The Dogs Colony

Qossay Hassan AlKhafaji

In remembering the place, memory gets stimulated. He said that to his neighbor, who was spreading his washes on a tight rope, on top of the towering building. He said that, with the soreness of memory, while they were descending the stairs towards the flat hung on the last store. That wonderful air really attracts, and it was not so before moving my luggage. On the wooden sofa that was covered with a blue sheet, he started to speak and the cigarette does not depart his little mouth: I moved my luggage. My days went by quickly, I was appointed in an agricultural area. Its land is barren. Waste. Work in it continues day by night. I was surprised by the directive of relocating me to a more distant place. It is a void land. A land that is part of the project. Its rivers are quick, and far-off. It is encircled by high hills. None other than me is there. Here in the flat, though it is a bachelors’ building, you can make neighbors with anyone you like. Some months or years will pass till the land of the project is brought to life, and made perfectly fit to give fruits. Dear neighbor, there are winding grey hills, stones and valleys (nights… ah nights where I drink tea alone, inside a tent pitched for me. A guard worked with me. The fresh air nourishes the soul, but I abhorred everything: the hobby of reading and photography. We began wandering alone... we stay a while in the tent for tea and food. We stay a while, and then we wander, filled by the fresh air of the wilds. At the beginning, the guard was not like me, inquisitive… He then got accustomed to that: distances, distances that we walked to beat the idle hours and loss. We were surprised by sounds. Distant trailing barking. Ah, there are dogs, the guard said. We realized that they were packs of dogs. Time passes hastily. We preferred to return. They were not exactly packs. They were not thus. In fact, it’s a complete colony. Dogs. I don’t know for what purpose. For test? For the soil? Nobody knows. We mounted hills. They stick out on the place completely. In the nearby, we glanced three men. We sneaked at the start of darkness then we went back to the unpaved pathway. Behind the heights, there is a winding road leading to the project. Some thoughts are stirring. Preoccupying thoughts. What’s going on in this colony? It is a rectangular stone building, resembling the poultry buildings and divided into equal slots. Long wide tunnels surround the building, but they are not deep. Behind them a low wall of clay. The three men were a bit above their forties. Their hairs were long and black seared by the redness of the sun. Or it is … pigments of henna. I don’t know. It might be a natural pigment; it is a mixture of dark kohl and redness of henna. However, their faces are hidden by creases, and the hard twigs and the sears of suns sting their eyes and the reckless winds, the neighing winds in day and night, fall violently on their faces and fill them with stiffness and wrinkles. It is a complexion exposed to hardness in these empty wilds. Something of the primordiality of life reminds you of their faces. Their eyes are sunk in its sockets: hollow, black or grey and gnomic. There are iron cages facing the equidistant slots, and where rare species of dogs are kept. As for the common dogs, they are left in the buildings which are enclosed by wires, where they grimace facing each other in a rabid howling. ) A general planning has been done to the agricultural place. After some days of our return, I ordered to transfer the machines, tools and the heavy instruments. Then it was planned for the rivers, the scaffolds, the buildings and the warehouses. Non-ending planning and continual committees, (one time, in the midst of the dewy dawn, when a truce was reached in the project, because it seems that the work takes totalitarian and enthusiastic dimensions, then out of a sudden, it settles down, and deadly silence dominates. We crept, me and the guard, after a distance and at eight a.m., we got there, looking over the colony. No one, it seems, other than us, knows of this queer place. And we had not been asking anyone about that in the midst of our work. We had been there looking over the complete colony. We were astounded by strong rancid smells falling heavily on our noses and fill up the place. Smells that pollute the air and our sight in deep concentration. We were astonished that they put bars and rows… we shouted unwittingly... ah, ah, it’s a slaughterhouse. To the front, there were piles of stacked and wrapped skins, and blooded skins, colored hairs, strewn over the stones and over the dusts and scattered pits. Here and there, the three men were installing a guillotine. It works by pulling. There was a strong crowbar, and a sharp blade staked over a very heavy iron shank, and framed by iron bars. The shank operates by moving the oiled crowbar, i.e. it works by falling on the dog’s nape. The blade was long, thus they lead the dogs to it. And it has a capacity for three dogs that they drive out from the walled buildings and iron cages, so that they are put under the blade, the lever is moved …it falls right away …and