Looking for Love in Baghdad(07.07.04)
This is a typical Baghdad love story. Sameera Ubaid had a temp job last summer, supervising examinations at an engineering college. In the exam hall one day, she met Salaam Ali, a lecturer at the college. They made small talk while ensuring that the students didn't cheat. When the exams ended, they went their separate ways, promising to call but, Ali says, "never expecting to see each other again." Ubaid, 28, returned to her home in Dora, a notoriously violent Baghdad neighborhood, where U.S. and Iraqi forces fight fierce daily battles against Sunni insurgents. As the fighting escalated, her family deemed it too dangerous for her to leave the house. Lonely, she began calling Ali, 32, for the occasional chat; these soon became daily conversations and then blossomed into love. Since neither has a landline, their romance was conducted entirely by cell phone, with Ali spending a third of his $250 monthly salary on phone cards. Meeting was not an option. Though they are both Sunnis, he comes from a predominantly Shi'ite tribe, which might make him guilty by association in the eyes of the fanatics who control the streets of Dora. (The names of several people in this story have been changed at their request to protect their identities.) When Ali proposed last fall, they had still not seen each other since the encounter in the exam hall. "I had not seen him in four months, but I knew I was making the right choice," says Ubaid. Since their engagement, they have met on just four occasions, and Ali says they are resigned to remaining "engaged on the cell phone" for months, even years, before they can wed. As for many couples in Baghdad these days, a face-to-face meeting is a luxury, not a necessity.
Romance was never the norm in Iraq, a conservative Muslim society in which arranged marriages are common. But before the war, in big cities like Baghdad and Basra, and especially on their university campuses, young Iraqis could have romantic liaisons and aspire to marry for love, even if that meant crossing the sectarian divide. Among the educated classes, Shi'ite-Sunni unions were not frowned upon. It was even possible to date: in Baghdad, courting couples, often accompanied by a chaperone, would meet at fruit-juice kiosks or ice-cream parlors or in one of the restaurants along the banks of the Tigris. Premarital sex was rare, but the more adventurous lovers would arrange trysts in the city's quiet nooks. one popular spot was a concrete expanse near the Jadhariya bridge sometimes used by driving instructors; there, under the pretense of teaching his girlfriend to use a stick shift, a young man could furtively hold her hand.
But the violence that has racked Baghdad since the fall of Saddam Hussein has made all that impossible. Many young people say it's just inappropriate to think of love at a time like this. "Sometimes I wish there was love in my life, but then I feel guilty," says Muna Hussein, 20, a Kurd who works as a translator in the Green Zone. "I feel I am a bad person for wanting romance for myself when my country is bleeding."
Those still seeking love have fewer places to find it. Many once liberal university campuses are now policed by fanatical Shi'ite student groups associated with the hard-line cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. They impose strict segregation of the sexes and beat up those who dare to fraternize. Parents concerned about the violence in the streets force their children, especially daughters, to remain indoors. only the bravest go out for dinner, since restaurants are popular targets for suicide bombers. The lovers' lane near the Jadhariya bridge is marked by the burned and twisted remains of two car bombs; a police checkpoint ensures there is no loitering. Like Ubaid and Ali, many young couples have to conduct their relationships on the phone.
There is, however, one place where romance still flourishes: the Internet. Highly restricted under Saddam, Internet access is now unfettered, allowing many young Iraqis to communicate with one another and with the rest of the world. Arabic forums and bulletin boards are teeming with Iraqis looking for friendship—and perhaps a little harmless flirtation. Those who can afford their own computers and webcams can have face-to-face conversations. Skype, the popular Internet phone service, has more than 40,000 users in Iraq.
For the lucky few, an online encounter can be the start of a beautiful relationship. Mohammed Subhi, a Baghdad security guard, met Hester Terpstra, a Dutch native, on Skype. Terpstra had logged on from Alesund, Norway, where she works as a driving-school instructor. "I was just looking to have a conversation with somebody from a different part of the world," she says. "But from the start, I sensed that Mohammed and I had a special bond." The two kept up their online friendship for several months before it developed into something deeper. They then arranged to meet in Damascus. Any trepidation that Subhi, 29, may have felt before the meeting vanished within seconds. "She was exactly the person she appeared to be on Skype: vivacious, smart and open-minded," he says. Terpstra, 37, says she left Damascus convinced they had to get married. The two are now waiting for an opportunity for Subhi to travel to Norway.
Remarkably, Subhi's conservative Sunni family has been very supportive, apparently unconcerned that Terpstra is not a Muslim. "They don't care about her religion," he says. "They are just happy that I have a chance to escape from here." But in Iraq, tolerance has become a rare commodity. Hatred between Iraq's Shi'ites and Sunnis runs so deep that few dare cross the divide and seek partners outside their sect. Jumana Majid, 24, and Abdel-Salaam al-Hilli, 27, both graduate students at Baghdad University, had been involved for three years before he formally asked to marry her. Majid's parents, who are Sunni, quickly gave their blessing, but two of her three brothers stood in the way. "My youngest brother, in front of all our family, said, 'If you insist on marrying this man, we promise you and swear to God that we will kill you in your wedding clothes,'" Majid recalls. "He said, 'We can't live with the shame you will bring to us by marrying a Shi'ite.'"
Such threats cannot be ignored. A gruesome video circulating on cell phones and posted on several Arabic websites shows the "honor killing" of Dua Khalil Aswad, a teen-age girl from the minority Yazidi faith who defied her family and married a Muslim. She is seen being kicked and stoned by a group of men, while uniformed Iraqi policemen stand by. one man picks up a large boulder and drops it on her head. Terrified that she may meet Aswad's fate but determined to stick by al-Hilli, Majid says her best hope is that they will both be able to emigrate to someplace beyond the reach of her brothers after she and al-Hilli have completed their education.
Ubaid and Ali, the engaged couple, have come to the same conclusion but for purely economic reasons. He figures he needs to earn three times as much as he does now to afford married life. There are few such jobs in Baghdad, so he plans to leave the country, joining the massive exodus of Iraqis that has already swelled the populations of neighboring Jordan and Syria. But Ali is late: whatever jobs may have existed in Jordanian and Syrian universities have been scooped up by Iraqi academics who got there first; Ali has made one futile job-hunting trip to Damascus. Now Jordan and Syria are beginning to turn people back from the border. Ubaid is concerned that it may be years before they can get married. "I will be an old maid, with no teeth, and he will have no hair," she jokes. The alternative, of course, still seems even worse. For lovers in Iraq, happily ever after is only possible somewhere else.