Mijn laatste bijdrage
Vandaag ga ik niet schrijven over Bagdad of over de oorlog. Deze keer richt ik mij tot u. Om u te bedanken, vanuit de grond van mijn hart. Ik wil u danken voor het delen van een bijzondere ervaring, het schrijven van dit weblog.
Ik voel me bevoorrecht dat ik dit heb mogen doen. In het begin was ik best een beetje bang om mijn gedachtes aan het papier toe te vertrouwen. Ik twijfelde of ik het wel zou kunnen, want ik ben geen schrijver, geen journalist, maar gewoon een Iraakse burger. Eentje die, als zovelen, in een moeilijke situatie een land probeert op te bouwen, dat vrijwel compleet is verwoest door de oorlog.
Ik heb u een idee willen geven van wat het betekent om hier te leven en te overleven. Hoe houd je je staande in een stad waar je op ieder moment door geweld aan je einde kunt komen?
Wat is de invloed van het geweld op je eigen psyche? Hoe kan het dat de meeste Irakezen depressief zijn, maar toch doorgaan met hun leven?
Zet Javascript en Flash aan om deze Flash video te zien.
Uw reacties op mijn weblog waren mij zeer dierbaar. Het idee dat je er niet alleen voor staat, dat anderen in een ver land je een hart onder de riem steken, geloof me, dat is heel bijzonder.
Ook als u het niet met mij eens was. Dat was prima, want u beschikt over een groot goed, de vrijheid om je mening te uiten, je gedachtes uit te dragen. Door uw reacties voelde ik mij in contact met u, was er sprake van een uitwisseling van ideeën.
Leven in een oorlogsgebied betekent ook dat je niet altijd helder kunt denken. Je reageert vooral instinctief en daarom snel op alles wat er om je heen gebeurt en dat is meestal niet het verstandigste.
Helaas was ik niet altijd in staat om uw vragen te beantwoorden of te reageren op uw reacties. Dat was geen onwil, het kwam door dat ellendige stroomnet bij ons. Die verdomde elektriciteit valt ook nu nog voortdurend uit.
De gruwelijkheden van de oorlog dreven mij soms tot grote wanhoop. Dan had ik helemaal geen zin of energie om te schrijven. Maar ik dwong mezelf er toe het wel te doen. Hier in Bagdad huist zoveel woede, zoveel verdriet en pijn. Het leven oogt zo zinloos. Het hielp mij om erover te schrijven, in de wetenschap dat u het zou lezen. In die zin inspireerde u mij.
Maar aan alles komt een eind. Vandaag neem ik afscheid van u. Dit is mijn laatste bijdrage, omdat ik voor een jaar of twee voor mijn werk naar het buitenland verhuis.
Ik dank u voor uw aandacht, uw zorgen, uw geduld en uw reacties. Ik wens u het allerbeste en alstublieft, waardeer de omstandigheden waaronder u leeft. U kent vrijheid, vrede en stabiliteit. Waardevolle begrippen, eigenlijk kun je niet zonder.
God zegene u en ik hoop dat u ooit in de gelegenheid bent om een vredig en stabiel Irak te bezoeken.
Vanuit de Libanese hoofdstad Beiroet schrijft Sander van Hoorn over de problematiek in het Midden-Oosten en alle opmerkelijke gebeurtenissen die hij tegenkomt.
Vanuit Jeruzalem schrijft Monique van Hoogstraten over het conflict tussen Israël en de Palestijnen en het leven in het multireligieuze land.
Reizend verslaggever voor de Arabische wereld Lex Runderkamp verblijft in februari 2012 enige weken in de Iraakse hoofdstad Bagdad en zal vanuit daar regelmatig verslag doen.
Dear Mr. Al-Attar,
thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings about the situation in Iraq and about your personal life.
It is good to hear a ‘voice from within’, to balance the information we recieve about the topic through the general media. Your writing moved me and enabled me to see the Iraqi people as ‘normal’ people, something so easy to forget.
I hope you will see the day Iraq is peaceful again.
Hello Jassim,
Your writings gave me an insight on the situation in your country, I would suggest you keep writing, start a blog on wordpress.com or another blog provider. Writing things down helps to keep the mind sane.
And I would like to visit Iraq at some point.
Greetings,
Tim Blokdijk
Dear Mr.Al-Attar,
A very good log and I sure am going to miss your logs. Have faith and good luck to you and to your country.
