Coming of Age in Iraq

Halfway up a red-carpeted stairway inside the exclusive Baghdad Hunting Club, the rhythmic boom-boom-boom of techno dance music is rattling windows and vibrating the floor. Past an armed guard and into a darkened conference room, Mansour High School’s prom is in full swing.

For a couple of blissful hours, there is no terrorism, no anxiety. Scores of jubilant, clapping boys from the class of 2004 dance on tables, carry one another on their shoulders and playfully wrap red tablecloths around their heads and waists. A few have dyed their hair purple for the occasion. No girls are allowed, so pimple-faced boys with peach-fuzz mustaches dance with one another, and no one seems to mind.

In former times, seniors from this upscale all-boys school would celebrate the end of high school with an all-night bender, looking forward to college careers that would prepare them for privileged roles in Iraqi society as doctors, engineers and business leaders.

Today, those assumptions and privileges are in doubt. The prom had to be rescheduled for the early afternoon because it’s too dangerous to be out at night. And this year’s graduates are partying to forget their futures, not celebrate them.

It isn’t long before reality creeps back into the country club. The electricity dies and the music cuts off. The young men groan. Soon a frowning club manager decides that the party’s over.

Breathless and sweaty from dancing, Nafae Wamidh, 18, tries desperately to organize an impromptu sit-in. “Stay!” he yells at the other students. “Don’t leave.”

But the rebellion quickly falters as his dejected classmates begin to filter out of the room. Wamidh turns to his friend Hashem Chelabi and shakes his head in disgust. “They never want us to be happy anymore,” he says. “We always have to be sad, sad, sad!”

It’s not easy being a teenager in Iraq today. Lost amid the daily chaos is a generation reared on the rules and expectations of a deposed regime, coming of age in a time of uncertainty.

“There’s an emptiness now, a vacuum that they are having to make sense of,” said Talib Mehdi, a Baghdad University sociologist specializing in youth. He worries that Iraq’s teenagers are destined to be a generation of “political orphans.”

“There’s a loss of identity,” he said. “We’re not living in the new order yet. We’re still living in the aftermath of the old order, and the new order doesn’t have clear moral or ethical values. People are living in the moment, not thinking about the future. These kids don’t know what they’re going to do tomorrow.”

Sipping Cokes at a popular hangout a couple of weeks after their prom, Wamidh and Chelabi said they couldn’t help but feel a profound sense of injustice.

“It’s all so unfair in Iraq today,” said Chelabi, 17.

The straight-laced young man built the perfect resume. He joined the Baath Party in high school. He shunned premarital sex and hoped to do well enough on his final exams to get into medical school.

Wamidh is the rebel. A few years ago, he hacked into government computers to circumvent Internet-blocking technologies and got a scolding from the Baath Party police. He sneaks off with his girlfriend. He’s not sure what he wants to study.

In the old days, Chelabi would have been the rising star and Wamidh the ne’er-do-well. Now their roles may be reversed. Chelabi is struggling to accept the new realities. Wamidh’s carefree approach appears to be making it easier for him to adapt.

Both say their lives have been turned upside down. As far back as they can remember, they were taught in school that Saddam Hussein was a hero and Iraq was a rich and powerful nation.

“I used to be so proud because I was born on Saddam’s birthday,” Wamidh said.

Chelabi was convinced that the U.S. would fail if it invaded Iraq. “I didn’t believe anyone could enter Iraq,” he said.

Chelabi recalled the humiliation during the war of seeing a lone Iraqi tank near his home that had sandwiched itself between two palm trees and was stuck. The gun turret rotated lamely between the two trunks. “I was so embarrassed,” he said.

Of course, violence is nothing new to Wamidh and Chelabi, who were born during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s and remember the 1991 Persian Gulf War. “We were brought up in war,” Chelabi said. “Hearing bombs is normal to us.”

The U.S. invasion, however, and subsequent crime wave escalated the bloodshed and introduced new dangers. Chelabi’s 4-year-old nephew was killed when he picked up an unexploded cluster bomb last year, and his cousin was shot in the stomach this summer after being caught in a street battle between insurgents and U.S. troops.

Men wearing Iraqi police uniforms kidnapped a Mansour High classmate on the way to school. Now students sometimes bring knives and guns to class.

“There are no rules anymore,” Wamidh said. “Everybody just does as he likes.”

Worst of all, the teens say, is the boredom. As illustrated during their prom in April, the students’ social lives have been wiped out by crime and violence, trapping them at home during a senior year that should have been filled with parties and celebrations.

“We are graduating and we can’t stay out past 9 o’clock,” Chelabi said. “We will always be remembered as the class whose graduation party was shut down.”

