Overnight at Rasheed Hotel, Baghdad, 13 November 1999

When I came back from the "restored" ancient city of Babylon, everyone didn't say anything, and I kept thinking about "cuneiform". The modern fakes seen on the city walls are reminiscent of the real carvings of the local ancients four or five thousand years ago. Thanks to the efforts of archaeologists in deciphering the cuneiform script, we know that there are real verses in this clay tablet.

These most primitive verses show that the theme of calamity and disharmony in this land was already four or five thousand years ago, and that this cruel theme inevitably had a fragile and pitiful emotional effect. For example, anonymous poets are often looking for their goddesses:

O our goddess,

When will you return to this desolate homeland?

The goddess also answered:

He chased me,

I fled from the temple like a bird;

He chased me,

I fled the city like a bird.

Alas, my hometown,

It's too far away from me!

It was the weakest sound that came out of here four or five thousand years ago.

Following this old poetry, we decided that we must find an elementary school and a children's hospital today.

It was soon granted, because the authorities here were willing to complain to the outside world about the bombing, encirclement, and embargo imposed on them by the United States, Britain, and other multinational forces and the United Nations.

Children are always exciting. When we walked into the classroom of one of Baghdad's supposedly best elementary schools, the children were led by their teachers to shout in unison: "Down with America!" Against the embargo! Don't hurt us! Long live President Saddam! After shouting, he sat with his hands folded on his chest, which was different from the way we sat in the classroom when we were children with our hands behind our backs. Most of the children had bad faces, looking at us with deep, big eyes and no smiles, which is very different from children of the same age in other parts of the world.

Lu Yu bent down and asked a boy in the front row to take out the textbook to take a look, the boy took out the textbook wrapped in plastic paper, but there were many broken pages inside. The teacher explained on the side that the broken pages of the textbook were not caused by this child, due to the embargo, there was no paper, and the textbook could only be used up in one grade and handed over to the next grade.

This kind of detail made us very sad, and we immediately remembered that when we were in Jordan, we heard an old man say that it would be better to send a little stationery to an Iraqi child if he saw him. We really bought some, went to the car and took them out, and each of us was given some pencils, erasers, pencil sharpeners, etc. The little things are stuffed into a pair of soft little hands, and I really regret bringing too little.

When I went to the playground, I saw that a class was in physical education class, girls were skipping rope, and boys were playing football. I walked over to the boy and picked up the ball and slapped it on the ground, but it was completely bounced, it turned out to be a cracked hard plastic ball. The teacher said that there were still three such broken plastic balls left in the school, and they wouldn't be able to kick for long.

We know that this is the best school, and we don't know what the situation will be in other schools, and in Iraq, the percentage of children out of school is probably not a small number. When officials were asked here, the answer was that there were no out-of-school children, and only a few dropped out of school. This is obviously not true, just look at any street corner in broad daylight. When we left the elementary school, we saw two boys pushing a large flatbed truck by at the door, Gui Ping hurriedly stopped them, Lu Yu rushed over and asked, it was the brothers, the elder brother was thirteen years old, he stopped generously to answer the question, and the younger brother went to pull the two flatbed trucks on the side of the road.

This brother has curly hair, a dark face, and shy and mature eyes, and at a glance he knows that he has borne a heavy burden of life. Asked why he didn't study, he calmly said that his father died in the war, and there was a mother and sister at home. This succinct answer silenced us all.

I took two ballpoint pens out of my pocket and stuffed them into the brothers' hands, trying to say something, but I didn't say anything. Yes, child, you may not be literate or use a ballpoint pen, but your ancestors were the first people in the world to invent writing. When you are free to pull the cart, even if you draw a few strokes like your ancestors carved cuneiform, this intention comes from the people in your east who invented the oracle bone inscription.

When I went to the children's hospital, I felt even more uncomfortable. So many seriously ill children, many still babies, waiting for medicines, which are embargoed. There was a mother in black sitting on each bed in the ward, holding her child expressionlessly, Lu Yu wanted to open the topic and asked a mother: "Such a young child is sick like this, you must be ...... in your heart" Before the words were finished, the mother burst into tears and couldn't cry. Lu Yu wanted to apologize, but he already had tears in his eyes.

We wanted to leave some money for each mother in the ward, but as soon as we found out, we were sternly stopped by the person in charge of the hospital. I had to get out of the room and wander the hallway. In the corridors, there are many posters with children's themes, one with the title: "The embargo kills Iraqi children", and the other with the title "Remember", which depicts the big eyes of a baby.

There were a lot of different words pouring out of my mind, and I couldn't make sense for a while—

I would say that many international punishments, for which the justification may be just, but in the end, it is a large group of the most innocent people who are really the recipients of the punishments. The person you most want to punish is still with the wealth of the world's top rich people and lives the most luxurious life in the world.

International punishment can certainly cause economic chaos in a country, but for a totalitarian country, such chaos can better enrich a class of people who use power for personal gain. Do you think that a prolonged period of extreme poverty can foster people's revolt against the regime? No, the truth is that people can adapt to anything, including poverty, when they lack the freedom to choose; The direct consequence of poverty is not rebellion, but the loss of dignity, and groups that have lost their dignity are more able to accept totalitarian rule.

Some people also know that the ultimate recipient of punishment is the people, but they think that the suffering of the people is a psychological punishment for the rulers, which is also a kind of wishful thinking. Whipping a son can make a father sad, but the relationship between the ruler and the people here is not that of the father and the son, or even the president and the electorate in your mind.

Of course, I would like to say something about another aspect as well. You are known as the lion of our time, and you dare to resist the siege of dozens of countries. But since you are a dignified man, why do you always put the most poor children and women in front of you to make propaganda and arouse the pity of others? How can you do the opposite for men who have to protect children and women even if they suffer themselves?

All of the above is just the sentiment of a literati, and it is insignificant, and I think there will be no difficulty in publishing it outside of this country.

I think I have the right to express these sentiments, as a pilgrim of Babylonian civilization. Babylon is related to the whole world, and everything that is in sight is related to Babylon.