Dear Mr. al-Attar, dear Jassim,
Since I discovered your blogs I read them all. I don’t know you and yet I consider you as a friend: you were someone who touched my heart, someone who urged me to think seriously about life and what is important in it. Here in the Netherlands we take all the good things we possess for granted. It is so easy, but I know we are wrong to do so. We have to be enormously grateful for it and you made me aware of this. I thank you for that.
I want you to know that I admire you. I admire you for not giving up, for not loosing hope and faith in spite of your (and the general Iraqi) despair. My hope for you is that your dreams for Iraq will come true in a near future.
Dear Jassim, I wish you a peaceful period abroad. May God bless you, your family, the Iraqi people and the people all over the world. May He send peace to all of us.
dear sir, thank you for being with us
Dear Jassim,
Your blog has been an invaluable source of information for us, providing an understanding of the situation in your country on a human level, much more so than the impersonal, and supposedly objective, data offered by regular news reports.
I want to thank you for your efforts, and I wish you all the luck.
Hello Jassim,
Thank you for your blogs. I know now more about te difficult live in Iraq. I wish you a peacefull and a good time in your work where effer this may be.
I’m sorry for my English it is not mine strong site
I hope you come back in an different Iraq about a few years.
I will miss you.
Indeed not always a journalist, for sure not always objective, always interesting to read.
Good luck!
Thank you for sharing your experiences with us.
Sometimes, it was hard to really open up to the pain of you and your people, to be confronted with my own responsibility for what is happening in Iraq.
And yet, I believe that’s where peace begins: if we open up to each other’s experiences, allow ourselves to be touched by each other’s feelings. We are responsible (response-able), because we are able to respond to each other. All the best, be blessed, P.
Dear Mr. Jassim al-Attar,
I just read your blogs and they have touched me very much. It is very good for us to read about your life in your country. I think we have to help each other and shake hands, christians and moslims because we are all human beings and equal and our believes have to be put aside and stay home in the house if we want to life side by side in peace. Together we are strong and we have to fight the bad; the people who have just power and money in their mind (like America)and nothing else and don’t feel love for the country. I hope for you and your family one day in your country you are free to speak about your thoughts and feelings and live in harmony and peace. I would love to visit your country in the future. I hope my English wasn’t to bad. Warm greetings, Marjella
Dear Jassim,
Thank you for everything!Believe it or not but your weblog became an important part of my life. Your experience, analyses and feelings have formed my opinion about Irac and the intervention of the so called allies. Thank you again and I wish you and all your family all the luck in the world!
MT
Dear Mr. Jassim al-Attar,
Thank you for your weblogs. I will miss them. You make us aware what happens to common people in Iraq.
God bless you and your family.
Dear Mr al-Attar
I feel very sorry that your columns will stop now. I always checked them on my laptop before starting to work. In French its said: partir, c’est mourir un peu. Its always difficult to say goodbye!
Hope you will have a good time abroad, you and your wife. God bless you all and thank you very much for the honest insight you gave in you personal life and feelings!
Bye, Esther
Dear Jassim,
Thanks for sharing every day life in Baghdad. I wish you and your wife all the best and a future in peace, so that hopefully one day you will have the children your wife would like to much.
I have really appreciated your weekly columns.
Karin
Dear mister Al-Attar,
I am very grateful that you share your mind and feelings of your day-to-day experiences with us. You gave us a unique inside in the lives of the Iraque citizens under the great pressure of the war.
However, still I am a great supporter of the US/Brittish raid in 2003 to expel Sadam, we shouldn’t close our eyes for the mistakes which are made by our allies. The way forwards is long and uncertain, but we are with you and your country with our prayers.
Yours faithfully,
Erik
Hello Jassim,
Your Iraq is a beautiful country with friendly people. I am lucky to visit your country and your people once every month. I liked your columns. But I understand it, that you leave your country for a while. I am impressed about people like you who live in Baghdad and Mosul. I hope their wil come a change soon, that violence stop and that children can play outside.
Kind regards,
Otto de Ridder
thank you! thank you! thank you!
My respect and appreciation for sharing your experiences and thoughts on everyday life in Baghdad. You offered us an insight that make us value security and freedom, which we normally tend to take for granted. Your personal stories have given a face to those who are affected by the war and terror in Iraq. I wish you well. السلام عليكم
Dear Mister Al-Attar,
Thank you for your weekly columns, I enjoyed them alot because they gave a good insight in everyday life in Bagdad. They often taught me a lot more than the items I saw on the news.
