Iraqi Poet Anwar Al-Ghassani

May 9, 2009

Reprint from January 2005

Filed under: - Poetry, - The Human Condition, NoteBook (Master) — Iraqi Poet Anwar Al-Ghassani @ 1:38 pm

Just by coincindence I came across these few entries in my blog from January 2005. I thought they were of some interest and decided to reprint them. I hope you like them and find them useful.

Anwar, the Al-Ghassani (himself -:) -:)

January 24, 2005
Filed under: NoteBook (Master) — Anwar Al-Ghassani @ 1:26 am

“Languages of Iraq” Uploaded to Website
Re-Writing And Uploading Old Poems in Arabic

Since my old Arabic text-mode-only wordprocessor stopped to work with
the ever-changing operation systems many years ago, I stopped writing
my Arabic poems in the computer. I still have the old files but I can´t
open them in the graphic environment of current programms.
Recently, I got some software that is helping me to re-write my old poems in Arabic. I have started to write them anew and upload them to make them accessible to the visitors of my website.
There are at least three complete collections I want to upload. I am working
on them in a rather slow pace. Arabic wordprocessors are pretty tedious.
I also have to convert the processed texts into HTML to adapt them for
the web. This takes a lot of time, several hours per poem. But I am
determined to continue.
Today, I re-wrote and uploaded the poem “Lughatul Iraq” (languages
of Iraqa, Arabic, May 5, 1993).
I personally love this poem. It was published, but I just don´t
remember when and where. I have to check my list of publications.
Click on this line to read the poem.

January 22, 2005
A Fraction Of The Thoughts of Just One Day
Filed under: NoteBook (Master) — Iraqi Poet Anwar Al-Ghassani @ 1:14 am

A Fraction Of The Thoughts of Just One Day
Again, Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Yesterday, the letter from Fernando Rendón of the XV. International Poetry Festival of Medellin, Colombia (June 25 - July 2, 2005) to which I have been invited. In the updated list of those who have confirmed their participation appears the name of Yevtushenko.
I would certainly like to talk to him about Pushkin (I have to find that old damaged book of PushkinÂ´s love poems in German. Where is the book?)

Dictators And Poets

Human weaknesses can be easily exploited; with a small dosis of fear and extortion, human beings become submissive for a short or a long time.
This is what dictators do.
Human beings need to be reminded of their inherit beauty, of their potential as beauty creators. They need that their weaknesses are unmasked and paraded in front of them, as simple facts of their nature. They have to be alerted about their inevitable death. At the same time, it is necessary to underline their prospects of finding their own voices and becoming effective, first themselves for themselves, and then, moving from there to higher grounds, to help and inspire others to find their voices.
This is aesthetical and factual upbringing and education, emotional refinement, promotion of human greatness.
This is what poets do.

The Pushkin Book of Love Poems

Amazingly, it took me little time to find PushkinÂ´s book, his love poems. (Puschkin, Alexander (1974): Ich sing der Liebe Lob. Berlin: Rütten & Loening). This wonderful luxury edition in German with original illustrations by Günther Lück is now only the shadow of what it was when I bought it in Leipzig. During a period of crazy wandering between continents, I left the book in Costa Rica in 1981. When I came back three years later, the book was horribly damaged by water and humidity. I could barely rescue it. I can still read the poems, but the paper has suffered a lot. I think if someone asks me that famous test question: If your library is on fire and you can rescue only one book, which book would you rescue? My answer would be: that damaged collection of PushkinÂ´s love poems.
I have deep respect and love for Pushkin. I donÂ´t want to know why. I have re-read his poems time and again. I do not usually do this with the work of other poets. Even my own poems, I re-read only few of them.
I have to look up in the files of my website. I suspect, I have already written something about Pushkin.
In 2001, during my last visit to Weimar, I went to see PushkinÂ´s marble bust near the entrance to the Grossgarten where GoetheÂ´s summer house is situated.

