The Weekly Lift - March 23, 2023

The Editor's Page

Dear Readers

What in the world is happening in France? Sights of trash bags piled on the streets of Paris provide a gruesome visual perspective about the level of unrest currently affecting the entire country. The inclination for French people to take it to the street is not a new phenomenon. There are more strikes in France than in any other European country in an average year (79 days followed by Belgium, 57 days).

This time, the French (including sanitation workers) are mobilizing to protest President Macron’s pension reform. Since Elisabeth Borne, the Prime Minister, unveiled the reform, everyone in the country has had an opinion.

The reform’s main provision is to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64. The rule will kick in 2027 in six-month annual increments, reaching 64 in 2030. The reform also raises the required contribution for a full pension from 42 to 43 years. The reform does not affect professions that qualify for early retirement based on specific parameters (e.g., Police, Army).

The protests and opposition to the reform appear to unite the far right and far left because they assert that the reform will primarily affect the most underprivileged. Perhaps surprising is that President Macron, whose popularity is at an all-time low at 30%, had included this proposed reform in his presidential agenda during his reelection campaign and yet got re-elected, albeit by a relatively narrow margin.

Also, left-wing parties, including the once all-mighty Socialist Party, have been decimated in recent elections, moving France mostly to a centrist/centrist right country. These facts underscore a puzzling paradox where French voters reject liberal political agendas in the voting booth but endorse them on the streets.

Raising the retirement age is not unique to France as most countries have to grapple with longer life expectancy (almost 20 years since 1970), significantly burdening the pension systems. As birth rates slow down and fewer workers enter the labor market, these countries face a very challenging paradigm for sustaining these pension systems and avoiding large deficits. Workers fund retirement pensions. That is the arithmetic rule. With pensioners living longer, more people must enter the labor market or stay employed longer.

Even after being raised to 64, France’s retirement age is lower than the typical age people can access government-sponsored retirement benefits in other wealthy economies. According to the IMF, the statutory requirement for retirement is most often 65 in Europe. In the United States, access to full benefits is 66 years, increasing to 67 years for those born in 1960 or later.

Change is painful, but France is the country of the 1789 Revolution that has inspired transformation worldwide for centuries. Why is this reform striking such a chord, or is it just another layer added to the malaise that has built up for years and permeated French society?

This week, I watched a French movie titled “Full Time” (“A Plein Temps”) released in 2023, portraying the grueling life of a young single mother, Julie (played by the brilliant Laure Calamy from the “Call my Agent” series). She has two children, lives in the Paris suburbs, and works as a luxury hotel maid despite holding a higher education diploma from a prestigious French University. Ironically, the movie’s premise occurs during a nationwide transportation strike.

Is the political class in France failing to understand the struggles of the “Julies” and the working class, or have the French become unreasonably resistant to change? Mr. Macron’s principal argument is that the reform will help the country’s long-term competitiveness and ability to offer its citizens some of the most generous benefits in the developed world. Pensions already?represent 15.9 percent of France’s GDP, compared to the EU average of 13.6 percent and just 12.6 percent in Germany. Empirical and economic data do not seem to matter, as over 70% of the French disapprove of the plan.

Using presidential powers afforded by the Constitution, Mr. Macron passed the reform (see article below). However, he does not have much to celebrate, as there is no sign that the unrest is abating. The situation is perhaps reminiscent of President Obama using an executive order to pass Obamacare in 2010, almost 14 years ago.

The Weekly Lift believes it was one of the most positive and essential legislations impacting, if not revolutionizing, the American social construct of the last 20 years. The pension reform in France could be a good thing, but the popular reaction should give pause to the French leader. He should use that pause to watch “Full Time.”

Saad

Curated Articles*

Politics: French Government Survives No-Confidence Votes, Approves Divisive Pension Plan

The Los Angeles Times (US) reports that "Parliament adopted a?divisive pension bill?Monday raising the retirement age in France from 62 to 64, after lawmakers in the lower chamber rejected two no-confidence votes against the government.

