Scream quietly...in the Blue.

Georgies Liberation
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues - Reflections in a sealed bottle...

...Damascus, Amman - Hundreds of young Iraqi women scream quietly everynight after closing time of the seedy bars. They scream quietly under the weight of the clients, forcing them into positions they would not dare use with their own "respectable" wives... They scream quietly as they pass on the 10$ to their families to feed them. They scream quietly when they find out they have contracted STD, they scream quietly when they find out they are pregnant, they scream quietly when they are called "cheap Iraqi whores..." Iraqi prisons - Thousands of women linger there with no trial. They sit and they scream quietly. They are tortured, raped and are asked to scream quietly. They contracted AIDS, TB, Syphilis, Hepatitis and a thousand other ailments but they are to scream quietly...And when they walk to gallows, they are to scream and die quietly.. America, this is your New Democracy. Iran, this is your play field. Iraq has become your dumping grounds. The dumping ground for your greed, promiscuity, illnesses, perversion, hatred, racism, barbarism, but above all your misogyny. Yes YOUR misogyny. No, it is not only a dual occupation for Iraqi women.It is a thousand occupations No, it is not only a backlash for Iraqi women...It is a thousand lashes... It is beyond rape, it is beyond anything that words can describe...It is even beyond death. It is as if all the hateful shadows, lurking monsters, of "Maleness" are being poured over our heads, into our bodies, right into our souls...into future generations, into the future, into for Ever... Control, impoverish, kidnap, batter, rape, torture, prostitution, prisons, hanging, death....A series of steps on the one and same continuum of male hatred. That archaic hatred that has erupted along with your occupation. My God, every time this realization dawns on me, I scream...

continua / continued