It will be very hard for you to join the pieces…
ON 9 APRIL 2003, along with millions of others around the world, I watched as the huge statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled in Baghdad and Iraqis danced and waved flags in celebration of the demise of his hated regime. The crowds were joyous, dragging the head of the tyrant through the streets I remembered so well but could no longer recognise.
My grandson Robin had given me the television set. My daughter Mira had put in the satellite connection. My son-in-law Tony had brought me the sheaves of documents that lay scattered around my desk, containing the history of my country and the background to my life story. The events and dramas I was unaware of in my early years were coming alive through hindsight and my eyes were misty with the images of the past.
As American tanks rumbled past the TV cameras and Baghdadis threw shoes at Saddam’s portrait – the gravest of all Arab insults – my mind turned to another era. For I was born a quarter of a century before Saddam, before the creation of Iraq, before another foreign army, British this time, marched victoriously into the city in the name of bringing democracy to the people.
I saw my country emerge from a primitive past into what promised to be a brilliant future. It was my Baghdad, my native land where I grew up, happy and privileged, in a Jewish community living harmoniously with our Muslim neighbours. My Baghdad was beautiful, civilised, full of cherished memories. Now it has been replaced altogether, erased like chalk on a blackboard, and a new story is being written.
Saddam’s regime developed from the ashes of events we had endured sixty-five years before, when a previous tyrant unleashed an earthquake that split asunder the oldest community in the Diaspora. I still shudder every time I think of the gravity of the situation we were in. Then I count my blessings to be among the fortunate survivors.
I feel as if I am telling you a dream and that it will be very hard for you to join the pieces together.