Joan Chittister on the current situation in Iraq

[JCHFleetguy]

Obviously, in the United States our understanding of the situation in Iraq comes from the source of our news: we can see the "light at the end of the tunnel" as the establishment of a stable government with security for its citizens - or a train with impending doom and chaos for all.

 

So, I am looking for comments on this unidentified Iraqi womens take on the current situation in Iraq:

Dear Dena [Merriam, convener of the Global Peace Initiative of Women], Joan [brown-Campbell, chairperson], and Joan [Chittister, co-chair]:

 

I finally called [one of the delegates to the GPIW] today, as we had not heard from her for a while. She was due to join us [for an upcoming event] but is now afraid to leave her family.

 

She has lost her uncle and nephew recently in a bombing and so there is tremendous grief in her family. They have decided to try to leave Iraq for another Arabic speaking country as they say it is much worse now than ever before.

 

Women cannot wear slacks now. They cannot drive. They must be veiled and the bombings and shootings have increased manyfold.

 

She said when they were here in the United States during the meeting things were so much better. But now it is impossible to live there. There is hardly electricity. There is talk of turning off cell phones and even the Internet for a month or two. She has been unable to access her e-mail for many days. And when she walks to her work each morning she now fears for her life.

 

She said that there is not one family in Iraq that has not faced a tragedy.

 

I am sorry to convey such sad news from Iraq.”

and I would like comment on the rest of Sister Chittiser's article

[Guest hogan]

I hear so many conflicting assessments of the situation in Iraq now. Could someone please comment on how close this letter from a resident of Sadr City is to the truth for the people of Baghdad:

 

رســالــة يــائــســة ... !!!

كتابات - شلش العراقي

كما توقعت وتوقع الاخرون هنا فان الخطة الامنية للاسف اصبحت غطاء للقتلة وعصابات الليل التي تحالفت مع المتسللين في قوات الامن لقتل الناس ورميهم في المزابل . والا ليفسر لنا القائمون على الخطة كيف تجري عمليات القتل والاغتيال والاختطاف مع هذا الانتشار الكبير للقطعات العسكرية ومنع التجوال الليلي. كيف يتحرك المجرمون وكيف ينفذون اعمالهم وكيف وهكذا برودة اعصاب يوزعون الموت في الطرقات . هل هم اشباح تتحرك خارج مدى رؤية نقاط التفتيش وفي اوقات منع التجول ام هم جزء من قوى منع التجول . انا اعرف ان الحكومة ليس لديها تفسير او انها تخجل من قول الحقيقة المحرجة لها سياسيا . الناس يا سيادة رئيس الوزراء تعرف جيدا عصابات الموت التي لم تعد فرقا موت سرية كما يحلو للاعلام ان يسميها فالعصابات نفسها صارت تجاهر بافعالها وان قوائم الموت تنتشر بين ايدي صبيان ما تسمونه بالميليشيات .

 

الحقيقة المرة يا اخوان واقولها للمرة الالف ان عصابات موجهة اخترقت التيار الصدري بعلم من قادة التيار او على الاقل من بعضهم وهي تمارس كل افعال الجريمة وتبتز الشرطة التي اخترقها بعضهم والمصيبة ان ضباطا كبارا في الداخلية يخافون من مجرمين لديهم سوابق في المحاكم العراقية قبل السقوط .وان اسم مكتب السيد صار يرعب الشرطة اكثر ما كانت اجهزة النظام السابق تروع الناس بالاف المرات . والاكثر من ذلك ان الجرائم بدأت على شكل تصفيات ثأرية وسياسية ثم تحولت الى ثقافة فهناك ادمان خطير على القتل والتلذذ بالدم . هناك قتل لمجرد القتل ، قتل لاسباب التفكير بها يعد جريمة بحق الانسانية ,و صار هناك من لاينام دون ان يفجر جماجم الاخرين بمسدسه .يالها من حياة مرة بين نهار السيارات المفخخة وليل العصابات المجرمة ..

