deep focus

P.M. Maliki looks weary. Bear with the weary, over-the-top opening, I'm trying to illustrate how easily the media slips into one-sided, overly-pessimistic, elite-dominated coverage.

Iraq is going straight to hell in a hand-basket. The government’s overconfidence in its ability to provide security made it take down key blast walls, which was promptly rewarded with the massive truck bombing of two government ministries. The government blamed the remnants of Saddam’s Ba’ath party and a mysterious man in Syria, broadcasting a purported confession across national television in an effort to staunch the bleeding of its legitimacy. Meanwhile, the Islamic State of Iraq, a Sunni insurgent group, blew up two buses heading from Baghdad to the predominatly Shi’a city of Kut, drawing in shades of renewed ethnic conflict. The AP is reporting that the same Islamic State of Iraq–purportedly an al-Qaeda umbrella group–is claiming responsibility for the ministry bombings, a claim the U.S. military finds highly plausible.

At the center of all this is Maliki and his government–which may not include him in the future. Intra-Shi’a politics and Maliki’s own pragmatic political calculations are threatening to rive the government and markedly increase Iranian influence, which the AP forecasts as a coming storm of conflict.

And here ends the depressive portion of the media narrative. The bottom half of that same AP story leaves open the possibility that all this hubub about Maliki and the rest of the Shi’a coalition is just political maneuvers and posturing–and not, say, the annexation of Iraq by Iran, or another Iraqi civil war.

The WaPo coverage of the same event is more tempered, even positive:

The new alliance and the likelihood that Maliki will be forced have to partner with Sunnis suggest that Iraqi politicians are increasingly willing to cross sectarian lines in the pursuit of power.

Maliki’s exclusion from the alliance was not entirely surprising. Despite his considerable popularity, the prime minister has become a divisive figure, and a recent surge in violence has triggered criticism from Iraqis who view his administration as cocky and incompetent.

Because of the volatile nature of Iraqi politics and the fickleness of alliances, analysts cautioned that the political groupings are likely to change between now and the time the ballots are printed. Alliances could even be redrawn after the votes are tallied.

As severely pessimistic as the AP and nytimes coverage I cited in the first graf is, the other half of the nytimes coverage is positively delightful. It’s interesting that this is also the side of journalism that demands that reporters go out among ordinary people, and talk to them about their daily lives. I’m not sure what that says; maybe politics and political coverage just makes us all feel a bit jaded?

The first is the coincidence that this year, Ramadan has begun on the same day for both Shi’a and Sunna in Iraq.

Ramadan begins after the waxing crescent moon first comes into view, which, according to astronomical calculations, happened in Baghdad at precisely 6:42 p.m. on Friday.

By Islamic tradition, however, the ninth month in the Islamic calendar begins only after religious authorities see the crescent with their own eyes. When Ramadan comes in summer, as this year, the sliver of the waxing moon is invisible for most of the day, and in Baghdad it sets just a half hour after dark, making it an elusive target in the often sandy haze along the horizon.

To make matters more difficult, Shiite religious leaders say they must spot that first crescent with the naked eye. Sunnis allow themselves the aid of binoculars or a telescope, which often gives the Sunni Ramadan a full day’s jump on the Shiite observance.

This year, Iraq’s Sunnis took their cue from Abdul al-Ghafor al-Samaraie, head of the Sunni Endowment, who spotted it on Friday with the unaided eye. “This will unite the religious messages of our two sects and is a good sign,” he said.

Iraq’s Shiites begin observing Ramadan when the howza, the committee of their top ayatollahs, announces that the moon has been spotted. That word came many hours after sunset on Friday, catching many Shiites asleep and unprepared for a predawn breakfast on Saturday.

This is reckoned to be a very good omen, one that augurs cooperation between Sunna and Shi’a.

Since the war began, and with it the widespread arrival of cellphones, Iraqis have grown accustomed to sending congratulatory text messages to one another by the dozens when Ramadan is announced.

Many of the messages read like greeting cards, and some even strike a conciliatory note:

While Ramadan is at our doors,

Let us review the reasons

We became as strangers,

And live peacefully as friends.

The texts serve a practical function, too, warning those who might be asleep or not watching the news that they needed to get up before sunrise to have an early breakfast, girding themselves for the daylong fast ahead.

But with staggered starts for Ramadan, the texts became an annoyance if they arrived on the wrong day. In mixed areas there were arguments over eating and drinking in public. The biggest problem, though, was the Id al-Fitr feast at the end of the month. It is the biggest holiday of the Muslim calendar, and sheep are slaughtered in the streets, a distressing sight to those still fasting.

What wonderful understatement. For those who haven’t experienced Ramadan, or fasted for any reason, it’s surprising how cranky you can get. And understandable how resentful you can be of those who can eat. (As the article notes, the embattled Iraqi Christians will have it much worse this Ramadan, since those who break their fast in public are subject to arrest, even for smoking, and nearly all restuarants have been ordered closed. A bit khaliji, eh?)

The other bright spot in the news is a spot of desert in Anbar province:

A few hours outside Baghdad in the middle of Iraq’s vast western desert is a sight that could understandably be mistaken for a mirage: a long, sandy beach filled with thousands of people swimming and dancing barefoot under the hot sun without apparent care.

A disc jockey — “Mr. D. J.,” he calls himself — is shouting into a microphone over a thumping Syrian dance song and blurts out something remarkable in its ordinariness.

“A shoutout to everyone from Baghdad!” he says in Arabic.

“Yea!” responds the crowd that has gathered around him.

“Everyone from Adhamiya and Sadr City who came from Baghdad, show me what you got!” Mr. D. J. yells, referring to two neighborhoods in the capital — the first almost exclusively Sunni, the second nearly entirely Shiite.

In response, energetic dancing breaks out all around, and Sunnis and Shiites share a rare moment of careless bliss together.

It is amazing, but it is real: for the first time since the outbreak of the sectarian war in 2006, Iraq is enjoying a beach season.

The article is a very fast, great read with lots of telling detail. I suggest you get over to the nytimes and finish it. Don’t miss this piece.