GOOD-BYE MY BELOVED BAGHDAD
By: Ara S. Ashjian

KarabakhOpen
05-09-2007 12:10:58
Baghdad, Iraq

I write these words while I say good-bye to you, my beloved Baghdad. I
say good-bye while the pain and the grief tear my heart and fill
my essence and feeling. You are the city which embraced my father
and other Armenians who survived the Armenian Genocide in 1915 and
provided them with shelter and means of living and comfort. In you
I was born, grew up and finished my elementary, intermediate and
secondary studies in the Armenian Private School.

Also in you, I dreamed and had my first childhood love in school. I
graduated from the school, where I was ever superior, to enter your
College of Engineering from which I had graduated as a constructional
engineer to serve you through my specialty and to engage in your
reconstruction. Then, I joined the compulsory military service
during the Iraqi-Iranian war and completed my postgraduate study in
1988. During the study, I loved an Armenian young woman, who was a
student at the same Department and broke off my relation after years,
because she had left you and immigrated to the unknown world. After
invading Kuwait in 1990, I served in the Army as a reservist and went
out of it after the end of the Second Gulf war in 1991.

In you, my beloved Baghdad, I practiced activities in the Armenian
Diocese and cultural associations and Iraqi cultural forums by
giving lectures on the history of the Armenian people and Church,
the Armenian Cause and interpreting the Bible. I also wrote articles,
worked as a journalist in some of your newspapers and worked in the
Embassy of Armenia, till the members of the mission left you before
the US-UK campaign to invade you began in March 2003. I worked as a
lecturer in the University and this was my history I made in you with
great efforts which I was proud of and I dreamed to tell my children
about in the future while being in you.

However, everything in you has changed, my beloved Baghdad, after you
are afflicted with wounds and treachery of the friends and enemies
from each side. You are bleeding, death is spread everywhere in you
not excluding anyone and life became unbearable and kind of madness
and suicide. You lost means of living and all kinds of public services.

Despite great difficulties I faced in you that lasted for more than a
quarter century, beginning with the Iraqi-Iranian war, passing through
the UN economic unjust sanctions and the invasion, I remained adhered
to you like a baby adhered to his mother. However, I now may have lost
patience and the ability to withstand after all my family members and
relatives have left you and I remained alone with my sick mother and
brother. Under these circumstances, I do not find anyone who aids me
in taking care of them and the atmosphere around me is depressed and
sad. So, I was forced to think of what I didn t think of before… I
thought of separating from you, leaving behind my history which I made
in you through long years and beginning a new history away from you.

However, my sick mother did not wish to leave you. She told all around
her: I wish that my son bury me in Baghdad before leaving the city. She
wanted to be buried close to my deceased father to be loyal to him
even in death. She also felt that her sick body would not endure the
hardships of the long way away from you. Her wish was fulfilled and
she passed away fifty days before leaving you. My deceased mother
faced her end fearlessly and even she had prepared the new clothes
that she would wear when being shrouded years ahead! Your soil, my
beloved Baghdad , contains now the remains of my beloved precious
mother, beside the remains of my father and sister that will increase
the pain of being away from you. I kept taking care of my father,
sister and finally of my mother during their well-being and sickness
and they all passed away satisfied with me.

However, what will relieve my pain is that I am leaving you to
beloved Yerevan , which is in my dreams since my childhood, but you
are the beloved city which lived in and with me. But, from now on,
the situation will be reversed; the beloved Yerevan will be the city
where I ll live and you ll be the beloved city in my dreams. Your
wounds will heal; you ll restore your charming image and will remain
in my heart forever.

The last place I visited before leaving you, my beloved Baghdad, was
the site of the house I was born in the street of your Colonel Abdul
Karim Qasim. He led in you the 14th of July 1958 revolution against
the royal regime, declared the republican regime and led Iraq for
less than five years (1958-1963).

I took a long look at the site of the house which is now a private
hospital and sat in a restaurant in the opposite side. I ate my launch
there to spend more time looking at the site, although the restaurant
was not offering my favorite meals!!

I remembered, my beloved Baghdad, what my deceased father and
mother told me about the circumstances that surrounded my birth in
this house. My birthday (November 8th 1960) came across martial law
declared because of the unstable political and security conditions
prevailed in Iraq then. My father was standing in the street in front
of our house at late night waiting for a taxi car to take my mother
to a hospital to give birth to me. The Colonel Abdul Karim Qasim,
who used to return from the meetings of the Cabinet after midnight to
his house opposite to our house in the street that bears his name so
far, passed by. He asked my father, whom he knew as a neighbor, about
the reason of waiting in the street at that late time of night. After
knowing the reason, the Colonel ordered his guards to take my father
and mother by his own car to the hospital where I was born in the
six o clock in the morning!

Taking a look at the site, I also remembered my childhood and youth
years I spent in this house for more than a quarter century. My
family sold the house to a group of well-known doctors and surgeons
who erected a new hospital at the location of the house which became
a widely known private hospital in Baghdad.

Good-bye, my beloved Baghdad These are the most difficult moments in
the life of your pious son; the moments of separation from you. I ll
miss you; miss your immortal Tigris River, my home and life in you
and the kindness of your people. I ll keep praying for you so you
recover your health and bloom.

During your history, you proved the calamities and the difficulties
did not ever affect you and you were soon rising to take your fitting
status.

Good-bye, my beloved Baghdad, you are in me forever despite the
distance that apart us. Separation from you is difficult and
bitter. May God help me to bear it.

Good-bye, my beloved Baghdad