CPTnet
23 November 2005

IRAQ REFLECTION: The Baghdad Zoo

by Greg Rollins

One of our drivers invited my team mate Max, our translator and me to the
zoo for the last day of Eid Al-Fitr, the Ramadan feast. In the park that
surrounded the zoo, families picnicked and groups of male teenagers walked
around with percussion instruments and sang and danced.

Outside and in, Iraqi soldiers, police, snipers and Special Forces
patrolled the crowds. But they weren't all business. At one point, while a
group of teenagers danced, an Iraqi soldier with a Kalashnikov over his
shoulder and a Glock handgun at his side walked into the middle of the boys
and waved his hands for them to stop dancing. The boys stopped for a
moment, but then with big smiles continued to dance and sing just as loud
as before. The soldier didn't miss a beat and danced with them.

Inside the zoo, with its circa 1970 architecture, many cages stood empty,
but a few still held creatures of various kinds: several haggard species of
birds of prey, a small wild cat of some kind in a cramped and dark cell, two
confused pelicans, several rafts of content water foul, two nervous
cheetahs, a pride of bored lions, a depressed, almost comatose porcupine,
an eager pony, a sad camel, two disoriented ostriches, some insipid pigs,
and a vixen so stressed and traumatized that she had chewed off half her
tail and would not stop running frantically in a repetitive pattern around
her tiny enclosure.

By the end of our visit, Max and I began to feel not only for the animals
in the cages, but like them. Because I stand out as a foreigner and there
are so few in Baghdad who go out in public, people stared at us with as much
interest as they did the animals.

Our trip to the zoo left me thinking. At one point we watched a guy throw
small rocks at the porcupine that lay amid pop cans, banana peels and other
odds and ends people had thrown at it. I was tempted to ask the guy how he
would like it if someone put him in a tiny cage and threw stuff at him all
day. Then I realized that the Baghdad Zoo mirrors the state of the
country.

Most Iraqis are caged in. They can't leave. And other people, whether they
are foreign armies, foreign militants or foreign corporations, think of
themselves and what they want from this place before they consider the
people of Iraq. Even the media and human rights groups are guilty of this
at times.

This thought made me wanted to climb into the dark cement cage and lay down
beside the porcupine. Instead, I walked on to see what was in the next
cage.