BAGHDAD, 13 October 2005 — When the Abdul Qader family sat down one evening this week for Iftar, the breaking of the Ramadan fast, it wasn’t long before politics came up — just as spoons were dipping into the addis, a traditional lentil soup. “I do not see the point in voting,” said Suad Abdul Qader, a mother of two and an English teacher at Baghdad’s Mustansiriya University, after checking to make sure everyone was eating.
“I don’t see that this process of politics, or whatever they call it, has brought very much. Sometimes I think they have these things, like the election and the referendum, just so they can say they have happened, but then nothing changes.” Her father, a retired doctor, sipped his soup quietly, more intent on moving on to the next course of lamb and biryani. Later, his daughter explained he would not be voting in this Saturday’s crucial referendum on a new constitution either.
“He’s 74 and has a weak heart so he doesn’t like to go out of the house. My mother won’t go either — it’s dangerous.” Millions are expected to vote in the referendum, an essential next step in Iraq’s uncertain shift to democracy, but many will do it in fear, worried by threats of militant attacks and the effect the outcome will have on the country. Millions of others will be too afraid to vote.
The Abdul Qaders are a comfortable, middle-class family living in a well-appointed neighborhood in west Baghdad that is generally quiet, although insurgents are sometimes active at night, attacking US and Iraqi troops.
With a family income of about $2,000 a month, two children in good schools, a new computer with Internet connection and four cell phones — one for each of the family except the grandparents — they might be seen as a model for the new Iraq. However, the tribulations of the past few years, not just since US troops invaded to overthrow Saddam Hussein and a rebellion broke out, but during the later years of the former regime, too, have left them disillusioned, even hopeless.
“Every day I think it might get better, but it doesn’t, it actually gets worse,” said Suad, pulling her pale blue Muslim veil more tightly around her face, while her 11-year-old son Khalil shows off a picture of Hollywood star Jennifer Aniston on his new phone. “I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. I used to, but I don’t anymore. You can’t imagine how much I worry about my children, about my daughter and my son. Too many terrible things happen, even to children.”
As the family left recently for a holiday in Jordan, their first outside Iraq, they were held up at gunpoint by masked men on the highway outside Baghdad. Their money and other belongings were stolen and the family was left traumatized. This week, Suad and several of her colleagues at the university were discussing what to do about the referendum, a key part of Washington’s plan to establish a stable democratic system in Iraq.
She said most planned to vote “Yes” to a document that is supposed to unite the country, but which many among the Sunni Arab minority fear will deepen sectarian divisions with the Shiite Muslim majority. Suad is an observant Sunni Muslim, but she says that has little to do with her feelings about the constitution, which she has not had a chance to read because no copies have reached her, and which she believes was written by a few for their interests.
“From what I hear, there are things in the constitution that are not fair to women, and there are things that were put there only for certain groups. It is not something that will unite Iraq, I am sure of that,” she says.
Her husband Waleed says he will probably vote, especially since there will be a polling station not much more than 200 meters from their house, making it less risky than it might otherwise be. Suad remains unconvinced, however. She is also disillusioned, as is her husband, by the constant talk of Sunni and Shiite that buzzes threateningly around the country, something they say never used to happen.
When they married in 1990, they did not even know to which sect the other belonged. While both happen to be Sunni, her husband’s two sisters have chosen to follow the Shiite faith. “At university, so many of the students are breaking into different groups, this one Sunni, this one Shiite, it’s really not good. They are not focusing on the things they should be thinking about — their studies,” says Suad.
Her exhaustion with Iraq — running the risk of being blown up by a car bomb every time she goes to work, and worrying about the same happening to her husband or children — has prompted the family to consider moving abroad. They are thinking about Qatar or Dubai, but it is not easy to obtain visas, there is no guarantee of work and the cost of living will probably far exceed Iraq’s. “That is the problem with Iraq,” said Suad as she offered fruit and sweet tea to a visitor after the meal. “It is a very difficult place to live and it is a difficult place to leave.”
