Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Diana]

Below is a message from an Iraqi citizen named Alaa who lives in Bagdad. He is one of the many Iraqis who have started a blogsite, telling of their experiences and viewpoints in Iraq. Yes, now that the Americans are in Iraq, ordinary Iraqi citizens are now getting into the Internet and sharing their viewpoints with the world.
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riday, October 22, 2004
THE MESSAGE
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Hi,


I don�t know why the tremendous event that has taken place in Afghanistan is not receiving the attention it deserves. The results have not been officially announced yet but it seems that President Karzai is going to win in landslide fashion, by western standards anyway. I mean not in the 99.9% way that is customary around here, but rather a respectable and genuine figure which is nevertheless very significant. Even the CNN reporter (Christiane Amanpore), was forced to admit that �the Afghan people tend to regard the Americans as liberators�, but she hastily added �unlike the Iraqis who see them as occupiers!� Well at least we have a half truth; I suppose this must be regarded as progress for the CNN.

So the Afghan people came to vote, traveling from far away villages on donkeys, on foot, by whatever means of transport available, braving intimidation, defying the terrorists. They came in their thousands, and waited outside polling stations for hours and hours patiently. Women came; old men came; young men came. The women suspended their household work, taking turns to look after the children. I am not inventing all this, all the reporters mentioned this. We saw it on T.V. screens. The poor people came, clad in their simple attires, their poverty itself a great medal of honor and decency. I tell you, I have seldom witnessed such an awesome sight; I have seldom been touched more profoundly by an event. This was the vote of the people, the truth of the people, and the judgment and Word of the people.

Now those who have eyes can see, but the blindness of the heart is blacker than the blindness of the eye. And all those who shed crocodile tears over the �invasion� of an Islamic land, and raised such a din of noise about the injustice perpetrated against �fellow Muslims�, and all that; all those, do they learn from the �message� of the silent lines of thousands of Afghans waiting at polling stations. Can they get it through their sculls? The people have spoken, loud and clear, they have spoken; the silent majority has spoken at last when given the slightest chance. So Karzai, the American puppet; the stooge; the agent appointed by the CIA etc. etc., Karzai gets the overwhelming vote of the Afghan people! What say you, oh pundits and wizards who have talked so much and pontificated so much, you who claimed to know all there is to know about these people, and told us so often of how wrong it was to interfere, how wrong it was to rid them of the Taliban and Al Qaeda etc. etc. Do you have some little decency left in you to eat your words? I guess not. And are all those millions of Afghans not pious Muslims? - But they are; and a thousand times more so than all the terrorists and murderers, the beheaders of the innocent, the kidnappers, the killers of children. The simple millions of the Afghan people understand true religion a million times better than you, and have voted for hope and the future, and are happy to �collaborate� with the �crusading� Americans and their friends. What more justification for the �Great Campaign� do you want? Allah ( Subhanhu Wataala) shall reward America and her allies for the great charitable act that has freed these people from a most terrible tyranny and horror. That was a good deed, no matter what motivation lay behind it. And one day, sooner or later, the �Message� will come also, loud and clear, from the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people.

Salaam
# posted by Alaa : 1:20 PM

http://messopotamian.blogspot.com/

[mkg1211]

first of all,
this man(that;s if we won't consier all the matter FAKE)is blind?
i hear about blind people who can use internet easily!
if he is blind ,i won't comment
BUT
if he is not
what about thousands of poor iraqis killed until now
every day 10s dies
by whom?
by resistance or by the occupation?
he compared between afhgani election and iraqi expected one
why most of afhgani canditates withraw from the election opposing many black actions(including forgery i watch that unreal ink ,un said it can't be removed b4 24 hours,when a canditate erase it easily with his hand )

plz watch fahernit 9/11


to be contiued(may be in another topic)

[Diana]

First of all, as I said, there are now many many Iraqis forming blogsites on the Internet sharing their viewpoints with the rest of the world. Alaa is only one of those Iraqis. There are already more than 30 Iraqi blogsites on the Internet.

Secondly, this Iraqi whom you call "blind" has more weight on his opinions than anyone else. Why? Because he's the one who lives in Bagdad and sees all the things there while the rest of us only read about it on ONE-SIDED news media like Al-Jazeera and CNN. I think the world should listen more to what the Iraqis have to say. After all, it is their country.

Finally, if you had bothered to read the link I provided, anyone can see that Alaa is an Iraqi muslim. The link I provided also leads to other Iraqi blogsites, and on those blogsites, the Iraqis have also printed pictures of their homecountry. Below is another article written by another Iraqi who is living in Bagdad. His name is Ali. And if you bother reading the Iraqi blogsites, their journals are not only full of their viewpoints but also pictures. This is Ali's story below:
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Sunday, October 17, 2004

A declaration of war.
This morning my uncle who�s a highschool principal found a post signed by Al Tawheed Wal Jihad group on the door of his school. It seems that they are distributing a poster throughout Baghdad demanding all government employees to stop going to work, threatening to behead anyone who disobey! It reads:



In the name of God most merciful most gracious
A threat to all government institutes and all government employees. Why do you keep going to work and schools and keep silent about the occupation? We will behead anyone who commits to work in government institutes.
Allah Akbar Allah Akbar
wal yakhsa�a Il khasi�oon*
Al Tawheed Wal Jihad group.

(I don�t know how this phrase can be translated but it�s the one Saddam used to end his speeches with for the last few years before the war! A close translation might be, "Let the doomed ones be doomed"!!)

Here�s a picture I took for the poster. I apologize for the bad quality.

I must say that this was expected. These enemies of humanity see us as their true enemies. They were hoping in the beginning that we might resist the �occupation� but that didn�t happen. They were also considering the consequences of frankly declaring war against the Iraqi people, as this would make them loose a lot of ground and would not help the propaganda that tries to show them as freedom fighters. However, and as a result of the brave stand of the Iraqi people, these terrorists are seeing that it has got late and elections are about to take place with the majority of Iraqis obviously willing to participate. Killing IP, ING and American soldiers won�t do, attacking infra structure won�t stop the process. So what�s left to do?

It has become clear that we are their worst nightmare, that �their people� might open their eyes and work for a better future, that we embrace freedom, peace and a better life instead of hatred and death. This would mean that they have lost the war against the world because they have no *people* to support them and believe in their sick dreams. Now they wish they can kill us all, but they can�t, so the best thing they can do is to terrorize us, kill some of us randomly hoping that this would scare us enough to stop doing what we are doing, to stop living and join their craziness. Will they succeed? The answer is so clear to me but I hope that our allies see what our enemies have seen.

Am I being too dramatic here? Ok, let�s get a bit more practical. The government with the help of America and the rest of the coalition is preparing for elections in a long plan to transfer Iraq into a democratic country. Iraqis are living and working to support their families and seem to approve of the democratic process. Some of them are actively helping while the majority only follow with approval. Isn�t that what we all want; People who reject dictatorship, work for a better future for themselves and their families and want to live peacefully with the others instead of loading themselves with explosives or carrying AK47 and murdering anyone who don�t follow their beliefs? This, in my mind, is what will make terror lose and freedom prevail in Iraq; our love for life, peace and freedom and our rejection for terrorism and dictatorship.

By Ali.

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/