Iraqi Bloggers Central

Samira Bellil honored as one of 12 Mariannes representing the face of France - Wikipedia

You never really die, if your memory's still alive."

Samira Bellil died on September 3, 2004, at the young age of 31, from stomach cancer.

You may not have heard of her, so I will tell you about her life.

She was a beautiful woman who didn't deserve what befell her. You wonder why fate hands down such brutal judgements against some and spares others.

Samira, a blue-eyed Algerian girl, was born on November 27 1972 in Algiers, and moved to Seine-Saint-Denis, an immigrant enclave outside of Paris, France with her parents.

Her home life appeared troubled from early on, as her father was arrested and jailed for what Samira called, "stupidities". She was sent off during this period to a foster home in Belgium, a peaceful and happy place for her, a time of contentment away from home.

She returned unhappily to her family after five years, summoned back to her parents "like a parcel" she said, and found her freed father, distant and violent.

You have to imagine what her home life was like for Samira. She lived in the Projects, the French version of the Ghetto, or HLMs.

These enclaves or Quartiers were originally set up by the French, to provide cheap housing for North African and Turkish Muslims, and other poor immigrants who provided unskilled labor, doing the jobs, like collecting the trash, that the French abhored.

But over the years, the Quartiers degenerated in to prison blocks, high rise bastions of unemployment, non-assimilation, and despair, intermixed with strict Islamic customs. Women and girls bore the brunt of these hostile conditions, inhabiting a no-man's land of crime, rape, and hopelessness.

In this environment, the "Message" was given to all Muslim females like Samara. As Rebecca Hillauer tells us in Sight and Sound, the "Message" was: take on traditional female roles, dress chastely, don't go out and most importantly, remain a virgin until you marry.

It was during her teenage years, that Samira started rebelling against the "message", going out, meeting boys, standing up against the tight societal structures of her Muslim background and the Quartier. They were acts of defiance on Samara's part, and acts of courage, because girls that went against the norm suffered dire consequences.

One such dire consequence happened to 18 year old Sohane Benziane of Vitry-sur-Seine, a suburb of Paris. As Rebecca Hillauer tells us, on October 4, 2002, Benziane,

the daughter of Kabyle immigrants, was burned alive. The perpetrators were two men her age of North African descent. They lured the girl, who refused to submit to the "norms of the neighbourhood", into a cellar. While one kept watch outside, the other poured gas over Sohane and set her on fire with a lighter.

Sohane died.

Samira, I think, probably wished she too would have died, than face what happened to her.

She was raped.

Repeatedly.

As Samira sorrowfully noted in an interview with CBS' 60 Minutes: "I was gang raped by three people I knew, and I couldn't say anything, because in my culture, your family is dishonored if you lose your virginity," says Bellil. "So I kept quiet, and the rapes continued. The next time, I was pulled off a commuter train and no one lifted a finger to help me. Everybody turned their head away. They were all looking out the window."

Rose George writing in The Guardian, has an even more graphic description of what happened to Samira: Samira was first gang-raped when she was 14, when her boyfriend handed her over to three of his friends. They beat her viciously, raped her all night, and then made her breakfast. A month later, the most violent rapist, K, dragged her off a train by her hair, while other passengers looked the other way, and she was gang-raped again.

In all, Samira bore the agony of three gang rapes, or what the French call "tournates," or pass-rounds, because the girl was passed around like a joint.

Raped by multiple youths and men. And not uncommon.

As Samira said in a CNN Interview, There was a trial in Lille where a 13- year-old girl was gang raped by 80 men. Yes. Sometimes it's 80 or 50 or 10. It's absolutely terrible.

Samira further told CBS' 60 Minutes about a case in Argenteuil, "In the case of Argenteuil, it was horrible. A young woman was raped in a school. Of course, everybody knew, but they're so afraid of these young men that they prefer to close their eyes. That's the price of peace in the ghettos."

After the rapes, most of the victims remained silent. Silenced by custom. Silenced by their faith. Silenced by fear. Silenced by their families.

There was and is a real fear for the victims of these rapes to report such horrible deeds. The danger of reprisals in the Quartier is great. Apartments have been burned down, family members threatened with further rapes, the victim killed. Those are the physical effects. The mental anguish these girls faced, came from reporting a rape and bringing shame and humiliation to themselves and their custom-laden Muslim families, with the victim being cast out, tossed aside by their humiliated families and sentenced to a life of degredation on the streets.

These same fears plagued Samira and she too remained silent.

Until she found out, in talking with two of her friends, that one of her attackers K had raped them too.

Samira had had enough. She was furious.

She filed charges against K, who was found guilty, and sentenced to eight years in prison.

Results were predictable.

