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Comment Anger, shame, and indifference The policing of mass demonstrations is becoming increasingly repressive and politicised Ghaith Abdul-Ahad in Baghdad Friday September 24, 2004 The Guardian A week ago, hours after Ken Bigley and his two American colleagues were snatched from their Baghdad residence, one of Mr Bigley's neighbours - an Iraqi man in his 60s - was watering his garden when the street was filled with journalists and photographers. "Hundreds of Iraqis die every day," the man yelled at them. "Thousands are being kidnapped by the Americans every day, and nothing happens, but when three foreigners disappear, the whole world is here." The man's views did not reflect the opinions of all Mr Bigley's neighbours: across the street a woman and her daughter were telling journalists how nice and good the three foreigners were. A week later, the two Americans have been savagely beheaded, and hopes for Mr Bigley's release look extremely bleak. Iraqis are still debating why these things are happening. In one of Baghdad's cafes, a group of young men yesterday sat around a table piled with books and tea cups, talking under a cloud of shisha smoke about Iraq's daily events - suicide bombings, kidnappings and the latest beheadings. "This has nothing to do with Islam or resistance or anything but pure savagery. There is nothing in the world that can justify such things. The resistance are losing their case with such acts," said Muhamad Safi, 26, a factory worker. Another man, Ali Tawfiq, linked the kidnappings to the more general violence sweeping Iraq today. "Those people [the resistance] have no respect for human life, they are killing hun dreds of Iraqis every day and they will be happier to kill a couple of foreigners to scare the people and make all Iraq a hostage," he said. Even for Iraqis who have lived through an unending cycle of violence for the past 25 years, the events of today's Iraq seem incomprehensible. Many blame foreigners, terrorists linked to al-Qaida like the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Some believe the conspiracy theories which have this as an American plot to smear the reputation of the Iraqi resistance. "Those are foreign terrorists who have been doing the beheading. The Iraqi resistance will never do these things," said Rabah Dawood, 22, an economics student. "The resistance have the right to kidnap US and coalition solders, but those who would kidnap and behead journalists and contractors is obviously someone who is trying to harm the cause of the resistance." But despite widespread condemnation, DVDs showing beheadings are bestsellers in some shops. A young man who kept silent most of the time turned to his friends and said: "You all don't know anything about history. "If we want Iraq to be liberated from the Americans, everything is allowed. The whole world should know the consequences of coming to Iraq." He then pulled his mobile phone from his pocket, a Nokia 6600. He switched on the screen saver clip and a grainy scene appeared of men wearing black standing around a man in an orange jumpsuit. One of the men lifts a big sword, and the scene cuts to the man in the jumpsuit lying dead in a pool of blood. The men around him are screaming "Allahu Akbar" - "God is great." "Every time I watch this I feel sick," said the man. "But this is the only way to liberate my country." |
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