January 8, 2005
Filed under: NoteBook (Master) — Anwar Al-Ghassani @ 1:03 am
Thoughts About Autobiographies
Yevtushenko: A Poet´s Autobiography is his Poetry

Yevgeny Yevtushenko, (was he the Mayakovsky of the sixties? Perhaps and more. Where is he nowadays, anyway. I have to look up in the web to find his recent news). He states, “A poet´s autobiography is his poetry.” This is the opening sentence of his “A Precocious Autobiography” (Penguin Books, 1963, p. 7).
I would say, not all poet´s work, only the best of his poems. Y. wrote his autobiography when he was around thirty. I thought fifty would be a more adequate age. How much I desired to write my autobiography at that age. I tried, but it is only now that I am really focused and would start writing it.

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February 1, 2009

DIARY - Iraq, Myself And The World We Belong To

Filed under: - Autobiography, - Diary, - Personal Growth, Iraq, NoteBook (Master) — Iraqi Poet Anwar Al-Ghassani @ 10:59 am

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Dear Doug,

Well, well, well.
The falling from chair was not for you but for the generality of my invisible friend and his tribe, but I forget to specify the addressee. We had this in the past: each time I talk to brother Invisible you think I am addressing you. :-) (cheers to you for maintaining your humor).

Anyway, amazing that you agree with me, honest, I mean it.

Remembering past discussion about accountability in relation with war crimes and other violations in Iraq, I had already proposed for Iraq something similar to Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela´s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. There you have the angels marching in from one side and from the other side the killers are brought, Iraqis and non-Iraqis, to confess publicly to there crimes. After delivering their testimonies and express repentance they are taken out and set free to their eternal suffering until the last day of their lives.

This is the best solution and maximum punishment. This is my hope for Iraq.

You know what, I was just thinking about Iraq in these days. Like a small boy in his teens, I found myself re-thinking what I thought was a closed issue since decades: my basic attitude towards Iraq. Here again my “final” conclusion: I can never ever give up on Iraq. Leave emotions and that murky stuff of nostalgies aside, it will be just unnatural for me not to be permanently linked to Iraq.

So, here again, I declare my love to Iraq like a teenger who has just discovered his silent platonic love to a girl who on each morning travels in the bus a portion of his road to school. I again declare my eternal love and allegiance to Iraq despite all stupidities many Iraqis are committing on each day and despite those ignorant criminals who still dominate the roads in Iraq and can send you a sicario (hired assassin) just because you are different and wouldn´t join their unblessed Kingdom of Death.

To hell with them all, the heap of garbage.

What are the sources of my allegiance? First is my appropriation of Iraq as a child and a boy. That is one of the most mysterious processes of formation and emergence of love to a land, its history, culture, people, landscapes, flora and fauna. Second, Iraq is the most intimate source of my poetry. Third, oh, Iraq is part of our larger humanity and of our planet. My allegiance to humanity, our planet and the universe and Iraq within them, is in fact the essence of my identity.

I was recently watching a report on TV about the work and struggle of people on three continents, creating micro enterprises and trying to bring about some improvement in their lives and when possible to the lives of others. There were those sympathetic Indian women in Peru with their typical lovely hats creating small fish farms at lake Titicaca in the Andes at an altitude of 3810m, the world’s highest navigable body of water. Further, those images of workers in a cashew processing plant in Mozambique, people at a beach, the Indian ocean and a man on a bicycle wiping sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. Then those men on their tricycles pulling huge weights in the chaotic maze of Pakistani markets.

The calling of those people and places is so eloquent. “Damn you,” I think to myself, “you sit here in the relative security of Costa Rica, your family, your salary, position and job at the university, you write and publish poetry, make trips abroad, participate in festivals, meet friends in faraway countries, and yet you have all those people out there struggling for the daily piece of bread.”

But is this all that new? Not really, I had answered this during my early teen years in the sense of never ignoring the pain of your neighbour and fellow human beings.
However, I think today there is some new elements in the question. “You wanted to be a long-distance truck driver and ended as a university professor. Now, after so many years at the academy, it is time for change. ”

By change I do not mean this vulgar thing of opting for retirement and starting “a life in tranquility”. That makes no sense to me and I don´t neede it. I can retire at anytime and perhaps I will soon, but not because retirement is the first step into paradise, but because it will free new opportunities for learning and growth that should deliver some help to others.

I need plenty of time for the multiple things I want to do. Poetry must be expanded and in addition a project with positive effects for others. What? I don´t know. Will it be exclusive for Iraq? I don´t think so. For other peoples and places, including Iraq? Most probably.