Her Muslim family threw Samira out on the streets - her neighborhood, the Quartier rejected her.

Foster homes followed for Samira, squatting in abandoned buildings, life on the streets, hopelessness, self-loathing, years of drug abuse.

Time passed, and Samira found a sympathetic psychologist, a kind person to confide in, who helped her, as she underwent years of therapy to restore her spirit and self-worth.

She made a decision to write a book about her experiences, to show other young women that there was a way out. In 2002 her courageous book, Dans l'enfer des tournantes or In the hell of the tournantes (gang-rapes) was published. It was an autobiographical look at the horrors and degradations that she and other women encountered in the French ghetto and how she survived them. As she said in the book's dedication, to her fellow sisters in trouble, about coping with and surviving such horrific experiences, "It's long and it's difficult, but it's possible..." She also bravely used her real name in the publication of the book and a picture of herself on the cover, despite the fact that she was once again living in the same Quartier as her attacker, K.

It was in the same year of 2002, that Samira rallied for her fellow sisters in trouble after becoming infuriated upon learning of the torturous death of Sohane Benziane, who as mentioned earlier, was doused with gasoline, set on fire, and burned alive by a gang leader. Said Samira to CNN, Before, they would rape us. Now, they're burning us alive. Sohane can't speak anymore, so I'm going do the talking.

And talking she did, as Samira became a patron of Ni Putes Ni Soumises, which in English translates to, We're neither whores nor doormats, a movement that sprang out of the ghettos, made up of mostly immigrant women who fought back against, the gang rapes and violence that plague their neighborhoods. In her role with Ni Putes Ni Soumises, Samira led demonstrations and marches across France, speaking out against the violence and rapes, and lobbied to, set up shelters to help protect the women at risk.

However, it was a heavy toll for Samara. As she told Rose George, "I can't carry all that violence forever".

Still, she seemed to have finally turned a corner with her life. She was close once again with her two sisters and reconciled with her mother. She had moved back to her Quartier, working there as a youth worker and doing drama, which she loved...and she even decided that not all men are bastards, as she put it...and she wanted to fall in love.

And then she was struck down with stomach cancer.

She died two years ago, this month.

We wish her the peace, she was denied in life.

Postscript: To honor her courage, the French government chose Samira, as one of the new Mariannes, the new faces of France.... In 2005, to honor her memory, France named a school in l'Île-Saint-Denis after her, the Ecole Samira Bellil.

Sources

Samira Bellil - Wiipedia

The Guardian - Obituary - Samira Bellil: Courageous writer who forced France to confront the outrage of gang rape

CBS News, 60 Minutes: The New French Revolution - Population Of France Is Almost 10 Percent Muslim

Sign And Sight: Neither whores nor submissive

CNN: Insight - Muslim Women Rebel In France

Washington Post: Samira Bellil, French Author and Rights Activist, Dies

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Blue Mood by Ghostbones - Flickr

Update 3

Remembering The Departed Iraqi and Kurdish blogs and bloggers who have said farewell, told us bye-bye, given up the ghost, or gone on hiatus for whatever reasons. We remember as many of them as possible here...

Saif al-Yassin of the Day to Day blog seems to be the first Iraqi blogger we semi-officially know of, who was killed in Iraq's Post War violence. As the Iraqi Konfused Kid states: ...he is one of the four friends of mine who were killed in a double-car explosion June 11, 2006.

Before his sad passing, Saif said the following in his blog, since removed from Blogger, but Iraqi Blog Count has the snippet:

I made this blog to talk about my soul "BAGHDAD", Baghdad is my country where i borned in it so i like to talk on every thing happend and will happen bad or good specially these days. but i will not make it news paper i will add every thing nice and funny.................. good luck for me.

I don't know what to say, Young hopes shattered, his luck did not hold out. It's ironic how life and death is like that sometimes.

Dear Raed, Salam Pax's seminal blog which kick-started the Iraqi Blogosphere in to existence went on hiatus for good, Saturday, April 10, 2004, with Salam telling us:

I think Hiatus is the word. Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen.

G. in Baghdad:
The blog of the famed photographer, hobnobber with Muqti al-Sadr's Mahdi Militia, and lesser known as a Christian, Ghaith flashes off wondering where his friend Salam is:

Saturday, September 20, 2003
anyone have seen my friend salam....would you tell him that G is still in Baghdad, its been 3 weeks since he left and he hasn't even sent me an email.

G. in Baghdad, Ghaith's short-lived photo blog breathes its last August 17, 2003. Ghaith went on to bigger and better things including the book, The Unembedded, which contains a large selection of his Iraqi photography.