cleave their heads…and through their herding of the dogs you hear barking…intermittent barking, long barking…canine pains. Animal atrocities that bleed the human heart…you hear strangled whimpering- roaring…snorting, bellowing…each expression passes, you hear… would that be a dream we see? I don’t know…the air dips its locks in the soul, yet what we see is the dogs having their heads cut and their bodies taken to a long basin verged by two high cement edges. The three men skin the dogs with long knives, and in a quick manner… they were radiating knives, shining…sweat was exuding from their athletic semi-naked bodies… I asked myself “is what is going on legal?” Then, ah, damn it, had this colony been allocated for raising dogs, for example, or to be made a zoo in miniature, it would have been wonderful and beautiful. Yet, it is human nature, it has its own affairs, and it is very queer. Ah, there are affairs and despairs in the world. I have been conversing with my mute self. The guard Abulabbas I saw slapping his hands against each other: there is no strength, nor power only in Allah, no power only in Allah. Our eyes goggle, where the bloody, the black, the condensed smell. The killing smell poisons our souls and hearts, and paralyzes our noses. And after the dogs’ eyes have been poured into the tent of imagination, what a horrific imagination it was, their guts were removed from their swollen bellies, cleaned with water and their meat was wrapped. They were then laid in the long trunk of the car, wrapped by nylon sheets and concealed by a waxy kaki cover. When the car moved, they hurried to wash the basin, the two cement edges, the iron guillotine and the bars. They washed them with water, and then they buried the guts and the skins and swept the hairs sticking to the places…then they shrouded their arms and shoulders with white sash cloth, muzzled their noses and disappeared in the rectangular building. Our eyes were to stick out of their sockets, burst into astonishment, jump, yet one’s brains sometimes make matters easy for man, polishes his balance, indulges the heart and pats on the soul. What is going on is something, something very ordinary, but the smell, when we returned in the afternoon, the dense smell slaps our noses, bewilder our consciousness and tans our skins. It smacks our steps. A smell that suggests to you the fluid grey color, or the brown, the admixture color, the sticky, you feel feeble, shame and dizzy…no, no, take it easy, said the guard Abulabbas, don’t get astonished, my son, there, ah, he swaggers, he swaggers in speaking, ah, it is possible, my son. He stops a while, how I admire this simple man: don’t get surprised as such, he spells it, in a lovable accent, there; everything’s possible in this life. Life changed, sonny, and I am a mutter that responded: really everything’s possible in this world. I looked at him. This demi-centennial man, of the watering ashen eyes, and the grey mustaches, with his southern wrinkles, where the captivating sad look transfers you to pure spiritual zeniths with his grey dishdasha and his blue striped kaffieh, which is covered with dust, and the tones of his voice that is musicalized with mellifluousness, and the quiet comfortable countenance. All that, while you contemplate it in the fresh air, plants in you an authentic spiritual steadiness. Then I began to tremble and my blood sinks down. Everything runs quickly. In this quick life, I began to chatter. I don’t know for I chatter unconsciously, and Abulabbas gazes at me with his sad eyes and shut mouth. I alone spew up the vomit of my words and my stomach from this dirty odious smell. We returned tired to the tent. I couldn’t stomach food. I sipped at some tea and slept. I slept with the canine smell immersing me, like a nightmare, it made me sneeze. After a few days, I submitted my resignation. They turned it down; I left the place without a leave. Then I returned after months. I spoke to them about my case. Abulabbas has already spoken to them about me: the senior engineer conducted a survey. We went out with him in his car. We didn’t, no; we did not find the colony. We saw rubble: the rectangular building fell down, and the guillotine and machine vanished without a trace. There are piles of soil and stone, we saw calcified remnants of blood, and red hairs between the pits. The smell has become acrid, changed by the sun and air…. The senior engineer, with his queer cultivation, started mumbling with his large mouth long stretched words “they are the bats of the modern age, they work in the darkness of the world… they have scented the impending danger prematurely and left…ha.” As such, he finished his sardonic statement. After some days, I felt feeble and fell sick. When I recovered, they agreed to transfer me to the general agricultural center in the town. I carried my luggage to that building, in the room next to your room and in the same flat. There, my chap, the air is fresh and is filled with the smell of dogs. But, here, on the high floors, above that building, the air is fresh, and pure…ah…it might be pure…ah…or, might not be very pure, but at least filled with human smell.

