Guest Post by Hiroyuki Hamada
I remember chatting with a man from Iraq in 2016. He was driving a taxi in Germany. I wrote about him in one of my essays[1]:
Last month, I was chatting with an Iraqi taxi driver in Berlin. My 12 year old son and I took a cab from the Museum for Contemporary Art to our hotel. I couldn’t help but ask the cab driver why he ended up in Berlin. He said it was something to do with the availability of the visa. He stressed that he had to leave because he didn’t like Islam. He said Muslims were killing each other.
I felt very slightly sad because he sounded like he had to say that to prove that he wasn’t a “terrorist”. I told him that it was the US that supported Saddam when it was convenient. Then, the US flipped, changing its policy, as doing so became more convenient. I asked him, Taliban, al Qaeda, ISIS, same old story, no?
Then he said something unexpected. He said it was a “people’s revolution”. “We stood against Saddam”. He was referring to the first gulf war in 1991. He went on to describe how it didn’t go as people wished, and it brought about the devastating trade embargo, more war, ISIS and so on. His voice was passionate. I felt the anger and frustration against war and imperialism that I also feel myself, in his voice.
The imperial war against countries that defy the US hegemonic imperatives involves a few steps. The target population is deprived of their basic necessities by economic embargo, trade sanctions, travel restrictions and demonization of its leader.