Baghdad is drowning in the seas of its mayoralty

Before we take a dive into the oceans of the Iraqi capital's mayoralty, let's start out by remembering that Baghdad is smaller than the smallest Arab capital. Its borders have been shrunk by improvised decrees adopted by various Baghdadi authorities over the years, with the aim of reducing the area covered by services, intensifying the government's efforts to give the capital the best possible care and guarantee improvement. Falling between the two stools, the city's authorities are yet to realise that it is not reduction that matters, but delivering and choosing the right person for the right job. And so the government has jumped to the Mayor's defence, boasting about his extraordinary talents and unmatched abilities in development, even claiming that the Americans demanded his experience  and know-how on loan tasking him with handling Hurricane Sandy. As far as we are concerned, the Mayor is the Superman of hurricanes and storms and the go-to man for natural disasters on all planets and in all galaxies. But we were caught unawares when he drowned in the depths of the capital's streets after the first heavy rain, sweeping through it like a raging deluge. Special mechanisms for pumping water off the city streets came to a halt and the Baghdadi authorities failed to drain the water toward the Tigris on the banks of which lay the Seas of Karkh and the Rusafa Lakes. One heavy rain was enough to expose the Mayor - without his new clothes. If one visits the Jordanian capital Amman, one feels that it is built on twisted, undulating ground full of ups and downs, but still it is never affected by rain even when it lasts for weeks on end, despite it not lying on the banks of a river or a sea. Its drainage system sucks the water away to the last raindrop. Bizarrely, all Iraqi cities drowned on the same day in solidarity with Baghdad, with floods sweeping through them simultaneously, taking with them all the false promises, bombastic orations and fragile plans. The homes of the powers that be were safe from the deluge, so they stood on the shore looking out to the Seas of the Baghdad Mayoralty. They did not criticise the Mayor or hold him responsible, but they did deal with the crisis by issuing a snap decree awarding us a rain break. "Cometh the hour, cometh the man,” they say, and this was several hours of rain that were sufficient to drown the whole city. But they will not let go of the former mayor and they have not criticised him. They may also give him a third and fourth chance yet. The top municipal official in the Japanese city of Kobe committed suicide when he realised he was unable to provide a steady water-supply to the people of his city. Maybe we shall all commit suicide in tribute and appreciation of the efforts of the Baghdad mayor and his mayoralty. Maybe we should excuse his shortcomings, teaching ourselves and our children to learn the fine art of urban [and tunnel] swimming. We could take up the hobby of mayoral fishing, provided by the mayorality which first introduced the flow of catfish into the hallways and corridors of our homes. We waited for them to announce that Baghdad was a disaster area, but instead they gave us a disaster. They halted the city’s businesses with a so-called “forced rain break.” --- The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.