20 Years Away From Baghdad

Well, not quite. I’ve been to Baghdad twice.

It has been been 10 years since I wrote my very famous article, 10 Years Away From Baghdad, which was read by no more than 7 people. I made a promise to myself that if I live until it is 20 years away, I will write another one to round up the number of total readers to 10. Spoiler alert, I am still not much of a writer.

I have now spent an additional 3652 more days living away from home, building a home at home, and still haven’t moved back home.

I have reached the age of 44. I am 87,648 hours older than since we last “spoke”. I still love food, and therefore I have gained a lot more weight and reached a number I have never ‘achieved’ before, 134 kilos. But, I managed to shed around 14 kilos of that recently. That is around one whole lamb worth of weight that I usually buy from my butcher. So goes without saying that I am not as charming as I once was.

I moved outside London to a lovely small town called East Grinstead, around 17 minutes drive from Gatwick airport, and around 10 minutes drive from the M25 (if my wife was driving). I am a father of three, two sons and one daughter, and I am still blessed with having both a mother and a wife to take care and look after me. Alhamdule Allah.

Rooh El-Rooh

The last 521 weeks and 5 days have been an unbelievable global roller-coaster. Since we saw each other last, the UK left the EU, the world had a pandemic, Apple created the M series processor (that’s right, I am still a nerd), Bitcoin passed the $100K price, major wars in almost every continent, humanity invented AI (not Apple Intelligence), “The Leader of The Free World” is serving his second term in office of which the first was also in this past decade, and the Avengers assembled.

Oh and uhh, Mo Salah.

It is tricky to choose which one of these I would want to talk about first. But maybe let’s start with what I have enjoyed the most. Supporting Liverpool F.C in the age of Mo Salah. I have always loved watching football, and Liverpool have always had a special place in my heart. But when Mo joined the team and showed what he is made of, I became a die-hard Liverpool fan. With his magic and the rest of the amazing team Klopp built, Liverpool won everything there is to win. That was just absolutely fantastic. Rooting for a team, being part of a global fan base, having the exact same passion even though you live worlds apart, is quite awesome. I’ve had the pleasure of not only watch my team’s matches on TV, but actually see them live many time in Anfield and other stadiums. I would hide in an opposite team fan section as it is quite impossible to manage tickets for Liverpool, especially when they play away. I even have a short recording of me clearly showing on a TV broadcast on the same match that Mo scored his 200th goal for the club. Yes, it was really easy to find myself amongst the fans as I have already mentioned above, I am big!.

Ya Abu El-Ez

Mo’s path to success is an inspiring story. He is not the only athlete who has done it but his story hits home with me. He is a Muslim Arab, his family comes first, and he also had to build a home away from home. I think the other reason that I really enjoyed being part of a fan base is that it somehow gave me a sense of belonging. I mean I am an immigrant, and no I did not arrive on a boat, I pray for those who had to.

Finding a sense of belonging in football is but one thing a person can do to relate, immigrant or otherwise. For me there are also my new neighbours, my co-workers, my friends and relatives, and my own kids.

My kids were born and raised here. This is their home. This is the place that they grew up in. This is their country. That is a fact. Raising kids is a challenge on its own, but being a first generation immigrant and raising kids is a whole other story. As a parent your kids are always your priority. Everything that you do for yourself is really for them, and that on its own is a great thing to belong to. If you are blessed with having kids and if they are born away from home, then you have a great gateway to integrate yourself in their society. Your kids will show you things that you do not learn on your own or from TV and not even from your job in your home away from home. They will hold you to your word, they will judge you, they will absorb your knowledge as if you are the ultimate source of truth, and in their early years they will follow you where ever you go. They will one day make you the happiest person in the world, and also make you the saddest person in the world, and they could very well break your heart – whether intentional or not. They will also teach you many facts about how life really is. You must adapt to their fast changing habits, what with them growing much fast that you can realise you have to keep up. My oldest is 13, the middle one is 10 and the little one turns 5 in a month insha Allah. We are raising a teenager, a 10 year old and a child. We have to provide the freedom for the older one to define his path and take his own footsteps, take a chance and make a mistake, and learn on his own from his own choices that he made. We can see that he is about to make a mistake, yet we have to be strong not to intervene and let him do it (yeh right). Yet at the same time we have to still guide the other two, and they always compare themselves to each other, and just want to have the same freedom and “privileges” that their older brother now has. We balance their interest and enjoy that with them. Thankfully the older one shares my love for technology and the middle one even loves Liverpool more than I do. Between them too, spending time with each is just a breeze, whether talking nerdy or watching a football match, I get my best breaks hanging out with them. As for my daughter however, well, she is still young and all I need to do these days is to make her laugh. But in reality she is the one that makes me laugh.

G

And this brings me to something that I have never prepared for. I didn’t think that letting my kids make their own choices will be one of the hardest things I will have to do. I am a very domestic person and spending time at home with my family, with my very “calm, happy, and delightful” personality brings me most joy. But that has started to change. I do not know what that change will be, I can only hope that I will adapt with it as well as I can do.

