An Urban Landscape Re-Shaped
Dare we hope? The unbridled tribal murder and mayhem in Iraq appears to be fizzing out finally. The initial madness of primitive revenge and intolerance, of explosives sending warm bodies into cold finality, the hunting down of Sunni by Shia and the incursion of Sunni militia into Shia neighbourhoods to finalize the cleansing is chugging to a crossroad, running out of steam.Peoples' ability to take things in stride is truly amazing. Living through a nightmare of existence, seeing everything around them turn to dust in shattered lives and destroyed infrastructure, they yet endure and live to see another day. Witnessing unbelievable sectarian atrocities against one another, poisoning the atmosphere for future reconciliation, yet a relative calm descends and people pick up where invasion left them initially.
In Baghdad locals are once again venturing out into their neighbourhoods to shop and conduct daily enterprises with caution thrown to the winds, experiencing a new freedom from the ever-alert state of deliverance from harm. People are socializing, not furtively rushing from one destination to the safety of another, fearful of becoming targets in an open square.
While some residents remain skeptical of the lasting effects of this new relaxation in offensives, they lend themselves to the fleeting presence. "It's in the hands of God now. We don't know the future." The environment is calm, the city neatly divided into neighbourhoods, cleansing complete. Blast walls ensure that the sects are kept separate, and quiescent.
These are the exclusive zones - dedicated to Shia or Sunni. Muqtada Al-Sadr called off his Mahdi Army and with it some portion of the primitive savagery was stilled. People are spent, exhausted from the unending slaughter. A year ago one month of sectarian cleansing littered over a thousand corpses throughout the city. A year later, the monthly toll has dropped to 174. Car bombings slipped from 38 to 20 events.
The U.S. troop surge helped, as did, immeasurably, a Sunni-based volunteer movement to push back on al-Qaeda inspired slaughter. Divided neighbourhoods, Blast walls have effected the remainder. No longer ubiquitous bodies festering on night-time streets everywhere one looked. Cemeteries no longer work from morning to night, burying bodies some of which could never be identified, disfigured through torture before death.
Violent deaths were represented by 900 unfortunates in July, 472 in August, 356 in September, 130 in October. There is hope where there was none.
Labels: Middle East, Troublespots, World News
posted by Pieface @ Friday, November 16, 2007
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