But the bill pushed through by?President Emmanuel Macron?without lawmakers’ approval still faces a review by the Constitutional Council before it can be signed into law. The council has the power to reject articles within bills but usually approves them.

The first no-confidence motion, proposed by a small centrist group with support across the left, narrowly missed approval by National Assembly lawmakers Monday afternoon, garnering 278 of the 287 votes needed to pass. The second motion, brought by the far-right National Rally, won just 94 votes in the chamber.

Macron’s centrist alliance has more seats than any other group in the lower chamber. The speaker of the National Assembly, Yael Braun-Pivet, said the failure of both votes means Parliament has adopted the pension bill.

Yet this is not the end of the complex path to turn the bill into law. Opponents said they would ask the Constitutional Council to review the text before it is formally promulgated, opening the door to the possible rejection of articles within the measure if they are not in line with the constitution. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen said she would ask the council to censure it.

Macron, who has remained silent since his decision to push the bill through last week, will meet Tuesday morning with Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and the leaders of his centrist alliance.

After the first vote Monday, some leftist lawmakers called for Borne to resign.“Only nine votes are missing ... to bring both the government down and its reform down,” hard-left lawmaker Mathilde Panot said. “The government is already dead in the eyes of the French, it doesn’t have any legitimacy anymore.”

The Senate, dominated by conservatives who back the retirement plan, approved the legislation last week. The head of the Republicans’ lawmakers, Olivier Marleix, earlier explained why his group would reject the motions.

“We acknowledge the need for a reform to save our pension system and defend retirees’ purchasing power,” he said during the debate Monday afternoon. A minority of conservative lawmakers strayed from the party line and voted in favor of the first motion.

Centrist lawmaker Charles de Courson, whose allies introduced the motion supported by the left, deplored the government’s decision to use a special constitutional power to skirt a vote on the pension bill last week.

“How can we accept such contempt for Parliament? How can we accept such conditions to examine a text which will have lasting effects on the lives of millions of our fellow citizens?” he exclaimed.

France, like many richer nations, has a low birth rate and its citizens have longer life expectancy. The tensions in the political arena have been echoed on the streets, marked by intermittent?protests and strikes?in various sectors, including transportation, energy?and sanitation workers. Garbage in Paris has piled ever higher and reeked of rotting food on the 15th day of a strike by collectors. The three main incinerators serving the French capital have been mostly blocked, as has a garbage sorting center northwest of Paris.

On Monday, hundreds of mainly young protesters gathered by Les Invalides, the final resting place of Napoleon, to demonstrate against pension reform. Some trash bins were set on fire in early evening, but the protest was otherwise calm. Participants listened to the proceedings in the National Assembly through a channel broadcast on loudspeaker from a union van.

“The goal is to support the workers on strike in Paris ... to put pressure on this government that wants to pass this unjust, brutal and useless and ineffective law,” said Kamel Brahmi, of the leftist CGT union, speaking to workers with a bullhorn at the Romainville sorting plant.

Some refineries that supply gas stations also are at least partially blocked, and Transport Minister Clement Beaune said on France-Info radio Monday that he would take action if necessary to ensure that fuel still gets out.

Opinion polls show a large majority of the French oppose raising the retirement age. Economic challenges have prompted unrest across Western Europe, where many countries have low birthrates, leaving fewer young workers to sustain pensions for retirees. Spain’s leftist government joined with labor unions last week to announce a “historic” deal to save its pension system.

Spain’s Social Security Minister José Luis Escrivá said the French have a very different, unsustainable model. Spain’s workers already must stay on the job until at least 65 and won’t be asked to work longer — instead, their new deal increases employer contributions for higher-wage earners.

The reform in France also would require 43 years of work to earn a full pension at 64, otherwise workers would still have to wait until they turn 67. Unions in France have called for new nationwide protests on Thursday to demand the government simply withdraw the retirement bill.

