Local newspapers and alarabiya.net reported on Thursday, June 21 the shocking news about a government-run orphanage for children with special needs in Iraq. The harrowing scene at the Baghdad facility shocked some of the US and Iraqi soldiers who found the children in tears. The 24 boys were found naked and lying on concrete floors, covered in their own excrement, flies and sores. Some were nearly dead. The news was horrifying, especially the pictures published of the children tied to their beds with their skinny bodies that revealed their bones.
I can’t talk enough about this brutal treatment of innocent homeless children. These Iraqi children were supposed to be taken care of by their Iraqi supervisor. Unfortunately, he instead used the money set apart for the orphanage, abused the children and sold their canned food in open market.
This is not the only scandal we hear of happening in Iraq. There are many conspiracies, betrayals and murders resulting from clashes between the government forces and Islamic groups and between Iraqis and some Arab and foreign fighters. And with this religious and racial polarization that is killing and destroying everything, our voices are becoming louder in condemning the foreign invaders blaming them for everything going on in Iraq. How could a foreign enemy convince a people to kill each other if sectarianism and discrimination didn’t exist among them in the first place?
Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq brutally for almost thirty years. Yet despite his dictatorship and inhuman policies, we never heard of Shiites and Sunnis killing each other. Even though we heard of many things that encouraged sectarian divisions, the country was never falling apart like it is today. The new authority in Iraq opened the door for parties and groups to surface and start the attacks. People who were once victims are now predators. The tribalism is eating the vitals of Iraq. We can’t consider the foreign invaders to be the only reason for what has happened. If the citizens were united, enemies would never have found cracks that led them into the country. It was the disunity that opened the door for outsiders to take advantage of the situation and mess with the country.
If America or Britain were responsible for this orphanage, the whole world would have made a big deal out of it. But an Iraqi was responsible for this heartbreaking scene and the issue is one to be resolved by the Iraqi government who felt ashamed of what happened.
When we saw Iraqis joyfully dance after Saddam was toppled we felt happy for them. We only wanted the best for an Arab nation that has deep historical roots and a glorious past. We thought of how Iraq would become again the land of science and literature and how things would change for the better. But the disappointment set in when the first thing Iraqis did after the liberation was to indulge in useless singing and dancing. And the situation has gone from bad to worse.
The war in Iraq didn’t bring about anything but destruction to Iraqis and other Arabs. Iraqis have not stopped fighting, so scenes of pain and murder continue to fill our TV screens troubling our conscience and driving the youth into the arms of extremists. It’s painful to see misery on the face of any Arab, but how could we forget that our loyalty first and foremost is to our country and culture and families? How did we come to believe that inflaming tribal and sectarian passions would benefit an Arab nation? Reflecting deeply on the orphanage story would help us change the way of our thinking so we could relate to the reality of Iraqis. All this talk of Arabism and unity is a ruse. We just don’t want to see or admit what’s happening in Palestine, Lebanon and now in Iraq. What we’ve seen so far and known throughout history is that Arabs are incapable of sympathizing with one another.
People who are obsessed with the concept of jihad should start with themselves, their children and families by raising them properly and helping their wives in maintaining a happy environment for the family. I believe that doing this is much better and healthier than promoting destructive and violent ideologies that poison people’s minds and lives.
— Dr. Maha Al-Hujailan is a medical researcher at King Khaled University Hospital in Riyadh.
