| Hassan Hadi, a 24-year-old college student, said he and seven friends took about 4 1/2 hours to walk from Sadr City to the shrine in Kazamiyah. ''This is a very dear day for the Shiites. We have come here to commemorate the martyrdom of al-Kadhim who sacrificed his life for the sake of supreme principles of Shiites,'' Hadi said. ''We are not afraid of explosions, which we are used to. I am very happy to see this number of believers gathering here today. This shows the unity of the Iraqi people.'' |
Alas! there's always somebody to complain in aggression-based New Baghdád, unpatriotic unpersons beyond the pale of the Grand National Oneness:
| Sunnis in Baghdad, meanwhile, expressed frustration over the three-day driving ban that began Wednesday as the Shiite-led government sought to protect the pilgrims from attacks. ''A number of sects live in Iraq, not only one and that three-day curfew is really too much for us,'' said Khalid Hussein Saleh, a 35-year old Sunni taxi driver in Baghdad's western Ghazaliyah neighborhood. ''As a taxi driver, I earn my living on a daily basis. How can I feed my family now?'' For the second day, Amer Mohammed Ali was unable to open his grocery store in Baghdad's western Shurta area because traffic was banned and he was unable to get supplies. ''This curfew has really confused citizens and delayed everything,'' the 45-year old Sunni said. ''The government should have secured one or two roads for the pilgrims and not imposed such a curfew on all of Baghdad.'" |
By strict proportionality, the TwentyPercenter theocommunity ought to be allocated precisely as many one-day curfews at New Baghdád as the Grand National Oneness gets three-day ones. However strict proportionality may not be the wisest solution, firstly because (so far as I know) the TwentyPercenters have never adopted mass processionalism as a quaint and colourful folkway, and secondly because (as everybody knows, especially Ms. Conventional Wisdom) they must be given more than their mere numbers call for, gobs and gobs of Affirmative Action™ to deter them from selling their souls to ’Usáma altogether. [2]
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[1] RV, whose schizophobia is hair-triggered, must be on vacation in the Mandaean marshes or some especially remote fjord, for there has been no eruption since 23 June despite a number of displeasing developments out in the happy Land of Peace and Freedom and Occult Patriotic Solidarity, most notably the "Autonomous Government of the South" that Slogger City reported on 30 July .
[2] One might also raise the admittedly rather crass point that if an unrestrained curfew race were to break out, the great patriotic economy might suffer, with nobody of any religionism able to get much work done. Let's see, fourteen "infallibles" at three days apiece comes to forty-two holidays, plus say twenty-eight as Affirmative Action™ for the nonprocessors, twice what they deserve, plus fifty-two Fridays for everybody and twenty-nine days of Ramadán ditto: 161 days out of 365. Very spiritual indeed, that would be, yet what would St. Adam Smith say about it?
The Associated Press insinuates anonymously that the Grand National Oneness may be overreaching itself just a tad:
| The ceremony honoring the anniversary of al-Kadhim's death is not one of the most important in the Shiite faith, but it has gained significance in Iraq because they were banned under Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime. |
Outsider opinions about other folks' Islám and its importances and significances are not worth much, obviously, but perhaps one might argue politically and anthropologically that the quaint and colourful local folkway of mass processionalism is really rather unfortunate: all the streets full of Grand National Oneness fans shouting specifically GNO slogans might seem a bit alarming and perhaps even deliberately threatening to those beyond the pale. That could be the case even if all the slogans were strictly about Century II/VII, as evidently they are not:
| ''I have come here to get the blessing of the martyr imam and to challenge the terrorism of the Wahhabists" |
True, the TwentyPercenters, being of course the sole and predestinate Natural Masters of Mesopotamia, probably do not run to faintheartedness as often as lesser breeds do. Even if they are not the least bit intimidated, however, they are quite capable of feeling that such cavortings impugn the honour of their theocommunity, an attitude quite as likely to lead to additional unfortunate troubles as would timidity and trepidation.
No doubt it would be useless to suggest to the Grand National Oneness fans that they might cool it a little, at least when they process en masse to Samarrá’ and al-Kázimayn. Farther south the situation is less problematical and they can have their GNO fling more or less with impunity. As for the AP editorial view, perhaps the significance of this month being August and brave New Baghdád being the "capital" of "Iraq" outweighs questions of former observance? But God knows best.
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