Posted on 08/25/2004 7:00:36 PM PDT by kddid
Marita Ertomaa Al-Yitayim has lived in Iraq for almost 45 years. She understands why nowadays the Iraqis sometimes long for the days of Saddam.
By Anu Nousiainen
Marita Ertomaa Al-Yitayim moved to Iraq in 1959. The country had undergone a revolution the previous summer: the Prime Minister and nearly the entire royal family had been shot, and the British-supported monarchy had been declared a republic. Ertomaa had met an Iraqi student in France while working as an au pair, and the couple had married. She was 30 years old, and the early days in her new home country were not easy. For the first two years, she kept her suitcase packed, and thought that she did not want to die in that country. After only four years, there was a military coup. Her husband, who had participated in politics, was forced to flee underground. His Finnish wife wavered between her two options, but decided to stay. That was over forty years ago.
Now Ertomaa is in Helsinki, on her summer holiday. Her suit is stylish, as is the scarf that has been thrown over her shoulder. The month she has spent in Finland has meant a vacation from the war, because after all, guerrilla warfare is also a war. On the morning of the interview, the news agencies have already relayed one of the day's news items from Iraq: the insurgents have fired a grenade into a shopping street in Baghdad. Seven killed, two of them children. Next week, the news from Iraq will be a part of Ertomaa's everyday reality once again. "It is not fun to go back, not under these circumstances. But my home and my job are there, I am expected to return." "Besides, it is impossible to live in constant fear", Ertomaa reasons. "You need to adapt, because you live there." I suppose that is how it goes. Life goes on. Meals must be put on the table.
Ertomaa admits that focusing on work is difficult, and her ride to work is more or less unbearable - even in a diplomatic vehicle. This is how the drive goes: The driver has a gun. At the roadblock manned by the American troops, the bullets are emptied out and placed on the top of the dashboard. The soldiers inspect the vehicle and check IDs. Ertomaa and the driver wait nearby. Then the soldiers allow the vehicle to drive on to the bridge. Have a wonderful day, Ma'am. What follows next is a scary drive over the bridge. Will the bridge be blown up? Will they be shot at?
The return trip back home is just as nerve-racking. Ertomaa's home is in a regular Iraqi apartment block, right on the outskirts of the so-called green zone that is controlled by the Americans. The rebels strike the area often. There are grenade and missile attacks. But car bombs are the worst. "Once I saw a car bomb go off from about one hundred metres away. Then all you can do is collect fingers and toes into black plastic bags", Ertomaa says. That is something that you are probably never able to forget. "The Iraqis are very brave and say that everything is in the hands of Allah. If something happens, it is the will of Allah."
Besides, as Ertomaa points out, they are used to living under exceptional circumstances. "The days of Saddam were full of fear and poverty for many people." Iraqi President Saddam Hussein did indeed start his war campaign against Iran back in 1980. That took eight years. Soon Saddam attacked Kuwait, and the Gulf War began. We sat back and watched on television how the U.S. mercilessly bombed Baghdad, Ertomaa's home town. Desert Storm and the conquering of Iraq was followed by UN embargoes, the Food for Oil programme, and weapons inspections. And now this.
When the Gulf War was about to commence, the employees of the Finnish Embassy in Baghdad were evacuated. Ertomaa, who was the Embassy's office manager, was asked if she could look after the building for the time being. The date was January 10th, 1991, and Ertomaa believed that the diplomats would return in a couple of years at the latest. Now 13 years have passed, and Ertomaa continues to look after the Embassy alone. When anarchy invaded the streets of Baghdad in the spring of last year, the Finnish Embassy was also comprehensively looted, picked clean even of its electrical wiring and the cushions on the couches. Ertomaa just had time to save the cash box, which she buried in a hole at the family's country residence for the worst period of mayhem. Now Ertomaa has had rebuilding work done on the Embassy. No decision on the return of Finnish diplomats to Baghdad has yet been made, however.
By virtue of her work, Ertomaa still speaks fluent Finnish, even though her home language is French, and she speaks Arabic with friends and acquaintances. "But lately I have not mingled with the locals very much", she observes. Moving around outside her home grew dangerous after the kidnappings of foreigners began. Now her workplace is the only place where Ertomaa goes. Her retired husband or the driver takes care of the grocery shopping. Sometimes, at an early hour of the morning, she pops into a supermarket. On these excursions, her armed driver acts as her bodyguard, along with his mother, who hangs tightly onto her son's arm.