In one sentence: this is how I see myself within Iraq and Iraq withing the world. Not bad at all, don´t you think so?

Anwar Al-Ghassani

Published in: http://al-ghassani-blog.net and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/iraq/
http://al-ghassani.net (official website)

dkmorris42@aol.com escribió:
>
> In a message dated 1/30/2009 1:11:49 P.M. Central Standard Time, alghassa@racsa.co.cr writes:
>
> As far as Iraq is concerned and reminding list members of comments about this subject at this list in previous years, perhaps it is now time to start procedures against those persons suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Iraq from the First Gulf War, the years of sanctions to the years since 2003 and until today.
>
> And please don´t fall from your chair, the list of such persons will not be limited to some of those who worked for the previous US administration, . . . . . . . .
> ***************************
>
> Dear Anwar,
> And I would ask that you not fall from your chair in finding that I agree completely. It seems past time for the Iraqi justice system to be able to establish its ligitimacy and effectiveness in pursuing justice for Iraq`s citizens. And if, as it sadly seems to be, they want somebody else to do it for them (the UN?), then that route should be pursued via appropriate efforts by Iraq`s elected governance, and its diplomatic resources.
>
> As you know, I wish Iraq the best. But his ideal will not be accomplished by complaining, but by doing. That said, I`m curious as to why Iraq would want to open the can of worms of bringing legal action against Kuwait.? I think I would sit on that one for a while.
>
> Doug
>

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January 25, 2009

AUTOBIO - 1947 - Kifri - The Clarinet Player

Filed under: - Autobiography, - Iraq, Media, Culture, NoteBook (Master) — Iraqi Poet Anwar Al-Ghassani @ 1:37 pm

After we had lived for about two years in Dakhoukh, we went back to
Kifri. The town was almost the same as we left it. Only the British
troops were not there. They had left the arid sand stone hills to the
north and northeast of Kifri where they were camping during the war.
The war that brought them has ended and they were gone.

Dear Kifri and its monotonous world of small government employees. A
life of continuous transfers from one town to another, and of daily
struggle to make ends meet. They went six days a week to the Sarai to
do their bureaucratic work and waited for years for the tarfi’
(promotion) to arrive. Most of them where not natives of Kifri and
lived somewhat detached from the local population.

Most of them had families with numerous members: their wives,
children, grandparents, and occasionally one or two relatives. The
wives spent their energy and lives cooking, cleaning, washing,
backing bread, sewing, and attending the interminable needs of their
families. Few of them were lucky and worked as nurses and teachers.
Others, if the husband’s income allowed it, would get a women from
the neighborhood to help in the household.

At that time, Kifri had few schools, no kindergartens, a small
hospital, a market, and a number of Jaikhanas (tea shops). No leisure
time or cultural facilities. But in a world still dominated at that
time by strict separation between men and women, only men went out to
a tea shop or for a walk. Women remained confined to their homes.

However, the wives of the employees did have one important
entertainment. They used to organize visits among themselves to chat
and gossip and to exchange complaints about their lives. The visits
were announced and organized in advance. A woman would send her son
to the other family to announce her visit. Usually, such a visit took
place on the same day, in the afternoon. The husband would leave the
house before the arrival of the visitor and her children. The hosting
family would entertain them with tee flavoured with cardamom, coffee,
biscuits, cakes, and imported orange juice.

There was also the Qaboul, a more elaborate visit to which several
women were invited. Those were larger monthly meetings organized each
time at the home of one of the women.

The employees had other choices for the afternoons and nights. They
went to the Employees Club, to a tea shop, or took a walk. The club
was the worse choice. It offered good food and drinks, but it was
mainly a place for gambling, particularly for playing poker. Some
went there to forget their problems and drown their dreams in
alcohol. Some became alcoholic over the years.

Poker destroyed families and caused suffering. At the end of each
month, when the employees had received their salaries, poker will
flourish for few days until the pockets are emptied. The employees of
the civil administration were usually joined by police officers and
feudal Kurdish sheikhs, aghas and tribes chiefs. Some of them lived
in Kifri, others came from their villages on horseback or in cars
accompanied by bodyguards.