 

من هنا من جبال الالم والرعب والوحشة والخوف اتوجه لسيادة رئيس الوزراء واعرف ان المدعو علي جالي احد رموز هذه العصابات يتوعدني في كل مكان ويلوح لي بالموت بمناسبة وبدونها من هذه اللحظة اقول سيادة رئيس الوزراء ولسبب ما لااعرفه بالضبط احسنت الظن بك ان الحل ليس بالانتشار الكثيف لقوى الامن ومغاوير الداخلية وقطعات الاحتلال , الحل ببساطة تذهب الى السيد مقتدى وتطلب منه ان يعلن البراءة علانية من القتلة ويصرح بعدم انتمائهم لتياره لكي يرفع عنهم الغطاء ويترك للناس حرية التعامل معهم . لقد اعد الناس قوائم باسمائهم وهم معروفون في علاقتهم بمكتب السيد وكما تعرف ان الناس ستثار منهم ان اجلا او عاجلا وبهذا سيغرق العراق في محيطات من الدم تكون انهار الدم التي تسيل الان امامها مجرد سواقي . لقد ضاقت بنا الحال واشتدت علينا الليالي الموحشات وكرهنا السقوط وكرهنا التحرير وكرهنا السنة وكرهنا الشيعة وكرهنا العمامات والسدارات والجهاد والمجاهدين والمقاومة والمقاومين كرهنا الكونكريت كرهنا الشوارع كرهنا الارصفة كرهنا الوزارات كرهنا المؤسسات كرهنا الاذاعات والاخبار والتصريحات كرهنا البرلمان الذي اصبح جامعا لاداء اليمين لاغير كرهنا الاغاني كرهنا الاعلانات كرهنا الجرائد كرهنا السيارات والكراجات كرهنا المؤتمرات كرهنا الزيارات المفاجئة كرهنا دول الجوار كرهنا قوات متعددة الجنسيات كرهنا الليل كرهنا النهار كرهنا الصيف كرهنا الشمس التي ترسل الجحيم كرهنا النوم كرهنا الماء والكهرباء كرهنا البانزين والفساد الاداري والسرقات كرهنا الطائفية كرهنا المحاصصة كرهنا الوفاق الوطني كرهنا حكومة الوحدة الوطنية كرهنا المصالحة الوطنية كرهنا اللجان وهيئات النزاهة والتفاهة والنقاهة والسفاهة كرهنا الاحزاب والمنظمات كرهنا التجمعات والمظاهرات واللافتات كرهنا الهوسات والدبكات كرهنا الضحك كرهنا البكاء كرهنا العمل كرهنا الدراسة كرهنا بعضنا كرهنا انفسنا لكننا وهذه هي مشكلتنا مازلنا نحب شيئا كان اسمه العراق .....هل ستنقذون ما تبقى من هذا العراق ..

 

كل خميس والعراق بخير

 

Translation by Abu Khaleel

 

A Desperate Letter

 

 

As I and others expected, the ‘security plan’ became a cover for murderers and night gangs that have allied themselves with infiltrators into security forces to kill people and dump them in garbage piles. Otherwise how would those in charge of the plan explain how those killings, assassinations, kidnappings and abductions take place with such a massive deployment of armed forces and the nightly curfew? How do those criminals move and do their deeds and how do they spread death in the streets in such cold blood?

 

Are they ghosts that move outside the vision of check points during curfew hours. Or are they part of the forces implementing the curfew?

 

I know that the government has no explanation or is ashamed to admit the politically embarrassing truth. People, Mr. Prime Minister, well know now that those death gangs are no longer 'secret death squads' as the media are fond of calling them. Those same gangs are publically proclaiming their acts and that those ‘death lists’ are being openly circulated between members of what you call militias.

 

The bitter truth brothers, and I say this for the thousandth time, is that certain gangs have infiltrated the Sadrist Movement with the knowledge of some of the Movement’s leaders.

 

They do all sorts of criminal acts and intimidate the Police that they have infiltrated. The disaster is that senior officers in the [Ministry of] Interior fear criminals who have criminal records in Iraqi courts prior to the Fall [of Baghdad].

