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War Every Day (eIraq Blog)
Iraqi voices: "We want to have fun, even if it is once in our lifetimes"

Jeff Severns Guntzel, Electronic Iraq

Oct 3, 2008

There are more Iraqi voices in the papers today than most days--many of them witnesses to the Eid bombings or reacting to them. This one stood out. It's from the end of the New York Times roundup of the violence yesterday:

...Meanwhile, those celebrating Id al-Fitr carried on. Across Baghdad children and adults danced and sang in parks, as parents handed out balloons and candy. Iraqi girls dressed in brightly colored dresses and boys played with imitation plastic handguns and fake automatic weapons.

At one riverside garden, a woman who gave her name as Umm Hussein, from Shuala, explained the festive atmosphere, despite the attacks:

“We are used to this,” she said. “We are fed up with grief. We want to have fun, even if it is once in our lifetimes.”

Last year on Id al-Fitr, her mother-in-law was killed by a bombing in the center of Baghdad, and the year before, her father-in-law died in Hurriya amid a spate of sectarian killings.