Summer 2006: With Disappointment and Disillusionment cradled in his mind, over the difficulties present in modern day Iraq, Ali Fadhil has had enough and terminates his blog, Free Iraqi.

Where has our friend Akba of Iraq Rising -- whose name I could never spell right -- gone off to? He hasn't posted since March 12 of this year, when he lightly took Hammorabi to task and suggested a more balanced composition of the Iraqi government:

Habibi Hammorabi (3ashet el-assami), as an Iraqi I have a 1000 times more respect for you and your opinion. I just beg of you to see the point from our side ( I mean the non supporters of UIA side). We really are not asking for much, 2 simple requests;

1- find someone other than Mr. Jafari, I mean whats wrong with Adle Abd ilmehdi or someone else from UIA… It’s not as if we are demanding the PMs position for ourselves..

2- That the ministries of interior and defence be run by individuals who have no connection with militia groups. As you are perfectly aware, there have been operations carried out by people inside these ministries that can only be described as sectarian assassinations.. We as Iraqis cannot accept a police and defence force that operate on sectarian grounds.. these forces belong to all Iraq and should protect every Iraqi regardless of his or hers back round.. IS this also such a hard request.

Iraqi blogger I Was There, faced a horrifying situation in April of this year, and had to end his blogging, apparently leaving Iraq with his family, when men came in to his home looking to kidnap his daughters:

While the marionettes were throwing political balls into each other courts and wooing the US ambassador at Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's residence, gangsters broke into my house looking for my daughters.

My wife called me around 2 pm last Wednesday while I was working in my office and said with miff, "Your daughters just called me asking if I have sent some one to the house; three men opened the house door and took two cocking gas cylinders as Um 'Y' our next door neighbor said, but I did not send any body."

We thought that they were no more than normal thieves looking for $40 worth gas cylinder to sell them.

"You better come back home, I do not think that those men were after the cocking gas cylinders, they were in the house and asked Um 'Y' about our daughters", my wife said that bitterly when she called me again from the house after she talked to my neighbor.

My daughters were not at home at that time because their minibus broke down at that day so they had to walk back home and this is why they were late, "They should be home by now", one of the gangsters told my neighbor with an interjection when she told him that the girls still at school replying for his question about them.

My fear rushed with me to the house, it was striking hard on my head and making me so meager while it was growing and growing, it filled the car that I was driving in the dusk through the useless police checkpoints in a bumpy road that was not paved since Saddam era.

It took me 45 minutes in a 15-minute road to reach my house because of those police checkpoints and the 150-meter distance that we should maintain between our cars and the US military Hummers that were patrolling the street so slow, we can not pass them even if it was an emergency other wise they will shoot us so I was driving slowly following them while I was boiling deep inside trying to get home as fast as possible.

I can not call the police because I do not trust them and I can not ask for help to protect my daughters, what shall I do? I remembered what that guy said in his comment about Iraqis should help themselves and do not expect every thing from the Americans but how can I help myself in this case to protect my daughters.

The house was dark when I reached there because there was no electricity as it comes on for one hour and goes off for 8, and the public generator that supplies our block with electricity broke down two days ago and no one fixed it because its mechanic was killed last week because he was Shiite.

I walked inside the dark house stumbling with things on the floor that I couldn't see because of the darkness; my wife and my daughters were all sitting in the living room motionless with awe.

I sat by my daughter who was squatting on the sofa and told them, "I am going to take you all outside Iraq, it is not the place that you can stay in any more, let us leave this country for those marionettes and the gangsters."

Ahmed in Iraq at Ahmed's Blog lasted for all of two posts, checking out on April 26, 2004.

How can we forget the very amiable and personable Ahmad from Iraqi Expat in London? Ahmad signed off on August 12, 2005 with the following words:

On a Break

Dear friends,
I am very sorry for disappearing without notice. It wasn't planned. I had to take a break. I needed the break because I got sick and tired of many things, and because I was - and I am still - preoccupied with some issues, among other reasons.

So I think I will stay away for a while until I clear my mind.

Thank you for all your messages, I am fine.

ahlanwasahlan greetings from Baghdad seemed to have resided more in England and Jordan than Baghdad. Their last post was May 04, 2004.

Ishtar Talking: Nawar translating for Ishtar, who was in Basra, not the most jovial of places beckoning with mirth and good tidings these days, offers her memories in a last -- August, 2003 -- post about the Basra Hilton:

Every time I pass near it my eyes keep looking at the open windows showing the rooms and walkways on the upper floors. The quick glimpses and the rest that was filled out by my imagination made me have such a strong wish to spend there a couple f days when I get married. Even if I was given the choice to spend some time on the moon I would have chosen this special place with a special person.