Now, my kids really extend beyound my kids. I am an uncle of – wait let me count – 16 large small round thin dark fair boy girl kids, and they too are my kids. I love them, care for them, and they hold a very special place in my heart, even one that their mothers and fathers do not share. When we get together as a family, they always find a corner to get away from us old boring grey haired people and seeing them laughing and catching up with each other just warms my heart. They wouldn’t even realise I’m looking but I just like to sit there and enjoy the view. I then try to listen and I thought being a nerd meant that I am quite on top of the slang and trendy trivia, but most of the time I have no idea what they’re talking about. Through them, I have another gateway of integrating my self in, in these many years at home away from home. Most of them are married now and many have their own kids, alhamdule Allah. The work various jobs at various sectors, public and private, and their experiences are an additional resource I go to when I try to understand something about the community that I haven’t figured out yet. I even ask them for help with my kids. Look at that, my kids helping me with my kids. Alhamdule Allah.

Ok enough with the kids, let’s move on.

A

Another quite enjoyable journey for me was the Marvel MCU. I think from the first Iron Man that started in the era of my first article, to the conclusion with Avengers Endgame, the plan, the direction, the acting, the writing, for a geeky nerd like me, was great fun. I wish that the Snyderverse would have continued, had a strong start, great casting, looked promising. But unfortuntely we didn’t get to see that continues to rival Marvel MCU stuff, would’ve been quite fun. And speaking of super heros, I forgot to mention that I am now a cyborg. That’s right, I have a metal part in me now, it has no magnetic power, does not produce energy and is not even good for kicking.

And then came 2020, the launch of the great Covid-19. The global pandemic that changed everything. Just as it hit the UK with 4 cases, I was in a site where one of these 4 cases were first recorded, so I called work and they said just keep working from home. It was around the same time that I moved to East Grinstead. The situation just kept getting worse and worse, and we started to hear that family members and friends are ill with it. Sadly in its early days, I lost a cousin and a friend to Covid. Few months after, me, my wife, my mother and one of my two boys all had Covid, well before vaccinations were out. The best news I remember during that week is that one night I was isolating as my tests did not come back yet, and my wife woke me around 5:30 AM to tell me “come sleep in bed you test came positive, you also have Covid”. Thankfully we all survived it, but Covid did not stop, many other family members were hit and a couple were hit really badly. Those were very difficult times for my family, really hard. If you have lost someone to Covid, my heart goes to you and I give you my condolences.

Z

Covid pandemic was another great life lesson, humanity stood together. I never thought I would see that in my life, but humanity did stand together. If you take yourself out of the conspiracy theories and who did what and who created it, just focus on the positives, we helped each other. We followed the law, we listened, we adapted, we accepted the challange and we faced it. That in its own is the best proof that if we choose to go by we really can do so. We can work together and put aside our differences. Even the Earth healed during Covid times, as no flights were taking place at all, no commute, minimal trains, no cars, just no carbon fuel. Work from home became a norm, video conferencing meant anyone can work with anyone any where around the world. You could very well be part of a team that has members in multiple contenents, I am one :).

What more does humanity need than the lesson of Covid to use an example to just get along?

When I was a kid (oh my here we go again talking about kids), we used to play a card game called “The Game of the Intelligent People”. Simple trivia and general knowledge based game where you have to guess who is who or what is what, and one question resonated with me was “What was the first news agency”, and the answer was the British Broadcasting Corporation – AKA – The BBC. From then on I grew up and when I started having an interest in following local or global news and the internet made it finally to Iraq after 2003, BBC was my go to place. Even in Iraq, BBC was one of my most visited sites. They are not funded by a private billionaire or a political party, they are funded by the people. I pay for the BBC, if you live in the UK you very likely pay for the BBC too. Why would I bring that up you ask?, well because one of the worlds most authentic news and knowledge agency, have become one of the most corrupt, biased, double sided and multi faced new organisation. Ok but why would talk about it here, well because it reflects the sad reality of the world we live in now.

A

The world has gone much darker, and a lot scarier. Honesty is but a forgotten notion that you may hear about in a history documentary. Bravery will likely get you in jail for standing up for what is right. And the media, including the BBC, are the worst pushers of these dark agendas down our throats. Instead of having journalistic integrity, the new agencies choose to go with the trend. Like a social media site they look for whatever gives them more clicks or views. It is not about the truth anymore, it is not about the good of the people anymore, it is about delivering the agenda. Whose agenda you might ask?, who knows, I promise you even they do not know whose.

I still haven’t once lived under the rule of a genuinely good leader. Born in Iraq, Saddam was in power, came to the UK Tony blair – one of the two the destroyed Iraq – was in power. Since then, if my calculation is correct, I lived under the rule of 7 more prime ministers that one after one just drag and drag this country down from where it was before. Talking politics was not my intention as it could really get me in trouble these days, but it is quite difficult to avoid if I wanted to reflect on what has been going on in the last 5,258,880 minutes of my life. These days a tweet can mean the difference between you getting paid or not, having a job or not, or waking up to a bomb threat. We’ve seen tweets that were threatning annihalation.

