From: Washington Post
I may refer to this article in the future because it relates to something that I have in the works.
This is a lenghty read, but well worth it. I’ll just give you an excerpt:
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The word was whispered and hurled at Thawra Youssef in school when she was 5 years old. Even back then, she sensed it was an insult.
Abd. Slave.
“The way they said it, smiling and shouting, I knew they used it to make fun of me,” said Youssef, recounting the childhood story from her living room couch.
“I used to get upset and ask, ‘Why do you call me abd? I don’t serve you,’ ” Youssef said.
Unlike most Iraqis, whose faces come in shades from olive to a pale winter white, Youssef has skin the color of dark chocolate. She has African features and short, tightly curled hair that she straightens and wears in a soft bouffant. Growing up in Basra, the port city 260 miles southeast of Baghdad, she lived with her aunt while her mother worked as a cook and maid in the homes of one of the city’s wealthiest light-skinned families.
In the United States, Youssef’s dark skin would classify her as black or African American. In Iraq, where distinctions are based on family and tribe rather than race, she is simply an Iraqi.
The number of dark-skinned people like Youssef in Iraq today is unknown. Their origins, however, are better understood, if little-discussed: They are the legacy of slavery throughout the Middle East.
Historians say the slave trade began in the 9th century and lasted a millennium. Arab traders brought Africans across the Indian Ocean from present-day Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan, Ethiopia and elsewhere in East Africa to Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Turkey and other parts of the Middle East.
“We were slaves. That’s how we came here,” Youssef said. “Our whole family used to talk about how our roots are from Africa.”
Though centuries have passed since the first Africans, called Zanj, arrived in Iraq, some African traditions still persist here. Youssef, 43, a doctoral candidate in theater and acting at Baghdad University’s College of Fine Arts, is writing her dissertation about healing ceremonies that are conducted exclusively by a community of dark-skinned Iraqis in Basra. Youssef said she considers the ceremonies — which involve elaborate costumes, dancing, and words sung in Swahili and Arabic — to be dramatic performances.
“I don’t complain about being called an abd, but I think that’s what provoked me to write this, perhaps some kind of complex,” said Youssef, who began researching and writing about the practices of Afro-Iraqis in 1997, when she was studying for a master’s degree. “Something inside me that wanted to tell others that the abd they mock is better than them.” (more…)
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July 15th, 2005 at 8:57 am
wow. such a poignant piece. and such a reflection of what’s happening and has happened in America for years. her struggle to hold on to a heritage so beautiful in a world where only remnants of it are left seems bittersweet. it feels so much like the struggle many of us have between being African and being American…because sadly–rather, fortunately–we can never wholly be either.
July 15th, 2005 at 9:18 pm
Stories like this are interesting to me as an American because I hear so many who want to label America as th worse place that has ever been because of slavery. Those same people don’t take into account the fact that slavery has been a practice (as disgusting and inhumane as it is) throughout most of mankind.
The US has come to a point where it has ended, and small minded people want to hold on to it as if we worried about an arbitrary and uniquely evil “master” coming into the woodshed this very night.
July 21st, 2005 at 6:43 am
it’s very dangerous to dismiss the notion of “‘master’ coming into the woodshed this very night,” because he does. just because the occurence isn’t literal, doesn’t mean it’s the paranoia of (as you put it) small minded people. the objectives of american slavery are still very present and very real today…only the m.o. has changed.