It was one of the very few beautiful places in Basra. The big spaces, the beautifully designed wooden façade and the gorgeous gardens. The big festivities halls. And the many cafes where you can have a cappuccino and enjoy the view of the river which is right in front of it.

But unfortunately it has been destroyed by the hands of people like many other things which if they have survived destruction thru military attacks were destroyed by people.

How strange, how could someone not only have the nerve steal and loot but to let the fire eat these places for days. I often thought that these people were not sane.

Is Something Burning, Riverbend's ephemeral cooking blog departs December 6, 2003 with a recipe for Tepsi Baytinijan - Hope she was a better cook than a propagandist.

Baghdadi at the Iraqi-American last posted on
February 23, 2006 saying: Hi Everyone; I miss Blogging and I will do my best to write again.

Alaasmary from Sun Of Iraq blogs his last thoughts on May 7, 2005 asking: Do we need USA longer? And answering:

I witnessed the change in Iraq since the beginning and my opinion is not prediction of should or should not. It is merely the true that I concluded it from my work side by side with the coalition and Iraq government.

Yes, we need the U.S. for longer time or we shall fail. They helped us to start the change but the changes happen in steps and we just started in Iraq. Even if there are many complains about instability within these two years. Iraq community is so difficult and needs more than these years to re-communicate with each other without privilege of one ethnicity to the other.

Sarmad Zangna from Road Of A Nation went on hiatus November 1, 2004 wishing that GWB would be reelected and America would stay the course:

Iraq, this is the most part id like, what I and many and many of my people Waite to see, a free liberated country, and that will never be happened if we waited the mercy of the great friends of the exit regime, or by our self's, if we find them .look to Iraq and how he is walking with confidant steps towards what he want ,yes we got a lots of enemies and we got a long time to go, but only it start with a sense and then turn to a feel and then to a wish and then to act, and that what we dot together with our friends and only the real friends, yes I support GWB because I see in him what I didn't see in any modern leaders able to lead free nations .

I thing GWB did in 4 years what no one did, from fighting the terrorist and help the nations to be free, and he got the courage to go to the lands and fight them.

There for I wish that he be reelected, so he accomplish what he start.

The Iraqi Agora, Liminal's screed that says I suffer from Bush Derangement Syndrome went Aloha means Goodbye on the 20th of March, 2004.

Liminal showcasing even more of her BDS stops posting at Shlonkom Bakazay? on January 9, 2006 with a final Chomsky anti-Israel screed.

Ferid the Great, the dentist to be, whom I did an In T View with, apparently had it with the Iraqi version of Democracy, hanging it up on August 27, 2005, and told a sad tale in one of his previous posts:

one of our mates in the college and was a close friend to me, killed by the U.S forces while he was returning to his house during the examination, the story was quite brief; he was in a public transport vehicle sitting next to the driver, as they approached a mobile check point of a U.S army the driver might not responded or was too fast (this is our conclusions) and one of the soldiers opened fire at the vehicle, he took one shot in his trachea, which didn't kill him immediately, he made a call with his mobile to his friend, not to his family as if he thought he would survive; the time his friend and the family came to hospital they found him dead…

Yes, I think the poor security situation has curtailed a lot of the Iraqi blogs. We hope Ferid is alright these days and returns to blogging.

Ays at Iraq at a Glance stopped posting in December 22, 2005, worried about Iraq becoming an Islamic Republic:

Well, today I think I have less than an hour to speak about what is inside of me cause I feel that I really need to speak about it and draw some expected lines of Iraq's future which is unfortunately will be the Islamic Republic of Iraq! and with the lovely neighbor Islamic Republic of Iran within the coming few years we'll get a wonderful Islamic Republic of Iranq! with the new dictators like AlJa'fari, Alhakeem and some other Sunni beards (who will rule the west part) in addition to AhmadiNajat and other stupid Islamists in the region.

Crystal Light From Baghdad apparently gave up her blog, because it's become p 0 r no heavy from the US. Crystal, a young Iraqi blogger was a cousin of Najma and Sunshine, etc.

The same thing seems to have happened to Sanyora.

Gothika by Ghostbones - Flickr

Maithem Al Anbari was an Iraqi expatriate, living in Johannesburg, South Africa, who covered the Iraqi sports scene at Iraqi Sport. Apparently the games stopped being fun for him, because he stopped posting in October of 2004.

He came, he saw, he decided to not post again: My Life's Othman Qasim gave it his all in his one post on his blog on September 12, 2004:

I'm Othman Qasim from Iraq . I live in Mosul in the north of Iraq . I borned in 13 \ 10 \ 1988 . My hobbies ( reading , football , swimming , ping pong , internet , singing ) . I'm funny any i like jokes . I'm in the secondary school . I hope u all have a good time in my bloge .

