Real Funny Stories from My Crazy City

The crazy city is Basra, and it may seem an odd place to find funny stories — it's one of the most violent in Iraq, with Shi'ite militias fighting for control of the enormous oil wealth in the southern part of the country.

The title was provided by NPR's "stringer" — our contract reporter — in Basra, the man who has to report the bombings, gunfights and near-daily assassinations that are the staple of news from his city. For his own safety, I won't mention his name, but he's a good observer, albeit with an ad hoc command of English grammar and spelling. Every now and then he gets tired of reporting mayhem and sends us an e-mail about things that strike him as funny, weird or revealing about his home place.

Stop me if you've heard this one:


The Two Minarets Mosque

The famous mosque in Basra is the Two Minarets Mosque(since 1920) , all Basra people called it by this famous name and when you hire taxi ,you told the taxi driver to drop you at The two Minarets Mosque, but you would astonish when you reached the area where the mosque located, because there is no minarets over the mosque !!!!!!!!!!

Okay, maybe it's only funny in the way that people in the U.S. like to show off their local quirks and native peculiarities (I'm thinking of Fairbanks, Alaska, here, but feel free to insert the name of your own home town). Maybe it's only minor comic relief, given how bad things are in southern Iraq's largest city, where two Sunni mosques and their minarets were blown up this summer in revenge for the bombing of a Shi'ite Shrine in northern Iraq.

This one points up a phenomenon that's common throughout Iraq: people in cars do not "buckle up for safety":


It is Strange to put the Car Seat Belt

In Al Jazeer roundabout, one of the trade streets in Basra, one of the traffic policemen stopped one of the cars aside and called his colleague: "Come Hussain!" "What happened?" his colleague answer. "Look at this driver, he puts the car seat belt !!!!!!!!!!!"

It's so unusual to wear your seat belt in Iraq that visitors riding in cars in Baghdad are advised not to do it, because wearing a seat belt is a dead giveaway that you're a foreigner:

Basra is controlled by rival Shi'ite militias that have imposed a strict form of Islamic religious law, called Sharia. Barbers, for instance, have been killed in Basra for shaving men's beards or giving Western-style haircuts. The laws also apply to eating certain foods:


Eating chickens against Islamic Sharia (instruction)

After 2003, the Islamic instructions (Sharia) spread in bad methods and one of the Fatwas (decrees) was, "it is forbidden to eat imported chickens," and most of radical extreme muslims believe on this Fatwa..but, the funny in this, they eat the eggs belong to this chickens.!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Since the days of the muzzle-loaded musket, guns have been the noise-makers of choice in Iraq — and throughout the Arab world — whenever there's a celebration. Every victory of the national soccer team has been followed by a fusillade of gunfire, mostly from the ubiquitous Kalashnikov automatic rifle, also known as the AK-47. This next story points out that bullets fired into the air inevitably come down somewhere:


Wedding Parties kill visitors

klashincoves are our symbol in wedding celebration to express happiness during wedding parties..but always these happiness turn into deep sorrow because and as always one or may be two(of happy people) of the bridegroom relatives died through the celebration because of hot bullets and instead of wedding party they put funeral tents according to Iraqi habits!!!!!!!!!!!

By now you'll have noticed that the multiple exclamation marks are the equivalent of the drummer's "ba-da-boom!" in a stand-up comedy club — your signal to laugh or throw up your hands in dismay.

This is the mordant humor of despair, like the jokes from Soviet Russia about a society where thieves and fools have gotten the upper hand. Basrenes love to poke fun at incompetent bureaucrats:


Automatic Electrical ladder

One of Basra Province Council who works in Reconstruction Department and he was among delegation to Amman to attend Reconstruction Startegic Plans to develop Southern Area .And when they want to go to departure room in Basra airport he refused to go up the automatic electrical ladder because he scared to put one of his feet on first step of the ladder ..his colleagues (Province Council members) tried to persuade him but he insisited not to go up this ladder..and he stayed to be the last person ..and finally the ladder servant cut the power from the ladder to let him go.. Note: this man will participate in putting plans to develop the city in modern scientific methods)!!!!!!!!.I don't know what happened in Amman ladders!!!.

It must have been interesting; escalators in Amman, Jordan, don't usually have an attendant standing by to turn them off.

People in Basra, like people in the U.S., also have their secret vices — watching sensational satellite TV news channels instead of getting their news from reliable sources:


We hate Al Sharqiya and Al jazeeras tvs in public

All of us in Iraq has ambiguity personality i.e we love some thing but we pretend we hate the same thing in public because we can not challenge , and our general features is coward (or many faces) and for this reason Saddam Hussein torture us 35 years and we obeyed him and always said (Yes Majesty ) to him .. All of us watching Al Sharqiya and Al Jazeera tvs and in every morning people explain what had seen on these two tvs. And in the final of their speech they say: Sharqiya is bad tv don't 'atch it.

