[WCUSP] Iraqi kids play war games (AP 2/24)

[yvonne simmons]

--- pjw at agora.rdrop.com wrote:

> Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 10:16:49 -0800 (PST)
> From: pjw at agora.rdrop.com
> To: Peace and Justice Works <pjw at pjw.info>
> CC: Yvonne Simmons <roweenayvonne at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Iraqi kids play war games (AP 2/24)
> 
> Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2007 13:50:43 -0800 (PST) From:
> jim rissman
> 
> 
>
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070224/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_sectarian_games_3;_ylt=AhjbAzrQpJB5q1T8rQUmvqtX6GMA
> Iraqi kids play make-believe war games
> By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer
> Sat Feb 24, 4:52 AM ET
> 
> BAGHDAD, Iraq - Toting menacing looking toy guns,
> young boys swarm around 
> an abandoned car, chanting battle cries of a Shiite
> militia and pointing 
> their play weapons at the "terrorist" in the
> driver's seat. Outnumbered, 
> the boy playing a would-be suicide bomber
> surrenders.
> 
> On Baghdad's dusty streets, Iraqi children are
> playing make-believe war 
> games inspired by the Shiite-Sunni conflict, a
> development that shows the 
> depth of the city's rapid and violent break-up along
> sectarian lines.
> 
> Some adults try to discourage such games, fearing
> they only contribute to 
> sectarian hatred. Others believe there is little
> they can do to stop it — 
> given the horror that children in Baghdad experience
> nearly every day.
> 
> "Playing such games is normal," said Rabab Qassim, a
> school teacher and 
> mother of three from Hurriyah, where Shiite
> militiamen drove out hundreds 
> of Sunni families last year. "It has become part of
> the kids' lives. It is 
> not a figment of their imagination. It is in front
> of them everywhere and 
> they live it every day."
> 
>         Iraq's children have not escaped the ravages
> of nearly four years 
> of war and sectarian strife, which escalated during
> the past year. 
> Hundreds, possibly thousands, of them have been
> killed or wounded in the 
> violence.
> 
> Images of parents weeping over the dead or mangled
> bodies of their 
> children define the brutality of the conflict.
> 
> "You coward! I will kill you," shouted 6-year-old
> Haidar Faraj, who played 
> a Shiite militiaman from the Shiite Mahdi Army
> militia on a recent 
> afternoon in Hurriyah. His younger brother Abbas was
> the Sunni 
> "terrorist."
> 
> Abu Ali, 40, who sells toys in Baghdad's Shorja
> market, said most of the 
> children who visit his store are looking for the
> "biggest and most harmful 
> toy guns."
> 
> "About 95 percent of the toys I sell are guns," said
> Abu Ali, who refused 
> to give his full name for security reasons.
> 
> So many toy guns — some of which look real at first
> glance — are 
> circulating in the city that Trade Minister Abed
> Falah al-Sudani is 
> considering banning them.
> 
> Kids who can't afford toy weapons simply use their
> imagination. Take a 
> wooden stick, tie on an empty water bottle with a
> black sock and presto — 
> a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Boys dart
> behind parked cars or 
> sprawl on the ground and pretend to fire them.
> 
> The names of the games vary depending on the
> neighborhood.
> 
> In Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of the Mahdi
> Army, the "bad guys" are 
> "Wahabbis," or Sunni religious extremists. Sometimes
> the game becomes 
> "Sadr City vs Azamiyah," referring to a nearby Sunni
> neighborhood.
> 
> In New Baghdad, a mixed area where Shiites are most
> numerous, kids play 
> "police and terrorists."
> 
> Some of the children even dress up in black shirts
> that resemble Mahdi 
> Army attire. Those playing the cops put on black ski
> masks, often used by 
> Baghdad police to hide their identity.
> 
> "These kids are not only mimicking what they see on
> TV, but also some of 
> the real violence they see," said Sabah Mohammed
> Ali, a Shiite policeman 
> whose two sons — Mohammed, 11, and Mustapha, 8 — are
> avid players of such 
> games.
> 
> "I try to discourage them from playing and I talk to
> them about Shiites 
> and Sunnis living in peace, but they keep going back
> to the same game," 
> said Ali, 44, who comes from Sadr City.
> 
> Some Iraqis worry that the war games are
> contributing to an increase in 
> aggressive behavior among children, many of whom are
> losing interest in 
> their schoolwork. It's hard to tell whether war
> games — or the general 
> state of life in Baghdad — are to blame.
> 
> "They challenge teachers and even threaten them,"
> said biology teacher Abu 
> Ali. "They are so frustrated and do not care about
> their work because they 
> think they may end up displaced or killed, so why
> should they bother to 
> study."
> 
> 
> Associated Press reporter Bushra Juhi contributed to
> this report.



 
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