Barefoot in Baghdad (12 page)

I understood Fern’s logic. In fact, I had been under the same temptation myself just a couple of weeks before. I had been offered a large building with an indoor pool in the Karrada district for a women’s center. The building was then occupied by the guards of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). I had fallen in love with the building, and more specifically the pool. However, Yusuf and Mais had urged me to turn it down.

The civil affairs unit of the U.S. Army had been working with Capt. Anne Murphy to identify potential buildings for women’s centers in nine districts throughout Baghdad. They were growing extremely frustrated with me because I kept turning down the buildings. Why had I done so? Because almost all the buildings were inhabited by strong political parties. In most cases, these parties had their own unofficial militias. I could not afford to make such enemies. I lived in an Iraqi neighborhood with no security, and I was an easy target.

By refusing building after building, there was a strong risk that the army’s civil affairs unit would stop assisting us in our search for a building for the women’s center. However, in the long run, I felt that the risk was far better than the alternative of creating powerful local enemies who would never leave.

Could I make Fern see this logic? She turned away from me and started walking across the foyer and glancing around the room. In the midst of all the rubble, Fern had traveled forward in time and could see the final product. She was pleased with what she was imagining.

I had also traveled in time, but my vision was much different. Yet something about Fern silenced me. A part of me knew that her decision had been made, and there was nothing I could do about it. But there was more to it. Her determination and fortitude captured my admiration. It inspired a belief that the outcome could be different. I decided to drop out of my role as the killjoy. I said nothing.

It is a decision I have regretted ever since.

Fern was on another rampage. It was 2 a.m. and she was still responding to emails. She hardly got any sleep. All night we would exchange emails about what was on the horizon for the fight for the rights of Iraqi women.

Subject:
Those Bastards

I sent her a quick reply, “Which ones?”

It was always different. Sometimes the rampage would be directed at the Iraqi patriarchal system, at other times it would be about the Iraqi women themselves, who were becoming more and more fragmented. Most often the target of Fern’s anger was the Americans—civilian and military alike. The last email chain had been focused on contractors, a scathing complaint about one of the largest U.S. contracting firms, and she itemized in detail her grievances with the contractor.

She wrote emails in what I imagined would be the same style she prepared for court cases. Her notes of time and date were meticulous, and she repeatedly wrote that she would not let the contractors get away with such action. The corruption Fern was describing was outrageous, and I would always feel my body tense up as I read her list of complaints: Millions of dollars were being spent on reconstructing schools, but in most cases it was quite literally a mere paint job. Millions more were being poured into rebuilding the health infrastructure, but the pharmaceuticals and medical equipment wound up on the black market to be resold at three times the cost.

In my work with the women’s centers in Baghdad, I was suffering from the same sense of frustration in trying to work with contractors. The funds for the women’s centers primarily came in the form of donations through U.S. government contracts. In other words, we were not getting the cash directly; it was sent to the contractors who then provided their services. These services included the repair and maintenance of old buildings and equipment purchases. The contractors would deliver the equipment to the women’s center, but there was often a wide gap between what was delivered and what was stipulated on the invoice. For example, we would be charged for an expensive high-end computer, but we would receive an inexpensive basic computer.

Fern and I often refused to sign off on the deliveries.

It was never easy pushing back on issues of quality. Almost all the Iraqi women’s organizations were eagerly signing on every dotted line because they were so happy to receive anything to support their efforts. The fact that Fern and I were pushing back was quickly earning us a reputation as difficult women.

But while we were both taking the same action, our approaches were different. I would try to negotiate with the contractors and walk them through the written invoice and compare it to the delivered products. Many times this negotiating process took weeks. Fern simply lacked the patience or the time to negotiate anything. She would refuse the delivery and instantly write a disapproving email to the contractor’s supervisor. She was quickly making enemies within the American camp.

***

This time, Fern switched her attention to the Iraqi Governing Council and the CPA’s blind support for them on issues related to women.

“Those bastards are trying to introduce a law that would revoke the 1959 personal status laws,” Fern emailed. Once more she outlined the issue in painstaking detail.