 

The name of the “Sayyed’s Office” [branch of Muqtada’s offices] now terrifies the police more than the previous regime’s security forces terrified the people. On top of that, the crimes that started as political and revenge-motivated ‘liquidations’ have turned into a culture. There is a new fearsome ‘addiction’ to killing and taking pleasure in blood! There are murders just for the sake of murder; killings for reasons that the very act of contemplating is a crime against humanity. Now, there are people who cannot go to bed before shattering people’s skulls with their pistols. What a sour life between the days of car bombs and nights of criminal gangs…

 

From this place, from the mountains of pain, terror, solitude and fear I address the Prime Minister…

 

Your Excellency, for a reason unknown to me, I though well of you. The solution is not through massive deployment of security forces, Police Commandos and forces of Occupation.

 

The simple solution is for you to go to Sayyed Muqtada and ask him to publicly disown those murderers and declare that they don’t belong to his movement and remove his cover of them and leave the people to deal with them. People already have lists of these gangsters and their connection to the Sayyed’s Office is common knowledge. Sooner or later the People will take their revenge from those killers. And when they do, Iraq will again sink in seas of blood in comparison to which the rivers of blood now flowing will seem like little ditches.

 

We have had enough.

 

The fearsome nights are stifling us and we now have come to hate the Fall [of Baghdad]; we hate Liberation; we hate Sunnis; we hate Shiites; we hate turbans and sidaras [baghdadi head gear – a reference to Adnan al-Dulaimi a ‘Sunni’ politician]; we hate Jihad and Jihadists, resistance and resistors; we hate concrete; we hate streets and sidewalks; we hate the Ministries; we hate Establishments; we hate news channels and news and communiqués; we hate the Parliament that has now become a venue for swearing-in ceremonies and nothing else; we hate songs; we hate commercials; we hate newspapers; we hate cars and car-depots; we hate conferences; we hate ‘surprise visits’; we hate neighboring countries; we hate the ‘multinational forces; we hate the night; we hate the day; we hate Summer; we hate the sun that sends badWord; we hate sleep; we hate water and electricity; we hate petrol and corruption and theft; we hate sectarianism; we hate sectarian ‘allocations’; we hate Reconciliation; we hate the government of national unity; we hate committees and Commissions of Integrity, Trash, Rehabilitation and Silliness; we hate [political] parties and organizations; we hate assemblies, demonstrations, banners and chants; we hate laughter; we hate crying; we hate work; we hate study; we hate each other. And we hate ourselves. But (and this is our problem) we still love something that was called Iraq.

 

Will you save what is left of this Iraq?

[Guest Guest]

From the New York Times:

 

According to his widow, the lawyer, Khamis al-Obeidi, 39, was asleep when at least 10 gunmen in civilian clothes stormed their home in the mostly Sunni Arab district of Slaikh at 7 a.m. and pulled him from bed within view of his three school-age children.

 

Witnesses said men linked to a Shiite militia, the Mahdi Army, drove the lawyer through the streets of the Shiite slum of Sadr City shouting, "Terrorist!" before shooting him on a stretch of wasteland, then gathered around his corpse shouting, "Let Saddam save him now if he can!" and, "This is the fate of those who defend Saddam Hussein!"

 

Has Muqtada and the Mehdi Army become the an evil terrorist group and the biggest impediment to security for the Iraqi people? Are these reports true? Is this being sanctioned by the goverment?

[salim]

JCHFleetguy wrote

and I would like comment on the rest of Sister Chittiser's article

 

You might hear such stories and even worse , however let you hear the following story too.

Noor is a 25 years female Iraqi swidesh expatriot relative that take care of her only son after being devorced couple years ago. last night, I was asking about her wellbeing when her ant told me that she is now working . What type of work?. the reply was car trading. In sweden? she replied no, exporting used cars to Iraq. What ? she even never work as cashier.. The ant told me that she ,with help of some relatives, is buying a used car and drives it all the way to Baghdad through Turkey. She told me that there is a group Iraqis who do that and noor is one of them who drive together in a convoy..