After the days of effervescence at the end of the month, a period of
calm will follow until the next salary arrives. Meanwhile all Kifri
will be gossiping about the latest poker news: Ismail Bek lost all
the salary, Haggi Effendi won a huge sum, Sheikh Qader lost all the
money he had on and was about to loose his car also, Ahmed Agha,
after winning a handsome sum, lost even the money he received for the
wheat he brought from his village and sold in the morning at the
market. It is remarkable that although some people went to the club
carrying pistols and rifles, they never quarreled or shot at each
other. A man, according to their concept of manhood, was expected to
maintain calm and dignity even if he had lost all his money.

My father went to the club now and then. I know, he sometimes drank
and even played poker, but never regularly or frequently. He was not
the type of person for such things. He loved to go to tea shops or
take a walk with fellow employees. They would walk all the way from
the town to the surrounding farms and hills.

During the months of Summer holidays of my first years at the primary
school, my father used to take me with him on late afternoon walks.
He was fond of taking me everywhere he went. Sometimes I went with
him willingly, but mostly I didn’t want to participate in his world
of adult people. I just didn’t like to be “exhibited” in any way. I
was a shy and introverted child.

But those afternoon walks from the town to the outskirts were
fascinating. My father had a friend, an employee, who frequently
accompanied us. He was from Mosul, a slim man of delicate manners,
medium stature, dressed in a dark suit.

On some days, he came carrying a black box. We usually walked out of
the town to the north or northeast, to the red rocky arid hills.
There was a place there where massive rocks stood high and vertical
overlooking a plain of pebbles, sand and good soil. A small river
flew below in the shadow of the rocks. There was a smooth narrow path
that started below near the river bank and went up steeply. Young men
from Kifri used to compete and climb to the top of the hill running
up that path.

Down on the plain, near the river, farmers cultivated small pieces of
land and grew vegetables and watermelons. After wandering around for
a while, and just shortly before sunset, we would go to the hut of a
farmer with whom my father was acquainted, sit their, talk and eat
cucumbers and sweet watermelons.

After sunset, before the shadows got thicker and darker, my father’s
friend would open his black box, and fit together the pieces of an
instrument which I later learned that it was a clarinet. He will
start playing and we will listen in silence… the tones of the
clarinet were solitary. They expanded over the early evening, within
that landscape of contrasts: red and pink hills, the wall of rocks,
so high and vertical, threatening the serene inoffensive plain below
with all those docile vegetables. Somehow, the tones of the clarinet
brought order into the things around us, to the hills, the rocks, the
river, and into the consciousness of each one of us; they announced
the end of the day, and filled in the invisible vacuum the departing
day was leaving behind. Was the landscape and our existence within it
poorer without those artificial tones, produced by a manmade
instrument? I do not know. Yet, they did add an interpretation, a
meaning, a value which the landscape and every one of us lacked and
needed to retain, a certain balance that would secure our transfer to
the next day with some hope and joy.

(1998)

Anwar Al-Ghassani

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January 6, 2009

More on Anwar as nomad and wanderer

Filed under: - Autobiography, - Diary, - Iraq, Media, Culture, NoteBook (Master) — Iraqi Poet Anwar Al-Ghassani @ 8:43 pm

[Iraq] AUTOBIO - More on Anwar as nomad and wanderer

Owl,

Before joining the nomads, I would change my clothes and put on
local clothes of the countryside (as the ones you see on TV), grow a
beard and let my hair grow like the hair of a dervish, forget the
PhD, the universities, festivals, travels, conferences, computers and
all technologies and devices, and all my past life. Cover
my head, “disguise” myself and identity, forget the books, take just
some paper and something to write with. Do the daily work as the
others. Just disappear, be a nomad and wanderer, a semi-hermit but in
company of others. Pick a stick and hit the road.
For how long? As long as it takes.

This is my soul now. My previous soul is a little different. I will
tell you about it, if you remind me.

First published: Iraq List, 31/01/2007
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/iraq/

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October 9, 2008

DIARY - Nobel of Literature 2008 - Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio

Filed under: - Autobiography, - Diary, - New Horizons, - Poetry, - The Human Condition, NoteBook (Master), xCultures — Iraqi Poet Anwar Al-Ghassani @ 2:58 pm

DIARY - Nobel of Literature 2008 - Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio

Thursday, Oct. 9, 2008

I haven´t read him yet. No, I haven´t.