I must ask you dear reader, to forgive me for not explaining the words and the letters I wrote between the paragraphs above. I’m clearly writing this article but I have Gaza in the back of my mind. How can I not talk about Gaza. I lived through 4 wars my self, I’ve seen many a death of family and friends because someone in a suit decided to bomb their area. But it was nothing like what my brothers and sisters in Gaza have faced. We’ve all witnessed the worst attrocities mankind can deliver. We’ve all seen Gaza. Despite the blackout, despite the gag orders and the media bias, brave men and women managed to show us what was going on for real on the ground. Amongst the many sad stories two of them made me jump at the time when I saw them. Rooh El-Rooh, which mean ‘the soul of my soul’ was what a grandfather holding his grandaughter saying to her. She was dead in his arms and sub7an Allah she still looked really beautiful. He was patient, he was strong, he was steadfast in accepting the reality that she has passed. Ya Abu El-Ez was a father calling his son with a nick name, ya abu al-ez, he was dead by his side and he was just crying that his young son is dead next to him. I will never be able to properly desribe those two incidents, but I just wanted to at least mention them here. There are many horrible stories that came out of that war, a war that again the media wants us to believe that it has stopped, but it really hasn’t.

And then, humanity stood together again. Pleople around the globe and especillay in the western world rallied in support of Gaza. Demonstrations by millions ran again and again in capitals, cities and universities calling for an end to the atrocities that the world had witnessed. I applaud all of you, and I am proud to say that I have witnessed your support first hand. Through the streets of London, the allys of Westmister and Trafalgar Square, the corners around the Houses of Parliament, I saw Christians, Muslims, Jews, and other backgrounds all standing together by their hundrends of thousands in one united goal, peace. People from all backgrounds were marching side by side, looking after each other, stading with one another, and calling to end the conflict. May this conflict end for the betterment of whole humanity insha Allah.

Hey Gpt!

Wa alaikum assalam, Kareem! 😊

Baghdad trivia: The famous House of Wisdom in Abbasid Baghdad helped preserve and expand knowledge in mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and philosophy, making the city one of the world’s great intellectual centres. ✨

Artifical Generative Intelligence. The birth of AI. The personal companion. The friend who will never tire. The library that will not dipleat. The robot that will take your job away. Towards the ends of 2022, OpenAI released GPT version 3.5, labelled it Chatgpt (not sure when) and that was the birth of the era of AI. I can tell you, for a geek like me this is about as fun as it gets working with computers. We have had machine learning and automation tools for years, but they were really written in-house, serving a specific tool or function. But AI took it to the next level. Anyone can write software now, and yes I really do mean anyone. AI can read your email inbox write your emails, help you translate, plan your day your week your month, monitor the weather, have a personality that you choose, follow your instruction to the letter, and as long as you have paid enough, it will be there for you.

AI can do a LOT more than that, with AI agents you can have a colleague, an engineer that just work for you to write code or prepare presentations, write legal documents, analyse your financials and really make a whole business plan. Instead of hiring someone to write your program, you can use AI, I mean you will need to learn how to do that a little bit but if you have an idea you really can “build” it.

You can run AI locally on modest hardware these days, and so as a geek I built a local AI for my kids, called it Murshid (means guide or teacher), and gave it as a 24/7 portal they can use to help them with their homework or coding ideas. They’ve really enjoyed it, and haven’t touched it in months.

The age of AI is going to be a major turning point in humanity’s history. It will take us to higher levels of knowlege, it will transform our abilities in medicine, agriculture, inftrastructure and architecture. I do not know if that will eventually lead to better life, in fact I doubt that it will, but if we want to it can do just that. If we had a common goal of building tools to help humans thrive and live a happy life, we really can do it these days. Alas, if there is one thing we learnt from the last 200 years, is that whenever humans discover a new technology they only spent their time and budget to weaponise it. And that was makes this really scary.

I think we should all brace for the few years ahead, they will decide how we all live our lives wherever we are. The world is not united, not by a long shot, but somehow the world economy is a lot more connected than how the world is united.

In the end, you can only do the best that you can do to live a decent life. Work hard and then work harder. Yup, work never stops. It can change but it will never stop. Every person has their own goal and I wish for you that your goal is achievable. But as it is with a football team, as is the case with Mo, no one can achieve their goals solo. I mean if you do then you are Superman. But you need support from family or friends. You need help from the people around you and do not shy away from it. They need it to, so provide it and give back to your community.

Which leads me to my final closing thoughts. I would not have managed to live one single day without the support of my family. Thankfully, Allah has blessed me with a large number of brothers and sisters, cousins and friends, best friends, kids, parents and a wife. My best friend who happened to be my cousin has always been the pillar of support in my life. My nephews and nieces are the river that flows through my chest. My friends who are always there for me. My cousins at home away from home. For both me and my wife together, our brothers, sisters, and parents, without you life is just not worth living.

And for my kids, my wife and my mother. You have cared for me in ways I cannot thank enough. But thank you for your patience and your never ending love.

And to you my dear reader, hope to see you again in 10 years insha Allah, let’s hope to make it to 15 readers next time.

Salam,

Kareem.

how many times have I said ‘home’

Kareem, you said “home” 16 times as a standalone word, case-insensitive. 😊