Noor was in Baghdad last week after delivaring a car and then retun by air flight to sweden..

 

I know it is crazy idea to drive through the hot triangles, but that what Noor is used too now! Do thing such type of peopel can be stopped by a bunch of coward thugs?

 

so many stories, so many confusion.. the only advise that i am following is" hear them all while waiting for the dust to settel down"

 

Hong,

Shalash aliaqi that you posted his letter is a synomous name for an unknown political writer that used to write on several Iraqi web sites. He used to wirte very funny criticizing diaries from Sader city that he claims to be resident of ..

[Guest Schools Fill After Long Decline]

Hind Hamid, whose father was killed three days earlier, took a chemistry exam last week at Hariri High School in Baghdad

.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/26/world/mi.../26baghdad.html?

 

Amid Iraqi Chaos, Schools Fill After Long Decline

Sign In to E-Mail This Print Single Page Reprints Save

 

By SABRINA TAVERNISE

Published: June 26, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 25 — Enrollment in Iraqi schools has risen every year since the American invasion, according to Iraqi government figures, reversing more than a decade of declines and offering evidence of increased prosperity for some Iraqis.

 

Despite the violence that has plagued Iraq since the American occupation began three years ago, its schools have been quietly filling. The number of children enrolled in schools nationwide rose by 7.4 percent from 2002 to 2005, and in middle schools and high schools by 27 percent in that time, according to figures from the Ministry of Education.

 

The increase, which has greatly outpaced modest population growth during the same period, is a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy landscape of bombs and killings that have shattered community life in many areas in western and central Iraq. And it is seen as an important indicator here in a country that used to pride itself on its education system, then saw enrollment and literacy fall during the later years of Saddam Hussein's rule.

 

Sorrows seep into the classrooms. During a chemistry exam at Hariri High School in Baghdad on Thursday morning, a random sample of students turned up one whose father had been killed three days before, another whose uncle had been killed in an American-led raid and yet another whose family was leaving Iraq for good once she finished. The official who helped prepare the statistics for this article was assassinated this month.

 

But while life in Baghdad grows more paralyzed — it was the only province in the country where primary school enrollment fell — the figures for the rest of Iraq show that everyday life goes on, particularly in the largely peaceful south, which experienced the biggest jumps, with some regions having above 40 percent enrollment increases since 2002.

 

"There is a considerable increase in the number of students," said Majid al-Sudanie, an official in the Education Directorate in Najaf. "This province needs more than 400 schools to accommodate the growing number of students."

 

It is a complex phenomenon. Increases in some places, for example, are being driven by bad news: among the highest increases in secondary and high school enrollment were in provinces that have received families who are fleeing the violence of Baghdad and its dangerous outskirts, including Babylon, with a 44 percent enrollment rise; Najaf, with 35 percent; and Kirkuk, 37 percent.

 

But the growth is too broad to be explained only by migration patterns. According to American government estimates, Iraq's population grew by about 8 percent to 26 million from 2002 to 2005.

 

Even in provinces that have experienced population declines, for example, school enrollment is still up. In Anbar — the large desert province in western Iraq, where insurgents regularly battle American soldiers, causing residents to flee — enrollment in primary school is up by 15 percent, and in secondary and high school it is up by 37 percent.

 

Economics is driving much of the rise, officials say. Public sector employees, who make up almost half the work force in Iraq, according to the Ministry of Planning, used to collect the equivalent of several dollars every month under Mr. Hussein. But since the American invasion, Iraq's oil revenue has been earmarked for salaries instead of wars, and millions of Iraqis — doctors, engineers, teachers, soldiers — began to earn several hundred dollars a month.

 

Income from oil covers more than 90 percent of the Iraqi government's spending, officials say. American money finances investment and reconstruction projects, but no current costs, like salaries.