Terrorism, Titles and Sub-Titles

Images, films, books and other semiotic bodies (including human beings) are determined for their interpretation largely by the titles and subtitles featuring them. Titles introduce content and channel interpretation. They in fact serve three basic functions; descriptive, directive and synoptic, though for Genette the major functions of titles are 'designation', 'indication of the content' and 'seduction of the public'. The title usually summarizes the content of what is going to be introduced in the main body of the message highlighting a given theme at the expense of other competing themes. In consequence, the title most often tends to be the last to be written and is crucial in the process of finalizing the work. Even in case of people, titles follow events and experiences. Axiomatically, a person is not born a professor, or a president or a doctor, yet only after a certain event or an occasion such titles are lavished upon them. Moreover, titles are restrictive and prescriptive. In other words, they restrict the interpretation of what they introduce and prescribe a certain way of looking at and dealing with things and people. They serve as guides to interpretation and tend to limit the perspective of viewing things. According to Jerrold Levinson (1985), one of the major functions of a title is focusing. In other words, it ''selects from among the main elements of core content one theme to stand as the leading one of the work…. What a focusing title does then is suggest which of the contending themes should be given center place in interpreting the work and organizing one's appreciation of it.'' Yet sub-titles are far more dangerous than titles in that they further restrict perspective by restricting the scope of the title. A book, a person or an institution with a certain title might turn out to have a totally irreconcilable or antithetical subtitle that goes at variance with the title or general heading of the given entity. In most cases, such a play on titles is intended to mislead and put people on the false track. The subtitle in these cases is not publicly revealed and is only tracked down unless placed under scrutiny and relatively long experience.

Experiments in this regard were carried out in the field of psycholinguistics to test the degree to which language plays a role in shaping and determining one's understanding and consequential dealing with the problem at hand. In an experiment, two groups of testees were given a set of candle, thumbtacks and a matchbox. Group A was given these items with labels on which 'candle', 'matchbox' and 'thumbtack' were written accordingly. Group B was given the same items yet 'holder' was written on the label of the matchbox instead of 'matchbox'. Both groups were asked to light the candle and stick it to the wall. Group B was quicker to accomplish the task by using the matchbox as a receptacle to hold the candle, while Group A took longer time to think of using the matchbox as a holder. This experiment showed the effect of naming and titling on the mind and its modus operandi.

But what does titles have to do with terrorism? Any one would not like to be called a terrorist or being associated with terrorism. Once known, a terrorist would readily be evaded and shunned away from. They are mentally plagued people and so are unwelcome anywhere. In Iraq, terrorists enter the national territories not as outspokenly fighters or insurgents or terrorists. It was clear from the interviews and cross-investigation broadcast on Al-Iraqiyah TV, many of the questioned terrorists unfolded that they entered Iraq legally as traders, workers, visitors or contractors and so they were not intercepted or checked by the borders authorities. After getting inside Iraq, they start their communications with their compatriots, partners and co-fighters who have based themselves well in Iraq after being incubated by sympathizers. So the title is a ''worker'', ''visitor'', etc. yet the sub-title is a ''terrorist''. Moreover, many people I met who work in Baghdad or travel regularly to Baghdad reported that they or other people they know have been approached by persons they do not know and offered them work. Some of them discovered that the type of work will eventually lead to terrorist activities after being attached to the terrorist groups or involved with them more deeply in life-threatening actions. At a certain phase of their metamorphosis, they find themselves lost in a world of darkness and so are unable to find their way back to rationality.

