pretty much bored and didn't pay attention to the court as much as the laptop I was working on.. Therefore, most of what is written up there is a copy-and-paste from the net, but I added my own account to everything.


Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4..

Anyway, after my chat with my friend yesterday, he ended up writing a post about the 3gal himself.. We also agreed to call Awwad Abu 3gal from now on :)

****
Since Saddam was born in April 28, 1937; he will be 70 in 2 years, and if the trial was still ongoing then, he would probably spend his like in jail rather than being executed..

I got tagged by Mashi 97, a Saudi blogger I started reading for lately. You can say I got part my confidence in the Saudi community back through those couple of posts I read from him so far..
Anyway, he was generous enough to tag me to do an assignment :)


Seven things I plan to do:
1- Finish school with a good average, alive.
2- Get to the Engineering college.
3- Work on my French.
4- Work on my English pronunciation and talking.
5- Master Linux.
6- Master Visual Basic.
7- Write a blog post about Saddam's trial tomorrow.. Seems most of you missed "the play".

Seven things I can do:
1- Sit for hours on the Internet without actually having something to do.
2- Sleep while millions of rings and shouts are being directed for me to wake up.
3- Have a Zero and actually not care about it (I'm still proud of it.. Although it isn't because I didn't know the answer, but because no one went to school but 3 students, and they had the exam).
4- Make a friend in an hour.
5- Make an enemy in 5 minutes.
6- Make a fool of myself.
7- Do today's work the day after tomorrow.اعمل عمل اليوم بعد غدا

Seven things I can't do:
1- Study while mom is talking on the phone.
2- Sit with the family to eat without talking.
3- Blog daily.
4- Read Iraq the Model without getting angry.
5- Pray with the family around.
6- Be honest with myself.
7- Remember the road to the school I go to everyday for the last 6 years.

Seven things I say most often:
1- Ya Allah! (When I'm angry)..
2- Yallah Haheya يالله هاهية(My way to say, I need to go. No one understands it though).
3- Great بداعة (When I have no comment).
4- I don't want to come to school (Every morning, just after saying hello to my friends).
5- How silly!
6- Mom, I'm hungry (All the time these days).
7- Twinkle twinkle little 7mar تونكل تونكل لتل حماغ (Singing for Aya to make her sleep; 7mar means donkey)

Seven people I want to pass this tag to:
1- Raghda.
2- Hassan.
3- Sunshine.
4- Tara. With a big thank you for linking to all those great Arabic blogs :)
5- MadCanuck.
6- Fayrouz.
7- HNK.

Just go see it.. I have my laptop here in the living room, hooked in the Internet. Might update.

They're in a 10-minute reset right now. It got a little bit messy in the court when Saddam refused to say his name.

UPDATE: لحد الآن مهزلة

UPDATE: The trial was as meaningless as this post!!
مشهد درامي خالي من أي احداث مثيرة

An hour ago, dad came back from the mosque and said that the voting center is open. I went upstairs, changed my clothes, prayed and came down to go out with the family.

We went out to vote.. I and HNK are under the legal age, but we went out all together. The neighbors were out, waiting in the streets, men and women.
"They say a bus will come and pick us up to the voting center" said a neighbor.. And so we waited.. Few minutes later, the bus came and we all went up. It wasn't enough and so each 3 sat on 2 seats.

We went to the school which was the voting center.. There were many people there, three queues, two for men and one for women. It took us about half an hour there, men were being searched, we weren't and so the women's queue was quick. A policeman came and said we can vote here even if we've registered elsewhere, another one then came and said not to bother ourselves if we've registered elsewhere 'cause we won't be able to vote here.. This made some babbling in the queue, an ING said that we can, "Just do not believe anyone". One can't believe that at the same 5 minutes, all this happens. Mom decided more than once, to drop the queue and go out since she wasn't sure that they would accept us here, but the other women told her to stay "Stay, they'll change their minds" was what they told us.

After about half an hour, and with the help of our neighbor who has already voted, we knew we can vote. Our turn came, mom went in with us, she voted for herself and dad (Who was waiting outside for his turn, but since mom had his ID card, she could vote for him).. They even gave us 3 voting cards, by mistake, but we returned the third.

Mom then called dad and told him that he can come out. We all met outside the school, then went into the bus from which tens of people were coming down, and in which everyone seemed more relieved for finishing the job. When we got home, more neighbors were ready to come in.. Buses were a good idea!

Mu uncle's family didn't vote, they said the Imam told them it's a responsibility to vote, and they should read the constitution first, but as most of the Iraqis in Mosul, they didn't get a copy of it. In fact, I heard no one saying that they have! Other uncles, however, went out and voted.

One thing I know for sure, the things that happened in the morning made our neighborhood more determined to go out and vote..

I read the BBC in the morning:

The BBC's James Reynolds in Baghdad says Kurds and the majority Shia Arabs are expected to approve the constitution, while Sunni Arabs - who make up a disaffected minority - are likely to either vote No or stay at home.

Seeing the numbers of voters, the number of women and men, gave me an assurance that the media outside is biased. Sunnis went out to vote, 2 times in the morning the Peshmargah came and closed the voting center, but it was re-opened. Dad detailed that in his comments' section:

The people who went to vote, and found the center closed are directed to another near by center, it was opened, but the people their refuse to allow them to vote, they said they can vote only in the first center.
Later on a news come that the other center is also closed!!! why???? they said that the Peshmerga come and close those center!!!

