Manal tried to lobby the U.S. government to accept Iraqi refugees, but it seemed hopeless. She was infuriated at the way that government abandoned those who had been most loyal to it. By 2007, a bill working its way through Congress, sponsored by Senator Edward Kennedy, would have allowed visas for seven thousand Iraqis, with precedence given to those who had worked for the Americans. That was a drop in the bucket alongside the four million refugees.
EVENTUALLY THE VIOLENCE would sputter and cease, Manal knew. Iraqis in Falluja and the rest of Anbar province were beginning to turn against Al Qaeda. Women’s rights activists like Hanaa Adwar said that Iraqis had been shocked by the actions of the group’s radical members. Even to religious Iraqis, sworn to expel the Americans, Al Qaeda’s ideas were radical and repulsive.
A so-called Sunni Awakening, in which Sunnis had decided they were willing to stop the fighting and negotiate, had begun in 2006 and was spreading. But that was little consolation to those who’d already had their lives ruined. And what would Iraq look like for women? When Manal did imagine Iraq’s future, she saw a country ruled by Islamist Shia clerics. Such a government didn’t have to be repressive toward women, yet the insecurity in Iraq had opened the door to the radicals. They now had too much power, and they would set a tone of religious fervor that would condone the suppression of women. The government didn’t have the authority to stop the religious militias who were patrolling the streets threatening women. In such an environment, anything could happen.
The irony was that Iraqi women themselves had voted the Shia into power in 2005. But, given the circumstances, Manal was not surprised. Iraqi women had been exposed to only three forms of governance: they could choose among a merciless dictator like Saddam, the full-blown chaos of secular American democracy, or an Islamic theocracy. They chose the latter.
Had the Americans not made so many mistakes in the beginning, perhaps they wouldn’t have lost control over security, and the Iraqis could have had the time and space to try out democracy, Manal thought. But once the violence began, this was impossible. Americans had tried to do too much in one year: create a government, write a constitution, and bring about national reconciliation after thirty years of a brutal dictatorship. Few in the CPA had even considered national reconciliation an issue, preferring to work on more exciting democracy plans. But history makes clear that these things take time. It had taken South Africa ten years to get reconciliation, Manal recalled. But from the first month, Iraqis had called for the Americans to get out: there wasn’t time.
Yet there were other mistakes too. Manal regretted her collusion with the military, despite her admiration for and ongoing friendship with Heather and the potential to use the money for good. The centers had been largely a wasted effort, and she had allowed her cause to be co-opted by the Bush administration. That realization was a bitter pill to swallow.
As much as she had tried to prevent it from being that way, help for women had been offered on U.S. terms, with an American vision as the goal. Bremer wanted to build women’s centers, but only if he could use them to justify the occupation. Women’s issues were used as political and military propaganda. Iraqis weren’t going for that. They knew the Americans weren’t promoting democracy for Iraqis’ sake; they were promoting their own interests, wrapped up in the rhetoric of “freedom” and “liberty.”
That was no way to lay the foundation for a country.
The way forward, Manal believed, was to establish rights for women within Islamic law. Was it possible? This was the contemporary debate among leading Muslim feminists. If there was any hope for Iraqi women, it was to work with progressive Muslim scholars to produce a version of feminism that was compatible with Islam. Changes were apparent everywhere in the Arab world. In 2003, the Moroccan king introduced a new family law that enshrined a woman’s right to choose her husband or initiate divorce, and to limit polygamy and underage marriage. In 2005, Kuwaiti women won the right to vote. Women in Egypt were pushing for more seats in parliament. A new version of the Quran had recently been published by a female author, in which the verse that purportedly condoned spousal abuse had been reinterpreted. Although the United Nations still ranked the Arab world as the worst for women’s rights, Manal did see reasons to be hopeful. But the lesson was that when change did come, it was always driven by local women.
Even in Iraq, the gains that had been made for women were many. Women had 25 percent representation in government. They had their own ministry. There were more women in cabinet posts and ministerial positions than ever before. Women had organizations. For now these gains had been swallowed up by the violence, but when the violence did cease—and it had to eventually—Iraqi women would at least have the structures in place to push for themselves. All of these gains had come from Iraqi women themselves.
Groups such as Women for Women International could help, but their role had to be as facilitators, not instigators. Ultimately, Manal thought, the change must come from within.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
MAMINA TOLD BABA about Nunu’s plan to run away. Surprisingly to Mamina, he was not initially against it, but the plan fell apart in the details. Baba helped arrange the visit of some Kurdish friends who knew a smuggling route out of Iraq. It would cost several thousand dollars. There were three ways to go: in a fruit container carried by a truck; by foot, walking four days across the icy border with Turkey; or by airplane, the safest but probably least successful route.
“I will take the risk,” Nunu insisted.
“Habibti, how will you survive in Turkey?”
“I will take the train to Sweden.”
Baba shook his head. “It’s too dangerous.” Maybe Zia could do it, but Nunu would be like a lamb separated from the flock. “She doesn’t have the character to succeed in such a trip,” he said, and no one disagreed.