However, the description of his work and main themes makes me believe that the prize was given as a recognition, perhaps for the first time, for a new breed/generation of writers who have been able to develop and express a new world consciousness, the result of increasing communication and interaction between cultures on global level. These writers, and indeed many more ordinary people, are what we call writers and people between cultures, people whose experience and vision is an intersectional mixture of vivencias, both local, regional and global. These authors go beyond conventional travelogues, travel diaries and books. They are those who live simultaneously, in hyper, lineal or sequential moods within more than one culture or within multiple cultures and places.

That is the background of these few lines praising Le Clezio´s work:

-”A citizen of the world, a child of all continents and of all cultures.” (President Sarkozy)
- An “author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.” (The Nobel Committee)
- In his books, “there is a concern for civilizations, a concern for ecology. His books really appealed to my students because of the exoticism, the very seductive dreaminess. What I was really seduced by in his early work is this melancholic experience, of anguish, of being solitary in the city.” (Professor Antoine Compagnon, Columbia University)

This last appreciation by professor Compagnon is a fine description of the essence of Le Clezio´s work, above all this concern for civilization, ecology, anguish and solitude in cities, this feeling of being everywhere and nowhere, this incapacity of humans to provide shelter, a sense of togetherness and trust to each other. And parallel to this, here is the poet and the writer carrying on with a sense of global responsibility the work of the day, the work of never succumbing or giving up. The global writer is motivated by profound ethical maxims and by the essential value and beauty of life, the planet and humans. He has no definite goal to reach. The road and the continuation of the journey is the goal.

These are now themes of the new space in literature which is the result of what we may call cultural globalization.

I feel kinship to all that for the simple reason that my life has so far been a life in, between, inbetween and within cultures, places, countries and continents. While I maintain a sense of strong belonging to all my places, cultures and peoples and manage myself with multiple identities, I am not the “property” - in conventional sense - of any one identity and one culture, not any more. This doesn´t mean I feel I am excluded. On the contrary, my wealth of refuges and shelters is immeasurable. Although I am very local at the place where I am at any given moment, I am also, simultaneously, global in consciousness.

There is a poem titled “Lyon” which I started to write on June 18 this year while sitting one afternoon at a café opposite Place Cornot in Lyon. I was visiting my daughter in Lyon. During my visit of one week, I stayed in a hotel while my daughter lived in her student boarding house.
The poem is still a draft. It surprised me that while writing I felt the need to close each stanza with a sentence like:

- And yet I feel so lonely in this city.
- But I am so lonely in this city.
- But why then I feel so lonely in this city….

etc.

I will write down here the first stanza (please note, this is only one stanza, one fourth of the poem, and it is a very crude draft):

I have my eyes
on Rimbaud´s most beautiful manuscripts.
The Rhône and Saône remind me
of rivers I lived by in another life.
It pains me to see them
so composed, peaceful and beloved,
while my old rivers moan.
My daughter is safe and secure
in a room at this city.
Each night I sleep in the horrible room
at Hotel Alexandra on Rue Victor Hugo.
Nearby is the statue of André-Marie Ampère
of whom I didn´t know
he was keen on the theory of science.
Here, at the café, opposite Place Cornot,
talkative and noisy friends are celebrating.
Over there is Louis XIV, roi de France,
and somewhere nearby is Auguste Comte.
Tomorrow, my daughter wants to take me
to the museum of Les Frères Lumière,
the inventors of movies,

and yet, I feel so lonely in this city.

…. etc…

Anwar Al-Ghassani

http://al-ghassani.net
http://al-ghassani-blog.net

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September 15, 2008

Filed under: - Politics, Culture, Society, NoteBook (Master) — Iraqi Poet Anwar Al-Ghassani @ 2:14 pm

AUTO-DIA - Medvedev warns (AND MORE)
Monday, Sept. 15, 2008

O Gott, O Gott! She would have said.

Don´t read only. Try sometimes to write also and let others read your gems and pearls!!! That is definitely a healthier "strategy".
And, she would read the above and say, "O Gott, O Gott, I am bewildered and confused - she then would jump to Italian and say, pulling the "a"s like rubber ribbons: sconcertato, esterrefatto and then return to English -, how dare you utter such nonsense!"

