BIG IN THE FUTURE

An Iraqi family faces chaotic times (Scott Peterson, 9/04/03, The Christian Science Monitor)

Every morning at 10 a.m., the oldest daughter of Karima Selman Methboub dons her black head scarf, grabs her press card, and walks down the broken steps of the family's lightless apartment stairwell to begin work.

Fatima is a volunteer at the recently founded Al Muajaha newspaper, or "The Iraqi Witness," and spends her days typing up stories on a computer in Arabic - without pay - and learning about journalism.

"I'm trying to learn more - I'm excited by this job!" says Fatima.

The 17-year-old was forced to drop out of school three years ago because of high fees, and because she was needed at home to help her widowed mother care for Fatima's seven siblings. "I hope this newspaper will be big in the future."

That's not the only bright spot in the Methboub's postwar lives. Another is that the primary school attended by Duha and Hibba, twin girls who are 11, is being completely renovated by "the Americans."

"There will be a cafeteria, air conditioning, and even a television - though that is for the headmaster, not us," says Duha breathlessly. "They gave us a paper saying that children are the future."

These are signs of hope, to be sure, in lives once overshadowed by the repressive grip of Saddam Hussein. But for the large and strug- gling Methboub family - which the Monitor has followed since last December - life in postwar Iraq has also been hard, and fraught with new dangers.

Obviously it would be wonderful if we could make their country go from Saddamism to something like Bridgeport, CT in six months, but, with all due respect: how about taking some responsibility for your own freakin' country and the damage you allowed to be done to it over the past several decades, huh? Posted by Orrin Judd at September 3, 2003 7:30 PM