“I know the questions and concerns that this reform is raising. I know what it asks of many of our fellow citizens,” Borne said Monday. Macron vowed to push the pension plan through, she said, out of “transparency” and “responsibility,” because it is needed to keep the system from diving into deficit amid France’s aging population."

International Relations: Amid Violence, Israeli And Palestinian Officials Meet to Promote Calm

The New York Times reports that "Israeli and Palestinian officials met in Egypt on Sunday, along with other Middle Eastern and United States representatives, in an effort to lower tensions and the potential for violent conflict during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which starts this week.

The meeting in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheikh came amid fears that this Ramadan could be a particularly violent time, after the deadliest start to a year in more than two decades for Palestinians and Israelis. So far in 2023, more than 80 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, according to Palestinian officials, most in?armed clashes?during arrest raids by Israeli forces, and about 14 Israelis have been killed in attacks by Palestinians.

A follow-up to a?similar meeting held in Jordan?last month — the first of its kind in years — the gathering in Egypt focused mainly on security issues and included discussion of how to improve the financial situation of the Palestinian Authority, the body that administers parts of the occupied West Bank.

The broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict was not on the table at Sharm el Sheikh. Peace talks have been stalled for nearly a decade, and Israel’s right-wing government includes far-right parties that reject any such dialogue and aspire to annex all of the occupied West Bank.

The Sharm el Sheikh meeting, like the one before it in Aqaba, Jordan, was convened with the more modest goal of promoting calm and stability after a bloody start to the year.

According to a statement released by the Egyptian foreign ministry after the meeting, the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships agreed to try to de-escalate tensions and uphold existing agreements and understandings between the two sides — including Palestinian autonomy in parts of the West Bank and a delicate arrangement about access to and worshiping rights at a contested holy site in Jerusalem.

The statement also said that Israel had agreed to delay any discussion about settlement construction in the West Bank for four months and to postpone for six months any retroactive authorization of settlements built without government permission.

But few expected the statement to be carried out in full. Its wording was very close to an earlier statement, released after the Jordan conference, which had little effect on the ground; violence on both sides continued to rise, as did Israeli incursions into Palestinian areas.

Violence is expected to worsen further during the fasting month of Ramadan, a volatile period when Israeli-Palestinian tensions have sometimes escalated into broader conflagrations and which this year overlaps with the Jewish festival of Passover. Both events will increase Jewish and Muslim visits to a holy site in Jerusalem that is at the heart of the conflict.

Even as the conference took place in Egypt, a Palestinian gunman wounded two Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, one of whom also had U.S. citizenship, according to the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Thomas R. Nides. The shooting occurred at the same roundabout in Huwara, a Palestinian town, where a Palestinian man shot dead two other Israelis as the conference in Jordan was being held.

The attack on Sunday prompted calls in Israel for the Israeli delegation to leave the conference early, and extremist settlers urged reprisals. “Erase Huwara. Now!”?wrote?Elisha Yered, an adviser to a far-right lawmaker in the governing coalition. “As long as we don’t address this, we will continue to be murdered in the streets.”

Last month’s shooting led to a wave of?settler arson attacks?on Palestinian homes in Huwara, and there were fears of similar reprisals in the coming days, even before the start of Ramadan.

In May 2021,?clashes in Jerusalem?during Ramadan exploded into an 11-day war between Israel and militant Palestinian groups in Gaza and an unusual burst of?interethnic mob violence?inside Israel.

There is particular concern this year about the potential for conflict at the Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, one of the holiest sites in Islam. It sits atop what Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary and Jews call the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, where two ancient temples stood. The location has been the focal point of repeated clashes in recent years.

During Ramadan, which begins at sunset on Wednesday, Muslims gather by the thousands every evening to pray at the Aqsa Mosque. This year the Jewish holiday of Passover, which also draws people to the mount, falls during Ramadan, starting on April 5.