But, now read, read, and don´t ask me for references. If you don´t believe me, conduct your own search for news sources on the web. What are you waiting for?

This morning, I only have bad news to report:

- So, Medvedev is warning NATO over Georgia, again. Who thought this boy will be so "anti-West". Bush would say, "I looked Putin in the eyes and I saw Medvedev."
- NATO, this slackened Cold War war carriage, is doing a meeting in Tbilisi and uncle Stalin is uncomfortable in his grave in Moscow.
- The pale chief bureaucrat of NATO and super-demagogue, its Dutch General-Secretary, went too far to the east in his solidarity with the boy of the Tbilisi Mafia. They want to connect the dots with Iraq, Afghanistan passing through the kingdom of Shirali Tahssin Beq of Azerbaijan.
- But oh, Pakistani Troops firing on US helicopters. (on their allies? Has this world gone crazy)
- Wall Street collapses. MAC the Cain says: will not happen if I am president (the Vietnam failure is dying to be president - go home and retire, please. Your are not T. Boone Pickens***). But Obama is smarter, he say that shows the financial system is outdated and needs to be elevated to the level of the XXI century. He is right.
- Now the icing of the cake:
Kurt Beck quit as the leader of Germany’s ruling Social Democratic Party, clearing the way for Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to be the party’s candidate for chancellor in next year’s nation al election.
Why is it that most leaders nowadays seem to be nerds disguised as clowns running away from a mask carnaval? (but not the Venice mask carnaval. Don´t touch that thing).
If you think Angela Merkel is a pale lady, just wait. You haven´t seen anything yet. This Franky boy is capable of boring a mule to death. O Gott, O Gott! She would say, "just what happened to all those charismatic leaders of Germany, France, and o, yeh, why not, and those of old England!!!"

(Guys, what is the big deal? Hey, typical of you. You are always back asking the same boring questions. We told you, man. It is the empire, stupid! Can´t you understand. Now, go away and let us sip our whiskey and enjoy the sunset.)

The-ha-ha-ha-man

*** Read something interesting on management by T. Boone Pickens. Go: http://www.boonepickens.com/thoughts/default.asp
Boy this is a wise man. I could vote for him and make him king of Iraq (despite his love for the unbeloved R. Reagan). Read his thoughts about leadership, learn wisdom and practical thinking, and then feel sorry for this, your world in the hands of gangsters.

The-second-ha-ha-ha-hu-man

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July 7, 2008

Filed under: - Iraq, Media, Culture, - Poetry, - Politics, Culture, Society, NoteBook (Master) — Iraqi Poet Anwar Al-Ghassani @ 4:41 am

Permanent History Lesson For Iraqis

Berlin, Café Feuer und Flamme, July 3, 2008

In my 1992 "Manifesto: The Future of Iraq", somewhere at the end of the document, I wrote that when after removing Saddam Hussein´s regime from power, all monuments, statues and images representing his person or the ideas of his regime should be left in place and not removed. I thought those were objects that represent a period of Iraqi history. Removing them wouldn´t remove them from the collective memory and wouldn´t neutralize their effect, positive or negative, on Iraqi soul and mind.

If we leave them where they stand, they will be valuable objects for studying Iraqi history by present and future Iraqi generations.

Today, at Midnight while talking with Mouayed about the current situation in Iraq, I mentioned that idea from the Manifesto. He told me that after the fall of Saddam Hussein his images were not only removed but that their walls were used to hang images religious figures and saints.

I thought that was strange. The album is the same, only the images on its pages have been changed. They have done to Saddam what Saddam did to those who were in power before him: remove them. Now, we will start the new world, our eternal world. So, where is the progress and learning from history in all this?

I thought that was grotesque and a shining example of human stupidity and shortsightedness: those who removed Saddam´s images and replaced them by their favorite images thought at that moment that with this image change the realm of evil is over and the realm of goodness and virtue has started, the gate to paradise is now open.

This is of course nothing but illusions, error, extremist preference of one´s own ideas that could even lead to the physical elimination of dissidents and adversaries. It is, in short, human stupidity, then what is the difference between those who erected Saddam´s images and those who replaced them by their own favorites. They did exactly the same and committed the same error of thinking that their ideas are the guarantee for a passage to paradise.

