Mosqued Men
We watched "Iraq in Fragments" last night. Geez. Louise. I sure hope the American invasion of Iraq IS all about oil, because, man - it's pretty clear from this documentary, anyway, that the Iraqi people aren't exactly digging their Yankee Emancipators.
In fact, the word most often used in connection with Americans is "Oppressors".
After a while, I actually got kind of tired of the back and forth from the old guys in the cafes calling Americans "Oppressors" and the young guys in the mosques calling them "Blasphemers".
Yikes! I mean, there's the kind of fear that allows for Patriot Acts and Homeland Security Departments and Yellow Alerts, and then there's the kind that checks all reason at the entrance to the mosque and gives itself over to religious fascism.
Meanwhile, the sane guys are caught being sane, pointing out that Iraqis are choosing to go from the fascism of Saddam Hussein (as the old guys in the cafes repeatedly lament "propped up by the Americans for 35 years") to the fascism of the Imams - and being punished for their honesty in wanting something different, something new, something... well... sane.
Like maybe - Democracy.
But while watching the documentary, I realized that what's eerie to me about talk of "stability" in the region by politicians over here in LaLaLand (which is what our real estate agent referred to Ottawa as when we first moved here a dozen years ago, "Welcome to LaLaLand" - I'm referring here, however, to the West) is that "stability" to us usually results in fascism "for them".
And the guys caught by the religious fanatics selling alcohol in the marketplace are left to shout in the wind about Democracy. Certainly "Iraq in Fragments" doesn't hold out much hope for a revolution in democracy any time soon. The locals just seem to want the trains to run on time, at this point - even if they have to spend all their free time praising Allah and cursing their American oppressors.
I dunno. Don't watch "Iraq in Fragments" if you want to believe the world is any safer now'n it was before, is all I'm sayin'.
Women, by the way, are pretty nowhere in "Iraq in Fragments" - just like they are in Hollywood movies. Not that it's either here or there, anyway, I suppose.