Politicians, particularly western politicians, are also making good use of the terms 'terrorist' and 'terrorism'. They can so easily indict any body they do not savour or stomach as terrorist without explaining the grounds on which they based their accusations. Therefore, a freedom fighter striving for ridding one's country of occupying forces is a terrorist; a state with nuclear programs for peaceful purposes is a terrorist state threatening global peace and international security. Such implementation of language has far-reaching devastating effects that would throw the whole universe into chaos. It is just like what goes on in Alice in the Wonderlands when words seem to lose their signification when used by Humpty Dumpty as in this example:

Then you should say what you mean,’ the March Hare went on. ‘I do,’ Alice hastily replied; ‘at least—at least I mean what I say—that's the same thing, you know.’ ‘Not the same thing a bit!’ said the Hatter. ‘Why, you might just as well say that “I see what I eat” is the same thing as “I eat what I see!” ’


Cute!

Metaphor, Action and Perspective

Setting priorities, goals and purposes determines the use of one linguistics form rather than another, and the choice made is by no means random. Every priority projects a certain perspective on an issue, and provides possible ways of categorizing experience. Categorization, on the other hand, also boils down to perspective since classifying A under C is a matter of looking at the properties, functions and purposes of using A as compatible with those of the general category C. Without conceptualizing experience from a certain point of view, categorization seems next to impossible. As such, to view Life as a race course, as a riding animal, or as a journey is a matter of perspective achieved via the use of metaphor, which "depends on the broader perspective and priorities of the participants in the debate" (Hellesten, www).


     Metaphor and perspective are interchangeably interwoven since "the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another" (Chandler, www). The first element of the metaphoric structure, Topic, is the experienced thing, whereas Vehicle stands for the perspective through which that kind of thing is experienced. Grounds, in fact, is shared grounds for negotiating perspectives: it consists of mapping between mental spaces (Topic and Vehicle) onto each other to produce an "emergent structure" which basically the result of the projected blended mental spaces (Turner, www) (see the figure below).














     Fig. 1. Mapping of Topic and Vehicle


Nevertheless, metaphors are restrictive: they highlight while at the same hide some aspects of the phenomenon they are applied to. This feature is inherent to language in general as is shown on the syntagmatic level, where the use of one syntagm means the exclusion of others. Further, language allows partial understanding of experience given that "metaphors […] offer only one perspective on an issue at a time" to the exclusion of others (Hellesten, www). To adopt a Whorfian stance, language plays a role in shaping and structuring one's thinking; yet metaphors play still a greater role in shaping one's thought (Goatly, 1997). In other words, "the unique metaphoricity of humans entails in fact a potential to enlighten and blind, to nourish and poison. With this outlook, then, metaphor can function as an explicit psychological act intended to shape or shatter mental reality" (Fiumara, 1995).



The metaphors of life used by Imam Ali in his NahjulBalaghah (NB) are no exception. They present Life from different perspectives and highlight different features of it while hiding others. However, these metaphors are purposefully intended to "strengthen certain views on life" and are "grounded on background knowledge that is culturally shared by some group of people" (Hellesten,www). The immediate effect of these metaphors is the cultivation of intimacy as they work as "a means of activating assumptions" shared between the speaker and his audience (Goatly, 1997). They have a far-reaching effect of inducing people to act in terms of them when a new metaphor "enters the conceptual system that we base our actions on", and will have the power to "alter that conceptual system and the perceptions and actions it gives rise to" (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). Having permeated the conceptual system of the people, these metaphors might be used "as a means of maintaining or challenging power relations in society" (Goatly, 1997) through their constitutive power of reality. Metaphors of Life in NB are counter-metaphors (not anti-metaphors) intended to bring about permanent changes in the way people view Life, contrary to the pre-Islam view of valorizing Life. At that time, Life is seen as ending in death, and nothing there to suffer from or enjoy thereafter. With the advent of Islam, this view is challenged by the Quran, and Prophetic sayings, and Life has been seen as no more than a conduit to the Afterlife, a field or farm whose crops to be yielded in the hereafter.