For teenage girls, the environment is even worse. Although U.S. advisors insisted that Iraqi women play significant roles in the new government and freedom from gender discrimination is guaranteed in the interim constitution, girls are finding their lives more restricted than ever.

Worried parents are loath to permit them to walk around the city without an escort, and rising religious tensions have forced many young women to cover their heads with scarves to avoid harassment by hard-liners.

Youths like Wamidh and Chelabi find some solace in chatting online -- an activity that was forbidden before. But even as the Internet exposes the teenagers to new ideas, it subjects them to a new kind of isolation. When teens from other countries, particularly the U.S., discover that Wamidh and Chelabi are from Iraq, they often shun them in chat rooms or bombard them with nasty instant messages.

“Everyone calls us thieves and terrorists,” Chelabi said. “Now I lie and say I’m from New York or Kansas.”

It’s little wonder that the young men have buried themselves in schoolwork. Jassim Lukmean Abdul Razak, 60, who has been principal of Mansour High School for Boys for 24 years, says this year’s class has been more studious and more mature than those of previous years.

“This class is more anxious,” Razak said. “But I think they will distinguish themselves academically because they have spent more time studying. There’s not much else to do.”

Mehdi, the sociologist, worries about the long-term impact. In the absence of structure and tradition, he warned, young people might be more prone to seek stability in religious fundamentalism, such as an Iranian-style theocracy, or in autocratic leaders.

“This may turn out to be a generation susceptible to anyone who can provide strong leadership,” Mehdi said.

Similar trends have already been seen among Iraq’s impoverished classes. Many disenfranchised young men have been drawn to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr.

It’s unclear how this generation will view the United States in the future. Wamidh and Chelabi are fascinated by American culture. They wear New York Yankees baseball caps and use American slang in their e-mail.

Chelabi’s father and grandfather studied in the U.S., and he is eager to do the same. After the war, the pair befriended soldiers and volunteered as interpreters.

But by May, after more than a year of U.S. occupation, they were struggling to cope with new, conflicting images of America. Battles in Fallouja and Najaf had killed hundreds of Iraqis. Pictures of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison dominated the media.

“In the beginning, I think the Americans wanted to help us, but now I don’t know,” Chelabi said. “I don’t think they really want the situation to settle down. They don’t really want to create a government. They just want to stay here.”

As June approached, both students tried to block out the problems and focus on their upcoming final exams, all-important tests administered over seven days. Their scores would determine which college they could attend and in what field they would study.

“I’m not thinking about politics now,” Chelabi said. “I’m thinking about being a doctor. After that, then maybe I’ll think about helping the country.” To study medicine, he needed to score 98% on the exams.

Wamidh was less worried. He still wasn’t sure what career he would pursue. He had once thought about politics but was no longer interested.

Exams began in 110-degree heat with the two sitting side by side. Power outages meant they had to take the tests without air-conditioning. “I’m writing with one hand and wiping sweat with the other,” Chelabi said.

On the fourth day, Wamidh failed to show up. Chelabi recalled nervously eyeing Wamidh’s vacant desk as he finished his exam, then racing to Wamidh’s house when the test was over. He discovered that the Wamidh family had abruptly left for Syria, fearing rising violence and terrorism before the transfer of sovereignty.

For Wamidh, it was a welcome adventure. “I’m leaving,” he said excitedly from a cellphone as he headed toward the border in a taxi. The family hoped to reunite there with his father, who had been working in the United Arab Emirates. “I’d rather stay alive than keep living here and finish my exams.”

Within days, Wamidh was e-mailing Chelabi about his exploits in Syrian discos and encounters with Russian girls.

Back in Baghdad, Chelabi had never felt more alone. “Nafae didn’t just blow off his exams -- he blew off Iraq,” Chelabi said. “And he didn’t even say goodbye.”

Adding to his depression, Chelabi choked on his exams. He earned a score of 80%, well short of what he would need to get into medical school. That meant he might have to settle for engineering school.

Originally he had planned to celebrate the last day of tests with a big party. Instead, he spent the night tearfully solving questions he had missed and helping another close friend pack before moving with his family to Jordan.

“Now it’s really boring here,” he said. He looked for a summer job, mostly to pass the time. He played tennis and swam at the country club, but it wasn’t the same without his pals.

He wondered if he should leave Iraq too. “But even with all the problems, it’s my country,” he said. “It’s a piece of my heart.”

About a month later, Chelabi got good news. Wamidh made a surprise return. He left his family in Syria and came back to take the four exams he had missed.

“I got bored in Syria,” Wamidh said. As much as he complained about Iraq, he found it difficult to stay away. “I can’t explain it. But it’s hard to leave Baghdad,” he said. “It’s part of my life.”