By Sara Elghobashy
December 9, 2009
Several months ago I watched a special on TV about the world’s most dangerous jobs. It featured vocations like gold miners, electrical power line installers, iron and steel workers, loggers, commercial fishermen. There is, however, one job that was apparently left off the list: Iraqi mailman.
Unlike a TV mailman, whose worst threat is a rambunctious dog, an Iraqi mailman has to face things like ... bomb explosions. Yet, that hasn’t prevented mailmen in Iraq from showing up to work day after day, which is really surprising considering most people would try to avoid a job with “must be open to potential death” in the description (yes, even in this economy). This kind of bravery should be applauded, especially for the mailmen who have already experienced blasts and still refuse to quit, as Al Arabiya points out.
But I have to be honest with you, when I initially read the Al Arabiya story, I thought, “Why are they writing about this?” Suicide attacks aren’t aimed directly at mailmen. They’re a threat to anyone on the streets. Is it that mailmen spend more time on the streets than most people? Then I realized that the story is about something bigger. It’s about a country that is trying to rebuild itself in the midst of violent attacks and the people that are helping it do that.
The reality is that most people in Iraq just want to see everything go back to normal, whatever normal is. If they allowed suicide bombers to scare them from everyday activities and routines, then they’ll be stuck in their current state for a long, long time. Delivering mail might seem like a small aspect of that, but it is a step toward rebuilding a functional society.
So hats off to you, Iraqi mailmen. Your efforts to help Iraq regain normalcy have not gone unnoticed. And who knows, maybe one day your worst fear will once again be just a paper cut.
Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images
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