The 10 Plagues of Iraq

by Joe Katzman at April 16, 2003 1:03 PM

Passover begins tonight. Family and food. The first great joyous festival of freedom, echoing through the ages. Bound up in Jewish history, in Christian culture and even in the Negro spirituals of the American south:

"Go down Moses,
Way down in Egypt land,
Tell de ol' Pharoh,
Let my people go."
Every year we gather together at our Seders, links in the chain of a long and proud story. This year, that story has special relevance. Again. In freedom and liberation, yes. And in the Passover wine, drops spilled from the cup as we mourn the blood spilled by the heaven-sent plagues that eventually ended Pharaoh's rule.

Iraqi dissident and human rights activist Kanan Makiya wrote on April 9th: "Baathism died in Iraq yesterday". Beyond all hope comes the force of a mighty hand, and Pharaoh is fallen at last. Along the way, however, the Iraqis too have suffered their own version of the 10 plagues. This Passover, as we sit at our Seders, let us spare a thought for them:

  1. Blood: The purges, the disapperances, the wars Saddam started. Over a million Iraqis dead, a tide of blood that stains all of Iraq's waters.

  2. Frogs: In Pharaoh's Egypt, the blood brought a plague of frogs out of the Nile. In Saddam's Iraq, the spilled blood of the southern Shi'ite "Marsh Arabs" was followed by large-scale projects that deliberately destroyed a huge ecology. The plague is not the frogs, but their absence and what it implies.

  3. Vermin: "That effluent, combined with pollution upstream, has killed most of the fish in the Shatt al-Arab river and has left the remainder unsafe to eat. The government can no longer spray for sand-flies or mosquitoes, so insects have proliferated, along with the diseases they carry." (Anthony Arnove, "Iraq Under Siege: Ten Years On", Monthly Review, December 2000) Ah, but doing what was required would have imperiled Saddam's real priority: pesticides to control human, rather than insect populations.

  4. Untamed Beasts: An apt description of Saddam's security services. What else does one call a creature who bears the title "violator of womens' honour" (i.e. official rapist)? Or those who torture small children to make their parents confess? Or the minions who operated people-shredders and fed victims in feet first?

  5. Cattle Disease: "The government-maintained irrigation and drainage network has crumbled, leaving much of Iraq's prime agricultural land either too dry or too salty to cultivate. Sheep and cattle, no longer shielded by government vaccination programmes, have succumbed to pests and diseases by the hundreds of thousands." (Anthony Arnove, "Iraq Under Siege: Ten Years On", Monthly Review, December 2000) Odd. The north of Iraq seemed to flourish without these problems, even under U.N. sanctions. But then, Saddam didn't rule there.

  6. Boils: See under "Vermin." A common by-product of insect infestations. Not to mention a regime so interested in using biotechnology to kill people that it pursues these efforts even at crippling economic cost. The resulting cascade of effects on sanitation, living conditions, and medical programs creates a lot of boils and related medical conditions, while making treatment and prevention less affordable for the common people.

  7. Hail: Not of ice, but of bombs, artillery shells, and steel. And not just (or even mostly) from the United States. Hail could also represent the toxic chemicals that fell from above on the Iraqi and Kurdish people, courtesy of Saddam, "Chemical Ali," and their cohorts.

  8. Locusts: The terror of locusts in ancient times was closely linked to starvation - once the locusts had been through, the people would be forced to survive on what they had managed to preserve from the plague. As we come across palaces of gold and shag carpet and warehouses of undistributed food stockpiled by Saddam or slated for the Republican Guard, vs. the emaciated and haggard condition of even Saddam's army, it's hard not to look at the Ba'ath Party and make the comparison.

  9. Darkness: For the physical darkness of the oil fires set alight by the regime in the south and around Baghdad. For the spiritual darkness suffered by the Iraqi people over the last 20 years.

  10. Slaying of the First Born: Another byproduct of the wars and endless killings. Few families in Iraq remain intact; most have lost one family member and many have lost several. Leading causes are the war Saddam deliberately started with Iran, and the killings performed by his own security forces. Infant mortality in the areas Saddam ruled (again, in conspicuous contrast with northern Iraq where he did not rule) also contributed.
The Iraqi people have lived through plague and darkness and death. They are liberated, and the joy of liberation is real. We accept that joy as their birthright, in the spirit of Passover. To diminish it diminishes us all.

We know, too, as the Israelites learned, that physical liberation is only the first step. To make the rest of the journey requires changes in the human heart. Even G-d's mighty hand cannot command this, a subtlety whose 2 sides are demonstrated by the 2 key events of Sinai: The Golden Calf, and the people of Israel's required shout of assent to the 10 Commandments. Failure, and freedom. Illusion, and responsibility. Idols, and truths.

Iraq, too, faces a difficult journey from plagues to plenty. Old idols may yet be worshipped, idols of blood and hate, of passivity and mistrust. To succeed is to inherit the promise of a land of milk and honey. To fail is to wander in an endless desert, both spiritual and material. A desert that has swallowed many of their brethren in the Arab world.

Perhaps this time will be different. Perhaps this time, there is hope again:

"The road ahead is, no doubt, very difficult. And now the burden shifts onto our shoulders, the shoulders of Iraqis inside and outside of Iraq. We thank you people of the great United States for the gift that you have bestowed on us. I cannot promise that we will succeed in making good of it. But I do promise that we will try very hard." (Kanan Makiya)
As we remember their suffering this Passover, let us pray that the Iraqis too learn to break the chains of hatred and passivity that have bound them, and embrace a set of higher ideals and practices that will make their enduring freedom a reality.
"No more in bondage shall they be,
Let my people go
Then shall all humankind be free,
Let my people go."
May the spirit of the Lord guide them, children of Abraham, along the path to true liberation.

UPDATE: Diana Moon writes to point out that fittingly, there will be several Passover Seders held in Baghdad this year.

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