david's doodles

Riverbend

This from the BBC News web site: “An anonymous blog by a young woman in war-torn Iraq has been longlisted for BBC Four’s Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.”

The blogger cited is none other than Riverbend, with her blog “Baghdad Burning”. I have been following her writing for some time. Indeed, she has inspired more than a couple of my pieces. She writes simply and eloquently about what daily life is like for Iraqis. I find her writing a welcome change from the reality-challenged reporting I generally come across in the US media.

The descent into civil war in Iraq puzzles me. There never has been sectarian strife in Iraq between Sunni and Shia-- indeed, they are intermarried, and are normally unconcerned as to which “sect” others belong. An Iraqi may even switch from one to the other during their lives. So how, I ask myself, did this sectarian violence come to pass?

Riverbend has an idea. She writes: “I’m especially worried about the Arba`eeniya this year. I’m worried we’ll see more of what happened to the Askari mosque in Samarra. Most Iraqis seem to agree that the whole thing was set up by those who had most to gain by driving Iraqis apart.”

After explaining how nobody used to care whether one were Shia or Sunni, she observes:

And what role are the occupiers playing in all of this? It’s very convenient for them, I believe. It’s all very good if Iraqis are abducting and killing each other- then they can be the neutral foreign party trying to promote peace and understanding between people who, up until the occupation, were very peaceful and understanding.

She does not sound at all hopeful.

In other news, it’s great to hear that three of the four members of the Christian Peacekeepers Team who were abducted last December have been released unharmed. The moment is bittersweet, as they remember their fellow peacemaker, Tom Fox, whose body was found earlier this month.

Welcome home, Harmeet, James, and Norman. And let us pray for the safe return of journalist Jill Carroll, and the rest of the more than 250 foreigners who remain captive in Iraq.