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"
When Innocence
Is lost In Wartime"
حينما تزهق البراءة في زمان الخطوب
This story narrates the tragedy of a traumatized young chap who, goes missing in a journey of vengeance which led him miles away from his small home village to Baghdad where his rage turned him 360° into a horrible machine to wreak havoc the enemy. Wanting to make a life for himself and make his family proud, the young Bedouin enrolls at a university in Baghdad; a short-lived dream that faded down at the footsteps the American invaders who made their way shortly after. He is forced back home as the college he attends closes down due to unrest.
Eventually, war hits the narrator's birthplace where bloodiest incidents occur leaving a state of lawlessness and degradation that left him no longer innocent as he decided to become part of a killing machine he tried hard to flee. One of those takes place before the narrator's eyes as a roadside bomb blows up tearing-off a mentally retarded youngster at a checkpoint when hastily driven to hospital amidst sirens of hazard roaring everywhere.
A second one isa missile attack on wedding claiming tens of lives of miserable by-standers(mostly women and kids) who take it for fireworks, but come to that it would be inevitably better to die together. Being buried in a big single grave they may finally be doing something useful that their belligerent warlords failed to do in reality. The worst ever is when American soldiers storm the narrator's home ,in search of alleged clandestine weapons. Where witnessed his family being humiliated, his father belittled then mortified to death. Thus his journey back to Baghdad begins in a new approach and motivation: seeking to avenge father and reclaim the family's honor and "wash away this insult in blood". He said "…to spread my venom over there. I didn't know how to go about it, but I was certain that I'd strike some nasty blow. In a Bedouin mindset, no matter how impoverished they may be, honor is no laughing matter, which is the sole authorized detergent when comes to one's self face-saving".
He goes onto explain his situation," I had gone to bed a docile, courteous boy, and I,d awakened like a monster ,with an inextinguishable rage lodged in my very flesh. I carried my hatred like a second nature. Hatred is now, my fatal motif, my arm and armor and all that is remaining to me in this false , unjust, arid, and cruel life.
The young man's fury, groomed by group of insurgents he joins later on to annihilate the West, gets him sent to Lebanon ahead of a fly to London for his final act of retribution on those who caused a lot of harm to his compatriots in Iraq.
Thanks & stay closer.
عابر
كن كصندلة ٍ ، تعطر فأس قاطعها
كن وردةً ، عطرها حتى لسارقها
لا دمنةً ، خبثها حتى لساقيه
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