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When Is Safer Safe?

December 13, 2007 9:28 PM

In a city that has been living through outright carnage and mayhem for so long, how do you know when things are getting better?  Or more importantly, how do you know it is safe to go outside?

Well, first off, Baghdad is quieter than it used to be.  Less gunshots, fewer loud bangs from mortars that used to fly overhead and land in the Green Zone, fewer window-rattling booms from car bombs.

Then there are the statistics –- less bodies found, not so many kidnappings, a lower level of admissions to the emergency rooms at the main hospitals.  The papers are full of statistics from the government, eager to boast about how much better it is getting in Baghdad.

People are skeptical about what their government tells them in Baghdad.  What influences behavior more are the everyday experiences people share, the stories they pass on about streets that are newly busy, shops that have reopened, friends who have come over from other neighborhoods for the first time in many months.  It is this informal intelligence network that helps Baghdad residents decide where is safe and where they still need to be very cautious.  So we went out to find out what ordinary people are talking about.

Abu Hani is a taxi driver. He said he is now driving right across the city with his fares because he feels it is safe to do so, whereas before he stayed within his own neighborhood.  The day before we met him, he had stayed out picking up customers on the streets until 8.30 pm, about three hours after dark, something he wouldn’t have dreamed of doing six months ago –- when there was an 8 p.m. curfew anyway, forcing everyone to go home early.  Abu Hani is happy. He said that he is now bringing home two to three times as much money as he could earn in the bad days.

At the Karkh primary school, the teachers told us that their classrooms are filling up again. Parents who used to either be scared of sending their children to school or who had temporarily fled the country for Syria are now back and feel secure enough to let their children outside during school hours.

We walked down the main shopping street in Karadah, and it was crowded with people shopping for Eid, a Muslim festival that this year just happens to fall around the same time as Christmas.  When I tried to do a piece to camera, I had to weave around people on the sidewalk to keep a line of sight with the camera.  And in the north of the city in the big market in Kadhimiyah, which is a staunch Shiite area, we came across a Sunni woman from the neighboring Adhamiyah district who was shopping for children’s clothes.  Only months ago, Shiite militias were shooting mortars into Adhamiyah. Now she feels it safe enough to come into the Shiite area.  The choice of goods, she said, was much better than in her own area.

There are still plenty of no-go areas –- Mansur and Ameriyah in the west of Baghdad are very dicey, and few people who are not from the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in the east will venture in there.  But the word is out: Much of the center of Baghdad is now open for business.  Nobody knows how long it will stay that way.  But for the time being they are happy to go out shopping, eating, even staying out in coffee shops smoking water pipes until late at night.  And telling their friends all about it.

December 13, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (2)

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Posted by: Rick_VT | Dec 14, 2007 6:33:40 PM

Posted by: Mr. Forward | Dec 16, 2007 8:04:28 AM

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