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<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Robert Frank, City Editor frank@heraldnet.com   Published: Sunday, July 9, 2006 Iraqi brothers struggle with desire to return home By Julie Muhlstein / Herald Columnist Back in 2002, six months before U.S. bombs fell on Baghdad, a group of Iraqis shared their thoughts about the looming threat of war. Van Dinh-Kuno, executive director of the Refugee and Immigrant Forum of Snohomish County, arranged for an interpreter to accompany me to a home in Everett's Grandview area. One man did most of the talking for the group, which included teenagers from several families. Kathem Alameedi spoke in Arabic that day. I was surprised by his adamant support for the Bush administration's push to remove Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein by any means. Since then, I've considered finding some of those people to learn if their views have changed. The other day, one of them found me. I was at a north Everett baseball field near Wiggums Hollow Park for another article. A young man was doing maintenance work. "Remember me?" he said. I didn't remember, not until he explained he'd been one of the teens at the Iraqi home I visited nearly four years ago. Abdulrahman Al-Maly is 20 now. A 2004 graduate of Everett High School, he's been working this summer for the Everett Housing Authority. In August, he'll travel to his homeland. He'll go to the city of Samawa, south of Baghdad, the place he left at age 4. Beyond that, his plans are fluid. He is torn between two lands, two cultures, and two very different futures. After his family fled Iraq, where his father's opposition made him a target of Hussein's tyrannical Baathist regime, they spent four years in a Saudi Arabian refugee camp. His parents, Teleb Al-Maly and Al-Hussain Fleha, brought their family to Everett when Abdulrahman was 9. An aunt had preceded them here. "Everett is my home now," he said. "If I go to Seattle, it feels good to come back here." Yet he feels the pull of Iraq, where he still has relatives. He visited Iraq in the summer of 2004, and calls it "home sweet home." With Iraq's new government forming, he envisions starting a business there someday. Asked to picture his future, he said, "That's a good question. I don't know. I've got two homes." Abdulrahman Al-Maly, known to friends as "Rahman," and his 23-year-old brother, Mohammed Al-Maly, met with me Wednesday at the Everett Housing Authority's Grandview Our Place recreation center, where Mohammed works with a children's program. Mohammed Al-Maly's future is more settled than his brother's. He has a child to raise, and feels it's best for them to live here. Still, he favors Abdulrahman's choice, and added that their parents' age and health prevents them from returning home now. "He needs to go back there," Mohammed said of his brother. "There will be millions of opportunities. Everything there will be new." Mohammed said the time may not be right for his brother to stay in Iraq. After the fall of Saddam, he said, "a lot of people went back, but they have come back here." Like our country as a whole, these brothers are somewhat at odds over whether U.S. troops should leave Iraq soon or stay longer. "It's really confusing right now," Abdulrahman Al-Maly said. "They took Saddam out, and they're not running the country right now. Maybe they're staying for no reason. The Iraqi people voted, and should be running the country now." Mohammed Al-Maly countered that while "some people say Iraq would be better if they leave, I think the U.S. will always have troops there." He mentioned the American military presence in Japan and Germany since the end of World War II. "It's the heart of the Middle East. With American troops, no one will mess with Iraq," he said. While both men have friends, family and productive lives here, Mohammed Al-Maly said they sometimes see an ugly side of this country. Last week, he stopped for gas near Everett Mall. When he went in to pay for it, he said he heard a woman mutter, "You should go back to your own country." She should be ashamed. Abdulrahman and Mohammed Al-Maly would be a credit to whichever country they choose as home. Like their elders did four years ago, they once again had me questioning my anti-war views. "With Saddam gone, we have hope," Mohammed Al-Maly said. "It might take five, 10 or 15 years, but there is hope without Saddam." Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.

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