Good luck with your work abroad, I hope it will give you and your wife (is she going with you?) a time to relax a little and spent some time together.
Dear mister Al-Attar,
I don’t know what living in a country without peace and stablity is, I live in a rich country where children play games about the war in Iraq.
We don’t have the problemes you face erveryday, nobody in our country knows what war really is, except for some old poeple who were young children during the second world war.
It’s very important that people in our country, know what war really is.
That war isn’t just a game.
You have been doing is for many years,insuch bad conditions, to learn our people that war is no game, that people who face it, have to suffer every day in very bad conditions.
I hope the war in Iraq will end quikly and that god may bless you, and that your children are safe.
Kind Regards,
Goord van Merode
Goodbye Jassim and farewell,
I hope for peace and prosperity in Iraq and that you may find someone decent to vote for.
Dear Mr. Al-Attar,
Thank you very much for your weblogs ,for being so open about your life and thoughts. Giving us an insight in your daily life in Iraq. I read your blogs every week with interest.
I wish you and your family all the best, health, happiness and peace and stability in your country. I hope you and your wife may have children in the near future. I still remember your very touching weblog about your wife’s deepest wish.
Dear Mr. Al-Attar,
Thank you very much for your weblogs. It is good to have got insight in the daily life in Iraq. I read your blogs with great interest. I hope that peace will be in Iraq real soon, and I wish you all the best.
Mark
Dear mr. Al Attar, dear Jassim,
So very sorry to hear that this will be your last blog. Thank you very much for sharing with us what it’s like to live in Iraq, a country in chaos.
I have read your blogs from the start. Wish you and your family good health and most of all peace and stability in your contry.
Diana
Dear mr. Al-Attar,
Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts. I wish you, your family and your country all the best.
Erik
Dear Mr. Al Attar,
I’ve very much appreciated your inside and eastern view on the situation in Irak. I wish you all the best in the times to come.
Hans Grootveld
Dear Mr. Al Attar.
First:excuse me for my bad english.
Next: it’s sad that you have to leave and that we have to miss your blogs. They gave us a look in the daily life in Bagdad and it was always a sort of relevation to hear your columns. It’s like you say it:
appreciate the place we live in, we have peace, we have freedom and we don’t have the fear of an attact everyday we walk in the streets.
I wish you and your family all the best.
Ana.
Dear mr. Attar,
I am also very sorry to hear your blog is going to end. I would like to thank you for the stories. I will always remember the blog about your wife deciding not to have a baby, becaus you saw a documentary of childrenshome in Iraq. Suddenly I realized what it really meant to have to live in a ‘warzone’. And I realized how lucky I am not having to take such incredible decisions. I wish for you, and all Irakees, that there will come an end to it soon. All the best for you, and you wife, and thank you very very much.
Gitta paans
dear mister Altar, Last week you told us that it was your last story for the blog. I wouldn’t acept this and full of hope I was lisening today for your story. Than I realise that it was a fact. Thank you very much for your humanity, that you managed to stay human during you staying. It did a lot to me. I wish you and your beloved ones a happy life. Thanks for the reports. Annette Fehrmann
As every tuesdaymorning I listened to your column this morning. This last contribution confirmed all your previous ones and provoked my emotions. Yes, let’s be aware off the precious freedom of meaningsuiting. You said you were not a journalist, but you did real journalistic work by telling us about the horrible conditions in your country. Your manner of reporting was so human, and more penetrating than lot of tv-emissions. Thank you and good luck, Berber
Dear Mr. Al Attar,
I have really appreciated your blogs which gave an inside view of living in Bagdad, and the impact of the abundant violence on the daily life of people. This transformed the war in Iraq for me from some daily news headlines into the suffering of people that are hoping for a better life. Many thanks.
I have one question: could you please tell me which music was playing in your radio blog ? It was beautiful and I would like to play it again. Thanks and all the best.
Dear Mr. Al Attar, I would like to thank you very much for your blogs and I wish you all the best.
Dear mr. Attar,
Many thanks for the views you gave us about your country and personal situation. It made me alert that to live in peace is not automatically, but a precious diamond that has to be sheltered and protected. I dearly hope that soon you will experience that in Iraq.
“There is no way to peace; peace is the way”. All the best, Sandor
Dear Jassim al-Attar,
Every Tuesdaymorning, when I drive from my home to my work, I listen to your blog.