I thought this might be a good idea for a poem. Supposing we have a virtual street in Baghdad with statues, monuments and images of leaders of the regimes which ruled Iraq during the past one hundred years. So we will have an Ottoman Sultan, General Maud, the 1917 conqueror of Baghdad, King Faissal I, King Faissal II, King Ghazi, General Abdulkarim Qassim, Saddam Hussein and the current religious idols. Children passing through the street would ask their parents who these funny people are. A parent may reply, "These are people who have ruled Iraq. When each of them came to power, he removed all images of his predecessor as being symbols of evil and erected his own as being the only good one, the absolute in everything, the eternal."

And finally someone will comment on the images of the favorites of today, "So those who erected the images of present idols think these will remain forever. They are ready to sacrifice anything, lives of others and their own lives to hammer this idea into the heads of the people. But you know, this is nothing but the too well-known human illusion and stupidity."

Another way of looking at this procession of images and statues in this street is to see them as a collection of grotesque accessories for a tragi-comic scene on a theater stage.

Anwar Al-Ghassani

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April 19, 2008

Filed under: - Literature & Arts, - Poetry, Books & Authors, NoteBook (Master) — Iraqi Poet Anwar Al-Ghassani @ 7:35 pm

Second Patria - Poems - Recently Published

The collection is now available ($10.99) at:

Amazon.com Alibris.com Abebooks.com Booksurge.com

Description: Poems written in English by Iraqi poet Anwar Al-Ghassani as an homage to Germany, his second homeland, where he lived, studied and worked during three periods between 1967 and 1983. Those were years of his emotional and intellectual maturing and growth, of creative and happy times. They were also his years of the motorcycle and of explorations. These poems are also about reminiscences and about his almost yearly visits to Germany. They are about wonderful people, friends and places. Al-Ghassani writes poetry in Arabic, English, German and Spanish.

Read a sample of three poems

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March 11, 2008

The Rupture In Iraq

Filed under: - Iraq, Media, Culture, - Poetry, NoteBook (Master) — Iraqi Poet Anwar Al-Ghassani @ 6:52 pm

The Rupture In Iraq

The past is folded, conserved and stored.
It can now be retrieved as images.

The plains have finished expanding;
mountains, gorges, hills, snow and rivers are silent.
The creatures, noctambulists,
roving through darkness
to protect their DNA for their successors.
Day and night, this land runs amok against itself.

I love the features of this land,
contours of date palm trees,
fuzzy horizons, and fata morganas.

I am not the savior.
I produce words to connect
the meandering people to the land;
words - food and comfort.

Anwar Al-Ghassani
JacÃ³, February 25, 2008

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February 24, 2008

AUTO-DIA-2: How To Produce Solidarity With Iraq?

Filed under: - Iraq, Media, Culture, - Politics, Culture, Society, NoteBook (Master) — Iraqi Poet Anwar Al-Ghassani @ 12:31 am

AUTO-DIA-2: How To Produce Solidarity With Iraq?

Note: originally published in Iraq Information and Discussion List.
Join Iraq List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Iraq/

Sunday, Dec. 2, 2007

Dear Sumerian,

> Dear Mr. Dr. Anwar;

Thank you for taking time and replying carefully. No need for Dear, Mr and Dr. That sounds silly. Just "Anwar," or "Dear Anwar," , that would be enough.

> > I am replying to your message along the subjects as they occur. I am taking this approach because there are a lot of troubles in the PC setup / Yahoo / Windows which makes quoting a nightmare. >

I understand. Yahoo is a silly enterprise. They add their silly ads to the messages causing a lot of trouble when trying to quote the original message. I usually have to apply two or three additional measures in order to be able to quote and reply to a message.

> However I want to highlight that at the end of your message you mentioned that I was throwing subjects you didn’t discuss. That means I may not have understood your message well.

> > A)There was no informal statement in my message but only the address. I never thought that that was a concern to you. I was deeply upset from the way you stated this because I feel this meant to create a conflict in favor of some members in here.than to express a concern. >

It disappoints me that you, after being on this list for years, you still think that I could engage in such cheap stupid conspiracies against some list members in favor of others. Others might think I am appeasing you. Both suspicions are unfounded. For me, you are all valued list members. Some of you cause more trouble than others, but that is the nature of life and I am here to deal with that. Iraq list is a noble list where we all try to make it a good space for exchange and information. Sometimes we fail, but we always try and never give up. Conspiracies, cheap tricks, dirty maneuvers are not the style of Iraq list.

