by J. R. Practix

Abbasid: (1) adj. of or relating to a dynasty of caliphs who ruled in Baghdad from 750 to 1258.  (2)  n.: a member of this dynasty.

I remember a time when the mention of guns would conjure in my youthful immaturity the concept of cops and robbers. Also, I guess, was a flash or two of soldiers.

It was simpler. As a young kid, I would finish my breakfast hurriedly and head outside on a summer’s day to play all around the neighborhood with my friends, to return for a lunch of a grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of yucky tomato soup, to then run out the door again and play and play with wild abandon.

I didn’t have a monitor on me to make sure I wouldn’t be abducted, nor did my mother worry about whether the neighbors were perverts.

Now, you see, some of them WERE. Perverts aren’t new. We didn’t come up with them in the past twenty years. It’s just that perverts were aware that they were odd–and tended to hide their predilections away from the neighborhood.

The reason I bring this up is because when I read the word “Baghdad” in the definition, I thought about how much that word has changed in my mind over the years. When I was a kid, Baghdad was a place in stories where people rode camels and when they got tired of moving so slowly, they leapt upon magic carpets.

It was cool. It was magical.

I didn’t know they were Muslims … because I didn’t know what a Muslim was. I didn’t know they hated America … because why would you hate us when you’ve got TENTS that look small on the outside but when you walk inside, they’re palaces? I didn’t know their women were subjected and mistreated. In the stories, they were all princesses.

Move ahead a little bit and Baghdad turns into kind of a stronghold for some guy named Saddam, who lives next door to another strong-arm dude named the Shah of Iran–but we’re told it’s cool because they’re our allies. This, of course, pleased me. Because they were our friends, we had a lifetime supply of magic carpets available to us.

Then we find out the Shah is a jerk and Saddam is kind of crazy–followed by some of their people abandoning their carpets and jumping into our jets and flying into our big buildings–and those folks from Baghdad suddenly become our enemies. Since then, my public perception of this place has been going constantly downhill.

It’s too bad.

Maybe Baghdad people never WERE Ali Baba, but I’m sure they’re not all Ali Bad-Bad either. I’ll never know, will I? I’ll never get the chance to find out about their caliphs and their Abbasids, because basically they’re our enemies–or is it now our friends? It’s hard to keep up.

There are not a whole lot of things I would like to return to. I certainly think that knowledge has progressed us, holding back the tide of disease and stupidity, but it would be nice to recapture some of the trust and gentleness we felt towards our fellow-man–even those in Baghdad.