Iraqis Losing Hope For A Better Life Hardships Create A Lost Generation Of Youngsters
From CHICAGO TRIBUNE, April 8th, 2001
By Hugh Dellios, Tribune foreign correspondent.
Haidar Abdul Hussein and Haidar "Adusha" Raad barely remember an Iraq
without war and deprivation.
Born under President Saddam Hussein, the two young Iraqis grew up in
different worlds within Baghdad society. But together, their lives
are the story of Iraq's alienated youth, a tale with a worrisome
subplot about who will control the world's second-largest oil supply
in the years to come.
Hussein, 16, went to work seven years ago after his father died. His
$6 weekly paycheck from a sewing sweatshop feeds a family of nine,
and he has no energy left on his day off to play in the Shiite slum
where he lives.
Raad, 20, has clung to a middle-class lifestyle since his father
began trading smuggled electronic equipment after Iraq's economy
collapsed. He studies on outdated computers at college and finds
escape by playing in a 1980s-style rock 'n' roll band.
U.S. officials, now debating how to reinforce the embargo around Iraq
and Hussein's military machine, might take heed of the tale of the
two Haidars as the double-barreled tale of Iraq's future:
After plenty of hardship, Hussein may be vulnerable to the radical,
fundamentalist strains of his Shiite Muslim underclass. Raad dreams
of going abroad for a good education, a journey from which many
talented Iraqis never return.
Wars and sanctions After two decades constrained by the Iran-Iraq
war, the Persian Gulf war and United Nations sanctions, diplomats and
aid workers worry that Iraq's new generation is growing up isolated,
anti-West and unprepared to help rebuild a peaceful nation when and
if the crippling embargo is lifted.
Unlike their parents' generation, known for its Western orientation
and multilingual worldliness because of Iraq's oil wealth, this
generation's development has been stunted, its opportunities as dim
as the city streets during sanctions-related blackouts.
Saddam Hussein blames American-led sanctions, and the West blames his
regime's corruption and mismanagement, but observers in Baghdad say
there is enough blame to go around.
"Are we not creating a restless, explosive generation? A generation
that has lost the capacity to learn?" asked Zakir Husain, a
Bangladeshi doctor and policy consultant to the World Health
Organization, who mostly faults the sanctions.
"What kind of a future scenario does this give Iraq?" he
continued. "Even in terms of security, these things worry me." These
days, Iraq is not a promising place for its young people.
On holidays, Baghdad's Azura Park is jammed with picnicking families,
but the carnival rides are rusty and old.
The zoo doubles as a pound for stray dogs; among its most exotic
inhabitants is a wild cat that was a "gift" from Hussein's feared
son, Uday. The workers feed it pigeons.
Still a popular outing is a dinner of roasted "mashguf" fish at an
open-air restaurant along the Tigris River. But families now heed
health warnings about a river where raw sewage is dumped because
treatment plants lack spare parts.
Half of all work-age Iraqis are unemployed. Mothers sell part of
their monthly food rations to buy other necessities. The Iraqi dinar,
once worth $3, now trades at 1,700 to the dollar and is carted around
in stacks.
Thanks to their oil, Iraqis once enjoyed one of the highest standards
of living in the Mideast. Even during the eight-year Iraq-Iran war in
the 1980s, they received good medical care, traveled widely and
studied at the best universities in the U.S. and Europe.
Moral breakdown Diplomats warn of a breakdown of Iraq's moral fabric.
They remember a time when it was nearly impossible to bribe anyone,
while the society now practically runs on "baksheesh." Many Iraqi
professionals have left and gone abroad. Resigned to hardships, those
who remain say their pride is in having survived and done "the best
with the minimum." "We have a saying: A wet man is not frightened of
the rain," said Akram Hussein al-Fulfili, 45, a bookshop owner who
recently was able to buy a cheap Chinese computer for his son.
Tragically but inevitably, youngsters have suffered the brunt of
Iraq's problems.
Repeatedly, visitors are shocked by how small the children are. The
WHO says one-third are stunted, and the child mortality rate is high
because of malnutrition, dehydration and a "systemic" failure of the
health system, despite more available medicines through an expanded
UN humanitarian program.
In education, a recent UN study found that 90 percent of Iraq's
primary schools are dilapidated and unsafe for children. The crisis
also has taken a toll on the intellectual and emotional development
of Iraqi youth.
"You know, the youngest here in Baghdad have nothing," said Widad al-
Orfali, one of Iraq's most famous artists. "My generation traveled
the world. I was able to learn the piano at 5, and at 6, I learned
Strauss. But they have seen nothing. This generation has no dreams."
On Friday nights, Orfali holds concerts for young Iraqis at her art
gallery in the upscale Mansour district. Through her door come Iraq's
future leaders, and judging from the trendy clothes, some are the
sons and daughters of Hussein's regime while others are scraping to
remain part of the crowd.
Youth hardships These youths speak of hardships, and invariably echo
the regime in blaming the sanctions. Young women complain that young
men do not marry until much later. University classes lack materials.
Rewarding careers are scarce.
One Friday last month, the gallery was packed with young people
singing along as two folk musicians played John Lennon's "Imagine"
and other Beatles songs on their acoustic guitars.
Among the youths, who knew every word of the lyrics, was
Haidar "Adusha" Raad.
Before the gulf war made visas scarce for Iraqis, Raad's mother was a
travel agent who traveled the world. Before the government's
paychecks became nearly worthless, his father had a good job at the
Housing Ministry.
While his father makes a decent living peddling smuggled or
secondhand stereos and other electronic equipment, the family car
regularly breaks down.
Tall and bright-eyed but shy, Raad is a student at a technical
college where he studies on computers that are three generations old.
Like all but a few Iraqis, he has no access to the Internet.
That limits his exposure to the modern world as well as his career
prospects, but any bitterness is concealed behind a detachment from
politics--a survival technique common in Iraq.
"You have to forget it all, but it's not easy," he said.
His mood brightens when he speaks of his name-brand electric piano
and his band, although the '80s American pop music they play is even
older than the computers he uses. "You know Guns 'n' Roses?" he asks.
"We hope he can go abroad for his final year of study. That's what my
family hopes for him," said Raad's sister, Tamara, 26.
Typical life Raad is lucky. Across Baghdad, a more typical life for
young Iraqi men resembles that of Haidar Abdul Hussein.
Six days a week, Hussein climbs a rotting, water-flooded staircase to
a tiny factory off a dim alley near the city's main market.
There, engulfed by humming sewing machines and the occasional whiff
of industrial solvent, he irons embroidery patterns onto dresses.
The job is Hussein's life since his father died of complications from
diabetes. His daily commute takes two hours from the poor village of
Husseiniye where his family moved because they could not afford the
city rents.
At his cinderblock home in Husseiniye, the only sign of child's play
is a flat soccer ball in the yard. A ringing bell sounds as a man
passes selling cooking oil from a rusty drum on a donkey cart.
Inside oil-rich Iraq, the family's situation is shocking. Hussein
describes a life blurred by poverty and hard work from such a young
age that he doesn't recall ever dreaming about a better one.
Asked about the origin of the gulf war and the sanctions that limit
his life in so many ways, he is stumped: "I don't understand many
things about this war. I am just hearing its name."