Jews have increasingly ascended the mount in recent years and have started to hold prayers in the courtyard, despite a decades-old understanding that non-Muslims can visit the sacred compound but not pray there.

In an apparent sign of low expectations from the Sharm el Sheikh meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel did not refer to it explicitly on Sunday in his broadcast remarks at the start of his weekly cabinet meeting.

Instead, he spoke about the “struggle against terrorism,” saying: “Our forces are active around the clock in order to settle accounts with the terrorists and thwart terrorist infrastructure. Dozens of terrorists have been eliminated in the past month; many others have been arrested.”

Violence spiked last month even as the Aqaba meeting was underway. A Palestinian gunman killed two Israeli settlers in the West Bank, and that night settlers?responded?by burning and vandalizing scores of buildings and cars in several Palestinian villages, killing one Palestinian man.

Last week an Israeli man was seriously wounded when a?roadside bomb?was detonated in northern Israel. Israeli security forces said that they had shot dead a man they accused of planting the bomb and that he had probably infiltrated the country from southern Lebanon, in one of the most unusual security incidents along that border in years.

The Palestinian delegation to Sharm el Sheikh came under domestic pressure not to attend Sunday’s meeting after Israeli undercover forces on Thursday fatally shot two armed Palestinian militants who were their apparent targets, in the commercial center of Jenin in the northern West Bank, and then killed another armed Palestinian and a bystander as they were being chased by an angry crowd.

Hussein al-Sheikh, a senior Palestinian official,?said?the Palestinian delegation was attending the meeting in order to “defend the rights of our Palestinian people to freedom and independence and to demand an end to this continuous Israeli aggression against us.”

Barbara Leaf, the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, represented the United States at the gathering.

A Palestinian group in Gaza fired a rocket toward Israel on Saturday night. Israel did not immediately retaliate against Gaza, but Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an Iranian-backed militant group based there, accused Israel on Sunday of assassinating one of its senior members, Ali Al-Aswad, overnight in Damascus, Syria.

Hamas, the larger Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, issued a statement mourning Mr. Aswad, an engineer, saying his killing “bore the hallmarks of the Israeli occupation.” Israeli officials declined to comment.

The rising violence comes amid an internal crisis in Israel, where hundreds of thousands of people have been taking to the streets weekly to protest a government plan for a judicial overhaul that critics say will undermine the country’s democratic foundations.

Mr. Netanyahu discussed the overhaul with President Biden in a phone call on Sunday night, according to Mr. Netanyahu’s office. Mr. Biden and other U.S. officials have previously expressed reservations about the Israeli government’s forging ahead with judicial changes without securing society-wide consensus.

The crisis in Israel follows the Palestinian Authority's decision to partly suspend its security coordination with the Israeli security establishment, a mechanism that has helped curb spasms of past violence.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since capturing it in 1967. Palestinians have long envisaged it as part of a future, independent state, a view endorsed by the United States.

But Israel has tightened its grip on the territory, including expanding Jewish settlements there, fueling Palestinian anger. Most countries consider the settlements violations of international law.

At last month’s meeting in Jordan, Israel committed not to discuss the construction of new settlement housing for four months and not to authorize any new settlement outposts for six months, according to U.S. and Jordanian officials.

But the Israeli government, sworn in late last year, has promised to grant retroactive authorization to dozens of settlements that were erected without government permission, some of them decades ago.

Israel also made it clear that it would go ahead with the construction of nearly 10,000 new settlement housing units that were approved days before the Aqaba meeting."

International Relations: Former Taiwanese President To Visit Mainland China In Bid To Ease Tensions

The Los Angeles Times (US) reports that "former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou will visit China next week in what a spokesman called a bid to ease tensions between the self-ruled island and the mainland.?

Ma presided over a period of warm ties with Beijing, but?left office under a cloud?after a trade deal with the mainland failed to win approval amid the island’s largest protests since the 1990s. Although the former president is visiting in a private capacity, his stature as a former leader gives the trip political overtones.?

