It was late August when my cousin and i decided to visit Iraq ruled at the time by Saddam Hussein, It was my idea since i have visited Iraq with my father but my cousin never been there. So we decided to make it as an adventure and use the public transport ( such a bad idea).From Kuwait we were off in an air-conditioned Mercedes bus up to the Iraqi boarders, were we saw this huge sign Unity..Freedom..Socialism, not knowing what it means my cousin asked what the hell is socialism, told him we will soon find out i guess. I entered the passport control office and the people were so quiet and 2 officers staring at everybody and one of them shouted you come here i could barely walk from fear he had such a huge moustache and said Kuwaiti huh i thought this is it i am in trouble then i had to answer a 100 questions some of which were strange for us like : what do you think of imperialist USA never new what imperialist means but knew the second part sweating hard and my knees shivering, my answer was they make nice cars like Trans-Am, GTO he shouted enough and turned to his friend ' did you hear what the Kuwaiti just said? i was so scared i thought surely they will not execute me for this answer, can they? (i have heard some scary stories about these BAATHISTS) The officer then turned around and said you go now and when you reach Baghdad you pick up some of the president speech books and educate yourself, i said yes yes yes i will thank you thank you, i was so happy staying away from the rope. As i left that horrible office my cousin was outside smoking, he said you are late lets go. i told him when we leave Iraq it is your turn to stamp the passports(did not tell him what happened , he is in for a surprise lol).
We waited for an hour for the bus and could see it coming with all the dust behind it , then surprise!! the bus is made from wood on the outside, i remember we laughed so hard but as we got inside the smile was turned off, there is no air-condition and it was 125 deg. and the seats were a wooden too, my cousin was upset so i told him look this an adventure right? let us experience socialism, he looked at me with disgust and said i will sleep now wake me up when we reach, oh OK i replied.
Midway to Baghdad we stopped at a place called AL-OMARAH ,and it was lunch time i was starving, so as we were walking to the restaurant my cousin was mumbling how could you sleep on a wooden plank?this country... i immediately put my hands on his mouth and had to shout at him this is not Kuwait, then whispered there are secret police every where are you stupid? so he whispered back what kind of shit are we in? i replied the worst type if you know what i mean, so he said i will keep my mouth shut, i knew he could not he just cannot put the lid on it type of a person.
So we entered the doorless, air-conditionless restaurant and of course my cousin went to the manager and complained i did not join him because i knew the answer will not be nice, so he came and sat down and the expression on his face made me laugh,so what did he tell you i asked? he said believe it or not he said,' tell your masters the imperialist Americans to fix one', what is this imperialist every so often used and who told him that we are the Americans slaves,, he said, i was trying to shut him up and surprised by the waiter who is putting food on the table, so i asked the waiter we did not order yet, he looked at me with a half eye and said: look Kuwaiti this is the only meal eat it or starve, thanks a lot Mr waiter i said i will eat it( of course they new we are Kuwaitis from the accent and the pair of jeans which was forbidden there at the time) , and please do not forget Pepsi or 7-up he gave me that look again and said we do not have imperialist soda, i thought not again, then asked for water, he said OK as he picked an empty jug and went to the other side of the restaurant were the Euphrates is flowing by and he filled the jug from there, i stood up with surprise almost shouted at him then i remembered where i am and sat down looking at the water in the jug looking hazy with black tiny things what is it i was wondering ??, OMG those black things are moving and floating, my cousin mean while just poured him a glass and drank it so quickly, i kept looking at him thinking rest in peace dear cousin, so my cousin said with a smile that was not bad, in fact it is good
in my opinion it was shit and thought how long that smile will stay on his face
We waited for an hour for the bus and could see it coming with all the dust behind it , then surprise!! the bus is made from wood on the outside, i remember we laughed so hard but as we got inside the smile was turned off, there is no air-condition and it was 125 deg. and the seats were a wooden too, my cousin was upset so i told him look this an adventure right? let us experience socialism, he looked at me with disgust and said i will sleep now wake me up when we reach, oh OK i replied.
Midway to Baghdad we stopped at a place called AL-OMARAH ,and it was lunch time i was starving, so as we were walking to the restaurant my cousin was mumbling how could you sleep on a wooden plank?this country... i immediately put my hands on his mouth and had to shout at him this is not Kuwait, then whispered there are secret police every where are you stupid? so he whispered back what kind of shit are we in? i replied the worst type if you know what i mean, so he said i will keep my mouth shut, i knew he could not he just cannot put the lid on it type of a person.
So we entered the doorless, air-conditionless restaurant and of course my cousin went to the manager and complained i did not join him because i knew the answer will not be nice, so he came and sat down and the expression on his face made me laugh,so what did he tell you i asked? he said believe it or not he said,' tell your masters the imperialist Americans to fix one', what is this imperialist every so often used and who told him that we are the Americans slaves,, he said, i was trying to shut him up and surprised by the waiter who is putting food on the table, so i asked the waiter we did not order yet, he looked at me with a half eye and said: look Kuwaiti this is the only meal eat it or starve, thanks a lot Mr waiter i said i will eat it( of course they new we are Kuwaitis from the accent and the pair of jeans which was forbidden there at the time) , and please do not forget Pepsi or 7-up he gave me that look again and said we do not have imperialist soda, i thought not again, then asked for water, he said OK as he picked an empty jug and went to the other side of the restaurant were the Euphrates is flowing by and he filled the jug from there, i stood up with surprise almost shouted at him then i remembered where i am and sat down looking at the water in the jug looking hazy with black tiny things what is it i was wondering ??, OMG those black things are moving and floating, my cousin mean while just poured him a glass and drank it so quickly, i kept looking at him thinking rest in peace dear cousin, so my cousin said with a smile that was not bad, in fact it is good
in my opinion it was shit and thought how long that smile will stay on his face
I think in this case it might be more the issue of a rotten dictatorship that played the socialism card at the United Nations
ReplyDeleteyou triggered my memory this morning
Deletei think that socialism is a violation to human rights and nature, so to enforce it you need a dictator