Iraqi reality TV shows.....

Has anyone seen this documentary on the Discovery Channel? There's one show called 'Labor and Materials' which is sort of based on those home improvement shows in the UK. Except this part is kind of sad...because instead of having your neighbor redecorate your bathroom - the show solicits donations from the viewers to rebuild your home after it was destroyed by the Americans.

This part really pissed me off though. They were interviewing one woman whose home was destroyed during the war - and she went to the Americans who told her that it wasn't their problem - she would have to go to the Iraqi government. So she bounces back and forth between the Iraqi government and the US occupation - and finally the Iraqi govt just tells her that they can't do anything because there is no money for rebuilding.

From a purely financial pov - where the fuck have all the hundreds of billions of dollars spent by the US on reconstruction contracts gone? There obviously isn't any lying around for rebuilding people's homes. And actually forget homes - entire neighborhoods were carpet bombed during the war.

So this Iraqi woman named Shaima Zubair came up with the idea of having a reality TV show that would go around and help people rebuild their homes and it's support for the show is coming entirely from locals in and around Baghdad. The donations count as zakat - which is the one-fifth of yearly income all devout muslims must give to charity.

Here's a link to an article on her show in the Christian Science Monitor.