BASRA — Fatima Haydar al-Shibil is finally waking up from the nightmare that haunted her entire life. Her alcoholic husband has abused her and her children for years, but now they feel safer as he is much less likely to reach his addiction, since Iraq’s southern governorate of Basra banned the sale of liquor.
“When he was younger, he was a very religious person but since he started to drink our lives became a hell,” Shibil, a 57-year-old Basra resident.
“I know that everything is linked with the alcohol and for this reason I’m very happy with the ban.”
The Basra provincial council passed a decree last month stating that "anyone selling liquor, drinking in public, making or importing alcohol in Basra" would be fined five million dinars ($4,270).
Iraq's Clandestine Alcohol Business
Elsewhere in Iraq, including in the capital Baghdad, the sale and consumption of alcohol is authorised. Officials affirmed that the decision is based on the constitution, which bans anything that violates the principles of Islam.
“We are banning something that goes against he pillars of Islam,” Ahmed al-Sulayti, Basra’s deputy governor, told IOL.
“As far as Islam is the base of our constitution, such decision is legal and an example for the other regions of Iraq.”
Soon after the decision, the Basra authorities shut down some of the liquor shops widely spread in Iraq's third largest city.
“We don’t want to affect no one,” asserts Sulayti.
“We are just trying to keep stability, reinforce our religion that is the pillar of this society and prevent alcohol from entering Muslim homes.”
Islam takes an uncompromising stand in prohibiting intoxicants. It forbids Muslims from drinking or even selling alcohol.
The general rule in Islam is that any beverage that get people intoxicated when taken is unlawful, both in small and large quantities, whether it is alcohol, drugs, fermented raisin drink or something else.
Protective
Some say that the ban will not stop the spread of alcohol in Basra, but will only make the black market thrive. “People will continue drinking products from the black market even if they get it with a higher price, they are willing to pay for it,” Ali Shammar, who is an alcohol consumer himself, said.
Abdel-Kareem al-Jannabi, a political analyst and teacher at Basra University, agrees.
“Banning wont solve problems but will make the black market very wealthy in Iraq,” he said.
But other Iraqis disagree, saying that the ban would be a step to protect their families and beloved ones.
“Such habits are brought from the West and we have the obligation to protect our families from temptation,” Muhammad al-Mutawr, a 51-year-old dentist, said.
“I hope that like in Basra, we can have this prohibition countywide.”
Alcohol consumption is reaching worrying levels in Iraq, especially among youths of different social classes and genders.
Any person can buy the intoxicating products without being asked to prove his age.
During Saddam Hussein’s regime, alcohol consumption in public places was forbidden.
But in 2005, the Ministry of Interior abolished Saddam's alcohol, nightclubs and casinos restriction law, which was introduced in the 90's.
Now bars, pubs and liquor stores, once shut down by militant groups after the 2003 invasion, are back to business and proliferating.
Hussein al-Firayjat, a cigarette seller, also believes the bang would prevent youth exposure to alcohol that might indirectly force them to become addicts.
“When you give the chance to youth to choose between drinking or not, sometimes curiosity will drive them to try it,” he explains.
“But with the banning, we would be able to sleep well, because our children will be protected.”
For Shibil, the alcoholic’s wife, the chances that her husband finds his way to liquor through the black market will be much less than before.
“I know there are many women suffering with the same problem and are thanking God for this opportunity to live the rest of their lives with the dignity that alcohol wasn’t giving them.”
| Daily News | We Are On... |
