Young Iraqis dance to a different beat

[success7]

Young Iraqis dance to a different beat

By Bushra Juhi

11:49 AM Saturday Nov 26, 2011

An Iraqi boy dances to hip hop music in Baghdad, Iraq. Photo / AP

After more than eight years in Iraq, the departing American military's legacy includes a fledgling democracy, bitter memories of war - and rap music, tattoos and slang.

In other words, as the December 31 deadline for completing their withdrawal approaches, US troops are leaving behind the good, the bad and what "Lil Czar" Mohammed calls the "punky".

Sporting baggy soldiers' camouflage pants, high-top sneakers and a back-turned "NY" baseball cap, the chubby 22-year-old was showing off his break-dancing moves on a sunny afternoon in a Baghdad park. A dollar sign was shaved into his closely cropped hair.

"While others might stop being rappers after the Americans leave, I will go on [rapping] till I reach NY," said Mohammed, who teaches part-time at a primary school.

His forearm bore a tattoo of dice above the words GANG STAR. That was the tattooist's mistake, he said, it was supposed to say "gangsta".

Eight million Iraqis, a quarter of the population, have been born since the US-led invasion of 2003 and nearly half the country is under 19, according to Brett McGurk, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and, until recently, senior adviser to the US Embassy in Baghdad.

So after years of watching US soldiers on patrol, it's inevitable that hip-hop styles, tough-guy mannerisms and slangy English patter would catch on with young Iraqis.

Calling themselves "punky", or "hustlers", many are donning hoodie sweat shirts, listening to 50 Cent or Eminem and watching Twilight vampire movies. They eat hamburgers and pizza and do death-defying Rollerblade runs through speeding traffic. Teens spike their hair or shave it Marine-style. The Iraq Rap page on Facebook has 1480 fans.

To many of their fellow Iraqis, the habits appear weird, if not downright offensive. But to the youths, it is a vital part of their pursuit of the American dream as they imagine it to be.

Lil Czar Mohammed, a Shiite Muslim, was introduced to American culture by a Christian friend, Laith, who subsequently had to flee the anti-Christian violence that broke out in Baghdad. "I had nothing to help my friend, he left," he said. "But when I get the money and become a rich boss, I will tell my friend Laith to come back." Meanwhile, he is trying to record a rap song in Arabic and English. "It is about our situation. About no jobs for us."

"I love the American soldiers," said Mohammed Adnan, 15, who pastes imitation tattoos on his arm. Adnan lives in the Sadr City, the Baghdad base of followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has threatened violence against US troops if they stay beyond 2011.

But, surprisingly, Adnan says the US gangsta look is accepted in his neighbourhood.

"All young men in Sadr City wear the same clothes when we hang around," he said. "Nobody minds. And we're invited to weddings or celebrations where we perform break-dancing."

It all adds up to a taste of the wide world for a society which lived for decades under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship that deprived them of satellite TV, cell phones and the internet, and then through invasion, terrorism and sectarian killing.

Like many Iraqis, high school student Maytham Karim wants to learn English. But the English he hears most often from his peers, and mostly those who listen to American music, is laden with profanity.

As US forces began closing their bases, Iraqis rummaged through their garbage for discarded uniforms, caps and boots to sell to youngsters who pay top dollar to dress like soldiers. Baghdad's tattoo business is also booming. Hassan Hakim's tattoo parlour in the Karradah neighbourhood is covered with glossy pictures of half-naked men and women showing off their ink, regardless of Islam's strictures on baring the skin.

The storefront caused a stir when it opened last summer, but complaints soon died down and the business is thriving.

Showbiz and military chic aside, young Iraqis agree that the American troops opened their minds to the outside world. The wait for a place in English classes can last months.

"I found that all Iraqis want to learn English," said Nawras Mohammed. Using the internet or watching satellite TV was also fine. But users needed to be selective, the 24-year-old college graduate says. "The positive and the negative aspects of the American presence," she said, "depend on us."

An unwelcome clash of cultures

Not all Iraqis welcome the culture the Americans brought. Dr Fawzia al-Attia, a sociologist at Baghdad University, says one result is that young Iraqis now reject school uniforms, engage in forbidden love affairs and rebel against their elders.

"There was no strategy to contain this sudden openness," she said. "Teenagers, especially in poor areas where parents are of humble origin and humble education, started to adopt the negative aspects of the American society because they think that by imitating the Americans they obtain a higher status in society.

"These young Iraqi people need to be instructed. They need to know about the positive aspects of the American society to imitate."

- AP

By Bushra Juhi

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10768859

[R Veyron]

I know what kind of dance Im going to do after RV.