From An Iraqi Blogger

[Annie]

Seems a simple enough request:

http://www.friendsofdemocracy.info/2005/03/letter_to_the_n.html

Letter To The Next Iraqi President
by Al-Witwiti

I ask you to take care of the Iraqi people. If they ask you every day to fire a governor do as they wish. Because firing a governor every day is better than facing ten thousand swords. - Maowiya to his son Yazeed

Your Excellency,

This is the first time I have spoken to a president, and the first time I have written a letter to someone I do not know. What I have to say is extremely important to many Iraqis. I am asking you to listen to me before you settle into your chair in the palace that was built from our bones and painted with our martyr’s blood.

Your Excellency. We don’t want to see you more than one minute per day. Respect our private lives, houses, and holidays. Don’t hang your portrait on the wall. Don’t put your statues in the squares. We don’t want to see you wearing a headcord or some other thing whenever we turn around. We don’t want to listen to your news on TV welcoming someone, saying farewell to someone else, holding a meeting, or anything else that reminds us you exist. We don’t want any of this, Your Excellency.

We want to feel you in our children’s health, or while sleeping deeply in peace. We want to feel you in the bread filling our dishes, in the pure water that we drink every day, and in electricity that doesn’t switch off every two hours.

Let your slogan be Iraq is for the Iraqis. Iraqis should always be first, not second or tenth or last. And when I say “Iraqis” I mean Kurds, Arabs, Azoreans, Armenians, Chaldeans, Turkmen, and Jews.

Your Excellency. Don’t favor your sons and relatives in positions of power. Don’t take from Iraq that which does not belong to you. Don’t put yourself in a position where you compete with the people. What belongs to you is your salary. Let the former president Abdul Karim Qasim set an example for you.

Your Excellency. Don’t buy off poets and educated people. Talk to them. Ask them how they are and how the people are doing. Don’t give them prizes and bank accounts. Their prize is love from the people and the intellectual freedom they will have during your presidency. Don’t shut down those who won’t praise you.

Your Excellency. We don’t want to see the army standing on every corner or the police standing at every door. We don’t want checkpoints at every crossing. But we do want Iraq to be safe for everyone who lives here and everyone who visits.

Your Excellency. Don’t steal our money. Don’t stash it in fake bank accounts. We will ask you about every penny you spend, every penny of our oil and gold. Our slogan will be Where did you get this? It will be our sword against evil.

Remember that people have given you their confidence. You won’t stay long if you betray them, not even if you stuff them in jails. Don’t ever think you are above the law. You are a citizen.

In our new Iraq we don’t want to see a Kurdish child freezing out in the cold, or his family shacking in caves. We don’t want to see the children of Basra wearing worn clothes and shoes. If this happens, consider yourself overthrown because you will not have fulfilled your duty.

Salaam for he who loves his people and gives them dignity.