Ma’s proposed visit comes as China’s People Liberation Army?sends fighter jets toward Taiwan?on a near-daily basis, and as official communications between the two governments have broken off. China’s ruling government claims Taiwan is part of its territory, but Taiwan’s governing Democratic Progressive Party says it’s already a sovereign state that is not part of China.

Ma, a member of the opposition Nationalist Party, or Kuomingtang, will lead a delegation of academics and students as well as his former presidential staffers on a visit from March 27 to April 7, his office said Sunday.

The office of President Tsai Ing-wen said Ma had notified her of his plans Monday. Tsai’s office said it “hoped Ma, in his role as the former head of state ... can show the?value of Taiwan’s democracy and freedom?and the position of equality and dignity in cross-strait exchanges.”

Ma will visit Nanjing, Wuhan and Changsha, as well as other cities, Hsiao Hsu-tsen, the director of the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, told a news conference in Taipei on Monday.

Hsiao also announced that Ma would bring college students from Taiwan to meet with counterparts from Shanghai’s Fudan University and Changsha’s Hunan University.

“He strongly believes, as both sides of the [Taiwan] Strait have entered this frozen situation in recent years, allowing young people to have an exchange will help reduce tensions,” Hsiao said. “I think?no matter how many weapons we buy, it’s not as good as having young people from both sides understand each other and deepen their exchange.”

Ma will not go to Beijing, Hsiao said. The trip is also a chance for him to honor his ancestors, he added, ahead of Tomb Sweeping Day on April 5. During the festival, which is celebrated in Taiwan and China, among other countries, families pay a visit to ancestral graves to remember the deceased and to maintain the burial grounds.

Ma’s trip was also confirmed by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office. Any results are likely to be symbolic and will mostly benefit China, said Hoo Tiang Boon, a professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore who studies Chinese foreign policy. “Then they can then show they are not against Taiwan, they are not against the Taiwanese people,” he said. “It’s the DPP [the ruling Democratic Progressive Party] and what they deem?as separatists causing provocations?in cross-strait relations.”

Hoo added that he didn’t think it was likely the trip would influence Taiwan’s presidential elections next year.?Other experts agreed that the visit was unlikely to resolve any major issues, but it could still prove helpful.

Ma’s visit follows one by Andrew Hsia, vice chairman of the Kuomingtang, or KMT, who went on a 10-day tour of China in February and met with the head of the Taiwan Affairs Office.

Members of the KMT regularly have exchanges with China. Taipei Mayor Chiang Wang-an, who belongs to the KMT, hosted officials from Shanghai in February and discussed exchanges in culture, sports and tourism.?

“He’s not really representing the government to go and negotiate. I think he just wants to transmit the idea of peaceful exchange,” said Kao-cheng Wang, a professor at the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Tamkang University in Taiwan, referring to Ma’s plan to bring students. “This will be helpful to cross-strait relations and future development.”

During Ma’s terms in office,?Taiwan and China increased contacts. Ma negotiated a trade pact with Beijing in 2010, and Chinese tourists flocked to Taiwan. But as both sides opened their borders to each other, concerns grew that Taiwan was falling inescapably into Beijing’s orbit, eventually leading to protests over a proposed trade deal with Beijing in 2014. The protests, known as the Sunflower Movement, sparked a rally that drew more than 200,000 people and a 24-day occupation of Taiwan’s parliament by students.

Ma met with Chinese President Xi Jinping?in Singapore in 2015, while he was still in office. The meeting was the first between the leaders of the two sides since Taiwan split from mainland China in 1949 during the Chinese civil war, but was considered more symbolic than substantive.

In 2016, the independence-leaning DPP won national elections, and Beijing cut off contact with Taiwan’s government, citing Tsai’s refusal to endorse the idea that Taiwan and China are part of one country."

