Twenty years after the US invasion that overthrew the US regime Saddam Hussein, Images of the dictator are nearly impossible to find in today’s Baghdad. During his years at the helm of the country, Saddam imposed a brutal cult of personality, filling the capital with statues and grand portraits of himself: as a soldier, as a civilian, as a grand father figure to all Iraqis. The cult of personality was stifling and pervaded every corner, from the walls of shops to wristwatches adorned with his face. Before the occupation, a museum in Baghdad entirely devoted to his figure displayed his collection of weapons, small objects from his biography such as the first Ba’ath party card, and many photographs: portraits of life stages from school age. world leaders and poses in one of the hundreds of luxurious palaces he has built around the country. Today, after touring Baghdad for a few days, it’s the only photo of Saddam I’ve ever seen. It was in a second-hand bookstore near Al-Mutanabi Street. On the cover of the Arabic translation of John Nixon’s book ‘Information from the President: The Interrogation of Saddam Hussein’ published a few years agoThe first CIA agent to interrogate Saddam after he was captured by US soldiers in a bunker in Tikrit. dictator’s hometown
For example, none There is no portrait of Saddam in Shahbandar cafe, The flag of several classical intellectual cafes resisting on Al Rasheed street and its environs, the soul of immortal Baghdad. It’s worth it, because Shahbandar’s walls are filled with poets, writers, and philosophers, as well as Ottoman-era politicians and the last Iraqi ruler, King II. Covered with old black and white photographs of Faisal. There is no room for Saddam in large Iraqi social circles, let alone what remains of the Arab world’s most powerful intellectual stratum. Only on the streets of some Sunni cities and neighborhoods of Baghdad they nostalgically utter the typical phrase of all countries suffering from long dictatorships: “Life was better with Saddam”. But they are a minority.
water pipes and tea
Shabandar is not a cafe where you can find that nostalgia. decoration, worn leather and wooden furniture and teapots that darken over timeIt’s deceiving: it looks and smells ancient, the blend of hookah tobacco flavors and classic lemon tea is pure Baghdad. In reality, it was rebuilt in the look and likeness of the original cafe that opened in 1917 following the March 2007 car bomb attack on Al Mutanabi Street. Twenty people died in the attack, including four children and the owner’s grandchild. . Today, the name of the place is Café de los Mártires Shabandar.
Traces of this 20-year misfortune can be found in every corner of Baghdad: the US occupation and occupation, the insurgency, civil wars, the emergence of the Islamic State and the struggle against the caliphate. In some neighborhoods, such as Adamiya, some concrete walls remain, erected to separate communities and prevent further bloodshed from sectarian hatred. After the invasion, the Green Zone, Saddam’s presidential palace complex, which became the heart of the occupation and then the institutions of the new Iraq, has recently reopened to the city, and even so. access is controlled by heavily armed soldiers from elite counter-terrorism forces Trained by Western potentials and hardened in the bloody war against the Islamic State.
To access some mixed neighborhoods, you still have to go through security checks by the police and the Army, and ministries and institutions such as the Central Bank, university, hospitals, embassies, political party centres, foreign establishments such as the French Institute, and hotels. It is strongly guarded by barricades, walls, armed surveillance and metal detectors (like those symbolic for the international Palestinian and Sheraton press). Landing at the international airport is easy; To leave the country, you need to overcome five security checks. In the same way, it is necessary to pass through metal detectors in order to reach the modern shopping centers opened by foreign investors or new Iraqi wealth in recent years.
The same thing happens in one of Saddam’s former palaces, which has been converted into a shopping center on the banks of the Tigris. – with bowling alley, restaurants and shops – with an undeniable aroma of Arabian kitsch. While women in headscarves and veils wander through the mall, children gather in front of a toy and trinket shop, whose door is accompanied by life-size figures of Marvel heroes: The Hulk and Captain America. Yes, It’s easier to find pictures of Captain America in Baghdad today than it is to find pictures of Saddam Hussein.
Messi portraits
Or Leo Messi. The billboards of the Argentine football player who lifted the World Cup are frequented by the Baghdad buildings. Credit card and credit card advertising campaigns are still a paradox in a country where banking transactions are almost nonexistent, life is paid in cash and counted according to fluctuations in the dinar exchange type. with dollars. Everyone, from the press to the few surviving souvenir vendors in the most touristy corners of the city, is complaining that the dollar is skyrocketing. Baghdad experienced a reverse gentrification process: Years ago there were shops selling jewelry, carpets, teapots and typical sweets, now sewing machines, clothes and shoes are sold. There is no tourism in the city, which has been frightened by uninterrupted violence for 20 years.
For this reason, there are no tourist barges on the two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. You can eat it masgouf (grilled carp) one of the pleasures the city refuses to give up on its shores. Even on the coast, you can’t escape the hum of traffic, horns and street vendor alerts, along with the hum of electric generators that play a dominant role in the city’s soundstage. Twenty years later, Baghdad, like the rest of the country, doesn’t have an electrical infrastructure to guarantee supply, so Baghdadians have gasoline-powered generators, which is one of the reasons the city’s pollution levels are so low. LONG. The other is hell traffic.
Despite the all-encompassing traffic, the bridges over the Tigris and Euphrates are one of the city’s privileged observatories. 20 years ago, Images of Baghdad under the bombs and the Marines taking over the city They covered televisions all over the world. Observing the rivers from the bridge today allows us to see how the flow has decreased with the effect of drought and climate change. This is another war approaching over Baghdad.