Little Snippet tells us in his last post,December 3, 2005 that he is:

Too busy

Between teaching and work I have no time to post for a while.... Talk to everyone much later

Hasan from Iraq's last post on September 15, 2004 was a grim one:

yesterday 17\9\2004 in mosul . I was playing football with my friends near my house . after we started the game we hear some bombs and we saw the fire . Then we saw three cars and there drivers was driving so fast they went to the hospital . we saw a dead men after they gone we all couldn't countinued the game and we standing with out talking for moment thinking about this bad five minites . then we all go home . in the night on the tv in news they saide : it was u.s.army folt they shoot thoise peaple becaus they thought one of them was having a gun . I really couldn't sleep that night and i was remeber those dead men and the blood on there bodys. It was so bad.

Ahmed from Life in Baghdad is the husband of Rose, Uncle of Sunshine, relative of Dr Truth Teller, and stopped blogging in May of 2005, when Rose, his daughter and he moved to the UAE.

Abu Khaleel at US Mistakes In Iraq counted up and detailed the errors the US made with Iraq and the Iraqis. Apparently, there weren't too many, because he ended his posting at Mistake 11 in August of 2004. Or maybe, the list was so vast in his opinion, that he just gave up.

And That's how the Story goes on ... was a creative writing blog involving Ladybird, Faisa, and Najma, where they wrote a post, and the readers were expected to continue the story in the comment section. Unfortunately, a good concept lacking contributors, and thus discontinued in July of 2005.

Husayn at Democracy in Iraq was happy for Democracy in Iraq in his last post, which was on December 18, 2005. Is he still happy or beaten down by events?

He talked about Hidden Messages in Water and then went in to hiding himself. Free Writer from Mosul was last with us on October 25 of 2005. I In T Viewed Free Writer, so I always wondered what happened to him.

Duraid Munajim, an Iraqi Kurd and Cinematographer living in Canada had the Iraq Election Blog, which sort of morphed in to a cinematography blog. He was last heard from at this blog, on Prince Edward Island on April 28, 2005, where he wrote:

On a shoot with Red Apple ( http://www.redapple.com ). The show is called "Opening Soon", and we are shooting the first day on two episodes. The director on the two episodes is Rina Barone.

An Iraqi In The West lasted for exactly two posts in April of 2005. Has he moved east?

Nooon, The Nice Boy posted nice photoshopped images in his blog, then moved on after December 19, 2004.

Our List Of Human Waste and Theomania may have belonged to Zan I think, now they are yet more of these p 0 r no-themed blogs.

Medical student Dr Humanity last wrote about a sandstorm in August of 2005 and then disappeared like it from the blogosphere. We hope he is alright. But, how would we know? I know people have tried to contact him via email and never heard back from him.

Postcolonial Iraq was Jelloul's blog that strived to look at: genuine Iraqi self-determination; a post-fundamentalist and post-liberal watch for consociational patriotism and a confessionalism beyond religious as well as secular sectarianism. Perhaps, he went on to Pre-Independent Iraq, because his posts ended December 26, 2005.

She was ony around for two months in April and May of 2005, but the famous Baghdad Mistress certainly used her limited time to harangue Zeyad:

One of the main Iraqi male hypocrites who was attacking me constantly under different nicknames on this blog and on the IraqBlogCount for the type of the job I do, would be rather stunned that the new rulers are soon legalizing "Mistress"ing jobs in Iraq... Perhaps I should have ignored him and his childish comments. Because as he says on his profile, "My hobbies include reading, PC and console gaming, watching movies, and most recently blogging!" needs several more years to understand that life is not the same as the console games that he plays.

Allahkareem was one of many of Khalid Jarrar's blog. As Khalid told us there: I am pro God, I am pro life, I am pro humanity, I am pro truth, and when the American goverment choses to be against all that then damn it: i AM anti American-goverment. Perhaps he ran out of Anti-American steam, because he stopped posting there April 30, 2005.

Daez, the Iraqi Rebel was one of the most promising young Iraqi bloggers to come along in recent times, but apparently it got to be too much for him, as he declared in his last very prophetic post on December 20, 2005:

Can somebody tell me what the hell just happened? I seriously feel that someone hit me hard on the head with an aluminum baseball bat.

There has never been such tension in Baghdad since April 2004. Something tells me that all hell is going to break loose very soon.

How can it be??? How could those Iranian mullahs win those votes? Even higher than last january when his excellency grand Shitheadstani himself ordered people to vote for them?

It just doesn't add up. It defies logic and reason. No way Iraqis are such brainwashed fools.

