As a French citizen of Iraqi descent, I have watched a collective amnesia overtake the world since the invasion of Iraq 20 years ago. The anniversary of the start of the war is an excuse for uneasy acknowledgments that mistakes were made. Everyone wants to focus on the future.
In Iraq, the war is well remembered. It shapes the everyday lives of people trying to build an existance for themselves and their families. But the war has also erased a coherent sense of Iraqi identity. This is the war’s most bitter legacy.
I have been going to Iraq since I was 9. My first visit was in 1989. I was born in Paris, but my parents are from Fallujah — a clean, green city bordered by the Euphrates River. (I am named for the river, which is called al-Furat in Arabic.)
Though my early experiences were idyllic, the country was anything but. Back then, people were frequently persecuted by Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical regime. Every person daring to
— source washingtonpost.com | Feurat Alani | Mar 17, 2023