Defeated, Nunu returned to her bedroom, rolled over, and curled up. Even she agreed with Baba. She wouldn’t know how to find a train station that could take her to Sweden and didn’t have the nerve to carry a gun. Their Kurdish friends had warned her that she could be raped or kidnapped and trafficked into prostitution, and that thought sickened her. But all she could think of was escape.
Zia would go.
Nunu remembered an afternoon from before Zia left, when she and Zia and Mamina had gone to the marketplace to buy Zia a new winter coat. They had greeted Usama, Nunu remembered sadly, and had passed Anis’s photography store while it was still in business. A crowded marketplace was the ideal location for a suicide bomber, but avoiding the market was impractical, and those were the days when it still seemed worth the risk—the absence of electricity meant Iraqis had to shop every day because nothing could be stored.
From the crowd, a young man had suddenly moved toward Nunu. In a flash, he raised his arm and slapped her hard on her bottom. Nunu froze and went bright red.
Instantly, Zia had her gun out of her purse and in his face.
“You son of a bitch,” she shouted at him. Nunu was shocked to hear her use such language. “I’ll shoot you right here like a dog, and no one will care. They’ll throw you in the trash.”
The crowd cleared around them. His face went pale. “No, no, no,” he begged. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You know what you did,” she said.
“It happened by accident! I was trying to hit another girl.”
Mamina took advantage of his fear to vent her frustrations too. She started whacking him on the head with her purse. Nunu had been terrified, and Zia had been so angry that she looked as if she almost wanted to pull the trigger, but when they saw their mother slapping him with her purse, the sisters couldn’t help but laugh. Mamina always said, “The size of a woman’s purse is the size of her emotions,” and her purse was enormous. They all felt a rush of justice in scaring him and letting him know that he couldn’t abuse women and get away with it.
By the end of the day, word had spread throughout the neighborhood about the “crazy girl with the gun.”
Baba’s circle of friends had all heard about the incident, and Baba had been immensely proud of Zia. Many of the other young women on the street approached Nunu. “How did she get that gun? I want one.”
Back in the bedroom, Zia said, “Nunu, you should get one too. You see, no one harasses me now.”
But Nunu had refused. “I don’t have the guts to pull the trigger.”
“You don’t kill him,” Zia explained. “You just scare him so he thinks two thousand times before he hits another girl.”
But Nunu knew in her heart that she could never pull out a gun without shaking so badly she’d be a greater danger to herself. After a lifetime of being protected by her big sister, Nunu always felt as if she wasn’t made of the same ingredients as Zia. She didn’t have her steeliness. “It takes guts to do what you do,” she had told her sister that day. She’d thought then that she’d always be able to stay by Zia’s side. But now she knew she was going to have to start fending for herself.
THEN, AMID THE violence and bloodshed—a miracle arrived. Aunt Ilham became pregnant. She was almost forty and had been trying for years. No one could believe it.
She visited Mamina and Nunu, all done up in her lawyer’s suit and briefcase, her coiffed black hair and her frosty pink lipsick. “Congratulations!” Nunu squealed, hugging and kissing her. Aunt Ilham beamed from ear to ear. Nunu felt so proud of her aunt; she was an intelligent, respected professional, she had a husband, and now would be a mother. It was a great blessing, at last a sign of God’s presence.
Aunt Ilham hoped that the baby would bring peace to her relationship with her husband. Nothing had been easy for them in the last few years, what with the disappointment of their childless marriage. The civil war had deepened the strain, since Aunt Ilham was Shia and her husband was Sunni. Few neighborhoods were safe for both of them, and they could rarely travel together as a couple. As legal professionals in a secular justice system, they had both received death threats from religious radicals.
But the pregnancy, it seemed, only made the marriage worse. With the stress, and with her age, Aunt Ilham had a difficult time. She wanted to continue working, but her husband refused, saying it was shameful for him to have a pregnant wife on the job. She caved in to his demands and stopped working, but she told her husband she wanted to return to her job after the baby was born. He refused this as well. Aunt Ilham had always believed he was jealous of her because she had two degrees and was very well respected in judicial circles. Over the months, their fighting grew bitter and violent.
Then, one evening, there was an unexpected knock on the door. Waves of fear spread through the room, but they heard Aunt Ilham’s voice. When Mamina opened the door, she saw her sister was crying and had a bruised eye.
“Habibti! Come in. What has happened?”
Nunu huddled close to Aunt Ilham and her swollen belly.
“We found out the baby will be a girl,” she sobbed. “He is very angry. He hit me and pointed his gun at me.”
Aunt Ilham stayed the night with Nunu in her bed. She fell asleep quickly, and lay there peacefully like a young girl. Next to her, Nunu lay awake, seething inside. How dare any man degrade her beautiful, brilliant, strong aunt in such a way? And only for the crime of having a daughter. This is the reality for women, she thought. Lying there in the dark, for the first time in her life Nunu had a thought that would have terrified her only a year earlier: I would rather be a spinster than marry a man like Aunt Ilham’s husband.
Suddenly, this idea felt radical and empowering. It was a choice she was willing to make for herself. She felt strangely free.