Al-Jazeera ("the [Arabian] Peninsula") is the satellite TV channel based in Qatar and financed by that country's emir. It's been attacked by U.S. officials, such as former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, for airing videos of Osama bin Laden and stories critical of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Al-Sharqiya ("the Easterner") is an Iraqi-owned satellite channel that broadcasts from Dubai. It stirred controversy last year when on-air staff members wore black clothing that could be construed as mourning attire when reporting the hanging of Saddam Hussein.

You'll note that this edition of "Real funny stories from my crazy city" is labeled Part 2. We're not sure why. No one seems to remember getting Part 1, and we haven't heard back yet from our friend in Basra. If we find it, we'll let you know.

Corey Flintoff recently returned from a reporting stint in

Basrah is in south of Iraq , its a city that have suffered a lot of destruction and its ppl have already went through too many horrible events .. at least lets look at what happened to this city since 1980 Ok?
Iran war , Basrah got most of the war heat for the south , it was unsafe to live there at all and Basrah ppl had to move out of their city to live in other places in schools and hospitals and government offices and such .. I remember ppl from Basrah living my kindergarden when I was like 5 or something and most of them had to get help from others and from the government cos they have almost lost every thing .. it was a battle field , and ugly one and it didnt really get safe as how I remember .. and after the war finished " Iraq / Iran " war at 1988.Their suffering didnt come to an end they had to deal with something new at 1990/1991 .. Saddam got us into Kuwait this time .. and there was a new war . am talking about ppl , real ppl .. am trying to talk on a human level .. Basrah ppl have had to get in the middle of things they have nothing to do with...
illegal weapons have ben used by the American army back at 1990/1991 and the south of Iraq and Basrah have had the lion share .. Babies were born with severe deformations as a result of that plus that older ppl have had unnamed diseases , Cancer was the least of what they had.
Then the embargo that effected all Iraq and Iraqis in general .
Ppl of Basrah have already went though alot at the time and they really did/do much more even after so I think it would be fair to talk about that be4 so that others would know.
How ever on another level...
Basrah could be named as " OIL " ocean! cos thats what it is . OIL wells .. OIL . OIL . OIL.
So imagine the "influence" "others" would want to have on this city and on its ppl.
The ways and plans those " others " would do and would think of to get it happen can take for ever talking about , cos it would .. its important on so many levels so the plans have to be on its importance level.

I have an issue with using the name of religions or beliefs with some "thing" and by some " ones " that know nothing about it and have nothing to do with them . I just dont appreciate it that "human beings" do that.. Politic is politic and terrorism is terrorism .. and it has nothing to do with what God wants! so lets name things as how it is cos using the right words to describe things would be always better in my way of thinking..
""Shi'ite militias"" where the heck did they come from??sorry if am using a bad language .. but seriously .. where did they come from and WHEN did they APPEAR to be??
I have never heard about such type of ppl until 2003 and the years after so what does this tells us?

Eating chickens against Islamic Sharia???
Hmmmmm.. lets be fair and talk about why shall we..it wouldnt take that much time to explain as the rest of what we have here on this post..
"Islamic" belief is certain about every thing " unless u r some one who thinks that religion should work out the way u want and the other way around "
so as for meat matter , in Islam u need to eat " halal " meat .. and it means that the animal should be slaughtered from the neck, why is that ?first of all and for those who thinks its a bad thing to do for an animal , the animal wouldnt feel pain more than (( 3 )) seconds cos there would be no blood to reach for the brain and so there would be no more pain .. ask about it.
second the blood that gets out of the animal body would carry away all the bad " stuff " that is being kept in the blood as well , the blood if kept in the animal body would do bad especially if not kept in very low temperature.ask about that one as well to be sure. so thats what "Halal" meat is ALMOST all about , plus so many others things ... so thats why they have a " problem " and an " issue " with chicken imported from other non-muslim countries. no reason to make an "issue" with eating imported eggs however.
Wedding Parties kill visitors, Now that have always been a problem.. according to old cultures and communities such like Iraq .. weapons have been there always .. in the good/bad times .. its part of the culture to celebrate weddings and at the old days they used to use horses and swords and things like that to show off and such things, u may need to read abit more about it to know what I mean.. so with the " development " of weapons guess how things " decided " to be like at such events ..
I believe its dangerous to use weapons and I do not agree on using them at weddings at all.
Automatic Electrical ladder,,, well would do u want me to say .. if that doesnt tells u about the men in charge of Iraq now days then what else should ?
My power is off now .. I will try to come back later to finish what I have started .. hahahaha ..
its a juicy subject what can I say more...