The Santa Claus in the window of Najeeba John's store is a sad metaphor for the first Iraqi Christmas since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The toy Santa is supposed to sing and dance but he just stands there without moving.
PHOTO: EPA
"Unfortunately, we don't have any electricity," says John.
Iraqi Christians say they won't be dancing either for Christmas.
The usual parties, and even Christmas Eve church, are out of the question. It's just not safe here, they say.
"We are afraid of explosions," said Nasreen Thomas, 30, a dentist.
"Under the old regime we celebrated until the wee hours but this year we can't ... Maybe I won't go out of my house," Thomas said.
Since US and British troops invaded in March to end more than two decades of dictatorship under Saddam, the US-led coalition has been battling insurgents who target troops and their "collaborators" like Iraqi police.
Innocent civilians sometimes get hurt in the roadside bombings or grenade attacks meant for security forces.
Baghdad is subject to rotating power blackouts, and buying gasoline for a car can require sleeping overnight in a long queue.
"There is nothing. We will sit at home and we won't even go to church. Where will we go? There are no clubs, nothing," said Danny Rass, 51, inside his small liquor store in Baghdad's Karada district, where many in Iraq's Christian minority live.
Next door, Laith Calotti and his staff were busy selling flowers and Christmas supplies. Business is good, said Calotti, 26.
"But we are afraid. We are afraid of everything," he said.
Maha Salam walked out with a bag of miniature Christmas lights but she was not in a party mood.
"There will be no parties. The electricity is no good. There is no gasoline. This will have a big impact. We will just stay at home," said Salam, who ran a sweet shop until the war. She is too afraid to reopen, she said.
"Who is happy to celebrate Christmas?" asked Sabieh Isho, 52, a liquor-store owner.
"This year the celebration has been canceled because there is no security," he said.
Saddam ruled with the support of the minority Sunni Islamic community while oppressing the Shiite majority of Iraq's estimated 26 million people.
His fall has led to fears of sectarian strife and prompted a call for unity on Sunday by the newly appointed leader of Iraq's largest Christian denomination, the Chaldean Catholic Church.
"All Iraq is our homeland. Iraq is for us all, from north to south," said Patriarch Monsignor Emmanuelle-Karim Delly, 76, during a ceremony for his installation held in Baghdad.
Monsignor Ishlemon Wardouni, in a homily to welcome Delly, said the new patriarch had been chosen amid "cruel conditions" in his country.
"We are asking God to help him in his ship, especially in these times, to reach the harbor of peace," said Wardouni, who was interim patriarch before Delly assumed leadership of the world's Chaldeans.
Iraq's estimated 700,000 Chaldeans are the country's largest Christian denomination.
They worshipped without restriction under Saddam, and still do. But with Iraq's government structure still undecided, they face the future with uncertainty.
"Saddam loved the Christians. That's a fact. Now we still don't know. It's only been six or eight months," Calotti said.
Thomas, a stylishly-dressed woman, expressed concern she might be forced to wear Islamic garb.
"We are waiting for the new government to decide what type of system we will be under," she said.
Other Christians said they hadn't heard of extremists pressuring non-Muslims to cover their heads. They said Christians lived peacefully with the Muslim majority.
Rass and Isho said they felt threatened but the danger came because of their business, not their religion.
"Three of my friends were killed," Rasso said, blaming extremist Muslims.
Isho said ordinary criminals were also a danger.
"As we stand here now, we don't know if we will be bombed by a grenade or something," Isho said.
He closes his doors by 7pm now, three hours earlier than under the old regime.
"There is no electricity and no security, so why would we stay open?" he asked.
Calotti, too, locks up his Christmas trees, his flowers and gift baskets just after dark.
"We don't want Americans. We don't want Saddam. We just want to live in peace," he said.
It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young people in India are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration. A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
A Hong Kong astronaut is to join a Chinese space mission for the first time as part of a three-person crew launching today, as Beijing edges closer to its goal of landing people on the moon. The Tiangong space station — crewed by teams of three astronauts that are typically rotated every six months — is the crown jewel of China’s space program, boosted by billions in state investment in a bid to catch up with the US and Russia. The Shenzhou-23 mission is to blast off at 11:08pm from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China, carrying three astronauts to
UPGRADED ALERT: The risk inside DR Congo is now considered ‘very high,’ while neighboring countries face a ‘high’ threat as the outbreak continues, the WHO said Ebola is spreading faster than responders can track it in eastern Congo, where health workers managed to follow up with barely one in five identified contacts in a single day. Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) reported 83 confirmed infections, 746 suspected cases and 1,603 identified contacts as of Thursday, but health workers were able to follow up on only 342 contacts that day — about 21 percent of the total under monitoring — data released by the DR Congo Ministry of Public Health on Friday showed. The figures suggest the response is falling behind the outbreak itself,
RSS