Iraq's prime minister hosted a unique conference in Baghdad during the 21 million-strong Arbaeen march, linking the seventh-century murder of Imam Hussain in Karbala to Israel's current genocide of Palestinians.
© The Cradle
BAGHDAD and KARBALA - Arriving in Baghdad today comes as an electric shock to any visitor who remembers recent, somber Iraqi history.
There are virtually no checkpoints, apart from sensitive government areas.
None of those ghastly cement blocks from the time of the American occupation, forcing a slow slalom every few minutes. No sense of unpredictable danger capable of striking at any minute. Lush greenery thrives all over the capital city. Haifa Street has been rebuilt practically from scratch. Bustling commerce, from non-stop action in Karrada to a complex of restaurants by the Tigris called (most appropriately) Thousand and One Nights.
After over three decades of unspeakable horrors inflicted on the cradle of civilization,
for the first time, Baghdad exudes a sense of normalcy. This has much to do with the new administration, led by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, that has been in power for just over two years.
Last week, the Office of the Prime Minister sponsored a unique conference titled The Road to Al-Aqsa Flood, inviting popular bloggers and influencers from the Arab world - Palestine, Kuwait, Jordan, Sudan, and Lebanon, among others - and only a few westerners. The bloggers were all young; most had never been to Iraq and, thus, had no memories of Shock and Awe and the occupation - at best, some hazy recollection of the ISIS years. They were all stunned by the hospitality, the dynamism, and, most of all, the hope now firmly embedded in Baghdad life.
The Iraqi government actually came up with a titillating concept, tying a serious discussion about all aspects of today's ongoing Palestinian tragedy not only to Baghdad but to Arbaeen in Karbala.
Arbaeen marks the 40th day after Ashura, the Shia rite to honor the martyrdom of Hussein Ibn Ali, the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, who was brutally murdered alongside his entire family by the Umayyad Caliph Yazid Ibn Muawiya. For Shia Muslims, this dishonorable slaughter represents the ultimate embodiment of injustice and betrayal, considered foundational evils by the religious sect.
It's all about Resistance - without explicitly mentioning the Axis of Resistance. The martyrdom of Imam Hussein at the Battle of Karbala was - in Baghdad today - directly tied to the ongoing Israeli genocide of tens of thousands of Palestinians, in a "twenty-first-century Karbala."
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