“I don’t dream of the luxury of the Green Zone, whose name seems to designate a condescending bourgeoisie that doesn’t concern us, the oppressed classes, and that considers that we exist only to serve its important inhabitants”, s’énerve Rana.
“The Green Zone is a planet. And we are on another.”
In the heart of Baghdad, the Green Zone, writes an Iraqi journalist on the site of Daraj, is an enclave where we find the centers of Iraqi power, such as the seat of government or the Parliament, as well what “important embassies, such as that of the United States”. In other words, “the influential personalities who run everything” in the country.
Covering an area of 10 km2comparable to other small neighborhoods in the Iraqi capital, the Green Zone, describes Daraj, is surrounded by a long cement wall “resembling the Berlin Wall, as if separating two worlds and two states”. The security agents and other soldiers present along this wall “look like border guards”.
Located in the center of the city, the district could be an important crossroads for the inhabitants of Baghdad, but no, because the Green Zone “is totally bunkered” and “no one can enter”.
“Far from the crises of the country and the pain of the people”
“Entering the Green Zone is like landing in another country. Sounds change, minds relax. There, no worries, sorrows or responsibilities. And above all, no hunger.”
While the streets of Baghdad are filled with tuk-tuks and cars at the end of their course, those of the Green Zone are “very clean, no potholes” and “of a peaceful calm, far from the crises of the country and the pain of the people, very far from the rubbish that lines the sidewalks” streets of the capital. And then, in the Green Zone, the traffic cops are relaxed, because the traffic lights are working, unlike those in the rest of the city.
In this ultra-secure district, the optical fiber works and the electricity does not cut. Normal, underlines a teacher who went there to give private lessons, “Government steals power for residential neighborhoods [du reste de la ville] to supply the Green Zone”.
A district so well protected, concludes Daraj, “that even the rockets aimed at it fall on surrounding areas or neighboring dwellings thanks to the sophisticated defense system” put in place.