Zayed of Healing Iraq, reports on today's demonstrations in Baghdad (courtesy of The Buzzmachine).
The rallies today proved to be a major success. I didn't expect anything even close to this. It was probably the largest demonstration in Baghdad for months. It wasn't just against terrorism. It was against Arab media, against the interference of neighbouring countries, against dictatorships, against Wahhabism, against oppression, and of course against the Ba'ath and Saddam.
We started at Al-Fatih square in front of the Iraqi national theatre at 10 am. IP were all over the place. At 12 pm people started marching towards Fardus square through Karradah. All political parties represented in the GC participated. But the other parties, organizations, unions, tribal leaders, clerics, school children, college students, and typical everyday Iraqis made up most of the crowd. Al-Jazeera estimated the size of the crowd as over ten thousand people.
You can find a list of some of the parties that we noticed there at Omar's blog. At one point it struck me that our many differences as an Iraqi people meant nothing. Here we were all together shouting in different languages the same slogans "NO NO to terrorism, YES YES for peace".
I spent most of the time taking pictures. heh, I really enjoyed playing the role of a journalist. Everyone was tugging at my sleeves asking me to take their photos mistaking me for a foreign reporter. Some people recognized a reporter from Al-Arabiyah station and they started taunting him. One old man shouted to him "For once, speak the truth"....
Major Pain happily reports that demonstrations also took place in Balad. Let's see if its on the news tonight.
-bear
Bear,
Do you know of any way we can contribute money to the Iraqi bloggers to pay for their internet cafe time?
Mike in New York
Posted by: Mike in New York | December 12, 2003 at 07:58 PM
Mike,
I know of no way to send money to pay for the ISP time. However, others have the same question (see http://www.buzzmachine.com/archives/2003_12.html#005430 the portion marked "News Misjudgement" and read the comments). Perhaps Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine or one of his readers will discover something to allow this. Check back with his website, www.buzzmachine.com. If I find anything, I will post it here. Also, check with the Blogger "Healing Iraq" listed under Iraq Blogs in our left side columns. He may discover a way as well.
-bear
Posted by: bear | December 13, 2003 at 09:53 AM