Without Direction

Ahmad Shawkat was an Iraqi man who spent his entire life fighting for freedom. As a professor, he sought to teach his students freedom of thought. As a newspaper editor in the post-Saddam era, he wrote and defended democracy. As a man, he died because he wanted so badly to help the Iraqi people learn how to live free. During the regime he was brutally tortured and after its collapse he was murdered in cold blood.

After Saddam was removed from power, Ahmad was able to come up with the financial support to start the newspaper he had always envisioned himself writing. It would be his way of influencing the post-Saddam Iraqi situation. He chose to name his paper Bilattijah, translated as "Without Direction", and this is an excerpt of the first essay:

"Directions have become multiple with varied colors and pathways. Ordinary men are no longer able to recognize a direction or delineate a path to reach their desired goal. In every direction they look there is a spring flood extending as far as the eye can see. They cannot tell where the ground is firm. But they must set out across the flood. Thus we have to go off without direction!"

It is in honor of Ahmad and his sacrifice that I have named this blog Without Direction. What he said extends across continents and to the US. In this day and age, truth and morality have become so muddled that there seems to way to accomplish anything of significance. Political correctness has weakened us to the point of impotence. It is across these muddy waters that I hope to set out.

(Information taken from Ahmad's War, Ahmad's Peace by Michael Goldfarb)