This from "Riverbend" -- a girl-blogger in Iraq. Surprisingly, not entirely anti-American, but extremely fatalistic, and saddening. Suffice it to say, America, for all her advisors, foreign and domestic, don't seem to have a genuine grasp of what the people in Iraq will face without the presence American soldiers. Either that or America chooses not to see the situation through the eyes of one who will have to live with America's decisions when America pulls out. Can anyone say 'coitus interruptus'?

Here then are the very real fears of a very real Iraqi.

Sunday, November 06, 2005

Movies and Dreams...

My parents, like many Iraqis of their generation and educational background, discouraged too much tv. When E. and I were younger, they were vigilant about the type of shows and movies we were allowed to watch. They didn’t like for us to be exposed to propaganda- Arab or Western- and any programs containing excessive violence, foul language or sexual content were prohibited. On the other hand, all types of books were encouraged. I grew up reading books by authors ranging from Jane Austen to John LeCarre, from Emily Bronte to Maxim Gorky to Simone de Beauvoir… nothing was ever off-limits.

Where movies and television were concerned, there were times when something would slip through their censorship- or rather, there were times when WE would slip through their censorship and watch something at a friend’s house or at a relative’s house, etc.

I believe everyone remembers a movie or two, seen during childhood, that remained ingrained in their memory for years. For me, there were two such events....