For Iraqis, a day of joy
Posted: Monday, July 30, 2007 7:24 AM
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Baghdad, Iraq
By Jane Arraf, NBC News Correspondent
Joy – it's not an emotion you see here very much. But on Sunday, it washed over Iraqis in waves – sweeping them into the streets after Iraq's soccer win over Saudi Arabia in the Asia Cup – to cheer until they were hoarse and dance until they couldn't dance anymore.
The euphoria was infectious. You could see it in the faces of young men in our neighborhood who don't normally have much to cheer about chanting and whirling through the streets wrapped in Iraqi flags. "Bring it! Bring us the cup!" they shouted.
Even sweeter for Iraq's battered national pride, it was a trophy seized from Saudi Arabia, the country's rich and powerful neighbor and a three-time winner of the Asian Cup. Iraq, forced to train outside the country with a team cobbled together of expatriates, was the underdog.
The city sweltered under a blanket of 120 degrees Fahrenheit heat. With the electricity off in a lot of neighborhoods, people crowded into cafes and homes with generators to watch. For 71 tense minutes, the score stood tied at zero. And then, the heart-stopping winning goal.
Dancing in the streets
In Baghdad, a lot of gunfire can mean either that that things are really good or really bad. The bursts of AK-47 and machine gun fire lasted for almost half an hour. After falling bullets in last week's celebrations killed more than four people and wounded a dozen, the government imposed a ban on celebratory gunfire. But no one was going to enforce it. Certainly not the policemen jammed into the backs of police trucks dancing and waving their guns in the air. A large police officer crammed into one truck and bursting out of his blue shirt balanced surprisingly gracefully on his toes as he cheered along with the young men in the street.
A stream of cars drove by on streets supposed to be empty of vehicles to prevent suicide car bombs like the ones after last week's celebrations which killed more than 50 people. Our Iraqi cameraman filmed a taxi with more than a dozen cheering young men piled on top of it as it joined the chaotic parade. More of them seemed to be inside but it was so crowded it was hard to tell.
A shiny new fire truck, for once not heading to the site of a car bomb or an explosion, drove by packed with cheering emergency workers. Boys in the street banged pots and pans and beat plastic bottles together when they could no longer shout. Fathers brought babies wrapped in Iraqi flags out to join in the festivities. Some of the two million Iraqis who have fled their home country joined in the celebrations as far away as Europe, the U.S. and Canada – waving flags and driving through streets of mystified pedestrians.
Iraqi state television showed live scenes of ecstatic crowds across the country. In Basra, Baghdad and Erbil, it was a glimpse of a divided country united by the surge of nationalism. Some of the cracks still showed though. "We beat the Wahabees!" said one man in a Shiite neighborhood referring to the puritanical Sunni Muslim faction. Others held up images of Imam Hussein, particularly revered by Shiite Muslims.
Americans kept asking whether there would be any lasting effect of this unity. For a lot of Iraqis, forced to live day-to-day, the question didn't really matter – this was their day to celebrate.
