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The Hanoudi Letter: The First Anniversary |
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Sunday, 25 December 2005 |
The Hanoudi Letter is two years old now, the first letter was inserted in this blog on the 10th of December 2004. On the 11th of this month I was back to Baghdad from Amman were I have been residing in Amman, Jordan for the last six months with my unfortunate and still seriously ill son who is still suffering from the effects of the injury which resulted from a foolish unexplained shooting by an American soldier on the last 29th of March. The great city was still without electricity as part of the still terrible situation it has been enduring under the American occupation since it was honored by the presence of the Americans. I was staying the night in my old house which was in terrible darkness, so I lit a candle not to celebrate the birthday of the Hanoudi Letter, but to honor a fascinating very wise old Chinese saying "Do not curse the darkness, lit a candle".
On the last December 10th I wrote the following introduction to the adventure I was about to start:
This dream, The Hanouid Letter would have never seen the light without the encouragement, enthusiasm and the unlimited support of three outstanding persons, a prominent broadcaster and writer a young very intelligent officer and one of my nephews a very young computer expert. To this magnificent trio I am forever in debt and very grateful. I am a 70 years old ophthalmologist with a long history in clinical ophthalmology, teaching and health administration. I have been abroad many times to medical conferences and to lecture to various centers especially in Britain, for the last 15 years I have been doing less medicine and more reading and writing, I have already written three books on the philosophy of history, a second one on Saddam Hussein and his regime and a third on the diabetic complications in the human retina but none of them have seen the light, I have never been able to publish the publishing world seems to be a very well knit family which cares only about its progeny, so I decided to try putting my views and ideas about few subjects which are of a special interest to me, history, geopolitics, ethnic-religious conflicts and the current situation in this country in a weekly personal letter of about 600-800 words which could be viewed on the Internet from thehanoudiletter.com web site.
This is not going to be a news bulletin in the classical sense, it is a personal site by which I am trying to present my opinions and analysis on questions related to the subjects I have just mentioned. But I am certain that news about the situation in this country will force itself on the project because of the dangers it is posing to our very existence. The current situation in Iraq is very serious and extremely dangerous, the increasing frustrations and disappointments of the people with the unfulfilled American promises regarding the reconstruction and rehabilitation of this country is creating a very hostile environment and a very serious resistance to their presence to which they are responding very harshly and aggressively is increasing the resent and opposition and creating a very dangerous vicious circle which is making the future very bleak indeed.
The dream is almost realized, by the time of writing this piece the letter has been seen by more than 60,000 visitors, a good many of them and from places like Liberia and Uzbekistan amongst many others. The Hanoudi Letter has at least proved that the world has become really flat and the earth is a truly small village. In the introduction I wrote a year ago that I very sincerely welcome every possible criticism and constructive objections to this letter and during the few months of its existence I had many extremely intelligent and very smart criticism, but unfortunately these were much less than what I have been hoping for, the topics I tackled were in most of the cases rational and sensible especially those about the current situation in Iraq.
Now I am back in Amman after a two weeks stay in the big city, and as I mentioned in my last update the two main issues in the country were the trial of Saddam and the general elections for a legislative body which is to remain for the next four years. The elections were held on the 15th as scheduled under extremely stringent security during which the Americans deployed an extra 30,000 of their military to back the tens of thousands of the Iraqi forces which were employed in the security arrangements that allowed the day to pass fairly quietly but nevertheless with few incidents.
Tomorrow is Christmas day, the birth of Jesus Christ our teacher and savior. I wish you my treasured friends, my esteemed colleague my kind and extremely supportive family and especially those of you who have been sending me stream of unbelievably kind and sweet messages to these and all the visitors to this humble site my best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a very happy and prosperous new year. I am praying things will be a bit better in Iraq and I would be writing something more cheerful and intelligent.
Najeeb Hanoudi
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Amman/Jordan
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