BAQUBA: ANOTHER IRAQI CITY DESTROYED BY U.S. OCCUPATION

IRAQ: Where Happiness Has Gone

By Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail*

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41494

BAQUBA, Mar 7 (IPS) - After losing sight of what they knew to be normal life, residents across Baquba seem to have fallen into a depression.Close to the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, March 19, Iraqis today say they feel humiliated in their own country.

"People have forgotten how to be happy," says resident Bashar Ameen. "Each day, we have only more suffering." On the two main Islamic festivals through a year, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, people customarily buy new clothes and decorate their homes. It is meant to be a time of happiness and reconciliation. Now it is on these days that depression is most apparent.

"We did not prepare for the recent festival because we do not feel it is the joyous occasion it used to be," Aiman Nory, an employee at the directorate-general of education told IPS. Children are forgetting the joy of what were the big days for them. "Before the invasion, streets were full on festival days with children playing and families walking about," Abdul-Kareem Faraj, a 44-year-old who once owned a sweets shop told IPS.

"This occupation has killed the happiness of children. "We need to be happy for the sake of our children. Families used to buy large amounts of sweets for the festivals, and we used to prepare the shop to receive a large number of customers, but now I have closed my shop because people quit buying sweets." For a start, festivals are days people visit one another, and feast. Over the last three years, it has become close to impossible to just move. Feasting has always been a strong Iraqi tradition. Even during the economic sanctions of the 1990s, when food was scarce, Iraqis kept up this tradition, particularly on Fridays. "Now, such traditions have been reduced to a minimum because of the bad security situation, high living expenses, and curfews," Diya Imad, a 43-year-old resident of the city told IPS.

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