The Junior Bushra, an Egyptian-Iraqi who lives in the US, and just graduated from CSUF in California, hasn't posted since he graduated in January of this year:

Did some one say Graduation...
True...This happened, I got an email for my professor saying that I am a college graduate. That is scary... I guess here I come real world... More to come.

Stamps & Money From Iraq which dealt with Iraqi coins and stamps went silent in January of this year.

http://www.niqash.org/ which hosted quite a few Iraqi blogs seems to be offline or perhaps out of commission these days too.

Kurdo's World , the premiere Kurdish blog crumbled on December 29, 2005, as Kurdo was reacting to the increase repression of personal freedoms in Kurdistan, known to some as "Commiestan", thanks to the overreaching policies of the two Kurdish political groups, the PUK and the KDP, of whom the latter according to Kurdo, had ...Dr. Kamal Saeed Qadir... put in prison for 2 articles he wrote against the KDP. Kurdo goes on to tell us:

KDP's tribal mentality are not fit for today's democratic life...The best thing we can do is zip our lips otherwise we will be also put into prison for swearing AKA criticising the Kurdistan government.

And thus he was silenced sadly.

Small-Shadows-Creep by Ghostbones - Flickr

Kurdish blogger Karda from Land of the Karda didn't last past September 25, 2004, where he posted about an Arab writer who writes about Kurds and Jews:

The writer is Jasim el-Mutir. He is an Iraqi Arabic writer. He is actually a very good friend of Kurds and Jews, especially the Iraqi Jews. He has been captured by the Saddam’s government because of his stories which he wrote. He is the first Arabic writer who wrote a book about Halabja, the Kurdish city which has been bombed with chemical weapon by Saddam Hussein. The book called “Shiren” and it is one of his best stories that he wrote. “Shiren” has been translated in more than 15 languages, including Kurds and Chinese. He is also the writer of the first book about the Jewish tragedy in the ME. It’s called “The two lovers of Mesopotamia”. It is an amazing book about two Iraqi Jews who separated from each other because of war.

Kurdish blogger Heja departed August 9,2002.

Diyako, which seemed to have been a collaborative Kurdish effort, saw its last post on May 30, 2003.

Kurdish blog Hajirstony got taken over by the p 0 r no people.

Kurdish blog Hemereng stopped with new posts on May 1, 2003.

Postings were no more after January 12, 2004 for Kurdish blog, http://www.merze.blogspot.com/.

The Kurdish blog Mehmudkan saw no further action after February 18, 2004.

Kurdish blog http://www.minukurekem.blogspot.com/ wasn't updated after March 13, 2003.

The Kurdish Language blog ceased speaking Kurdish on May 24, 2003.

Medya Daily, which revealed life as experienced by an Iranian Kurd in Iran, was another blogger yet silenced by the Iranian authorities, and last heard from in his own blogs in 2005. We miss the outspoken Medya and hope he is well and still taking photographs.

The rambunctious Xosh 7al, a Kurd living in England, who always used to get in to verbal tussels with Medya, was last heard from at Beardie's World Of Crap on November 28, 2005.

Kurdistan Youngs, Yad's blog departed with a nice photojournalism piece on the plight of Kurdistan children, February 20, 2005.

Piling, aka Sandrine Alexie, a nice French woman who covered Kurdistan and the Kurds in her blog, Incoherent Thoughts, last posted there, February 5, 2005.

The Kurdistan Bloggers Union, which contained a collection of Kurdish and other bloggers interested in Kurdistan and the Kurds, fell victim to infighting and apathy among its members, circa February 2006. As Delal noted in her last post there:

Death is a difficult event to handle whether it be quick or slow and painful such as the demise of this particular blog. The life of a blog depends on its authors, and the authors of this one have moved on to their own individual projects. The legacy of KBU has come to an end. It served as a place where we could all gather to find strength, and in that end the Kurdistan Bloggers Union has been enormously successful. Now life continues onward.

The lovely Emmunah, a Kurdish Jew from the Peshmerga Women blog, suffered a torn rotator cuff in 2005, needs to have another operation she can't afford, and is in a lot of pain. Her blog, which covered Kurdish Women, has been in hiatus since March of this year.

Kawa Arts featured caricatures, cartoons from Kurdistan parodying world issues. It was last updated on December 4, 2004.

5 Hours north of Baghdad: A Muslim-American Women's narrative of her travels to Kurdistan in the fall of 2003 ended in the fall of 2005, but not before a nice photographic look at Kurdistan.

Aljazeera Against Kurds , was blog dedicated to detailing the abuses of the Pan Arabic Television of Aljazeera Against the Kurdish Minority of Iraq. It seems to have run out of abuses as of December 21, 2004.

