Mutanabi Street

It's been over a month since the bombing of the market in Baghdad's Mutanabi St., and in that time the insurgents have moved on to other horrific bombings--chlorine trucks, a bridge over the Tigris, a U.S. outpost in Baquba, the Iraqi Parliament in the Green Zone. But I keep thinking about Mutanabi Street--Baghdad's second-hand book market, devastated by explosion and fire, splattered with blood and body parts, torn and burning pages drifting with the smoke.

Next to the loss of human life, does it matter what merchandise was destroyed, what particular kind of merchant was attacked? Of course not. And maybe it's just because I'm a bookseller myself that this one stands out a little in relief. But I think it says something about the nature of the conflict. While there's nothing sacred about books, there's little military value in them either, and it takes a certain touch of nihilism to target a bookseller's market.

Journalists and military people have remarked on the ferocity of this conflict--the torture inflicted by death squads, the slaughter of civilians, the use of women and even children in bombings. It seems to have gone beyond a mere struggle for power. It seems as though this society is hacking at its own roots. Or perhaps more to the point, it's divided into two societies, each hacking without mercy at the other's roots, not caring that they are intertwined with its own.