There were a crowd of people waiting to vote when about 10 police cars with the cheif of police paeesd and stopped to see what is the problem. The police cheif told the people that the peshmerga closed those center and they (the police) is going to open them later in the day.

At 12pm a police car with loud speaker announced that those centers are opened for votting.

I will go now to check and to vote if possible.
It is 12:43 pm now in Mosul

I seriously was thinking of calling my cousin and plan for a march in the streets.. We don't need more people telling us that Moslawis do not vote..
Some people swear that the results will be YES even if we vote NO, but we did what we can..

Najma, from Mosul, a city were Sunnis are a majority.

PS: We didn't go to school on Wednesday for security reasons.. On Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we have a curfew.. My brother-in-law is staying in the hospital these couple of days.

It was meant to be a joke, but it makes sense:

"Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes."

"Try and put yourself in their shoes".. I've been told to do so with American soldiers, over and over, and I did. It didn't give me a justification for what they did, do or have done.

You might have noticed that many incidents are caused by American soldiers, on this blog, for that, many people have turned against them in Iraq.. Latest: Mom is crossing the street in front of the university, the police start shooting too close, mom gets scared and screams.. After calming down, she looks around to see if one of her students is there and saw her.. None was there, she is relieved, she goes on..

Now, try to put yourself in her shoes! Hard? Try this:

A cousin, her children and her husband are in the car, they hear some shots and so the American soldiers go crazy and start shooting randomly.. A bullet then got really close and tore her hijab but didn't injure her..

Easy? No..

I'm sure it isn't easy.. It isn't easy for dad to come up and check if I'm alive, it's not easy for mom to call my sister every while to check if she's Okay.. Everytime a name is mentioned, the first things that comes to mind is : Is he/she shot?

For that I tell you, no one at all has the right to tell me how my country is now, unless that someone is IN Iraq, and knows how it is.. Otherwise, the most idea you have of the situation, is way less than what really is going on.

Just walk a mile in my shoes, if you finish that alive, then and only then, come and tell me what you think..

"Could you devote a post to civilian Iraqis who have been killed by insurgents, if any. And do these insurgents offer help in the same manner of the Americans who send wounded Iraqis to base hospitals and to hospitals in other countries. Do these insurgents offer help in the way of rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure like schools, hospitals, oil refineries, etc. We don't hear of this because of the Bush controlled media."

For God's sake, I have a brain.. Insurgents are not helping. But who are the insurgents? Killing Iraqis, destroying homes, kidnapping people.. Their only aim is to terrorize.
But, for that person, who goes out to kill the occupier, I say it now clearly: I'm with the Mujahid.. And if you have a problem with it, well, imagine your country being torn the way mine is, and see if you allow that.
And I invite you to come and see how hospitals in Iraq are now.. An open invitation, not recommended for weak-hearted people though! See the reconstruction in Iraq, I doubt you'll find what will interest you!

"I have read your blogs for over a year and you have changed quite drastically and I am sorry for that. Our American Soldiers are getting themselves killed trying to bring you and your country a freedom similar to what we know. If you do not want or appreciate it I hope our military decides to hand it over to your military and walk away. It seems you and your fellow countryman would instead turn on your own people that are trying to deny you {especially females} these basic freedoms."

Another American trying to show me the "right" way.. Does anyone have statistics of how many Americans and Iraqis got killed in this war..? When you do, tell me who lost their lives because of this war!! Your soldiers lost their lives because war is death, and war is a hobby of your president.
Dare you say anything more about female rights, we're strong enough to claim them.. For me, I'm totally satisfied with what I had before, as a female. The freedom I want is the one I lost thanks to your country..

"President Bush or any other leader of a country must do what is best for his or her country. That's why they are elected, if it is democracy or how they stay in power if they have assumed power in any other manner."

Even if what is good for your country is having two other countries occupied and many many people killed..? In every country in the world, there is good and bad.. Look at your own faults, maybe then, you'll be too busy to look at other country's faults..!!

Just so you wouldn't get me wrong, I listen when you tell me what you think.. But you do not have the right to tell me how I should feel, who I should love and who I should hate.. You have no right to tell me that the situation is this and that, cuz I'm here, in the war-zone, and I'm pretty sure that regarding the situation, I know better.

I am surrounded by Iraqis 24/7, all kinds.. I know how they feel, and no person can tell me that I don't. Some Iraqis are good, some are bad, all have different opinions, and mine represents most of the ones' I speak for, Moslawis'..

Anyone has the urge to kill me right now? The door is wide enough for a camel as we say, you do not have to come across this blog again..

Open-minds are welcomed.. Being American doesn't mean having an opened-mind by the way.. Closed-minds?? There are blogs that are devoted to cursing Iraqi bloggers, go join..

Finally, I have sometime to write.. I had time this week, but only to read.

This week was full of exams, they might've been easy but I had to study a lot 'cause I need to get a good base from now.

Other than that.. I don't remember anything I can say except:

RAMADHAN KAREEM TO EVERY MUSLIM IN THE WORLD..

Ramadhan for me, is a total change in my system.. Eating, studying, praying and thinking. And change is -as long as it's for the best- GOOD.

So, let's fill the mosques, hearts and minds of love.. Love for change, love for Ramadhan..