House of Hafhidh

[Sept 29, 2003] - On L.A. trip was touched by much. One thing that touched me was the death of L.A. Times reporter Mark Fineman on Tuesday Sept 23, 2003. Covering the military police action in Iraq, he felt a chest pain, and then died of a heart attack, apparently engaging sources in conversation til about the end. With Rose of Sharon upon us, let us picture that he moved on up a little higher in the cosmic order.

Sitting in the Biltmore basement sports bar that night – as Red Sox battled Orioles – I read the story Fineman wrote. His story was both workmanlike and brilliant – it came in under the radar of the general news data stream - with full dark melodious knowledge that Fineman filed for the morning edition of that sunny warm day he would not see the end of. “Open Investment Policy Looks Like ‘World Occupation’ to Iraq Merchants” is the article. The story is largely wrapped about the plight of a couple of Iraqi merchants [kings of the Sanyo and Sony TV market, black and other] who are seeing their world slipping away. He went to the house of Al Hafidh General Trading Co. run by Waleed and Hani and he saw it’s fit in the unfolding scheme of things.

He was talking to the entrepreneur brothers who are distressed about the prospect of a majority foreign ownership of Iraqi industries – particularly banking. The background: As part of the Administration’s efforts to make Iraq a Beacon in the Dessert [for Western style democracy and commerce if not religion and culture] the Coalition Provisional Authority [CPA] decided to open up Iraq markets – this although the Brothers Hafidh had daily met with the Bremer directorate to lobby against this matter.

Nationalism wars with Globalism. Maybe til the end of time. Who is the good guy? It is daunting for even Americans to grok on the fact that foreigners may own Rockefeller Center [skating on thin ice!] or the Columbia Back Catalog [don’t tell the ghost of Bill Monroe!].

More at work here in this war than mere democratization. Insertion of Western style world-scale economics is as much a part of this effort, Fineman’s article indicates, than the push to remove Hussein the butcher, or Hussein the terrorist assassin, or Hussein the WMD-maker.

The story is fair – we hear the other side. To undo decades of sanctions and war, foreign investment would be helpful, at least theoretically, the writer notes.

Yeah, maybe the Hadfidh brothers are due for a downturn – but they have some interesting things to say – things that would echo for Brooklyn merchants as well, and Fineman dug this up and put it in a context. It is a good bit of journalism. Moves the story of man along. Like listening to Otis Redding after he died.

*          *          *

At the Chapel of Our Lady of the Angels, an adobe colored sculpture passed Frank Geary’s silver-Dali-slabbed philharmonic house that is the home church of the L.A. bishop, I heard in the Sunday sun the words of James:

“Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from?

Is it not from you passions that make war within your members?

You covet but you do not possess.

You kill and envy but you cannot obtain;

You fight and wage war.

You do not possess because you do not ask.”

 Got mom some marmalade at that there church.

Open Investment in Iraq - LATimes, Sept 23, 2003 [reg req]
Mark Fineman, 51 - LATimes, Sept 24, 2003

Last update: 9/29/2003; 11:37:08 AM.