Khor Abdullah Belongs to the Honorable, Not Just to the Memory of History

1 أغسطس , 2025

By Retired Naval Major General Faisal Hammadi Ghadban
July 26, 2025

مشاهدة المقالة

مشاهدة المقالة

1. The Sumerians and Babylonians were among the earliest peoples in human history who realized the importance of recording events—not merely for administrative or commercial purposes, but to preserve the collective memory of humankind. As early as the third millennium BCE, they understood that history was not just a narrative, but an identity, a lesson, and a legacy. The Sumerians were the pioneers of written history; they invented cuneiform script on clay tablets around 3200 BCE. They documented major events, contracts, treaties, and religious stories—such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest epic known, which immortalizes the journey of a Sumerian king in his quest for immortality. Humanity transitioned from merely telling stories to writing them down so they would not be forgotten. Iraqis are not the children of a silent civilization, but the descendants of those who wrote the world before it knew writing. The Sumerians and Babylonians were not just lords of civilization—they were the first to record history and consider it a mirror of nations. They sought to eternalize their deeds and achievements so that future generations could learn from them. This is clearly reflected in cuneiform texts, which show the great importance they placed on remembering history and learning from it. This emphasis is also seen in the introduction to the Epic of Gilgamesh, where the hero brings tidings from times before the Great Flood and inscribes all he endured and learned on a stone tablet to ensure his name would live on forever. The Babylonian sense of historical consciousness is also evident in the words of a Babylonian scribe addressing whoever might find the memorial box containing the tablets of Gilgamesh, which was buried in the foundation of the city of Uruk: “Seek the box made of bronze, open its lid, then take the lapis lazuli tablet inside and read it—it is the story of Gilgamesh, the man who challenged all odds.”
2. A reflective and analytical view of history and its documentation reveals that it combines philosophical understanding with civilizational depth. History is not merely a chronicle of past events—it is the memory of nations and a driver of human consciousness. Those who write history do more than recount facts—they shape identity and influence how the present is understood and how the future is built. Since antiquity, great civilizations recognized the necessity of documentation—not as an intellectual luxury, but as a means of preserving human experience and avoiding repeated mistakes. Let us remember: “Who we were, to know who we are.” Let us judge the act, not the actor, and seek understanding, not revenge. Nations that fail to write their history will have it written by their enemies—or it will vanish into silence. History was born written, not just spoken.
3. History is not only the past—it is a mirror through which each nation sees its true face. Those who fail to face their history honestly will remain trapped in cycles of repetition and error. Writing history is not simply compiling narratives—it is an art of analysis and reflection, an attempt to understand why things happened and what lessons we can draw from them. In an age of falsification, writing history becomes a moral responsibility. Not everyone who writes history is a historian, and not everyone who remains silent is innocent. In a world where narratives clash, honest writing remains an act of resistance against forgetting and lies. History is not written with ink alone—it is written with courage, truth, and awareness. When we write it, we are not merely recording the past—we are shaping what is to come.
4. If Khor Abdullah becomes part of a stolen history and the memory of a wounded homeland, then one day it may be written that, “In the early 21st century, Iraq had a maritime gateway known as Khor Abdullah. It was not just a waterway, but a sovereign lifeline and a rightful part of our geography and history.” But when voices faded, and politicians conceded under the pressure of agreements and deals, the Khor was lost—just like lands and dreams before it. The loss was not only of water, but of dignity—when the homeland was measured by political gain instead of sovereign principles. Some were silent out of ignorance, others out of fear, and some even legitimized the concession in the name of law. Thus, generations were left to read about Khor Abdullah not on maps, but on pages of sorrow and betrayal.
5. A message to future generations:
   You who may one day read this, know that homelands are not taken all at once—they are stripped away, artery by artery, as long as their people remain silent. Khor Abdullah was not merely water, but a symbol of a lost voice—a responsibility shared by the people, politicians, and governments. If Khor Abdullah becomes a matter of history, it will be written as a page of concession shrouded in complicity and betrayal.
   Remember: we once wrote history as masters of the sea, and now we read it as the pain of losing Khor Abdullah—through submission and compliance, from the glory of the word to the treachery of the signature. Thus, we moved from recording glory to relinquishing it—between the pride of our ancestors and the disgrace of our descendants.
   Its story will be recorded in the mirror of history—history that many today live in darkness without knowing the achievements that came before. The setback of Khor Abdullah was not simply a legal amendment or a reinterpretation of an agreement—it was a stab in the nation’s side, an outright theft of sovereignty from a people who had long endured. It was not just the loss of a maritime passage, but a loss of dignity, a killing of will, making silence an act of betrayal and justification a declared collusion.
   History will ask: how were the seas lost? Who stayed silent when the voice was worth more than gold? Who signed while the nation cried for help?
   Khor Abdullah is a stolen sovereignty. Record it for history: Iraq will not remain silent, not forever. Rights are never lost when claimed—and that is a national duty for future generations.
   Will the event remain a colored dot on the map—or the start of an awakening?
   The choice lies with the free.
   #KhorAbdullahWillRemainIraqi
   “And remind, for indeed the reminder benefits the believers.”