There was a strong lobbying group inside the U.S.-appointed Interim Governing Council calling for an introduction of religious laws when applying the personal status laws in Iraq. These laws covered everything from the right to education to freedom of movement to inheritances to property rights to marriage and divorce, and child custody.

I replied with one word: Impossible. The Iraqi women would never let that happen. The passage of the 1959 personal status law had been the envy of all women’s rights movements in the region. It was a source of great pride. The law ensured that Iraqi women could marry under civil law instead of religious law, made polygamy more difficult, granted mothers custody of their children, and imposed a minimum age for marriage. Iraqi women had gained their rights in these and other crucial areas while other countries were struggling. Iraqi women were voting in the 1980s, for example, while Saudi women were still struggling for recognition. Passage of this landmark law capped decades of struggles by the Iraqi women.

If the personal status laws were interpreted through a religious lens, however, the situation had turned dire. In almost all religious interpretations used in the Middle East, personal status laws placed women at a disadvantage.

Fern responded immediately. Her impatience with my naivety was implicit in the email. She felt strongly that Iraqi women would have no choice, and the Kurds had more important priorities to negotiate, such as regional autonomy and federalism. They would not risk upsetting their conservative Shia allies by taking on the personal status laws. That was an issue most political parties were willing to negotiate.

I believed the women would hold strong.

***

My six months on the ground had demonstrated what I had known by instinct. Iraqi women were powerful. Through my relationship with Reema Khalaf, the chairperson of the Independent Nahrain Women’s Association, I met regularly with the heads of various organizations. These women were predominately engineers, doctors, lawyers, and professors. They were considered the elite of their communities, and often they had their own informal networks that they were willing to use to strengthen the women in their communities. Some of these women had attained the highest level of decision maker.

At the same time, I was able to communicate with women on the ground. I was traveling in and out of the most ghettoized areas of Iraq, including the marginalized areas of Baghdad. Like most of the world’s poor, these communities suffered because they were stereotyped as being infested with drug dealers, pimps, and thugs. In some cases the stereotype was true. In most cases, however, the areas were populated with families that were struggling to make ends meet. In every case, the women bore the brunt of any violence and all the poverty.

The majority of women I worked with were widows and divorcees, and some were just teenagers. Despite their difficult circumstances, these women were determined to carve out a better future. I was amazed at their outspoken nature, their candid list of needs, and their resolution to create change for themselves. In the short span of a few months I watched countless women who had entered my office downtrodden emerge from it full of optimism.

Such was the case of Saadiyah. She had learned of our program through word of mouth. Several women in her neighborhood were already enrolled, and as a widow with six children, she felt she had nothing to lose by visiting our office in Karbala. Saadiyah attended the first few sessions reluctantly. Over time, she became more easily involved in the work of the women’s center. Not only was she an active participant in the rights awareness workshops, but she signed up for the carpentry class. Saadiyah introduced an innovative way of earning money through carpentry. Each morning she would go to the fruit and vegetable market and collect empty wooden crates. She would then break the crates and use the wood to refurbish furniture.

The women ranged from the elite to the grassroots, and it was an honor to work with each of them. They particularly embodied for me all that our shared culture could accomplish. It was easy to see why their strength was legendary in the Middle East. They had paved the way for women in the region by being among the first to vote, the first to participate in the judiciary system, and the first to demonstrate their economic power. Women from the rural areas became legendary for devising methods to survive the sanctions of the 1990s. The women I met were proud of their ability to survive, and although they were exhausted, they were willing to continue the struggle for a better future.

Nonetheless, these women were not naive. Regardless of their economic status, they were well aware of their violent patriarchal history. They often spoke of the internal conflicts that led to the execution of the king that ended the monarchy in 1958. That was quickly followed by the coup of Gen. Abdul Karim Kassem and five years later to the Baathist regime and then the overthrow of Gen. Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr by Saddam Hussein in 1979. I heard from women of all socioeconomic backgrounds that Saddam’s ascension was the beginning of the end. Although the country enjoyed prosperity on one level, the Saddam regime would also lead to hundreds of executions, the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the invasion of Kuwait, the First Gulf War, thirteen years of sanctions, and the Second Gulf War.

