September 17, 2007
Sectarian Toll Includes Scars to Iraq Psyche
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
BAGHDAD, Sept. 16 — Violence swept over the Muhammad family in December, taking the father, the family’s house and all of its belongings in one chilly morning. But after the Muhammads fled, it subsided and life re-emerged — ordinary and quiet — in its wake.
Now they no longer have to hide their Shiite last name. The eldest daughter does not have to put on an Islamic head scarf. Grocery shopping is not a death-defying act.
Although the painful act of leaving is behind them, their minds keep returning to the past, trying to process a violation that was as brutal as it was personal: young men from the neighborhood shot the children’s father as they watched. Later, the men took the house.
“I lost everything in one moment,” said Rossel, the eldest daughter. “I don’t know who I am now. I’m somebody different.”
They are educated people, and they say they do not want revenge. But typical of those who are left from Iraq’s reasonable middle, the Muhammads have been hardened toward others by violence, and they have been forced to feel their sectarian identity, a mental closing that allows war made by militants to spread.
“In the past the country lived all together, but now, no,” Rossel said. “I don’t trust anyone.”
Iraqis have continued to flee their homes throughout the American troop increase, which began early this year, and despite assurances that it is becoming safe to return, uncrossable lines have been left in Iraqi minds and neighborhoods. Schools, hospitals and municipal buildings are quickly losing their diversity, and even moderate Iraqis like the Muhammads say they cannot imagine ever going back.
In northeastern Baghdad, Hashem, a polite 14-year-old from a different Shiite family, has an acute sense of sect. (For his safety, his last name is not being used.) The players in his soccer club are Shiite. His school is three-quarters Shiite. His five or six close friends are all Shiites. He refrains from telling a joke he likes about a Sunni politician because it might hurt the feelings of the Sunni boys.
Though the alignment is religious, in practice it is more like being on the same sports team: Hashem, like his father, is not at all devout.
“In the beginning it was a shame to say Sunni or Shiite,” he said, sitting on a couch in a guest room in a heavily Shiite neighborhood in northern Baghdad, “but we know.”
. . . .
You are missed at home.
