Reality Intrudes on Iraqis in Places of Respite

On a spring- like Friday in this tense capital, Sabiha Shukur took a risk.

She ventured with her four children to an amusement park, a place to delight in popcorn, cotton candy and a wandering clown. It was, she said, the family’s first outing since the U.S. invasion of Iraq almost a year ago. Her eyes betrayed anxiety.

“Uncertainty never leaves us,” she said.

Across town at the Equestrian Club racetrack, a raucous refuge patrolled by guards toting AK-47s, hundreds of Iraqi men indulged in a cherished ritual of gambling, cheering the ponies and carrying on animated conversation.

“We come here just to forget the whole world,” said Ahmed Sabti, a horse owner.

Each day, Iraqis face an emotional and psychological push and pull as they hazard outside and attempt to pursue normal lives.

Even on a day of rest -- when a sun-caressed breeze hinted at warmer weather to come and no major attacks or bombings were reported -- talk returned inevitably to the disappointments of occupation, the promises unfulfilled, the overwhelming sense of being trapped in a cycle of violence and despair that appeared to be worsening.

Friday is the Muslim holy day. This week it fell on the eve of Muharram, a holiday marking the first day of the Islamic calendar. The mild weather drew people to cafes and parks, shops and riverside walks.

But they kept a wary eye on a menacing landscape: smoke rising from distant explosions, U.S. military helicopters droning overhead, sporadic gunshots.

“There is no house in Baghdad where someone does not wear black,” said a 28-year-old teacher and mother of two as she gently rocked her 2-year-old on a metal swing. “Whenever we go out, we fear we may not come back.”

The voices of millions of Iraqis who want nothing more than to get on with their lives often are drowned out by the acrimonious debate about their nation’s future. At two places where people go for a respite from that reality -- the park and the racetrack -- residents shared thoughts about a homeland that, many feared, was veering toward even greater instability.

“What is our future?” asked Shukur as she sat at an outdoor table with her extended family at the Rihana Family Park in the middle-class Zeyouna neighborhood. “We have had 35 years of hardship. We’re fed up. People are talking about elections. Elections for whom? Not for us. For the Americans, maybe.”

“Can you imagine what it will be like this summer if we don’t have electricity again, with the heat?” she asked. “Don’t the Americans understand what it is like not to have water to bathe your children before they go to school?”

Her husband, Farid Mohammed, a compact businessman with a neatly trimmed gray beard, nodded as he watched their four small children cavort on the swings, slides and worn-out rides. The children had persuaded them to leave the house to enjoy this picture-postcard day, the couple said.

The family is both Shiite Muslim and ethnic Kurd, two groups brutally repressed by Saddam Hussein. Still, like so many other Iraqis, they said the hated regime had at least provided a modicum of security and services.

Both agreed on one thing: U.S. forces must not leave until the situation was more secure and a legitimate Iraqi government was in place, with its own effective police services.

The co-manager of the park, Ayman Zain, said the crowds gradually had been increasing -- a sign of confidence. Fortunately, he added, a would-be suicide car bomber was shot dead by police two weeks ago as he tried to ram his payload into the Ministry of Culture building next to the park.

It’s hardly reassuring for parents like Ginan Ghazi, also a mother of four. She and her husband, a construction contractor, would leave if they could, she said, but there was no way out.

“Even here in the park, my nerves are jumping,” Ghazi said. “The Americans saved us from Saddam, but look where we are now. Our country seems lost. Now everything is Shiites against Sunnis against Kurds against Americans. What kind of talk is this?”

The mood was similarly edgy at the Equestrian Club, a racetrack in a sandy urban prairie in the Amariya neighborhood. It is a dingy facility: The grandstand is crowned by five massive pillars stretching toward the sky like the columns of an ancient temple. They were intended to hold a roof that was never built because of a mix-up involving corrupt contractors. A lake of raw sewage beneath the bleachers gives off an acrid stench.

The lack of frills did not appear to bother the regulars Friday. They leaned against a wire fence, muttering and gesturing, engrossed in the horses going through warm-up paces. The all-male crowd was at its home away from home: a place where its members go to bet, yell, curse and argue, to be men among men.

Horse owner Sabti, a high-roller in sleek black sweater, slacks and turquoise ring, said he had welcomed the arrival of the Americans.

But he complained that some regulars now stayed away from the track, worried about the marauding gangs.

“Because of the miseries we were living in during the time of Saddam Hussein, we were coming here just to try to forget,” Sabti said. “And now this is also because of the miseries and pain we are feeling with the presence of the American troops. The Americans have made it 10 times worse.”

Ali Abed Moussa, an unemployed 40-year-old, squatted on a cement barrier behind the grandstand wearing a faded robe and sandals. He and his friends groused cheerfully about what they called the constant trickery and cheating that went on among owners and jockeys.

Horse racing, a longtime passion here, was uneasily tolerated under the secular Hussein dictatorship.

At the track today, once-prohibited dice and card games flourish in the gloomy crowded space by the betting windows. Fistfuls of cash spatter across folding tables. The gamblers feel liberated.

“Everybody in the whole world has hobbies, but we Iraqis were the only people in the world deprived of having a hobby,” said Sabti, leaning on Moussa.

Moments later, there was a deep boom in the distance. A plume of black smoke twisted toward the horizon. But Iraqis have developed an acute knowledge of explosions.

“The Americans have a base over there, and they are blowing up weapons,” said Sami Irzooqi, 59, a bantam former jockey who walked with a horseman’s roll. “Nothing to worry about.”

Unlike others at the track, Irzooqi does not agree with demands that the Americans leave as soon as possible. On the contrary, he wants them to stay and clean up the mess that is Baghdad today. The disorder and uncertainty follow him even to the racetrack, his sanctuary since he became a jockey in 1975, where the talk shifts from horses to politics.

“Most of the Iraqi people were happy and satisfied with the presence of the Americans,” he said.

“People believe if the Americans leave, there will be massacres. But in the past months, people are starting to talk. They are fed up. They say America is a superpower, is it true they are unable to restore the electrical power? There are traffic jams. The streets are blocked. The electricity is not improving. The water is bad.

“The Americans have to provide services, create opportunities, build housing. That is how they will get the sympathy and love of the Iraqis.”