R-N Student Returns to War-Torn Country of Birth: Iraq
Lev D. Zilbermints
Issue date: 12/12/05 Section: News
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Sitting in the Paul Robeson Campus Center, Rutgers-Newark student Sinan Aladdin remembers the month he spent this last summer in his hometown: Baghdad, Iraq.
His memories, vivid and fresh, paint a picture of war-torn Iraq that is different from the images given in the U.S. media.
During his stay in Iraq, Aladdin visited Baghdad and Fallujah, drove by the infamous Abu Ghraib prison and saw how people now live in the country he once called home.
Asked about Baghdad, Aladdin said, "Baghdad is not very clean at all. The week I was there was relatively quiet - two explosions. U.S. troops control power. It is not all different from Vietnam."
A native of Baghdad, Aladdin came to America after the 1991 Persian Gulf war when he was 7-years old.
Now he's 21 and is finishing two undergraduate degrees in history and political science as an R-N senior.
According to Aladdin, Baghdad was once "a fully functional, vibrant city" in 1991. Sinan says that when he returned fourteen years later, Baghdad was unrecognizable.
"First thing that hit me was poverty. The city had been robbed of culture. There are no trees where trees used to be. The buildings are worn down. You see misery in peoples' faces," he says.
In Iraq people purchase goods on the flourishing black market, said Aladdin. For a price - cars, food, medicine, and electronics can all be bought on the black market, which offers goods at cheap prices.
Because of the shock that he encountered, Aladdin was "in complete depression for the first two days" of the trip. He said that what he found was "much worse than I anticipated." A lot is not known about conditions in Iraq, he said. Aladdin cited Fallujah, which was taken over by the U.S.-led coalition, as one example.
"Fallujah was leveled. What people do not see in the media is that Fallujah is a city," he said.
Driving through Fallujah all he could see was rubble.
"When I saw... I wondered, what happened to the people?" he said. He found that many people now live in "tents and camps outside Baghdad and Fallujah."
His memories, vivid and fresh, paint a picture of war-torn Iraq that is different from the images given in the U.S. media.
During his stay in Iraq, Aladdin visited Baghdad and Fallujah, drove by the infamous Abu Ghraib prison and saw how people now live in the country he once called home.
Asked about Baghdad, Aladdin said, "Baghdad is not very clean at all. The week I was there was relatively quiet - two explosions. U.S. troops control power. It is not all different from Vietnam."
A native of Baghdad, Aladdin came to America after the 1991 Persian Gulf war when he was 7-years old.
Now he's 21 and is finishing two undergraduate degrees in history and political science as an R-N senior.
According to Aladdin, Baghdad was once "a fully functional, vibrant city" in 1991. Sinan says that when he returned fourteen years later, Baghdad was unrecognizable.
"First thing that hit me was poverty. The city had been robbed of culture. There are no trees where trees used to be. The buildings are worn down. You see misery in peoples' faces," he says.
In Iraq people purchase goods on the flourishing black market, said Aladdin. For a price - cars, food, medicine, and electronics can all be bought on the black market, which offers goods at cheap prices.
Because of the shock that he encountered, Aladdin was "in complete depression for the first two days" of the trip. He said that what he found was "much worse than I anticipated." A lot is not known about conditions in Iraq, he said. Aladdin cited Fallujah, which was taken over by the U.S.-led coalition, as one example.
"Fallujah was leveled. What people do not see in the media is that Fallujah is a city," he said.
Driving through Fallujah all he could see was rubble.
"When I saw... I wondered, what happened to the people?" he said. He found that many people now live in "tents and camps outside Baghdad and Fallujah."