Global Development: How An East African Country Became An Odd Sort Of Global powerhouse

The Economist (UK) reports that "red-eyed?damsels, pole dancers, two-bit hookers, hot-legs foxy gotcha, woolly buggers, drunk and disorderly, Mrs Simpson and orange boobies are not what you might think.

They are just a few of the colourful, dexterously tied flies that fishing folk cast from their rods to lure trout and salmon in the rivers of Scotland, South Carolina, Russia’s Kola peninsula and beyond. What these wacky names have in common is that they are among several thousand fluffy but lethal creations that have made Kenya a global hub of fly-tying.

Johnny Onslow, a 67-year-old retired head teacher whose fly-tying firm near the Kenyan town of Rongai is called Gone Fishing, reckons that at least 60% of the world’s supply of artificial flies tied to little fish-hooks is made in Kenya. No one really knows, because there are thousands of freelance tyers who do not register with Kenya’s tax authorities.?

This unusual cottage industry was started in the 1930s by a young Briton in what was then the colony of Kenya after he had broken his back in England playing rugby. Sent to recuperate in the clement African climate, he found that tying flies was a good way for an immobilised fishing fan to keep up his spirits. As his health improved, the hobby gradually became a business.?

Nowadays there are scores of workshops dotted across the country, where entrepreneurial Kenyans of all ethnicities, from freelance tyers in sheds to employers of more than a hundred at long tables, meet orders from as far afield as Chile, Estonia and New Zealand. By far the biggest markets, however, are in north America and western Europe.?

As the reputation of Kenya’s fly-tyers has spread farther afield, rival firms have sprung up in the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. Kenyans reckon their ingenuity (those names), speedy delivery, reliability and modest wages should keep them ahead.

No one yet has discovered a mechanised method to replace the fiddly business of wrapping silk and cotton around delicate creations of feather, tinsel and fur to simulate a buzzing insect so convincingly that it whets the appetite of greedy trout.?

Most of the workers are paid piecemeal for the number of flies they tie. The official minimum monthly wage for such jobs in small towns is only around 19,000 Kenya shillings (about $146), and even less in the countryside.

Some firms pay more than twice this rate when nimbler tyers exceed their targets, but even that is still cheap by global standards. Mr Onslow makes a point of hiring a number of disabled workers.?

This offers a lesson to other African countries fishing for exports. By dominating a niche, Kenya’s fly-tyers have hooked their customers, lined up a growing market and left competitors sinking."

Peace Building: Twenty Years After U.S. Invasion, Young Iraqis See Signs Of hope

El Pais (Spain) reports that "along the Tigris River, young Iraqi men and women in jeans and sneakers danced with joyous abandon on a recent evening to a local rapper as the sun set behind them. It’s a world away from the terror that followed the U.S. invasion 20 years ago.

Iraq’s capital is full of life, its residents enjoying a rare peaceful interlude in a painful modern history. The city’s open-air book market is crammed with shoppers. Affluent young men cruise muscle cars. A few glitzy buildings sparkle where bombs once fell.

President George W. Bush?called the?U.S.-led invasion launched March 20, 2003,?a mission to free the Iraqi people. It threw out a dictator whose rule kept 20 million people in fear for a quarter-century. But it also broke a unified state in the heart of the Arab world. About 300,000 Iraqis were killed between 2003 and 2023, along with more than 8,000 U.S. military, contractors and civilians.

Half of today’s population isn’t old enough to remember life under Saddam Hussein. In interviews from Baghdad to Fallujah, young Iraqis deplored the chaos that followed Saddam’s ouster, but many were hopeful about nascent freedoms and opportunities.

In a chandeliered reception room, President Abdul Latif Rashid, who assumed office in October, spoke glowingly of Iraq’s prospects. Perception of Iraq as a war-torn country is frozen in time, he told The Associated Press: Iraq is rich; peace has returned. If young people are “a little bit patient, I think life will improve drastically in Iraq.”

Most Iraqis aren’t nearly as bullish. Conversations start with bitterness about how the U.S. left Iraq in tatters. But speaking to younger Iraqis, one senses a generation ready to turn a page.

