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> Editorial
> What's the Story?
> Mrs. Fixit
> Desperately Seeking Ingredients...
> Passionate about Mill Road
> Caribbean Masterchef
> Everything is Possible!
> A Sanctuary on Mill Road
> Boat People
> Going Green with Al-Amin
> The Akashi Project
> Open All Hours
> Mesmerised by Meze
> Come Together
> The Girl from Arapau
> Still Sweet and Spicy
> A Real Neighourhood
> Lei Si Fan Mei?
> Flight from Baghdad
> Streets of Revolution
> Stepping up the Ladder
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Flight from Baghdad
Nather Al-Khatib is an IT consultant from Iraq. With Iranian born Shapour Meftah, he runs Cantab Millennium. Their neighbouring countries fought a devastating war between 1979-88, but this has not stopped them running a successful computer repair business together and forming a lasting friendship.
I was actually born in Britain in 1979 because both my parents were studying here. They returned to Baghdad when I was only a few days old and I grew up there. Going to Iraq just then wasn’t brilliant timing because the war had just started between Saddam Hussein and the Iranian Ayatollah. It was a terrible war which lasted until 1988 killed millions. As a kid growing up in Al-Azamiya suburb of Baghdad, I used to see rockets going over and we’d hear sirens going off. In spite of the war, I had a really happy childhood. What I remember most is playing football, that’s what I loved! Until recently I played here in Cambridge at Cherry Hinton club, but work and studying for my PhD has left no time for football.
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I was about 11 when the first Gulf war started in 1991. Iraq invaded Kuwait so America and the coalition forces attacked Iraq. The Americans destroyed absolutely everything. Up until then, life in Baghdad was good. I’m certainly not defending Saddam but at least we had water and electricity. My dad was actually the Director General of the Iraqi national grid. We had no freedom of speech, but materially we had everything we needed. I would say Iraqi education was the best in the Arab world. After the first Gulf war it was hell, we couldn’t get medicines because of sanctions. Iraqi children were dying for lack of antibiotics.
Still we managed for over a decade. For the Iraqi people, the latest American invasion in March 2003 definitely made things worse than the 35 years under Saddam. I know, I was there. I’m gutted when I see Baghdad every day on the television. All they show is burnt out cars and bombs and streets with human body parts. But I can’t tell you how wonderful my city really is. We have a fantastically ancient heritage. Every schoolchild has heard of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Well, they’re right there in Baghdad. It is really the cradle of civilisation. A lot of really ancient artefacts disappeared from our museum in the war, imagine 7000-year-old Sumerian writing, beautiful pottery. Thank God some of it is safely preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum here in Cambridge.
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| "After being shot at like that I knew I couldn’t remain in Baghdad, not with trigger-happy US troops occupying my city. I’d end up doing something I’d regret." |
It saddens me to see the terrible state my country is in. Especially as all my family is stuck there. Because I happened to be born in the UK, I was eligible for a British passport. I couldn’t stand seeing the American presence in my country, soldiers walking in my streets. I can’t see them as liberators, but invaders. Killing 700,000 innocent civilians is not liberating them. |
Two days after Bush’s invasion, I was driving home with some friends. As we approached the Al-Azamiya Bridge we could see that there was a control ahead. About 200 metres behind the barrier was a massive US Army tank, its turret pointing right at us. There were only a few cars, we thought they might search us and let us through. I got out talking to them. I remember a black marine in the tank scrutinizing me through binoculars. The barrier made it impossible to talk to them so I raised my hands to show I had nothing to hide and started to call out that I lived on the other side of the bridge. As I did so I heard bullets ricocheting off the bonnet of the car. Then I heard my friends were screaming at me to get back in. I didn’t know what was going on, I stood looking down at blood gushing from my lower arm. Thank god, my friends yanked me back in and we turned round and sped off. If they hadn’t, I don’t think I’d be here talking to you now. I’ve now got a scar on my arm where the bullet went through.
After being shot at like that I knew I couldn’t remain in Baghdad, not with trigger-happy US troops occupying my city. I’d end up doing something I’d regret.
So, I took a 4x4 taxi and crossed to Jordan. It’s a nightmare journey Iraqis still have to make to get out. Not exactly National Express! You never know if you’re going to be stopped by insurgents. It was chaos. In Jordan I took all my papers and my UK birth certificate to the British Embassy and applied for a British passport. It’s only the accident of my birth that got me out.
Before I left Baghdad in 2003 I managed to get engaged to my wife, and left the day after. Then I had to find a way to get my fiancée out of Baghdad.
In 2005 I flew from London to Syria and she managed to get there too, just so we could fill in forms to submit to the British Embassy in Jordan.
They wanted proof that we were not an arranged marriage. We had to produce our birth certificates, passports, the engagement ring and even our private emails! In 2006 I flew back to Jordan for the wedding. Both our families made the difficult journey from Baghdad. Incredibly, we had just 24 hours to arrange everything, but we did it the Arabway, in great style in a good hotel with musicians and wonderful food. The very next morning, I rushed to the British Embassy with the wedding photographs, the final proof we were genuine. Only then could they start proceedings for my wife’s British visa. I’m delighted she’s here now with me and we’re over the moon with our new baby boy.
My other great love is computer technology. It’s what I do every day here in the Cantab Millennium. People bring their computers in and I love solving their problems. I’m just doing a PhD at Brunel University in wireless communication systems. It’s the future.
How did I end up working for Cantab Millennium? I used to come in as a customer myself. One day, I asked Mr Shapour if he had any work going (I always call him Mr, it is a respect thing). He told me there were no vacancies, so I offered to work for him for nothing to get some experience. My English wasn’t very good then and I was studying at the Regent School here in Mill Road by the bridge. Mr Shapour took me on and I’m so grateful to him for giving me a break to prove myself. Who cares that he’s Iranian and I’m Iraqi and our countries are sworn enemies? Governments waste their resources and millions of lives on war. I believe if you leave people alone, they get on brilliantly.
I miss my family an awful lot. I worry about my nineteen-year-old sister. In Baghdad people are kidnapped every day, especially pretty young girls like her. Can you imagine? She’s trying to study for a degree. My mum is a physics lecturer at the same university. There was recently a massive suicide bombing at their campus. It was on the British news but for most people here it’s not real. When you have family there, believe me, it’s real.
Just before Christmas I got news that my father had been injured in a car bombing. He had critical head injuries. Baghdad hospitals have power cuts, there’s a shortage of medicines and most of the doctors left in Iraq are trainees. I was doing everything to get my dad out; I so wanted him to get proper medical attention and see his first grandchild. Sadly, a few weeks before the baby’s birth, we got news that he had died of his injuries.
I’m extraordinarily lucky to happen to be born here. I love Britain because here you believe in freedom. I’m less keen on a lot of the TV though! I mean, I can’t see the point of a programme like Big Brother. Locking people up and observing them like animals, what is that about? I’m sorry, but I really think its rubbish. I think it’s just a way of making money through the voting by telephone. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve learned a lot here in other areas. English for a start. But what I really learned was tolerance. Britain, and especially Cambridge, is so multi-cultural. I meet people from Spain, Russia, Saudi Arabia, wherever. People are very accepting here.
It’s my greatest wish for Iraq to become a safe place. I feel so sorry for the innocent Iraqis who are dying every day. It’s impossible for anyone who has not been through it to know what I feel because I know how wonderful Iraq can be.
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