Sectarian Havoc Freezes the Lives of Young Iraqis

BAGHDAD, Oct. 7 — In a dimly lighted living room in central Baghdad, Noor is a lonely teenage prisoner. Many of his friends have left the country, and some who have stayed have strange new habits: a Shiite acts holier-than-thou; a Sunni joins an armed gang.

At 19, Noor is neither working nor in college. He is not even allowed outdoors.

Three and a half years after the American invasion, the relentless violence that has disfigured much of Iraqi society is hitting young Iraqis in new ways. Young people from five Baghdad neighborhoods say that their lives have shrunk to the size of their bedrooms and that their dreams have been packed away and largely forgotten. Life is lived in moments. It is no longer possible to make plans.

“I can’t go outside, I can’t go to college,” said Noor, sitting in the kitchen waiting for tea to boil. “If I’m killed, it doesn’t even matter because I’m dead right now.”

The American military is trying to address the problem. In August, it began the most systematic series of sweeps of Baghdad since the war began, trying to make the worst neighborhoods safe for a return to normal life. It appears to be bearing some fruit, with deaths in the city down about 17 percent in August from July, according to a United Nations report based on morgue statistics.

But violence between the sects here continues at a frantic pace, wiping out ever more of what middle ground remains. And it has left young Iraqis trying to resist its pull frozen in an impossible present with no good future in sight.

The speed of the descent has been breathtaking. A few short months ago, Noor was taking final exams, squabbling with his little brother and hanging out at home with his friends. But violence touched the family’s outer edge — his father’s business partner was killed on a desert road far from Baghdad because he was a Shiite — and things began to unravel.

Fearing that the man may have divulged details about them, Noor’s parents accelerated their plans for Noor and his younger brother to leave Iraq. His brother was moved to the safety of northern Iraq, but Noor was forced to return after British authorities rejected his application for a student visa.

Since coming back, he spends most days in his living room on the computer, listening to the sounds of life outside his gate. He wants to enroll in college here and even had one of his friends sneak him an application, but his parents will not let him go. Campuses are volatile mixes of sects and ethnicities, and sectarian killings of students are no longer rare.

Before the epidemic of neighborhood assassinations began last year, it was a rare middle-class Iraqi who had a peer involved in sectarian killing. But as the killing spread, increasingly larger portions of the population have been radicalized.

For Noor, a secular Sunni who is solidly middle class, the sectarian killing has broken squarely into his circle of friends. A friend from Adhamiya, Baghdad’s Sunni Arab center, joined a neighborhood militia after his father was shot to death in front of their home. Noor heard through friends that he had set up a roadside bomb to kill Iraqi troops.

“He hates the Shia because they killed his father,” said Noor, speaking in fluent English and gesturing with his hands. “He became a different person. He became a monster.”

It is that radicalization that most frightens Noor’s mother. Most of the casualties and the perpetrators in the sectarian killing are young men, and with few jobs and no hope for justice through the government, armed gangs and militias are extremely alluring.

“I’m afraid he’ll be drawn to certain currents,” she said. “There is a lot of anger inside.”

Read the rest at the NY Times

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