Darbaz, a Kurd in London at the Back to Home with Iraqi Airways blog may have flown back to Iraq, as they stopped posting on January 6 of this year.

Swara was in charge of Kurdish Thoughts, a blog that looked at all relevant issues affecting Kurds and Kurdistan. His last post, which featured Jalal Talabani, was on April 10, 2005.

Timsa 7 of Ups & downs of a London Kurd was another Kurd who blogged from London -- seems like there's a sizeable Kurdish population there -- and in their final words on April 30, 2005, they expressed their angry thoughts about a post by Khalid Jarrar. Hard to believe the Jarrars would make anyone angry...

Kardox from Kardox - The Kurdish View, a 32 year old Kurd living in Northern Iraq/Southern Kurdistan said goodbye with a rather prophetic post from December 5, 2004:

New Shiite group hunts Sunni Arabs

The Anger Bridge is a new Shiite group that has one main goal, to hunt down and kill as many Sunni extremists as possible. They want to revenge the death of their sons whom lost their life in the violence by terrorists.

USA has done as much as they can, they have tried everything. It seems it never stops. The killing, the bombings, the beheading, the still go one. It's like cancer!

I wonder how long it will take until Kurds create a own group, there is a growing number in of families seeking revenge for the killings of civilians in Mosul and Kerkuk. I think many of their families will gladly join them.

The signs of civil war are getting bigger for every day.

His mother was in and out of hospitals at the time of his last post, so that may explain his absence.

Phew, a long list and I missed some, but hopefully I've provided you with a nice rememberance of the departed blogs and bloggers in the Iraqi and Kurdish blogospheres.

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Update: Thanks to our sharp eagle-eyed readers for pointing it out, that it
was indeed the wrong photo for the story. After conferring with my father,
it seems that the picture was likely mislabled by my grandmother years ago,
and is a photo of another relative who served in WWII. And more information,
I just found out, the Man I'm Named After has a living brother, so that part of the post has been corrected too. My Apologies for the flaws, it just goes to show how hard it is to accurately portray events that took place more than Sixty years ago.

Who knows when that day will come, when we are called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Commander of a Sherman Tank...The Battle of the Bulge... My Father's Cousin... The Man I'm Named After.

I was named after my father's cousin, who died during the Battle of the Bulge, in World War II in the Ardennes region of Luxembourg.

The Man I'm Named After: His Parents are long gone, he left no children, his friends breathe no more...

Who could I turn to, to learn more about him? He existed and passed long before my time.

I was forced to cobble together rememberances of him, from the only source available to me, my elderly father, who has four more decades of existence beyond mine.

My father told me, "You're asking me about something that happened 62 years ago."

But ask I did, and thus the In T View begins...

MG: What was he doing before the war?

MG's Père: Before the war, he owned a gas station on Acushnet Avenue in New Bedford. (MG: New Bedford, Massachusetts , the famous Whaling City - Ishmael sailed from there in Melville's Moby Dick.)

MG: How old was he when he enlisted?

MG's Père: He was drafted. (He) must have been 18 or 19, maybe older, when he went in... I was 17 at the time.

MG: What rank did he hold in the service?

MG's Père: He was a Sergeant in the tank corps.

Sherman Tank photo - Courtesy Wikipedia

MG: What type of tank was he in?

MG's Père: He commanded a Sherman tank.

MG: What type of tank were the Germans using against the Americans?

MG's Père: Tigers.

MG: What Division was he attached to?

MG's Père: I think he was in the 3rd Armored Division.

MG: Was that Patton's Army?

MG's Père: He was there before Patton got there...It must have been the 7th
(Armored Division)...I can't remember everything back then. (MG says: May have been the 9th Armoured Division, since they were located in Luxembourg at the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge.)

The Ardennes: The Day Before The Battle Of The Bulge

MG: What battle was he killed in?

MG's Père: The Battle of the Bulge. He was in Luxembourg.

MG: How did he die?

MG's Père: He was in his tank near a farmhouse in Luxembourg in the Ardennes. He was outgunned by the Germans in their Tiger tanks. They pretty much just chewed up the Shermans... their tank was shot to hell (hit by a shell). He came out of the tank and surrendered...he couldn't fight no more...his leg was pretty well mangled...He surrendered, but the Germans shot him. They didn't take no prisoners, I guess.

(MG Says: In the Battle of the Bulge which took place between December 16, 1944 and January 25, 1945, there were 80,987 American casualties including 10,276 killed.)

MG: And the other members of his tank crew?

MG's Père: Three were killed instantly in the tank, when the shell hit. Another guy got out with my cousin, don't know what happened to him, machine-gunned too, I guess.

MG: In the past, you talked about the actions of a farm girl in connection with your cousin's death - Can you tell us about her?