It always puts me in a melancholy state; I feel for the people of Iraq who, in their everyday life, have to deal with the effects of the war while I realise that this seemingly endless circle of violence belongs very much to human nature.
On the other hand, your very personal notes about your life and that of your family, touched me deeply. I must confess that it is all too easy to forget about the people that are actually involved in the conflicts our media report about in their daily, bussinesslike, manner.
Your notes, your feelings, your stories have certainly made up for this, as far as I’m concerned. Iraq, for me, will never be just a name in the news anymore.
While driving from home to work, I go a little bit of this way wíth you.
Your leaving Iray must be a bittersweet experience. It cannot be easy leaving many friends and family behind.
I wish you well !
Dorine
@ Pieter: de muziek is van Ilham al Madfai. Hij heeft een eigen website en ook op youtube kun je hem vinden. Voor zijn radioweblog zijn de volgende nummers gebruikt: The Bazrigosh Song (Hinna) en Mali Chughul Bil Soug.
Dear Jassim,
Every tuesdaymorning, I listened to your blog, driving to my work. Your blogs gave me an insight in your daily life and and your struggle and that of your beloved ones in Iraq. Your stories often made me silent and sad and scared. What affected me deeply was that you once told us that you and your wife had decided not to give birth to a child yet, because of the current situation in Iraq.
Jassim,
You personalized the war and gave the millions of your fellow Iraqians a voice. Thank you for that.
Nevertheless, I also felt hope, listening to you.
As long as there will be beautiful people as you in Iraq en in the world, there will be hope.
I hope that you will held your child in your arms one beautiful day in a peaceful Iraq.
Yolaine
Dear Jassim,
I will miss you’re logs, you made us see a piece of the story which te tv-news doesn’t talk about. You brought an large scale problem down to human proportions.
Though you write you aren’t a writer, you have a talent for words. Perhaps you could do more in that direction. I hope your stay in a different country will be good for you and your wife. Of course it will be hard not to be in the country you love, but it will definitly bring rest. I hope you both will give birth to a son or daugher and teach him/her what is really important. And I hope that you’ll be able to raise her/him in a new and peaceful Iraq.
Don’t forget that words are more powerfull than a lot of other things. Maybe your words someday can make a change in Iraq.
If you start an other log, please let us know.
Greetings and the best wishes for you and your wife.
Elsie
Good luck in the future, your colums were very interesting and gave us a direct view in the world of everyday citizens in Iraq. Thank you very much and I hope you´ll move to a more peacefull place now because everyone needs an should live in such a home/country.
Hi,
Sad to say goodbye to you. Hope your stay abroad will give you a bit of peace and will give you the strength that you will undoubtly need when you return to Iraq. I am sorry to see you leave here. And I hope that you will return somewhere in the future. Please, keep hoping in a peaceful Iraq and keep being proud on your roots. Try to foster both. I think those two are the key to a peaceful Iraq. Thanks for your contributions. All the best to you and your family. Greetings!
Dear Jassim,
I heard your logs weekly on the radio. You made me see that people in Irak are humans like Dutch people. That they are not all like the ‘bombers’ the television tells us about.
Your last log made me sad. I’ll miss your insight in the Iraky daily life. All the best to you and your family!
Dear Jassim,
In the Koran is written about the new prophet. He is already there. In Mahedi Maud chapter 13 you can read about this and understand why there is war and you can Google on Satya Sai Baba (home page is the best).
You can go there, and spread around the knowleggdge of the new prophet wich is the same as the new Jezud and the new Krisna
All the best, Jan de Wit
There where there is too much stress in the air, automaticly there will be war. As its reduces stress. In every chaos is an order wich you might not see.The deads take with them the stress of the living and wil not take rebirth.
Dear Jasim
According this new profet, called Satya Sai Baba, living near Bangalore India, everyone can go to see him, , In 2012 the muslims will recognize this new profet widely all over the world. Than, as also the Koran sais, the wars in wich they are involved will stop very soon after that recognizing. Its very inspirating for all and all religions.
Go there if possible, its amazing and greatly relaxing, very very much.
Bey, Jan
dear Mr Jassim,
Its really sad that w no longer going to hear from you…
because I am an Iraqi girl living in the netherlands.
I came to Holland when I was 1 year. I loved the things that you told about Iraq the good things and the bad things.
I want to thank you for the tings you tell. and I hope that one day all the iraqies going back to Iraq.
ma3asalama