Recap and dilemas

Ahlan fi blogi (welcome to my blog) to Riverbend readers who've just browsed over. To get you up to speed, I'm a young Brit in Baghdad with Jubilee Iraq, a little NGO trying to help free Iraq from the burden of $200 billion of Saddam's unpaid bills. I'm consulting with Iraqis about their views on this issue in order to show the countries demanding payment how strongly they feel about this issue - basically everyone agrees that Iraqis should not be held responsible for loans which financed Saddam's regime and harmed rather than benefited the Iraqi people. My posts relate some of the frustrations and successes in this endeavour, along with random observations about Baghdad life. A quick plug, if you don't mind, for my Future of Iraq Portal which is intended to be a quick and comprehensive guide to all the websites out there relating to Iraq.

A lady called by my hotel today asking for help and I turned her away. I feel pretty bad about it, despite the numerous rationalisations I have to hand. She'd seen a reference to Jubilee Iraq, and mistakenly thought I had lots of money available to pay off people's personal debts. I didn't get a clear picture of her situation, with my minimal understanding of arabic, but it seemed pretty grim - involving unemployment, sick children and threatening loan sharks etc. My rationalisation of course is that it's the job of the state, humanitarian organisations, the local community and her family to help her. I'm working on this big structural issue of national debt and don't have the time or resources to try and understand and meet any of the huge individual needs in Iraq. Fine, that all makes sense, but nevertheless I felt like I was wrong to send her away. In the same way I struggle everytime the ragged street children come running up saying "give me dollar" - I don't want to merely hand out cash and create a culture of dependancy and encourage crowds of kids to flock round be everytime I try to leave my hotel. Nevertheless its painful to ignore the need and pretend its someone else's problem. Jesus was very clear "Give to anyone who asks you" (Luke 6.30) in His upside down economy of loving enemies and "lending without expecting to be repaid" (Iraq's creditors take note). There's no qualification "give if the person is deserving" or "give if you have time" or even "give if you can afford it." It seems incredibly demanding and disruptive of one's life, but just imagine if even a tiny proportion of the population genuinely lived out Jesus' teaching...

There was a suicide bombing of a police station in Sadr City this morning. If I'd been at work in Britain I would probably have heard about it within an hour, here in Baghdad I only found out in the evening - strange. My trip to Najaf fell though, as you may have guessed. Apparently Ayatollah Sistani is not recieving visitors for the time being to avoid accusations of being influenced by anybody. Its a pity, but I've hopefully managed to arrange some other valuable meetings for next week: with the Finance Minister, Jeremy Greenstock (the Brit who is Bremer's No.2) and possible with Ayatollah Hussein Sadr.

I had my first peak into the barricaded hotel complexes today. I visited the Hamra Hotel where may of the journalists are based and had dinner at the Sheraton. To be honest I felt quite uncomfortable in these plush airconditioned oases seperated from the real Baghdad by concrete and soldiers. I'm much happier in the friendly little Al-Fanar, mainly frequented by Iraqis and by Indian and Turkish subcontractors. Anyhow, Tisbah le khayr (good night).