The time marks Ali Abed Qassem like a scar that has yet to heal — 5:55 p.m. That was the moment on March 28 that a blast ripped through a teeming vegetable market. In an instant, the chatter of commerce turned to carnage in Shuala, a poor Shiite Muslim neighbourhood whose name means ‘‘flame’’ in Arabic. Scattered among the dead were his mother, sister, sister-in-law, cousin and as many as 64 others in the largest civilian toll in Baghdad in the three-week war. In a flight of fear, Qassem left Baghdad after burying his family. On Friday, he returned — to a city no longer at war, to a life he and others here call miserable, and to his mother’s house that he can’t bring himself to enter. He looks out at an edgy capital and reflects on a sacrifice he doesn’t believe he should have had to make. ‘‘Believe me, I have no joy,’’ Qassem said, sitting in his uncle’s home. ‘‘My mother, my sister, all my friends.’’ He broke off his sentence and looked down. ‘‘It’s the duty of the soldiers to sacrifice themselves,’’ he said, ‘‘but it’s not the duty of the innocent to die.’’ Along narrow alleys, draped in black banners of mourning, Shuala is seized by the same emotions that reverberate through Baghdad: relief at the fall of Saddam’s government, fear of the lawlessness that followed and unease over what’s ahead. But the streets and hallways of this impoverished neighbourhood also echo with a question: Was this war — and the promise of a new Iraq — worth the pain and suffering?Qassem, 32, a slight and balding day labourer, won’t forgive. The costs of war were too great. Others remain ambivalent over an invasion that, in the calculus of survival, has left them without electricity, water, medicine and prospect of work. Still others are willing to justify their sacrifices, but with a caveat. They expect the Americans to end their suffering. Outside Qassem’s home hang black banners that list the names of the dead with the phrase, ‘‘conveyed to the mercy of God.’’ In the rooms inside, they sat on cheap rugs thrown over concrete, drinking sweet, dark tea. A pall hung over their conversation, of grief still resonant. And they debated a future that, as with three decades under Saddam’s government, seemed out of their hands. ‘‘We don’t accept an occupation,’’ said Saad Abdel-Ridda, whose brother, Nijah, 27 years old and married for just a month, was killed. ‘‘We are an Islamic state and we don’t accept foreigners to occupy us.’’ Others were more hopeful. They spoke in terms of survival — food over freedom, safety over the turbulence of change. ‘‘We want stability, we want security,’’ said Essam, another brother. The theme of suffering resonates among Shiite Muslims, like those in Shuala. The image of Hussein, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad whose martyrdom defines their faith, looks down from the neighbourhood mosque. His portrait drips with blood, and his name is written in red to mark his sacrifice. For the residents of Shuala, among the poorest in Baghdad, it is their faith that has made a bleak survival possible, and utterances of God punctuate every conversation like a refrain. Down the street sat the family of Abdel-Wahid Aiz. His son, 27-year-old Thamer, was killed in the blast as he took his son to a clinic. ‘‘From where will I take my revenge?’’ Aiz asked, before beginning to sob into his black-and-white kaffiyeh. Around the city, signs of empowerment of a Shiite community long repressed have surged to the surface. Graffitti scrawled in black conveys messages from the religious leadership in the Shiite holy city of Najaf. In a nearby square, two portraits of the Shiite martyr Hussein were hung from a statue of the medieval hero Saladin. Underneath was written, ‘‘Yes to freedom.’’ In Aiz’s house, the conversation revolved around the most simple of hopes for the future. There was little anger in their words. With sadness, they recalled picking up Thamer from the morgue and returning him to the mosque — to wash his body and place it in a simple coffin they bore down Shuala’s streets. The rest of their grief was left unspoken. ‘‘We don’t blame anyone,’’ said Thamer’s 26-year-old brother, Kamel Abdel-Wahid. ‘‘We only blame the war.’’ Sitting in the room was a snapshot of Iraq’s recent history. One brother, Hamid, showed off his scars from the Iran-Iraq war, when two pieces of shrapnel tore into his back and abdomen in 1987. He was treated and returned to service in a military he despised. After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, he finally had enough, fleeing the army and walking for three days from Kuwait to Basra. Two other brothers fled the army during the most recent fighting. One of them, 34-year-old Adel, said he simply caught a taxi from his station and went home to his family. ‘‘I wasn’t persuaded by this war,’’ he said. Another brother, 38-year-old Ahmed, lamented his job as a teacher, making $5 a month for his family of six. With 28 relatives, they share a five-room house. ‘‘It’s like we’re in jail,’’ he said. ‘‘We want to live well, like the rest of the world,’’ Kamel said. ‘‘The Americans can do it.’’
