Black Iraqis AFTER Obama’s Victory

Black Iraqis AFTER Obama’s Victory
Posted on December 3rd, 2008 by Tariq Nelson

Back during the campaign, I posted this story on how black Iraqis were praying for an Obama victory in the US in hopes that it would bring attention to and eventually improve their plight in Iraq. NPR now has a story that updates the situation after the Obama victory.

As a note, the alleged founder of Shiaism is disparagingly called “Ibn Sawda” (son of a black woman) by many Sunni historians. This shows the deep roots of this in places such as Basra.

The story is below. Be sure to listen to the audio

The election of Barack Obama to the U.S. presidency was celebrated with special fervor by Iraqis of African descent in the southern port city of Basra.

Although they have lived in Iraq for more than 1,000 years, the black Basrawis say they are still discriminated against because of the color of their skin, and they see Obama as a role model. Long relegated to menial jobs or work as musicians and dancers, some of them have recently formed a group to advance their civil rights.

The election of Barack Obama to the U.S. presidency was celebrated with special fervor by Iraqis of African descent in the southern port city of Basra.

Although they have lived in Iraq for more than 1,000 years, the black Basrawis say they are still discriminated against because of the color of their skin, and they see Obama as a role model. Long relegated to menial jobs or work as musicians and dancers, some of them have recently formed a group to advance their civil rights.

Black people in Basra are most visible at joyous events. When there’s a big wedding, Basrawis call in drummers from the district of Zubair. The Basrawi bride and groom are welcomed in traditional fashion by a row of musicians in Arab dress, long dishdasha gowns and red-checkered head scarves. The drummers sway in unison to the rhythms they slap out on broad, tambourinelike drums — and drive up excitement as the newlyweds cross the threshold of a Basra hotel.

The drummers are black men, descendants of the people who came here from East Africa as sailors or slaves over the course of centuries. And while they are welcome fixtures at joyous events all over the city, they say they are not as welcome in Basra’s political, commercial or educational life.

Seen As Slaves

“People here see us as slaves,” says Jalal Diyaab, a 43-year-old civil rights activist. “They even call us abd, which means slave.”

‘Abd is EXACTLY the word used by Al-Zawahiri to describe blacks in his insane rant.

Diyaab is the general secretary of the Free Iraqi movement. He sits with more than a dozen other men in a narrow, high-ceilinged room in a mud-brick building in Zubair, talking about a history of slavery and oppression that he says dates back to at least the ninth century.

“Black people worked on the plantations around Basra, doing the hard labor, until there was a slave uprising in the mid-800s,” says Diyaab. Black people ruled Basra for about 15 years, until the caliph sent troops. Many of the black rebels were massacred, and others were sold to the Arab tribes.

Slavery was abolished here in the 19th century, but Diyaab says black people in modern-day Iraq still face discrimination.

“[Arabs] here still look at us as being incapable of making decisions or even governing our lives. People here are 95 percent illiterate. They have terrible living conditions and very few jobs,” he says.

Diyaab takes visitors across the street to a warren of mud-brick courtyards where dozens of people are packed into tiny rooms without running water or sewage. The narrow passageways reek of excrement. Many people sleep in the open yards when the weather is good, because there isn’t enough space in the rooms.

“These houses are like caves. This house? This is it,” says Diyaab, pointing at a single narrow room and the courtyard outside. He says 15 people, the family of a man called Abu Haidar, live here.

Lightning streaks the night sky as a thunderstorm rolls in from the Persian Gulf. Rain begins to speckle the hard-packed ground. The men gathered around say a heavy rain will flood these rooms ankle-deep with muck and sewage.

Diyaab says there are more than 2 million black people in Iraq. He says they want recognition as a minority, like the Christians, whose rights should be protected. He says his group’s demands have been ignored by the Iraqi government, but they have found an ally in a Sunni political party — the National Dialogue Front.

Awath al-Abdan is the head of that party in Basra, and he says he thinks black Iraqis have a strong case for getting their minority status recognized.

“We expect this cause to become a political reality soon because it just started to get publicity. We are working hard to get these people’s message heard,” he says.

Blacks face similar conditions in others countries throughout that region.

I will end by quoting S. Parvez Manzoor:

Our age possesses no will for self-criticism and reform. We show no courage to look at ourselves as we really are. In place of cherishing the living, we venerate corpses. Fleeing our present, we turn to the past not for reflection and review but for comfort and solace. Our dialogue with history is nothing but a deceptive game of self - indulgence . Self - aggrandizement not self-appraisal is our pastime. Our faith may not be an opiate, but we certainly are the most past-intoxicated people in the world

[...]

Our ills are our own, nobody else’s. That we accept tyranny and oppression is our suffering. That our children die of hunger is our responsibility. That our women die of childbearing and domestic violence is our disgrace. That our scholars prosper by ignorance is our shame. That our rulers rule by terror is our scourge. That our civilization is crumbling is our doing. By our sanctimony we fool no one but ourselves. We alone are the victims of our hypocrisy and we alone can rid ourselves of it. The sooner this curse comes to an end, the better it is for us and the world for whom we have become a liability and a burden.