Like everything else in Iraq these days, changing the nation’s flag to remove any traces of Saddam Hussein has created tremendous controversy. Instead with the way it has handled the matter, a government with an already tattered reputation seems to have discredited itself even further among its own people. In his latest op-ed article from Iraq’s Azzaman newspaper, columnist Fatih Abdulsalam writes, ‘Raise up the American flag, that overshadows your existence and flutters above you, young and old … and which covers your flaws and grants you security … Politicians have turned our cherished national flag into a rag, just like the political positions with which they adorn themselves.’
By Fatih Abdulsalam
Translated By Nicolas Dagher and James Jacobson
January 22, 2008
Iraq – Azzaman – Original Article (Arabic)
Raise up the American flag, that overshadows your existence and flutters above you, young and old … and which covers your flaws and grants you security. Or raise the Iranian flag, if you find in it a protector, a supporter and something that makes the heart flutter and revives the dead …
But in either case, the slaughtered, displaced and starving people of Iraq are beyond blaming you [Iraqi politicians] for your irresponsibility. The door of blame has been closed for some time, and will only be opened when a camel can enter through the eye of a needle
[in other words, never].
[Editor’s Note: The author means that Iraqis are so fed up that they are beyond talking about whom to blame for their difficulties].
Lift up the flag of any country that you feel provides a safe way to cross into the Green Zone, as ships of all nations do when they adopt the flags of nearby countries to pass through dangerous sea lanes.
But on the basis of weak voting which amounted to less than a third [of Parliament], you have no right to choose a temporary one year flag for Iraq, for Iraq no consumer, charitable society or political party organ. To be diminished to such an extent is an insult and a mockery.
[Editor’s Note: The author is angry about the idea of having a temporary flag. On Jan. 29, the Iraqi Parliament passed a law to change the Saddam-era flag, meeting demands of Iraqi Kurds who threatened not to fly it at a pan-Arab meeting in the Kurdish-run north next month. The law, which expires in one year, was approved by show of hands, with 110 of the Parliament’s 275 lawmakers voting in favor. The measure removed the three stars and changed the calligraphy of the words “Allahu Akbar.” A law to establish a completely new flag must be passed within one year].
You [politicians] fear that you won’t be able to sit in your chairs long enough to warm your butts [meaning to make more money. Butt in this instance refers to the fatty tissue of a sheep’s butt: in Arabic, this refers to the wealthy]. You wallow in the temporary: the temporariness of your positions, the titles you give yourselves and those you inherited from your fathers and the slogans that you use. Or as when an industry fears its product will go bad before its reaches the market or when farmers dread that their land will go fallow …
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with our continuing coverage of Iraqi views direct from the Iraqis themselves.
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