April 17, 2007--Cry Me A Bridge
Now you say you're lonely
You cry the whole night through
Well, you can cry me a river
Cry me a river
I cried a river over you
While the pundits were searching for the political and psychological meaning of John McCain’s “stroll” through the market in Baghdad; while Congress and the White House were locked in a fight over funding the “surge” while at the same time attempting to assess the early signs of whether or not it was “working” (or how long it would take to “know” if it was working); while Move On’s on-line debate among Democratic candidates led to a poll that placed Hillary in fifth place behind even Dennis Kucinich, wondering if it would have mattered if she had “apologized”; while all of this was going on, insurgents in Iraq blew up the Sarafiya Bridge.
And people who used it to get to work or visit friends and relatives stood near the ancient Tigris River, which along with the Euphrates formed the first civilization’s Fertile Crescent, they gathered along its bank and wept.
To quote from Alissa Rubin’s little-noticed piece in the NY Times:
More people have died in many other bombings, but the destruction of the bridge struck at the city’s soul, at its lingering romance with an all but vanished image of Baghdad as a Paris of the Middle East.
From the look of the Sarafiya Bridge, an undistinguished 1951 structure made up of riveted steel girders, with none of the aesthetic pull of the Ponte Vecchio or the Brooklyn or Tower Bridges, what might have been its appeal? In what conceivable ways could it have evoked Paris?
Because it anchored and connected two distinct communities—on the east bank, a predominantly Shiite neighborhood; on the west Sunnis. Both substantially untouched since the American invasion and occupation. But now, the bridge that served to connect these communities, in more than physical ways, is no more. It had symbolized the unlikely possibility of Sunnis and Shiites living side-by-side, and even having a life together.
Riyadh Yosif, a day laborer who regularly walked across the bridge in search of jobs said:
This bridge is so important to us. We cross it every day to look for work. What shall we do now? They have destroyed us as well.
Crying, he added:
I wish they had killed one of my children rather than destroying the bridge, which I consider part of my heart.
You cry the whole night through
Well, you can cry me a river
Cry me a river
I cried a river over you
While the pundits were searching for the political and psychological meaning of John McCain’s “stroll” through the market in Baghdad; while Congress and the White House were locked in a fight over funding the “surge” while at the same time attempting to assess the early signs of whether or not it was “working” (or how long it would take to “know” if it was working); while Move On’s on-line debate among Democratic candidates led to a poll that placed Hillary in fifth place behind even Dennis Kucinich, wondering if it would have mattered if she had “apologized”; while all of this was going on, insurgents in Iraq blew up the Sarafiya Bridge.
And people who used it to get to work or visit friends and relatives stood near the ancient Tigris River, which along with the Euphrates formed the first civilization’s Fertile Crescent, they gathered along its bank and wept.
To quote from Alissa Rubin’s little-noticed piece in the NY Times:
More people have died in many other bombings, but the destruction of the bridge struck at the city’s soul, at its lingering romance with an all but vanished image of Baghdad as a Paris of the Middle East.
From the look of the Sarafiya Bridge, an undistinguished 1951 structure made up of riveted steel girders, with none of the aesthetic pull of the Ponte Vecchio or the Brooklyn or Tower Bridges, what might have been its appeal? In what conceivable ways could it have evoked Paris?
Because it anchored and connected two distinct communities—on the east bank, a predominantly Shiite neighborhood; on the west Sunnis. Both substantially untouched since the American invasion and occupation. But now, the bridge that served to connect these communities, in more than physical ways, is no more. It had symbolized the unlikely possibility of Sunnis and Shiites living side-by-side, and even having a life together.
Riyadh Yosif, a day laborer who regularly walked across the bridge in search of jobs said:
This bridge is so important to us. We cross it every day to look for work. What shall we do now? They have destroyed us as well.
Crying, he added:
I wish they had killed one of my children rather than destroying the bridge, which I consider part of my heart.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
11:07 AM
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