Iraqis turn to tattoos as indelible IDs
Source: L. A. Times
THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ: MESSAGE FOR LEADERS; A DIFFERENT KIND OF IDENTITY CARD
Iraqis turn to tattoos as indelible IDs
With violent deaths all around them, some Shiites opt for distinctive marks so loved ones could identify them.
By Christian Berthelsen, Times Staff Writer
April 20, 2007
BAGHDAD — The ghastly procession of decapitated corpses and mutilated bodies that has defined death in Iraq drove Firas Adil Saadi to do something that was once the province of convicts and degenerates here: He got a tattoo.
The 28-year-old Shiite Muslim now has a marking on his right shoulder so his family may avoid the despair of not being able to identify his remains. In ornate Arabic calligraphy, it says "My brother Husam," after a cousin who suffered such a fate. Saadi also carries paper identification, but he believes it would be burned beyond recognition in a bombing.
"The idea came to me after seeing these daily incidents during which some corpses are mutilated and distorted, some were even headless, and the fact that the identity cards are either lost or destroyed," said Saadi, a trader who works in Baghdad's Shorja market, which has suffered numerous bombings. "Even the water of the firefighting equipment is destroying them, so I thought about an irremovable identity card, which is the tattoo."
Death trumps taboo
In Iraq, it has come to this: Faced with the omnipresent specter of death, an increasing number of people, mainly Shiite men, are willing to contravene social taboo to accommodate it.
By Christian Berthelsen, Times Staff Writer
April 20, 2007
BAGHDAD — The ghastly procession of decapitated corpses and mutilated bodies that has defined death in Iraq drove Firas Adil Saadi to do something that was once the province of convicts and degenerates here: He got a tattoo.
The 28-year-old Shiite Muslim now has a marking on his right shoulder so his family may avoid the despair of not being able to identify his remains. In ornate Arabic calligraphy, it says "My brother Husam," after a cousin who suffered such a fate. Saadi also carries paper identification, but he believes it would be burned beyond recognition in a bombing.
"The idea came to me after seeing these daily incidents during which some corpses are mutilated and distorted, some were even headless, and the fact that the identity cards are either lost or destroyed," said Saadi, a trader who works in Baghdad's Shorja market, which has suffered numerous bombings. "Even the water of the firefighting equipment is destroying them, so I thought about an irremovable identity card, which is the tattoo."
Death trumps taboo
In Iraq, it has come to this: Faced with the omnipresent specter of death, an increasing number of people, mainly Shiite men, are willing to contravene social taboo to accommodate it.
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