Jun. 12, 2001
Toronto Star
by Muhammad Athar Lila

   Last month, more than 4 million Muslims converged in the southern Iraqi  town of Karbala
to commemorate the life of al-Husayn, a man of principle, a man known and respected by
more than 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide.

   What was remarkable about the event was not the attendance, or that it  occurred despite
the U.N. sanctions. What was most remarkable - and sad -  is that it came and went without
so much as a whisper in the Western media.  Perhaps it was because objective news reports
aren't readily available from  Iraq. Perhaps the media gurus don't think events in southern
Iraq are  newsworthy. Or perhaps, as many Muslims believe, the Western media have an
anti-Islam bias.

   Many Western writers and academics talk about the "devastating" effect of the sanctions,
but few have actually been to Iraq to see the conditions for themselves.

   Baghdad does not look like a city that has been living through a decade of sanctions.
Within two years of Operation Desert Storm, the city had been rebuilt.

   Today, the city is a mix of neo-colonialism, Eastern folklore, and  old-fashioned Iraqi
resilience. The city is clean, the roads are paved, food is in abundance, and merchants
bartering in Western goods are everywhere. There are even cellphones, luxury cars and
Internet caf*s.

   But travelling to southern Iraq is like travelling back in time.  Anywhere south of the
no-fly zone, the buildings are decrepit, the water is  repugnant, and essential government
services like sanitation and health care are virtually non-existent. In some extreme cases, the
streets are even lined with sewage. A typical diet consists of tea and lentils, and if one is
fortunate, perhaps some rice. With a basic per capita income of less than $5 (U.S.) per
month, most southern Iraqis lack the basic means to support themselves.

   The greatest tragedy for many is the loss of their dignity. With inflated food prices and
insufficient income, many southern Iraqis have had no choice but to work for the
government, enlist in the army, or in the worst cases, become informants. Nowhere in the
world can you see such an odd plethora of soldiers, civil servants, undercover agents and
government-appointed clerics.

   The sanctions are not crippling the entire country, as some pundits would have us believe.
While the sanctions and the oil-for-food monitoring committees regulate which goods can
enter Iraq, the U.N. has little power to control distribution. This allows Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein a free hand to ensure that the brunt of the sanctions is felt only in the south.

   Many who argue for the lifting of the sanctions don't realize that lifting them is only the
first step. This is why the current debate over the efficacy of "smart sanctions" is so
misleading. While smart sanctions will allow "civilian-use" items into the country, they will
not be directed to where they are needed most. The bulk of the goods will be consumed by
Baghdad, and, as usual, the south will be left to pick up the crumbs.

   But then again, the southern Iraqis are no strangers to adversity. Living under sanctions is
difficult, but living under Saddam is a nightmare.

   When Saddam came to power, he undertook a series of measures to cripple the south. In
1980, fearing a revolt, he had a number of prominent clerics killed. He shut down the
millennia-old religious seminaries in Najaf. Dissidents were tortured or killed. So were their
families and anyone associated with them.

   In the mid-1980s, the``Butcher of Baghdad'' built a series of dams throughout the marsh
regions near Tigris and Euphrates.

   For more than 3,000 years, southern Iraqis had relied upon these marshes for agriculture,
transportation and income. But with the marshes drained, the ancient lifestyle of marsh
Arabs was destroyed. Those who didn't starve to death were forced to relocate, and
thousands became vagabonds.

   In light of such hardships, it is no surprise that the southern Iraqis have such a close
attachment to al-Husayn.

   As one of the two grandsons of the Prophet Muhammad, al-Husayn holds a special status
in Islam. By A.D. 670, barely 40 years after the death of the Prophet, the Islamic world
(which already spanned from North Africa to parts of Indo-China) found itself governed by
the Umayyads. The regime was callous and those who protested were often killed or exiled.
In 681, al-Husayn risked his life by declaring his opposition to the regime.

   His opposition was short-lived. On a trek through the deserts of Karbala, al-Husayn and a
small group of friends and family members were intercepted by Umayyad troops. After a
three-day standoff, he and his partisans - including women, infants and the elderly - were
massacred.

   The overwhelming consensus among Muslims is that al-Husayn dedicated himself to a just
cause and that ultimately, he gave his life for it. Both Sunnis and Shi'ites have come to
revere him not only for his martyrdom, but also for his upright character and refusal to
succumb to an oppressive authority.

   He has a special place in the hearts of the southern Iraqis, who have been living under the
shadow of oppression.

   So while the world's leaders fine-tune their latest scheme to keep Iraq at bay, the southern
Iraqis will do what they have always done: They will continue to visit the mausoleum of
al-Husayn, and remind themselves of his epic, waiting for someone of his calibre to rise and
lift them from the yoke of oppression.

   Muhammad Athar Lila is a member of The Star's community editorial board,
and just returned from a tour of the Middle East. He can be reached at
mrlila@look.ca
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com