[Peace-discuss] direct from Baghdad

[Ricky Baldwin]

[A good friend of mine wrote this.  - RB]

 
NOV 20, 2003
ARNIE'S NO.1 ARAB FAN
This Iraqi sees hope in 'the Arnold' 
By Annia Ciezadlo 
FOR THE STRAITS TIMES 

BAGHDAD - To Mr Sabah Taleb Mehdi, who lost everything
under Iraq's brutal regime, Mr Arnold Schwarzenegger
is the anti-Saddam Hussein.

Mr Mehdi, who is training the Iraqi national
bodybuilding team for the Mr Asia competition, owns
Baghdad's only professional bodybuilding gym. 

When Saddam's regime fell, Mr Mehdi, 43, did something
the dictator would never allow: He named his gym
'Arnold Classic', after Mr Schwarzenegger.

'The most important thing is that we got rid of the
old oppressive regime,' he said.

In his youth, Mr Mehdi was a Mr Asia bodybuilding
champ. For a time, he was Saddam's favoured
bodybuilding trainer. Then he fell from grace and was
forced to flee the country. 

But he has remained faithful to 'the Arnold man', whom
he has worshiped for some 30 years.

Mr Mehdi used to be a scrawny Baghdad teenager who
kept scrapbooks of Mr Schwarzenegger, a Mr Olympia,
and dreamed of being like him someday. 

With Mr Schwarzenegger as his inspiration, he started
working out. 

If it was not for bodybuilding, Mr Mehdi would have
been sent to the front line when the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq
war broke out. 

Instead, he won a special gold medal that year as the
youngest contestant in the Mr Asia competition. 

He won Iraq's national bodybuilding championship every
year from 1977 to 1990. He trained the Iraqi national
bodybuilding team for the Olympics and other world
championships. 

He wrote fan letters to Arnold, and once even got a
reply from Mr Schwarzenegger himself, addressed 'To my
only friend among the Arabs'.

Saddam's two sons, Uday and Qusay, went to Mr Mehdi to
get rippling muscles. He would not say if they used
steroids.

'That's another story,' he said, grimacing fearfully.
But he did say that Uday wanted to look good without
doing much work. 'They just wanted to build up their
bodies fast, they didn't want to work hard.'

And being trainer to the regime's elite had its risks.
Saddam's henchmen tried to take over his club,
ordering him to close it to his regular customers. 

After he dared to criticise some of the rulers'
relatives for their laziness, Mr Mehdi fell out of
favour.

Fearing for his life, he fled to Malaysia. He lived
there for six years, without his wife and children,
sneaking back every two years to visit them. 

In 2000, he moved back to Baghdad and tried to rebuild
his life. He bought a gym in the city's dilapidated
downtown, just blocks from the giant statue of Saddam
in Firdous Square. 

When he tried to name the gym after Mr Schwarzenegger,
Uday's Olympic Committee would not allow it. It was
not until April, when Saddam's statue fell, that he
got his wish.

The night Mr Schwarzenegger was elected governor of
California, Mr Mehdi and his bodybuilding friends
stayed up until four in the morning watching the
election returns in the gym. 'When I found out he
won,' said Mr Mehdi, 'I was crying with joy.'

In California's election, Mr Mehdi sees hope for Iraq.
'Inside Iraq, perhaps there's a man just like the
Arnold, who will try to lead our country in peace.'


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Copyright @ 2003 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights
reserved. 

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