Love is in the Air...

SAD BUT TRUE, I MISS RIVERS POSTS AT BAGHDAD BURNING

very few and far between now.

Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues

...So Iraqi women have retreated back into silence, into obscurity, into the blinding shadows we have fought so hard to unshackle ourselves from for centuries... All of this shrouded by a deafening silence. Where are the Layla Ahmeds, the Nawal Al Saadawis, the Amina Waduds, the Fatima Mernissis, the Kate Millets, the Gloria Steinems, the Betty Friedans, the Germaine Greers of this world? Not one voice,not one article, nothing. Nothing by these "famous" arab and western feminists. If you see them per chance, tell them there is no "Feminine Mystique" left in Iraq, there is no feminity in Iraq, there are no feminists in Iraq, there is nothing that remotely resembles a living "woman" anymore in Iraq. Tell them we have become shadows in the obscurity when we used to be free wings in the sunlight. Tell them we have lost our voices and our joy. Tell them we have lost our creativity and our inner surge, Tell them we have been hushed through death threats, exile, rape, torture and slaughter. Tell them neither Agape nor Eros are with us tonight.We have none but Thanatos as a dependable companion. Tell them on this Valentine's day, that there is no place for Love in Iraq. The lovers have been silenced, the poet is dead and the music has stopped...

continua / continued