> B)I don’t discuss the gay matter with you because of two matters: > 1- It is not a major issue of cur rent concern on any level. I mean inside this group, in the news or on any other news level. > 2- I will never agree with you on this subject. My position was very clear since several years back. We don’t need to insist discussing subjects that we can never but only disagree about or argue about.

I agree. Gay issues are currently not major issues. I was also telling you that you can have your own opinion and you don´t need to change it. I was only telling you that you can`t use the list to insult anyone, be it gay or Shiate or Sunni or "Shroog" (the name you use for poor strata of Shiates) or the English or American peoples in their totality without differentiating between them and their governments that have conducted wars and colonial policies. Why? Because such wholesale condemnation goes against an important principle of this list: respect of human rights.

> > C) I read your message and replied to the best of my understanding, and I am doing now here too. >

OK.

> D) No one stated that there was a naughty nation, but they ( The Americans and UK) all did it on Iraq to mean that. There is no value of not saying something while someone do it. > > E) My personal readings on history gave me strong conclusions in the matter of criminalizing the majority of English, but not a nation. >

Neither the majority, nor the whole nation. Governments, the system, the politicians, that is another story and perspective. Read my previous comment above.

> F) English are the backbone of the British Empire. They created Britain and called it Great. That name is very confusing indeed. They are the first people who created confusion in history and politics. The British Empire is the result of the English efforts. Non of the nations which created Britain wanted Britain. That is why they are now all trying to liberate themselves.

I understand. That can be discussed. But, as a principle, do not condemn whole peoples. If you follow that principle, your arguments will be more convincing.

> > G) Removed after review > > H) Regarding feeling "loyal" to people if they gave me shelter and if I disagree with them: That sounds right at the first glance, but if you look deep in it ( I mean this is my interpretation); then I have another conclusion: I can’t sell my principles for what soever reasons the other side assisted me in one stage or even if he built me from scratch. Principles are more important than people. That is my concept.*

You should never give up your principles, but be flexible and open to modify and change principles. Legitimate principles are norms for the individual to direct and orient his interaction with others so that life can offer the best possible conditions of justice and equality to all, including that individual himself. In fact, principles are not more important than people. On the contrary, people are more important, because people, interaction with people, is the space for the application of principles. Principles in the head of an individual are nothing but nice formulations of rules and maxims. There is nothing sacred or religious about principles. They have no life of their own. They wake up and come to life when they are applied to the relation with others. There, they have to prove to be legitimate and worthwhile. The major evaluation criteria of their usefulness is that they should promote justice and equality among people. If they don´t do that, they are either wrong or worthless.

> *As you can see from the above, that we can go along with all subjects, and we may end up discussing what I think about everything in life than our concern in here which is the Iraqi file and issues.

I understand.

> > I) I live in Al Basra Gulf in the intension of living in New Zealand. Plans may change.

Thank you for the information. I wish you all the best for your plans.

> J) When I read, I then THINK. That gives me the power to judge. > > K) I don’t know if I didn’t learn. However I try to do that always > I understand. > L) There is nothing inhuman in proposing to humanizing others.However I am not imposing that, nor I am suggesting it. but rather I am reply only. It looks beneficial to remind everyone in here that 2 million Iraqis lost their lives while others were trying to educate us how to be humans.

I understand. As to the two millions and the destruction of Iraq, you remember that I have written about that many times. In short, we should never forget and never give up working towards:

a) Full condemnation of those responsible for aggression and destruction through legal procedures in both Iraqi and international courts of justice.

b) Full compensation for all the pain, harm and destruction inflicted upon Iraq.

However, you have to work hard, for years and maybe decades to achieve that. You have, in particular, to convince the peoples of the countries whose governments have caused the destruction of Iraq. But you can´t win them on your side if your are only condemning them, all of them, for what few of them have done.

Thanks,

Anwar

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Iraqi Poet Anwar Al-Ghassani

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AUTO-DIA-2: How To Produce Solidarity With Iraq?

AUTO-DIA-2: How To Produce Solidarity With Iraq?

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