 

"Fathers can provide food for their families," said Abdul Zahra al-Yasiri, a teacher in Karbala in southern Iraq. "Kids don't have to work to help their parents anymore."

 

While some parents have held their children out of schools at times because of safety concerns, especially in parts of Baghdad, direct attacks on schools have been relatively rare, allowing the school year to continue without major interruption in some parts of the country.

 

The largest change among Iraq's approximately five million schoolchildren was in secondary schools and high schools, the equivalent of 7th through 12th grade in Iraq, where numbers of enrolled students rose to 1.4 million in 2005 from 1.1 million in 2002.

 

Primary school enrollment rose to 3.7 million from 3.5 million. The numbers do not include the students in the northern Kurdish region, which is administratively separate.

 

High school enrollment increased more for girls than for boys, while boys made bigger gains in primary school — in Iraq, first grade through sixth grade.

In many ways, the increase is a measure of how far Iraq had fallen. Iraq was one of the most educated countries in the Middle East in the 1970's. Many Iraqis traveled abroad to study or took part in state-sponsored exchange programs. Literacy rates were relatively high.

 

But enrollment began to fall significantly in the 1980's, toward the end of the Iran-Iraq war, and only worsened during the period of international economic penalties that were imposed after Mr. Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.

 

By 2000, only 33 percent of all high-school-aged Iraqis were enrolled in school, compared with 75 percent in Jordan, according to Unesco figures published in a 2004 report by the Ministry of Education. The overall enrollment rate appears to have risen since then, according to the best estimates available. Unicef estimated that in 2004, about 50 percent of all school-age Iraqi boys and 35 percent of school-age girls were enrolled.

 

Teachers and administrators interviewed in four Iraqi cities said their classrooms were more full than they had ever been — a continuation of a pattern they began to see just months after the American invasion in 2003, when class sizes began swelling again.

 

"We emptied the storage rooms and use them as classes," said Raya Faid Allah, a primary school teacher in Mosul, who said some classes had reached 75 students, more than double the normal size. "I am afraid that next year we will have to use the teachers' room and the principal's room."

 

The increase has pointed out many of the infrastructure problems that plague the country. Hussein al-Rifaii, a former high school teacher and political prisoner under Mr. Hussein who is now the general director of schools in eastern Baghdad, said the country needed approximately 5,000 new schools, an increase of almost 50 percent.

 

The schools that exist are in need of repair. Only 20 percent of schools in central and southern Iraq had working toilets, the ministry report said. A quarter had trash bins.

 

The enrollment figures are encouraging, but also describe the chaos of the war. The southern provinces with the highest flows of Iraqis fleeing violence have the largest rises, while Diyala, a province to the north of Baghdad that has been nearly as violent as the capital, registered the second-lowest rise in primary school enrollment growth, after Baghdad.

 

The ministry administered about double the number of early examinations in 2006 compared with 2005, as more students changed schools because their families moved.

 

Even the bookkeeping told a story. The Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq was included in figures the first year after the invasion, but later dropped, as if in an acknowledgment, at least in the bureaucracy, of the area's relative autonomy.

 

Much of the decline in the education system that happened in the last years of Mr. Hussein's government came as a result of an economic downturn during the era of international penalties on Iraq. As the country grew poorer in the 1990's, the numbers of working children went up. More than 10 percent of Iraqi children from 5 to 14 years old were working in 2000, according to the ministry report. As a result, Iraqis are less literate than they were 20 years ago, after literacy campaigns had increased rates substantially.

 

Ms. Allah, who teaches in a poor area in central Mosul, said a recent survey in her school showed that about a quarter of the parents of first graders could not read or write.

 

Those families, she said, are trying harder to keep their children in school, in part because civil service jobs that require diplomas are paying higher salaries.

 

"Families are insisting their kids should finish their studies, even if they are failing or exhausted," Ms. Allah said. She recalled a father "coming in to school and making trouble" to reinstate his wayward sixth grader who had been suspended.

 

"We didn't see this before," said Ms. Allah, who has taught in Mosul for 25 years. The provinces that had the highest rates of child labor — Babylon, Maysan, Salahuddin, Kirkuk and Wasit — registered some of the largest increases in enrollment since 2002.

