Sunday, June 01, 2008

Vacation & Memories

An Iraqi friend went for a week visit to the United Arab Emirates last month. Two days after his arrival I decided to call him and see how he's doing, he was not in a good mood, because first thing happened at the airport was a fight with a security officer that according to my friend was not polite at all. I was surprised because as far as I know the security and passport officers are not rude, on th econtrary, they are very calm and very polite. Anyway, after few minutes of that phonecall, I received an SMS message from him. He said in it: how come most of men in this country have Uday beard-style - that is very carefully light shaven! He meant as a joke, of course, but it rang a bell in my head when he mentioned Uday, of course, Uday is Saddam Hussain's son who was killed in a fight against the US forces in Mosul, north of Iraq.

I laughed when he sent me that message and made me think a little deeper about such a remark from someone who left Iraq a very long time ago and this was his firt visit to an Arab country in almost two decades. How an flash back like that struck in his head when he saw the men in the streets on Dubai and Abu Dhabi with their traditional customs walking and driving around.

I came to one conclusion: no matter the years passed, sad and bitter memories remains hidden in the back of someone's mind but they won't be erased from someone's rain. It would suddenly comes up to the surfice because of a some situation. The bigger problem is the psychological affect that follows: Our friend did not have pleasent memories about his life in Iraq before, thus did not enjoy his vacation. He told me that after he arrived back to Europe by phone.

So that one piece of memory because of seeing something/someone somewhere would erase the meaning of joy and would make old scars become fresh again! That's how I can perceive that whole experience.

2 comments:

Indigo-Daisy said...

This is a beautiful post and it is something that I worry about in Iraq with the fighting between her own people. There is so much pain and hatred of which people refuse to forget and go on. Pride gets in the way of forgiveness and spills over from generation to generation. Oh how I dream that Iraq can heal herself, but I don't see it happening without letting go of the past, forgiving, and starting anew.

MixMax said...

Daisy, glad you passed by my blog, glad to see you here. Thanks for your compliments.

The psychological affect on Iraqis because of their country's history is huge. Do you know that there are some people who start crying when they hear the sound of fireworks because it reminds them of the bombardment and explosion in the past?

There are who left Iraq many years ago, but they still get afraid when they see two police agents walking towards her or him!