The Weight of a Mustard Seed Read Online Free Page B

came much later that he began to pray regularly and to study the Koran and then he regretted he had not started much earlier.”
    Um Omar had wanted to continue her studies with a master’s degree but her husband thought it was unnecessary and in any case she quickly fell pregnant. Instead she became a teacher at a primary school called Etedahl (Being Straight), which later changed its name to Emtethal (Setting an Example). She taught general studies, geography, history and wataniya , national studies.
    Wataniya was a kind of civics class. The syllabus explained citizens’ duties, the structure of the government, the constitution, the authority of the police and the administrative divisions of the country. It also taught the duties of students: arriving on time, showing respect to teachers, taking care of the furniture and in particular, cleaning the portrait of the President which was hung in every classroom. In 1979 the face of President Bakr was taken down and replaced with the face of his usurping cousin, the self-promoted Saddam Hussein.
    Saddam Hussein was the Baathie strongman and Vice President with an increasing portfolio of key controlling positions in the army, the Party, and the Security Services. With his tribal connections to the President and his inner circle, he effectivelycontrolled the four pillars of the Iraqi state. He made sure he was the most visible politician in the country, always on TV, smiling, handsome, charismatic, well-tailored suits, polished shoes, mirror sunglasses. He would sweep into provincial towns in a black Mercedes cavalcade and emerge to cheering crowds of blushing young female university students and proud-backed Baathie Youth cadres, dispensing charm, gold watches, oil nationalization, agrarian reform. In the fat years of the seventies teachers salaries were increased, schools were repaired and built and stocked with expensive foreign equipment. In Um Omar’s school, the pipes were fixed so that sewage didn’t overflow in a corner of the playground, new desks and chairs arrived every year, there were modern exercise books and special dustless chalk. Saddam Hussein seemed as young and vigorous as his upwelling country and he promised a future that was as shining and rich and strong.
    Through the seventies he took control of the mechanisms of state. Party members who crossed him were arrested, demoted, scared off with ringing telephone threats. Much as Stalin took advantage of Lenin’s illness, Saddam overtook the aging Bakr, forcing him into the passive position of figurehead, until he was ready to take over publicly and Bakr “resigned for health reasons” in 1979. Saddam’s first move as president was to invite prominent party members to a meeting. This meeting was videotaped. Saddam sits on a dais, smoking a cigar as his lieutenants announce that a conspiracy has been discovered. Saddam says, with regret and tears in his eyes, that he can remain merciful no longer. Name after name is read out. Those called stand up, shuffling, shocked, and are escorted out of the room by Amn security officers. No one dares to remonstrate, the tension builds electric, the tape goes on and on. Name after name. At the end, with the relief of expiated fear, the remaining assembled burstinto applause and laud their new leader with promises of fealty. Some of them are rewarded for this display by being invited to join the execution squads of the purged. Right from the beginning there was never any doubt that the penalty for being on the wrong side of Saddam was death.
    The appointed class monitor dusted the face of Saddam every morning, it was the teacher’s responsibility to make sure that the frame was not broken or damaged. At the beginning of every term the pupils wrote out a selection of the President’s sayings and pasted them on the wall.
    Saddam liked to make surprise visits to schools to see how much progress was being made and spot-quiz the pupils in