The Morning Inspection
Ali Hafidh doesn’t know that today is a Thursday
When
September 16 dawned in 1997, Ali Hafidh did not know any thing about
dates. Or months. He did not know that it was a Tuesday or indeed what
the word ‘Tuesday’ meant. He was just one year old then. Ali Hafidh does
not know that today (when you would be reading this), another September
16 i.e. of the year 2010, is a Wednesday. The meaning of the word
‘Wednesday’ does not matter to him. Not any more
Ali Hafidh died on September 16, 2007. He was 10 years old. He was
killed. Ali Hafidh was killed by private security guards attached to an
outfit called Blackwater USA, a contracted security service, who were
escorting a US diplomat at the time.
He was killed in Baghdad. Blackwater security personnel opened fire
on a group of civilians that day, killing 17 including a little boy
called Ali.
Blackwater has been involved in at least 195 ‘escalation-of-force’
incidents since 2005. It is reported that between 125,000 to 180,000
foreign contractors operate at any given time in Iraq.
The civilians of that country are routinely bullied by bands of
heavily armed contractors bulldozing through traffic in SUVs or armoured
pickup trucks, we are told.
Iraq, by the way, is a country that was invaded by the USA in order
to search-and-destroy weapons of mass destruction.
Hundreds of thousands of bombing raids, almost a decade of military
omnipresence and over a million direct or indirect deaths resulting from
US aggression and not a single weapon of mass destruction found, have
only confirmed yet once again that which the world has known for almost
a century: THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IS THE MOTHER OF ALL BULLIES.
Compensation
Ali Hafidh would not know what ‘bully’ means. He may have seen what
bullies do even if he didn’t think that bullying can include murder and
that he was ‘target’ long before gun was pointed in his direction and
bullet discharged, simply because he was an Iraqi. Brown. ‘Deadable’.
![](z_p-08-Ali.jpg) |
Blackwater
security guards. Pic. courtesy: Google |
Thirty nine days after Ali Hafidh’s life was snuffed out by a bunch
of trigger-happy thugs who were in Baghdad because some mad American of
the USA wanted to prove his manhood (and secure control of oil of
course), his father, Mohammed Hafidh had been offered an envelope full
of cash. A total of USS $ 12,500. The offer had come from the Deputy
Chief of Mission of the US Embassy in Baghdad. Compensation. Mohammed
did not accept it.
‘I told her that I want the courts to have their say,’ he responded.
He was not alone. Haythem al-Rubaie, who lost his son and wife in the
same shooting, is reported to have said that he wouldn’t even meet with
the said official.
The USA thinks it’s all about money. Investments. Profits.
Collateral. Compensation. Everything has a price. Everything is
marketable, if there is a market. I don’t know. I don’t think it works
that way. Mohammed Hafidh doesn’t think so either. Neither does Haythem
al-Rubaie. And millions of others.
Money does matter. Not in instances such as this though. Ali would
not have understood ‘money’. He wouldn’t have been able to describe the
length and breadth of guilt and sin in US $ 12,500. The Deputy Chief of
Mission represented a country that goes around issuing grave notices
about democracy, fair play, human rights and what not when in fact it is
the worst offender around, whose foreign policy when un-frocked of
rhetoric is nothing more nothing less than ‘guns-in booty-out’.
Human life
Ali Hafidh would have known what night was and what day was, the
difference between sun and shade, milk and water, food and hunger. Days
of the week? I am not sure. It doesn’t matter.
The Deputy Chief of Mission of the US Embassy in Baghdad at the time
would have known a lot more but clearly clueless when it came to
assessing the value of a human life.
That lady knows that today is the 16th day of September. That we are
in the year 2010. She knows that September 16 falls on a Thursday this
year. She might not remember the name of a boy called Ali Hafidh, whose
life and death she insulted by tagging them with a dollar-price. I write
this so she is reminded.
Her office, these days, are in Kollupitiya.
[email protected]
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