Both my parents are Iraqi Arabs from Baghdad. They escaped Iraq in the early 90s during Saddam's infamous Faith Campaign, where both my relatively leftist dad and my shia mother both fell under some prosecution. They left to Syria and then got resettled in the US thanks to a UN program. I speak fluent Arabic and meet up every year with my extended family in Jordan or Turkey, as both countries are relatively safe for Iraqis.

AMA about Iraqi politics, Iraqi society and the general cultural and political state of the Arab World. I will answer a few questions directly, but I'll keep the rest for late night today as I will go on a long ass drive in an hour.

    • Sankara [he/him,any]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Most infrastructure is still fucked, we still can't guarantee 24 hours of fucking electricity during the summer. American-backed privatization has led to incredible corruption on all levels of both state and private enterprises, which deeply affects people's ordinary lives as one would think. Millions of people lost loved ones to both the invasion and the civil war phase. The physical and psychological impact is still impossible to gauge, but from personal experiences I know several family members that either have physical damage such as amputated legs or are stuck in a fugue state-like condition mentally due to shock. People don't just "cope", they stack up several mental problems and trauma that will fuck them up for the rest of their lives. I'll never forget my mom getting calls in the middle of the night from Iraq when someone close dies.