As she lay there, Nunu began to wonder about her life. How had she ended up so different from her sister? Was this the character that God had given her, like her uncles said? Or had she become this way, and Zia another way, for a reason? Why could Zia stand up to her attackers on the street, while Nunu hid in the house? Why did Zia rush into life, so filled with confidence, while Nunu sat on the sidelines worrying what people thought, so concerned to be the “typical” Arab woman who always waited for a man’s direction before making her move?
She hadn’t always been like this, she remembered.
There was a time when she was not so shy. As a little girl, Nunu wasn’t afraid of running around, pushing the boys and shouting to stick up for herself. Now that she thought back, she could remember those days vividly. She had felt so free and comfortable in her body. But what had happened? The first change, she knew, had occurred on the elementary school playground. A much-beloved teacher, Ms. Intisar, called out to her. All the little girls loved Ms. Intisar. She had black hair and was beautiful, and Nunu adored her. Excited, Nunu flew across the playground to her. But when she arrived, Ms. Intisar slapped her hard, twice, in front of all the other students. Stunned, Nunu went home crying. The next morning, Mamina stormed into the school to demand an explanation.
“Nunu was running around like a boy,” Ms. Intisar said. “You should have seen her disrespectful behavior.”
Mamina was furious. “She is a child,” she shouted.
The headmaster intervened and apologized to Mamina.
But it was too late. After those slaps, Nunu became filled with worry that another unexpected punishment was always right around the corner. She never understood her crime, so she lost confidence in her judgment of right or wrong. She began to look to others for permission to do anything. With Zia at the helm, that was never a problem. Nunu slipped easily into the role of the follower.
In middle school, Nunu had a female math teacher, Miss Anisa, who used to belittle and humiliate the female students, especially the pretty ones, like Nunu. She was veiled and unmarried, in her late thirties. Even when Nunu gave the same answer as a boy, Miss Anisa would give the boy a higher grade. She always mocked Nunu’s way of speaking, and criticized girls who dressed up their uniforms with barrettes or colored clothes. Looking back on it now, Nunu began to feel sad for Miss Anisa, as maybe she was bitter over the harsh way Iraqi society treats women who don’t marry. At the time, though, Nunu felt confused and ashamed and disappeared deeper into her shell.
Nunu internalized the message of shame. Even if no one said anything, Nunu heard these voices in her head. Every now and again, though, she would receive some encouragement. She never forgot the time her aunt’s husband insulted her.
He looked at her angrily in the living room. “Why do you wear your hair long and free like this? It should be covered.”
Nunu froze.
But Baba was sitting nearby and overheard. “She wears her hair as she wears her hair,” he said, waving his hand to dismiss the comment.
In that moment, Nunu loved her father dearly for defending her. That was the Baba she knew. Maybe he had planted a kernel of confidence in her soul that she could nurture. Zia had always blossomed under the knowledge that Baba, although he might not express his emotions very openly, took pride in her strength and intelligence. Maybe Nunu could find her own courage out of that as well.
EVENTUALLY, NUNU’S AUNT had her baby girl. The decrease in violence that had begun in the summer of 2007 allowed the women a few freedoms. The gangs still kidnapped, and robberies and carjackings were common, but the death squads and ethnic cleansing had mostly stopped. The suicide bombs reduced in number. More U.S. troops were said to be on the ground, and the militias were negotiating with the government. The Sunni tribal leaders had begun to turn against Al Qaeda. No one believed the war was over, no one felt happy or optimistic—they had seen too much—but many seemed stunned by how violent the country had become. The fury and anger left over from Saddam’s years had eventually been exhausted.
When the baby was born, Mamina and Nunu decided the streets were safe enough to travel to the hospital. It was the happiest day Nunu had had in years. She tickled the baby’s fat fingers and admired her long black eyelashes.
Her aunt told her that the government gave a payment to new mothers, but the amount differed depending on the sex of the baby. For a bo
y, a mother received 150,000 dinars, and for a girl she received 100,000.
“I suppose they think that a boy strengthens the family and girls are a burden,” Aunt Ilham said. Nunu was angry, but Aunt Ilham was so happy she just laughed.
What a silly, stupid idea, Nunu thought. Surely not all people thought that way, but what a shame that anyone did. As Nunu cooed at the precious little girl, she realized the inordinate number of obstacles set up in the baby’s path before she’d even left the hospital. What would Iraq look like in the next five or ten years? Nunu wondered sadly. The country Mamina had grown up in had long been crushed, and so had their hopes that the invasion would improve life for women. This baby wouldn’t even grow up with the few freedoms Nunu had enjoyed under Saddam. Even with the killings diminished, Iraq was an unbearable place to live; its infrastructure was devastated, its politicians corrupt, and it was bereft of an entire class of professionals who had fled the civil war and sworn not to return. A mask of sadness became etched into Baba’s face. Despite living in a region that floated on oil and was blessed with two major rivers, his country was, once again, suffering. “Iraq is like a camel,” he muttered. “It carries gold and eats thorns.” Mamina shook her head. She believed the country was living under a thirteen-hundred-year-old curse, going back to the days when the tribes lured the Prophet’s grandson to Karbala and beheaded him. “Iraqis are still being punished for this betrayal.”
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