A Romeo and Juliet love story from Iraq

Posted on by Moni Basu
Mike and me in Baghdad in early April, 2006. He believed in love. I wonder if he still does.
Mike and me in Baghdad in April, 2006. He believed in love. I wonder if he still does.

I met Mike when sectarian strife exploded in Baghdad in 2006. That was not his real name, of course, but it was what he went by in his job as a translator for American soldiers.

Mike and I spent several evenings chatting at a coffee shop on the vast Camp Liberty complex. He was a smart well-spoken man with Antonio Banderas looks. He told me about his life in Iraq before the war. He taught computer science at a small Baghdad college and ran a photo processing shop.

He told me about the hope he’d held in 2003 after the ouster of Saddam, after which he worked as a security guard for Kellogg, Brown & Root. Eventually he found a job as an interpreter for the U.S. Army.

But things did not progress the way he’d expected and his homeland seemed on the verge of civil war.

The Georgia Army National Guard unit I was embedded with was then patrolling the streets of southwest Baghdad. Sometimes, Mike would peer out the sliver of a bullet-proof window in the back of a  Bradley Fighting Machine and look for a small stucco house on one of the main thoroughfares.

Over coffee one day, I asked him why he stared so intently through the glass.

“Asra,” he said.

“Asra? Who is that?” I asked.

She was the woman he adored. They shared dreams. Of going to Sulaimaniyah to see snow for the first time in their lives. Of getting married, having children.

He bought American shampoo for her from the PX at Liberty. She had long, thick hair, he told me.

Sometimes, he broke Baghdad’s curfew and snuck into Asra’s house late at night. They knew they could not be seen together.

But he could no longer do that. They knew their love could bring them serious trouble.

Mike was Shiite and Asra, Sunni.

Mike was unwanted as a Montague in the house of Capulet.

Mike wished Asra would stand on her balcony when the Bradley thundered past her house. But she didn’t step outside anymore. It wasn’t safe.

A month earlier, the bombing of a Shiite mosque in Samarra worsened the sectarian violence in Baghdad. I remember seeing bodies strewn on the streets of the capital. I could see that many had been tortured or mutilated or shot in the head, execution-style. Revenge killings soared. Neighborhoods in which Sunni and Shiite lived side by side went one way or the other. Thousands of Iraqis were driven from their homes.

I have been thinking of Mike a lot lately as I watch the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) insurgents battle towards Baghdad. I fear there will be all-out sectarian war. Sunni against Shiite. Blood spilled on the very soil where the division began with the killing in 680 AD of Muhammad’s grandsons in Kerbala.

We may never know modern-day Iraq again. I can see how borders might get redrawn. I am not necessarily opposed to that – the lines, after all, were drawn by the British to serve colonial interests and Iraq was, in many ways, an artificially assembled nation. But it is heartbreaking to see the carnage.

ISIS makes al Qaida look friendly. There have been reports of crucifixions, mass executions and beheadings. The atrocities make Iraq look like Yugoslavia on speed. That’s how Middle East politics expert Gareth Stansfield described the situation in a recent National Geographic interview.

I wonder if Mike and Asra were ever able to be together, start the family they wanted. I don’t have any way of contacting him anymore. I wish I did.

He told me once that it made no difference to him that Asra was Sunni, though her family didn’t see it that way. He saved a huge chunk of his American paycheck every month to build a house for Asra and himself in a Baghdad neighborhood that was then still very mixed.

He knew he was fighting the odds. He told me it would take a miracle to realize his dreams in a country fraught with war. But he wasn’t going to give up — he still believed in love.

I wonder if he still feels that way.

53 thoughts on “A Romeo and Juliet love story from Iraq”

  1. Thank you for posting that beautiful and tragic story. My heart goes out to everybody over there.

  2. I’ve always wanted to write a love story set amidst the war of Iraq, but never have got it through… I need help, please!

  3. I’ve always wanted to write a love story set amidst the war of Iraq, but never have got it through… I need help, please!
    I’ve made up my mind like it would be in India and iraq
    similar to this Romeo Juliet story…

  5. I liked this terrible insight in your every day Irak held by a beautiful writing. Gosh I like so much Internet when it draws my out of my close neighbourhood so gracefully.keep on telling stories. Thanks.

  20. What a story. I hope it ends happily. Or ended happily – if they made it to Sulaimaniyah, they would be much safer.

  21. It’s amazing to see how something that we take for granted in the Western world, dating or seeing someone, can be so difficult in countries with turmoil. Thank you for sharing this story.

  23. I couldn’t imagine how is this story cultivating hope inside my heart.

    Iraq is realy in trouble due to sectarian strife .

    I really enjoy your post
    ThanQ and keep it up ♥

  29. It takes courage to believe in love like that!Admirable. My heart weeps blood for the people who are innocent and fall prey to socio-political screwed up policies or sectarian fanaticism. Live and let live,people .For heaven’s sake

  37. I hope they beat the odds and are together. This is my prayer for them. What a lovely romantic man to give of himself in that way. True love. Thank you for sharing.

  38. The way you wrote this is just so..Beautiful.
    I’m sure they’ll find a way, I’m sure everyone will one day one way.
    Thanks so much for making my day though.
    Keep sharing. ^^

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  52. I am not from Iraq but I have witnessed a love story where I was Sunni and she was Shia. Her family was extremist… And so it ended. But I hope this story has a different ending.

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