Lifetime of War Trauma

Last Tuesday I was asked to participate in an event about living with war trauma. My participation was supposed to be an account of living a lifetime with war. I wanted to talk about what does it mean to pass through days and nights, waiting for my father to come back from the battlefield in the 1980s. The war was mainly on the borders. In Babel or in Baghdad, I didn't hear then the horrific sound of bombs or missiles falling on the border villages in the southern and northern borders withe Iran. The only terrifying memory I had of that war was waiting for my father to come back and the fear that I would lose him like many of my friends in school who were referred to as "daughter of the martyr". I didn't want to be one of the children who had to stand in front of all school on the first of December of every year, so that I receive petty gifts that were supposed to compensate me for losing my father. I wanted my father instead. I didn't want him to be a mere picture on the wall. I wanted my father to come home. My mother was happier when he was around; we all were happier. Waiting for him to come home was the worst times of my childhood.

But in Iraq war was the reality of the last four decades. I hit my teen years with gulf war in 1991, when more than 36 country decided to punish one man by destroying and terrorizing a whole country. My father was home with us; all of us, five girls and one boy, all slept in his room. He was there but he couldn't even say "don't worry, it is far away, we are safe". The sound of bombs falling around Baghdad was louder than any assuring words my father would say. He himself was terrified that he asked us all to be in one room. If we would die, we would all die together. He couldn't make my 2 years old brother feel safe, when the siren started the nightmare. My dad wished that they would bomb without this awful sound, which rendered the little child speechless, frozen in his place covering his ears with his hands. My brother would playing in the street during the day, laughing and having a good time. When the siren set off he would stand still, look ahead with expressionless look, pale and frightened, he would cover his ears. He hated and feared the siren more than the bombing.

My brother barely recovered this when 2003 war started. This time the war was more intense, for Bush Jr intended to finish his father's job. He didn't want a long war, but shock and awe that could end it once and forever. I was adult, had just submitted my MA thesis, but the bombing was something I saw in Hollywood movies. However, this time it was above our heads. The Americans were everywhere in the country, they were inside my city. We had to leave, my dad decided to take his family away from war zone. With the few families remaining in the neighborhood, we all headed northeast to Dyala. We stayed in tents in open lands or Palm-tree orchards. We were displaced for days and weeks and nobody believed that they would go back home at any time soon. It was freezing cold at night, the water had to be boiled before we drink and we took a shower once a week. I tried to read the book I brought with me then, Gone withe the Winds, but my father warned not to do that. The others would make fun of me.

The story of war did not end with the fall of Baghdad, did not end when Saddam was hanged, and definitely did not end with American-made democracy. Till the time I left Iraq, 30 July 2015, my city was a war zone: political parties stepping down on our heads to achieve power, armed groups using our destitution to gain whatever selfish goals they have and desperate rebels sacrificing their fellows in the hope of changing what they reject. Meanwhile, the peaceful world I have dreamed of since early childhood has continued to be far-fetched, a non-existent reality for far-away lands, but not for ours.

Apparently the horror is chasing us everywhere

Nadia F Mohammed