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An Enclave of Normalcy in Fearful Baghdad
Men repair streets in Baghdad's Sadr City, where Shiites work, pray and converse mainly with those of their own sect.
(The Washington Post)
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The area is home to fighters linked to death squads who have driven thousands of Sunnis from their houses. Yet children and young men play soccer here in parks with manicured grass. Crowds mingle in open-air bazaars without fear of a suicide bomber. Women walk alone to shop, while men have long conversations in outdoor cafes, a sign of normalcy that has vanished from most of Baghdad.
Built in the late 1950s to house Iraq's poor, the area was later called Saddam City. After U.S. forces toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, it was renamed Sadr City to honor Moqtada al-Sadr's father, Mohammed Sadiq Sadr, a revered ayatollah who was assassinated in 1999 by Hussein's security forces.
Although he lacked his father's religious credentials, the younger Sadr gained popularity by melding Islam with fierce nationalism and by challenging the U.S.-led occupation.
Now, as sectarian strife transforms the nation, cleansing mixed areas, Sadr City is perhaps the best indicator of the Baghdad that is emerging from chaos. Here, Shiites walk, pray and converse, largely with other Shiites, basking in the trust afforded by mingling with their own sect.
In times of peace, Sadr's fighters are security guards, social workers, neighborhood watchmen. In times of mayhem, they become ambulance drivers, firemen and blood donors. In November, after a barrage of bombs and mortar shells killed more than 200 people in Sadr City, hundreds of militiamen took to the streets, ferrying the wounded to hospitals and dousing flames.
As day gives way to dusk, shopkeepers don't close. They turn on the lights. Everywhere else in the capital, curfew begins at 8 p.m. Not in Sadr City.
"We don't have a curfew," said shopkeeper Khadim Lilugatie, 31. "We can stay open until 1 a.m. if we want."
As he shook hands, his sleeve fell back, unveiling a tattoo on his forearm showing his allegiance to the Mahdi Army.
Despite U.S. pressure, the Maliki government has not challenged Sadr's authority. The prime minister, who depends on Sadr for political support, has publicly chastised the U.S. military for staging raids into Sadr City. American troops patrol the streets now, but U.S. generals concede that they would not be able to do so without Sadr's cooperation.
In interviews across Sadr City, residents questioned the need for the presence of U.S. troops, saying they already felt safe. They also questioned why U.S. troops were raiding the homes of militia members.
"If it wasn't for the Mahdi Army, there would be a lot of problems here," said Abdul Sattar Ali, 70, silver-haired and unemployed, who has lived in Sadr City for four decades.
A Well-Organized System
It is 3 p.m. Saleh al-Ghathbawi is in the office of Sadr's Social Committee. He is staring at a notation in the yellow folder of a Shiite family who had fled Baqubah, a town 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. It reads, "Reason for displacement: killing by Takfiris."