Language Memory and Revising History

Experiments to test the validity of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis have been conducted in a variety of areas and fields. Among the areas that have received an extensive attention is memory. It has been found out that language plays a considerable role in distorting, modifying and orienting the retrieval of information memorized. "Memory for the real-life events, of course, is also subject to the distortions imposed by verbal encoding", (Slobin, 1974). The same idea is spelt out by Dale (1976) who sees language "as flexible and multiple as possible," which means that "there is seldom exact fit between reality and language, so that the verbalization of reality "often results in distortion", (Slobin, 1974)

Ideological institutions find this linguistic impact upon memory quite productive in shaping and directing people's consciousness in their interests. "Language is an instrument of control as well as of communication. Linguistic forms allow significance to be conveyed and to be preferably manipulated while they suppose they are being informed. Language […] involves systematic distortion in the service of class interests", (Kress and Hodge, 1981). This is evidently true in case of propaganda and rumours, "where it is very clear that verbal memory for events has changed with time, under the influence of stereotypes and expectations", (Slobin, 1974).

People with short-span memories are easy to manipulate and deceive. This fact makes the process of revising history quite easy a task. Orwell has a strong conviction that history is subject to distortions and modifications at the hands of ruling classes:
I saw, in fact, that history is being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various party lines [….] The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past. If the leader says of such and such an event, "it never happened"- well, it never happened. If he says two and two are five- well, two and two are five.
(Orwell, "England Your England")


In ANIMAL FARM, history is continually distorted and is in a progressive process of alterations to suit Napoleon's interests and to strengthen his grip on the farm. Napoleon, through his propaganda agency, Squealer, prepares a 'big lie' against Snowball and his role in the 'Battle of the Cowshed', as well as other incidents which happen on the farm like the building of the windmill and the issue of the Seven Commandments. "Since the animals can no longer remember the life before the Rebellion, they can't be sure if things are better or worse, whether the Revolution was worth it or not. They have no standard of comparison. All they have to go on is Squealer's figures, 'which invariably demonstrated that everything was getting better and better'," (Ball, 1993).

The Ruler for State

Big Brother's watching you. The Father, the State Engineer, the Victorious, the Prophet's Grandson, the Victory and Peace Maker, the Inspired One, the Descendant of the Mohammedan Lineage and tens of appellations which Saddam (and his clique) lavished on himself. His interest in names was overriding. However, what is peculiar about Saddam Hussein is his continual attempts to set himself in the place of the whole state. This is very evident in the type of discourse deployed by the Baathists in their catchwords praising the defeated ruler. Chief among these are two catch-phrases that had become widely epidemic during Saddam's regime. The first, "If Saddam says; Iraq will say", throws into sharp relief the autocracy of Saddam's regime and his unquenchable desire to extend his powers and obliterate the other.
Unequivocally, Saddam denied the Iraqi people their right to vote and decision-making. The parliament itself was no more than a puppet whose strings are mastered solely by Saddam. It was a mere device to give a democratic tincture to his oppressive injunctions, and a scapegoat to which he can assign his miscarriages. Its members are cardboard men swayed in whatever direction the Big Brother likes. Strategic decisions and vetoes on the President's resolutions have no existence on the Parliament agenda. This is reminiscent of Orwell's Animal Farm where the pigs give themselves the prerogative of thinking and making decision for the well being of the rest of the animals. Saddam's latest appeal to the parliament (the National Assembly) to accept the unconditioned inspection for the mass destruction weapons was an attempt to human-shield himself against an imminently impending attack to topple him. However, this can also be viewed as a harbinger of the retreat and defeat of unmatched dictatorship in front of a fledgling democracy. Saddam realized that despite all that he did and can do, he could not separate himself from his people and denies them the right to live like other human beings. As such, the aphorism "the people are more powerful than dictators however cruel they are" proved healthily sound.