Safaa Rashid, 26, is a writer who talks politics with friends at a coffee shop in Baghdad’s Karada district. After the invasion, Iraq lay broken, violence reigning, he said. Today is different; he and like-minded peers freely talk about solutions. “I think the young people will try to fix this situation.”

Noor Alhuda Saad, 26, a Ph.D. candidate and political activist, says her generation has been leading protests decrying corruption, demanding services and seeking inclusive elections — and they won’t stop until they’ve built a better Iraq.

Blast walls have given way to billboards, restaurants, cafes, shopping centers. With 7 million inhabitants, Baghdad is the Middle East’s second-largest city; streets teem with commerce.

In northern and western Iraq, there are occasional clashes with remnants of the Islamic State group. It’s but one of Iraq’s lingering problems. Another is corruption; a 2022 audit found a network of former officials and businessmen stole $2.5 billion.

In 2019-20, young people protested against corruption and lack of services. After 600 were killed by government forces and militias, parliament agreed to election changes to allow more groups to share power.

The sun bakes down on Fallujah, the main city of the Anbar region — once a hotbed of activity for al-Qaida of Iraq and, later, the Islamic State group. Beneath the girders of the city’s bridge across the Euphrates, three 18-year-olds return home from school for lunch.

In 2004, this bridge was the site of a gruesome tableau. Four Americans from military contractor Blackwater were ambushed, their bodies dragged through the street and hung. For the 18-year-olds, it’s a story they’ve heard from families — irrelevant to their lives.

One wants to be a pilot, two aspire to be doctors. Their focus is on good grades. Fallujah gleams with apartments, hospitals, amusement parks, a promenade. But officials were wary of letting Western reporters wander unescorted, a sign of lingering uncertainty.

“We lost a lot — whole families,” said Dr. Huthifa Alissawi, a mosque leader recalling the war years. These days, he enjoys the security: “If it stays like now, it is perfect.”

Sadr City, a working-class suburb in eastern Baghdad, is home to more than 1.5 million people. On a pollution-choked avenue, two friends have side-by-side shops. Haider al-Saady, 28, fixes tires. Ali al-Mummadwi, 22, sells lumber.

They scoff when told of the Iraqi president’s promises that life will be better. “It is all talk,” al-Saady said. His companion agrees: “Saddam was a dictator, but the people were living better, peacefully.”

Khalifa OG raps about difficulties of life and satirizes authority, but isn’t blatantly political. A song he performed next to the Tigris mocks “sheikhs” wielding power in the new Iraq through wealth or connections.

Abdullah Rubaie, 24, could barely contain his excitement. “Peace for sure makes it easier” for parties like this, he said. His stepbrother Ahmed Rubaie, 30, agreed.“We had a lot of pain ... it had to stop,” Ahmed Rubaie said. These young people say sectarian hatred is a thing of the past. They’re unafraid to make their voices heard.

Mohammed Zuad Khaman, 18, toils in his family’s café in a poor Baghdad neighborhood. He resents the militias’ hold on power as an obstacle to his sports career. Khaman’s a footballer but says he can’t play in Baghdad’s amateur clubs — he has no “in” with militia-related gangs. “If only I could get to London, I would have a different life.”

The new Iraq offers more promise for educated young Iraqis like Muammel Sharba, 38. A lecturer at Middle Technical University in once violence-torn Baquba, Sharba left Iraq for Hungary to earn a Ph.D. on an Iraqi scholarship. He returned last year, planning to fulfill obligations to his university and then move back to Hungary.

Sharba became a biker in Hungary but never imagined he could pursue his passion at home. Now, he’s found a cycling community. He notices better technology and less bureaucracy, too. So he plans to remain.

“I don’t think European countries were always as they are now,” he said. “I believe that we need to go through these steps, too.”

*Please note that certain headlines and articles may have been modified or summarized to fit the newsletter's format.

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