When Mountains Weep by Mustafa Gharbi

Author:Mustafa, Gharbi [Mustafa, Gharbi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gharbi Mustafa
Published: 2013-01-08T16:00:00+00:00

I n February 1991, after the Gulf War ended, life was paralyzed in Duhok. Schools and government offices were closed. The city had been without electricity for several months, and food supplies vanished from shops and warehouses. Ba’ath officials had cut the monthly government-supported food rations. People lived on previously stored supplies, which were running out. They stayed home, waiting for things to get better.

My father was glued to his battery-operated radio, shifting between two radio stations: the Voice of America Arabic Service and the BBC Arabic Service. He was hoping to hear America’s President Bush announce that Saddam Hussein had been taken down.

In the afternoon, people flooded the teahouses to kill time. I spent most of my days playing cards or dominoes, smoking and sipping tea with friends. One day I was playing dominoes in a riverside teahouse with friends when war propaganda songs blaring from huge loudspeakers in the street disturbed our chat about our latest romantic adventures.

Suddenly, I caught sight of two Iraqi Ba’ath members in olive-colored uniforms hastily descending the stairs of the teahouse, looking very nervous. Without warning, one of them gave our table a vicious kick, sending dominoes flying into the air .

Then they grabbed two of us by the shoulders and pushed us toward the street, growling, “Come with us, you sons of bitches. You sit here playing dominoes while our country is in great danger. Get outside and march in protest against the American enemy and its evil allies!”

We were thrown into the approaching protest with all the other people who had been forced to march against their will and were marching in complete silence, their heads down, their faces filled with fear and disgust. I walked beside an old Kurdish villager who was leaning on a wooden cane. He walked slowly and could barely see through the cracked lens of his old pair of glasses.

I held his hand and helped him to march, whispering, “Haji, what are you doing amid this anarchy?”

He said, “Isn’t this the march for rice? They told me to walk to a building where they would distribute two kilos of rice for each person.”

I said, “No, it’s a protest against Bush and the Americans.”

“You mean Bush sent us rice?” the old man said, raising his hands to the sky to thank God for such generosity.

I quickly said, “No, Haji, there will be no rice!”

Upon hearing my words, the old man lowered his arms and slowed his pace. He coughed and leaned his weight on my arm as I helped him sit on the curb, too weak to continue the march. Then I continued on, sandwiched by armed Ba’ath Party members who were busy making sure no one tried to sneak out of the march.

We walked toward the Ba’ath headquarters, where we heard the threatening voice of a high-ranking Iraqi official shout, “ Why are you marching in silence? Scream slogans against the Americans!”

Fearing physical assault and verbal humiliation by the men in olive, we decided to shout the words to a Kurdish folk song about an old Kurdish woman.

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