Ertomaa leans back in her chair in the Finnish offices of UNIFEM - for the past few weeks, she has helped the UN women's fund so that a visit to Finland by three Iraqi women's rights activists could be arranged. She explains how the everyday life of the Iraqis works nowadays: schools are open, even though schoolchildren are also sometimes kidnapped for ransom. There is a shortage of all teaching materials, as the old books that praise the greatness of Saddam can no longer be used. There is also a shortage of medicines and hospital equipment. Sabotage is a constant phenomenon, but the capital city does receive 15 hours of electricity each day now. A police force is gradually forming, although the insurgents have scared off many applicants by bombing police stations and queues of prospective policemen. There is also food - for those who have dollars. Iraqi dinars have become worthless. Inflation is rampant: even bread is now expensive.
According to Ertomaa, a unit head at an Iraqi ministry can now earn over 350 dollars per month, with higher officials earning 500-600 dollars. Before the war, people could only dream of such wages - except if they were among the leaders of the Baath party, taking their share of black market trade, for example. But 75 percent of the Iraqis are still unemployed, or at least that is the current estimate. The most popular party seems to be the Communist Party. Religious fundamentalism is gaining ground, and Arab TV-channels seem to agitate the Sunni and Shiite groups against one another. "Many of the unemployed make ends meet by stealing. There are really no other alternatives, if you have the mouths of many children to feed. On the other hand, family ties are tight, and relatives look after each other."
The former Baath elite has also wound up unemployed. "People wish only bad things for them. The principal of a school was killed because she was a Baath member, even though she was well-liked otherwise." Those Iraqis who work with the Americans in one way or another are also in danger. The list of casualties includes cleaning women, waiters, even a barber.
But the worst enemies are naturally the Americans themselves, the occupying forces, although officially power has been handed back to the Iraqi government. "The soldiers with their helmets, sunglasses and boots, wearing ammunition belts and bullet-proof vests." Ertomaa shakes her head. "They should be removed from sight. They are like a red rag to the Iraqis, even though the Americans are not hated in the same way as the U.S. government. It is a conqueror, and that is not acceptable."
Wait a minute, these occupying forces did overthrow Saddam and lock him up in jail, where the former dictator is now awaiting his trial. Does the "Liberation of the Iraqi People" not mean anything to the Iraqis? Ertomaa looks me directly in the eyes. As do the Iraqis themselves, she believes that the United States attacked the country because of its oil. She does not defend Saddam. Towards the end, Saddam turned into an increasingly cruel leader. The tyrant had more and more palaces built for himself, at the same time as the people were slowly dying under the pressure of the UN sanctions and embargoes. Saddam had to be thrown out, but did it have to happen in this manner? How high a price do the Iraqis still have to pay for it? Would the Saddam regime have crumbled on its own due to its impossible nature?
"During the days of Saddam, one wrong word in the wrong place could mean a disappearance. The security police was efficient, and people informed on one another. You always needed to be careful of what you said. But if you could do that, there was nothing to fear", Ertomaa explains. Now people are free to say what they please. "I have nevertheless heard many people saying that things were better under Saddam. At least it was safe at the time. On Fridays you could go out for a picnic." "Nowadays only a very small group of Iraqis believe that the Americans came to liberate us from Saddam."
Even the American soldiers themselves seem to question more and more often why they are in Iraq: what if troops are left in the country indefinitely, and what if their presence only provokes the fighting that they are supposed to end? One week ago, a young American Marine in Iraq said that he does not believe that any of the soldiers in his squad care what happens to Iraq. "I'm here to make sure these guys get home safely. And they're here to make sure I do", Lance Corporal David Goward said in the Boston Globe. Ertomaa nods her head. "That is why they fire off their guns way too easily. They are afraid, and they protect their own."
She remembers well what it was like in Iraq in the early 1960s. The women even wore miniskirts in those days. "Everything was so normal!" "The Iraqis are convinced that we will get a democracy. When that happens is another question entirely." Then Ertomaa breaks out into a loud fit of laughter, full of the Iraqi sense of irony. "We always just keep on hoping and hoping, inshallah."
I particulary like the part about "towards the end" Saddam became cruel.
Europeans are idiots.
Judging by the time period here, that would likely mean her husband was a communist or a member of the Baathist faction which allied themselves with the internationalist communist movement.
During this time Iraq was sending students to the USSR to learn nuclear engineering.
Actually, there were TWO coups that year.
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