 

Even adults who never finished school are going back for degrees, teachers said. Those students are not reflected in the ministry figures, but their presence is obvious in the school system. In the Almu Tamaizat high school in Adhamiya, in central Baghdad, women in dresses and hijabs sat at small desks writing answers to final exam questions.

 

A 35-year-old with a pierced nose and a hijab emerged from the exam smiling broadly. She did not appear to feel shy standing in a hallway littered with pink Barbie pencil cases and child-size rhinestone studded backpacks.

 

"I work in the Housing Ministry," she said, her hand on her hip. "I want progress in Iraq."

[Guest baghdad]

all what i can say that he deserve even more and all people who wanna defend sadam deserve that .

for bunch of dollars he sold his life and his family ,what was he thinking when he took the money from raghad and kissed her ass after, he didn't see the kids who satyed without thier fathers or the women who lived wothout their husbands or the country that sadam destroyed and sent it back a 1000 year .

HE DESERVE IT

[Mutergem]

As Iraqi Lights Flicker, ‘Generator Man’ Feels Heat

 

By KIRK SEMPLE

Published: September 25, 2006

BAGHDAD — In offices across Iraq, a ritual plays out every morning during the hottest months. Haggard employees drag themselves into the room, mumble a pleasantry or two and slump into their chairs, moaning about what a bad night’s sleep they had: the power went out, the backup generator was broken, the heat was unbearable, the baby would not stop crying, mosquitoes were everywhere.

Inevitably, these grievances, like hornets, will gather in a single cloud of fury and swoop down on one target: the generator man, probably the most vilified figure in Iraqi society after Saddam Hussein.

 

Iraq has three sources of electrical power. At the low end is the frail national grid, which provides only about one hour of electricity every four hours — a total of six hours a day — and sometimes less.

 

At the top is the small, personal-size generator, a feature in many homes, though the steadily rising cost of fuel now makes it a luxury for most families.

 

Filling the gap, and carrying the load for much of urban Iraq, is the generator man, owner and operator of the neighborhood power plant. Throughout Baghdad, for example, there is at least one generator every few blocks to help power nearby homes and businesses.

 

The machines sit beneath corrugated tin roofs, on patches of sidewalk or in empty lots — hulking contraptions the size of small cars, jury-rigged with tubes and pipes that sputter and belch and make a deafening racket.

 

Customers run colored wires from their homes to the local generator by way of utility poles, converging with others into one wild, polychromatic river of wire that plunges through the roof of the generator shack, stopping at a makeshift fuse board.

 

In theory, the generator man provides 10 to 12 hours of power a day during periods of peak demand, seamlessly switching on when the national grid switches off. His services are especially valued during summer, when temperatures usually hover well over 100 degrees and air-conditioners are essential for sleep.

 

In addition, the generator man offers a better option, theoretically, than the personal generator, allowing families to pay less for a stronger current that will allow them to run all their major appliances simultaneously, rather than having to decide whether to forgo the television and computer for the washing machine or the air-conditioner and hair dryer for the refrigerator.

 

A subscription for about 10 amperes from the generator man — typical for an average middle-class family here in the capital — costs about $65 a month, a mere fraction of the cost of drawing a similar current from a personal generator for several hours a day.

 

But in practice, most here say, the generator man often falls way short of his promises.

 

“My generator man?” seethed a seemingly well-adjusted, middle-class mother in Baghdad one recent sleep-deprived morning. “I want to cut his head off.”

 

Many Iraqis say the generator man employs various tricks to try to save himself money: he starts his generator late and turns it off early; he prolongs repairs after breakdowns, both real and bogus; he claims he cannot get fuel because of national fuel shortages. Yet, they say, he never reimburses customers for lost hours.

 

“They are a bunch of thieves!” said Yusra, 47, an industrial engineer who lives in the relatively prosperous Mansour neighborhood in Baghdad and who requested that her last name not be published for fear of reprisals from her generator man. “We are 99.9 percent dependent on them! They are ruling our lives — not day by day, but hour by hour!”