MG's Père: My cousin was killed near a farmhouse in Luxembourg, as I said before. The farmer and his young daughter came out to the battlefield afterwards, and took his body and buried him on their land. The girl had his wallet and other information, so she wrote a letter to my Aunt.

My Aunt and Uncle went over to Luxembourg, and they sort of adopted the girl. My Aunt brought the girl back to the United States to help with her education. She got married in the U.S. and lived in New Bedford. I use to know her name, but can't remember anymore.

MG: Where is his final resting place?

MG's Père: His mother had his body brought to the United States. He's buried in the New Bedford Catholic Cemetery.

Epilogue: There are times when I think, the man I'm named after was me in a former life. I seem to get emotional about a man I never knew, and have dreams of Germans, and saying I forgive you...

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Whoa by Dozens - Flickr

If you want to have good relations with the Iranian people in the future, you should acknowledge the right and the might of the Iranian people, and you should bow and surrender to the might of the Iranian people. If you do not accept this, the Iranian people will force you to bow and surrender.

Via MEMRITV

The above verbose words are from everyone's favorite Messianic leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, of whom, Joel C. Rosenberg informs us in the National Review is:

a devout Shiite Muslim...telling colleagues in Tehran that he believes the end of the world is rapidly approaching. He also believes that the way to hasten the coming of the Islamic Messiah known as the "Hidden Imam" or the "Mahdi" is to launch a catastrophic global jihad, first against Israel (the "little Satan") and then against the U.S. (the "Great Satan").

Certainly, Ahmadinejad and the Iranian Religious Theocracy are challenging the West with their rhetoric, their continuing quest to become a nuclear power, their long term involvement in state sponsored terrorism, most recently seen with Hezb'allah's actions in Lebanon, and their continued threats to wipe Israel off the map and in to the sea.

And now it is August 22, the day of destiny, which Robert Spencer writing at Front Page Magazine notes:

is known in the Islamic calendar as the Night of the Sira'a and Miira'aj, the night Prophet Mohammed (saas) ascended to heaven from the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on a Bourak (Half animal, half man), while a great light lit-up the night sky, and visited Heaven and Hell also Beit al-Saada and Beit al-Shaqaa (House of Happiness and House of Misery) and then descended back to Mecca.…"

The Night Journey, or Miraj, is central to Islam's claim to Jerusalem as an Islamic holy city. According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad was carried on a Buraq, a miraculous horse with a human head, from Mecca to Jerusalem, where he ascended into heaven and met the other prophets.

Therefor, it was assumed that if Iran carried out any sort of strike especially against Jerusalem or Israel, today August 22nd would be a propitious date to engage in such malevolent tomfoolery. And the theories abounded, over what Ahmadinejad and the Mad Mullahs might do. Yet, not much has happened to indicate any sort of apocalypse.

True, Israeli Radio has broadcast that Minister Eitan has said, Prepare bomb-shelters for possible confrontation with Iran., and the Iranians have fired upon and captured a Romanian oil platform in the Persian Gulf. Perhaps of a more ominous nature, the Iraninans are confiscating large numbers of satellite dishes from their citizenry, and Iran's military is conducting Operation "Zolfaghar Blow", named after the two-point sword of Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed which involves Twelve army divisions along with air and naval forces and missile units...

Ahhh Twelve, there's that magic number again, and not surprising since, it is the Twelfth Imam that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is desperately trying to re-incarnate from his hiding place in the well at the Iranian holy city of Qom, or perhaps the Mahdi is located in Iraq:

In this context, you can realise the significance of the bombing of the Askari shrine in Samarra last February for the Shia masses, especially if you know that the basement adjacent to the shrine is where Imam Al-Mahdi was known to have disappeared during the 9th century, and is where he is believed to rise again.

Wherever the Mahdi is located these days in his occulted state, it's clear the Iranians are stalling for time to complete their nuclear program.

And we hold the following truths to be self-evident, Iran can not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. If they do, we will see a massive hyperproliferation of nukes in the Middle East.

The Saudis, frightened out of their wits by a Shia Regime seeking to usurp their authority in the Kingdom and Mecca will cut a deal with Pakistan for nuclear technology; Syria meanwhile will receive whatever nuclear largesse Iran can spare; the Yemenis are completely insane, God knows what they'll do; the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt will scream like dervishes on fire in demand for weapons to take out the hated Jews.

And the terrorist groups! Imagine Hezb'allah or Hamas with nukes. And could anyone trust the Saudis not to deliver such weapons to al Qaeda, since the Royal Family is populated with a plethora of princes and princesses sympathetic and supportive of Wahabbiest Terrorism?

Truly, then, we really will be surfing in to the apocalypse.

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