9 April is not a holiday in Iraq except in the three northern provinces that make up the Kurdish autonomous region, despite the fact that this date was declared a national day and public holiday by the US forces that established the Governing Council after the 2003 invasion. Up until now, Iraqis have seen the council as beginning the system of sharing power in the country according to sect and ethnic origin. “Sharing power along these lines was adopted by the Iraqi opposition at their conference in London in 2008. It was then blessed by the Americans, who used it to structure opposition conferences and meetings,” said one ex-opposition activist who asked to be anonymous. “What happened in Iraq after 9 April was obviously the result of American instructions to the opposition,” he added. According to Ahmed Karim, a freelance photographer, “the Americans stole our dreams. Getting rid of Saddam made us hope for liberation, making us believe that the forces entering Baghdad had come to liberate us, yet Iraq lost out in this so-called liberation.” “I used to follow the news on the radio on a station established by the Americans and directed at Iraqis. I heard a million times that Iraq after Saddam through the help of the Americans would be the Hong Kong of the Arab world,” he added. Karim took a picture of an American flag covering the statue of the former Iraqi president in Baghdad's Al-Firdaus Square. “I never published that photograph, as I felt that Baghdad was occupied and the Hong Kong dream had been lost in the liberation,” he said. Such contradictions have not prevented 9 April being celebrated as a national day in Kirkuk in the country's northern Kurdish province, and this shows the differences among Iraqis in observing the day. Public offices, the university and schools closed at noon on 9 April, which is a half-day holiday. The Kurdish region is semi-autonomous, and Kurdish university students celebrated 9 April as the day of their liberation, while Arab students, describing it as the day of the occupation, refused to celebrate the day, leading to clashes between the two groups leaving many wounded. Turkmen students wore black clothes as a mark of the occupation. Kirkuk is evidence of the disorder that came out of the US occupation, with sharing power between the region and Baghdad being part of that chaos. In Kirkuk, the governor is Kurdish, the head of the provincial council is Turkmen and the deputy governor is Arab, while the governor's assistant is Christian. “We will need decades to forget the chaos of 9 April, since this day marks not only the fall of Baghdad, but also the collapse of values in the country,” said activist Hanaa Essam. “On this day, looting began everywhere, except in the three northern provinces, and the blackest day was when the magnificent Iraqi National Museum was looted in front of the occupation tanks as if they were saying that Iraqis should forget not only Saddam but their own history and values,” she added. “The new Iraq that began a decade ago is not the Iraq we knew or dreamed of,” added Othman Ali, a lawyer. “Sharing power has made some Iraqis, especially politicians, feel that they belong to their sect and ethnic group before belonging to the country as a whole. The ‘Salvador option' that was applied by the occupying forces led to a bloody civil war from 2006 to 2008 that deepened the sectarian culture. We need politicians who put their sects and ethnic interests aside and work as Iraqis first and foremost,” he said. Mohsen Aziz, a 20-year-old university student, said that “we had everything all of a sudden, not gradually. I mean, suddenly the world opened up in front of us through satellite TV channels, the Internet and mobile phones.” “It was hard for some to cope with. Some young Iraqis instead of using this opening and being creative simply began imitating others.” For Irada Al-Jobouri, a novelist and activist, “with the toppling of the statue of Saddam, our dreams were also toppled. After 10 years of promises, we are still just discussing human rights and fundamental freedoms.” Feeling that their dreams are being crushed by insecurity and the ongoing violence in the country neglected by MPs who do not even bother to attend parliamentary sessions, many Iraqis feel they had nothing to celebrate this 9 April.