 

Firas, 19, a university student who lives in Saidiya, a middle-class Baghdad neighborhood, and who asked that his last name not be published, said his generator man fiddled with the wires that lead to the homes of customers who offended him, causing interruptions to the service, or decreasing the current.

 

Talk to the generator man, however, and you will meet the self-styled savior of the republic.

 

“It’s a tiring job,” sighed a generator man who gave his name as Abu Fatma to protect his identity. His generator supplies power to about 95 homes and businesses.

 

Like the dozen or so other generator men interviewed for this article, Abu Fatma, 28, and his brother and partner, Hatem Abdul Karim, 22, were good-natured and remarkably unfazed by the hate they engendered.

 

On a recent afternoon, the brothers were hanging out around the corner from the generator, waiting for the national power grid to shut down so they could jump into action. Next to the generator was a small, windowless hut, not much bigger than the generator itself, containing a mattress and a television. This is where Mr. Karim, as the chief operator, lives round-the-clock.

The way the brothers see it, they are providing a very important service and a very difficult one under difficult circumstances. Rather than complain, they say, their clients should appreciate their hard work in the face of mounting fuel prices, chronic fuel shortages, dirty fuel that clogs up the machinery, the uncertainties of the national grid that require 24-hour vigilance, and costly and time-consuming repairs.

 

“The people, they only think about themselves,” said Abu Fatma, his fingers stained with grease, sounding not so much resentful as resigned. “They complain and complain.”

 

During one generator breakdown, his brother’s shack was pummeled with sandals and other shoes, one of the worst insults in the Arab world. Mr. Karim and other generator men say they have been physically attacked by furious customers.

 

Generally, though, customers will vent by telephone.

 

“We should start the power at 1 p.m.,” said Moyid, co-owner of a generator in a residential section of the upscale Karada neighborhood, who gave only his first name. “If it turns 1:05 and we haven’t provided the power, the phone won’t stop ringing.”

 

As if on cue, his cellphone rang. It was past 1 p.m.

 

“I’m very sorry,” Moyid told the caller, explaining that he had been distracted by a journalist and had lost track of the time. As he cranked up the generator, which erupted in a roar, one of his partners retrieved another cellphone dedicated to the generator and discovered it had received 30 unanswered phone calls in recent minutes. Everyone laughed.

 

Generator men insist that the laws of the free market apply to their business — the unhappy customer can always run his line to another generator. (Generator men are squirrelly when it comes to questions about earnings and say, simply, that the competition is tough and their profit margins slender.)

 

But disgruntled customers are often dissuaded from switching by the expense of running a new wire to another generator and paying a new subscription fee. And for many who switch, life remains the same.

 

“This year we changed our subscription three times, from bad to worse,” said Firas, the university student. His family, he said, had fallen victim to a ploy commonly used by new generator men: they begin by offering more hours and lower rates than their competitors, but once they have captured a share of the market, they lower their hours and raise their rates.

 

Generator men are supposedly regulated by local district councils, which are charged with ensuring fair rates and energy supply. But many Iraqis say this system is a joke and rarely enforced.

 

The generator man, said Yusra, the industrial engineer, is just one of many travails Iraqis have to deal with daily, from corruption to foreign meddling to poor public services. “You want to smack him but you have to smile at him,” she grumbled. “You can’t think about dignity.”

 

“We are a humiliated people,” she said.

 

The generator man, perhaps because of his visibility and accessibility, becomes the embodiment of all that is wrong in Iraq — or, at least, all that is not working as it is supposed to work, which to most people is just about everything.

 

“Most of our customers are really angry,” said Muhammad, a university student and the co-owner of a generator in Karada. He also preferred not to give his full name. He was lounging with his two partners on the carpeted floor of a concrete and brick hut next to their machine, waiting for the national grid to shut down.

 

“Very few people sympathize with us,” he said. “Most care only about themselves.”