Iraqi refugee on Trump and Saddam

Jalal al Fartoossi, photo by Eline de Zeeuw/NOS

Today, on the site of Dutch NOS TV, there is an interview with Jalal al Fartoossi, an Iraqi refugee who owns a barbershop near Washington, D.C. in the USA.

When Jalal, now 33, was six years old, the Saddam Hussein regime killed his father. After George W Bush’s invasion of Iraq, the United States armed forces offered him a job as a translator. This made Jalal in the eyes of many Iraqis a traitor, a collaborator with occupation. So, in 2010, he fled Iraq to the USA. He says now about George W Bush’s war that it killed Saddam, ‘but brought hundreds of Saddams’. That is still less than the ‘1,000 Saddams’ estimate by Ali Abbas, another Iraqi refugee.

Jalal had said to his wife in Iraq that she might join him once the barbershop would make enough money. Recently, the time was right. Jalal’s wife would come, with a visa. Then, Donald Trump’s travel ban came. It devastated Jalal.

Then, Jalal heard that a court in San Francisco had decided against Trump’s travel ban. ‘Now, my wife will be able to come! I am so happy!’