Ringers Are The Sound Of Iraqi Divide

For an indication of just how sharply Iraq is splitting along sectarian lines, one need only hang out with supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and wait for them to get a call on their cell phones.

The most popular ring tones are songs put out by leading Shiite pop stars especially for the cell phone market, which is huge because the regular phones don't work all that well, and often not at all.

One by a singer named Aly al-Delfi includes such stirring lines as "for this day we have raised you up... with your rocket launcher you can settle it... when he saw the Americans he did not stay in bed... he felt patriotic and turned into a machine gun."

They are put together in professional-looking if under-equipped studios in Sadr City and are among the hottest items in phone shops there.

Known as "Muqtadeetones," a play on the cleric's name, some of the more popular ones include such sing-along lines as "Muqtada where is the one who is against you... we will cut him to pieces... those who fought you are idiots... just let us know Sayed Muqtada and we will cut them to pieces."

A customer in one shop, who would not give his name, said the tones were better than what he called "silly rings" because "they express a love for one of the symbols in Iraq," and "when people choose this tone they feel they are in touch with Muqtada."

One of the best sellers, according to a store owner who would only give his name as Mohammed, is called "The Hero of the Mehdi Army."

"People like it because it started with the uprising," Mohammed said, a reference to the battles last year between Muqtada al-Sadr's militia and the U.S. and Iraqi forces. That a man whom U.S. military briefers routinely used to say they intended to "kill or capture" is now a pop idol is a telling statement on how much things have changed here, and not in the way that was intended.

One day last week outside the new "national unity" parliament the cell phone of a female Shiite politician rang with one of the tones. A Sunni politician nearby took umbrage, which led to a fist fight between his body guards and those of the cell phone owner.

The offended lady, Ghafran al-Saidi, demanded an apology and tried to take over the floor of Parliament to demand satisfaction. She persisted so long and so loud that the speaker of the assembly, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, coincidentally a Sunni, ordered the assembly microphones turned off and the cameras that were broadcasting the session pointed at the chandelier.

But a politician is as hard to silence as an annoying ring tone, and Ms al-Saidi simply called a press conference and eventually forced a parliamentary inquiry. It will be headed by outgoing Prime Minister, Ibrahim al-Jafaari. The fact that even such a seemingly small and silly slight has to be taken so seriously is another indication of how brittle relations between Iraq's two main religious communities remain.
Allen Pizzey