The second catchword that used to disfigure the public-building walls is symbolic of the iconic relationship between the Big Brother and the Iraqi people as perceived by the Baathists. It reads "Saddam Hussein's birth is the birth of all the Iraqis." Therefore, whatever Saddam likes, dislikes, desires, rejects and so on represents, willy-nilly, the Iraqis' likes and dislikes. Saddam and the Baathists wanted a homogenous society in which all its members should be Saddams or at least Saddamites. Those who open their mouths in opposition will soon find themselves in a big mass grave in one of the cut-off and out-of-the-way places in Iraq.

This metonymic relationship between the ruler and the state was recognized by the American foreign policy in the context of the 1991 Gulf War. The metonymy: "The Ruler Stands for the State" only applies to those leaders perceived as illegitimate rulers, as George Lakoff so aptly puts it. It was utilized by the Americans through President Bush's iterative invocation "we have to get Saddam out of Kuwait." Thus, they can "refer to Iraq by referring to Saddam Hussein, and so have a single person, not just an amorphous state, to play the villain in the just war scenario."

Curiosity Lost: The Dilemma of the Educational System in Iraq

"Did curiosity really kill the cat?!" Or was the cat a victim of someone else's curiosity, as is the case in Iraq? I am not going to speak of cats or other felines but of an aspect of the educational system in Iraq. Yet, what is the link between felines and education. Absolutely, there is nothing at all in common between the two. However, on a closer inspection it becomes clear that the meeting point lies in the learning habits imposed by the Iraqi educational system, which is blighted by every sort of ineffectiveness and inflexibility. From the prep school up to the higher studies, the curricula are rigidly prescribed and superimposed and the student is discouraged to develop their inquisitive faculties. What I want to discuss here is part of the problem facing the educationalists in Iraq, namely the manner in which the educational matter was taught in schools and universities in Iraq during Saddam’s regime. It is of paramount importance to notice the rapid degeneration of the educational body and its far reaching and serious effects which are endangering the national security and the public welfare.

Throughout his reign (of terror), the former regime worked so hard to undermine the educational system in Iraq in a dirty attempt to produce an illiterate, unenlightened Iraqi citizen that can be easily and readily manipulated and bamboozled. How to do that? Many plans were contrived, and dozens of schemes were plotted to carry out that wicked objective with malice aforethought. After the Gulf War, teachers underwent sever conditions of deprivation and want. Their salaries were drastically reduced and their social position was consequently destroyed. The student thinks nothing of the teacher, the teacher needs the student, and corruption ate traumatically into the educational institution. Teachers were disgraced and degraded as a corollary.

In addition, pre- and in-service training of teachers was neglected to abandonment. Teaching aids were also dispensed with, and new approaches to teaching were shelved. Disqualified, stopgap teachers were introduced finishing a six-month course of study to make up for the sever shortage in teaching cadre. Lack of experience and teaching expertise widened the gulf between the student and the teacher, the teacher and society.

However, the danger lurked in the way the teaching material was introduced to the student. Ministerial examinations were extended to include all the study stages. The results were across-the-board and detrimental. In other words, the teacher had no freedom to expatiate on the study material and no time to answer the students' questions and queries. "There are too many students in the room, there is a schedule to be followed and material to be covered, and time is too short." Curiosity was killed in birth before it develops into a creative and critical thinking that might undermine the political institution! Attention was oriented towards the quantity rather than to the quality of the material and the successful techniques that can be manipulated to impart knowledge to its seekers. Boredom prevailed and swept the educational atmosphere. Teachers left the country for more payment and peace of mind, the number of drop-outs increased like anything when armies of students quit the study and left the schools to work as shoe-makers, bag-sellers in the popular markets, and, if lucky, as taxi drivers.

We are now in dire need to consider and rethink of that educational system, excuse the word system. It is now our opportunity and responsibility, as educationalists, to find the best ways to create a uniquely new Iraqi character that respond to the demands and challenges of the present period, and is able to take up the responsibility it is called upon to shoulder. We want a generation that begins to pose questions and not to take things for their face value. The old regimes' common sense and taken-for-granted assumptions should be interrogated and challenged. The teacher should be given their due and respect, the student should regain their curiosity and inquisitiveness.