For the past few decades, women in Iraq had been forced into the backdrop of Saddam’s theatrics. They were used as props when needed. Saddam’s approach on women’s issues epitomized his Machiavellian quest for power. On the one hand, Saddam was well known for his promotion of women in the workplace and the education of women. On the other hand, he was quick to use women as a negotiating chip to gain local tribal support. For example, Saddam promoted secular laws, but he was willing to turn a blind eye during the 1990s to honor killings in order to appease the tribes. Under the pretext of fighting prostitution in 2000, Saddam’s Fedayeen forces beheaded two hundred women “dissidents” and dumped their heads on their families’ doorsteps for public display.

By now, Iraqi women realized they needed to take matters into their own hands. Many argued that for too long power had been left unquestionably in the hands of men. They recognized a void had been created, and many were determined to be part of whatever power structure would step up to fill it. Women were focused on the endgame. They were strategizing ways to leap forward, and they refused to be discouraged by the signs surrounding them.

These signs were plenty. Nine months after the fall of the regime, the dust from the war was just beginning to settle down. It was clear that women’s rights were not going to be defended from the outside. It was the responsibility of the Iraqi women to take action from within. Iraqi politicians and the leaders of the American occupying forces made speeches that promised women’s rights, but they took no action beyond offering consolation prizes. The threat to women’s legal and social status demanded—and received—a response at all levels, from the grassroots to the ruling elite. When the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority refused to swear in a female judge who had been appointed, citing religious and cultural grounds, she fought for her right to the judgeship by using Islamic teachings as her weapon.

Women took these setbacks in stride and still had confidence that their interests rested with the CPA. That is, until Fern’s prediction turned into reality.

***

On December 29, 2003, with less than a thirty-minute debate, the Interim Governing Council (IGC) voted for Resolution 137. The primary advocate for Resolution 137 was Abdel Aziz Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). The council was an important political player, and many other political parties that supported women’s issues did not want to lose the SCIRI as an ally.

Fern and other women’s rights activists around the country went into a frenzy. Resolution 137 would push women’s rights back centuries. Whereas Iraqi women had been looking for ways to leap forward, they now found themselves in the unenviable position of fighting for the status quo.

Iraqi women united against the resolution and even took to the streets in one of the first public protests in over thirty years in the streets of Baghdad. These women were among the first members of civil society to immediately practice democratic and transparent management, and they quickly formed the Iraqi Women’s Network to fight the resolution. They elected a steering committee, and the network swiftly organized protests and petitions against the repeal of the 1959 personal status laws.

Fern and other international women’s rights activists held the U.S. government responsible. They claimed that the IGC was an extension of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq since the IGC had been appointed by the United States. As a result, if the resolution were passed into law, it would be an infringement of international law as defined by the 1907 Hague Regulations. The Hague Regulations forbade any changes to the civil law by an occupying power. Under the Hague Conventions, the IGC’s mandate was only to restore public order and safety.

Fern made good on her promise of taking the issue to the public media. She worked closely with Iraqi women leaders to send out reports of the U.S. government’s supporting the decay of women’s rights, which used terms such as “sexual harassment” and “women’s oppression” to get as much attention as possible. She even helped leak an email from a State Department official that referred to Safia Suhail, one of the leading women’s rights activists in Iraq, as a loudmouthed reformist. This email further tied the U.S. government’s support and tolerance to the IGC’s marginalization of women.

The result of Resolution 137 was far more catastrophic for the women’s movement than Fern and the others could have imagined. For the previous six months, women’s organizations had been demonstrating the power of cooperation across religious and ethnic divides. I had helped organize a few meetings among women’s groups from across the country, and I was always amazed at the mosaic of Iraqi cultures that responded. Secular women shared a round table with their more conservative counterparts; Arabs eagerly expressed interest in learning from the Kurds.