Category Archives: Iraq

Maliki drops the mask

Election 2008, Iraq, Iraq War


U.S. President George W. Bush walks with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki Tuesday, June 13, 2006, at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.

Maliki drops the mask
Jonathan Steele in Baghdad, The Guardian, Friday September 5, 2008

What’s up with Nouri al-Maliki? As security anxieties subside in this slowly calming city, political speculation has rarely been so intense. First, it was Maliki’s demand that all US troops leave Iraq by the end of 2011. Then came signs that his government wants to undermine the Sunni tribal militias, known as the Awakening councils, on whom the Americans have relied to defeat al-Qaida in Iraq. Now there are moves to take on the powerful Kurdish peshmerga troops and push them out of disputed areas in the strategic central province of Diyala.

Why is the prime minister doing this? Is “the puppet breaking his strings”, as one Arab newspaper put it? Or is the more appropriate metaphor “dropping the mask”? Those who knew Maliki in exile in Syria during Saddam Hussein’s time now recall that he opposed the US-led invasion. His Daawa party did not attend the eve-of-invasion conference of US- and UK-supported exiles in London, and he opposed the party’s decision six months later to join the hand-picked “governing council” set up by the first occupation overlord, Paul Bremer. Continue reading Maliki drops the mask →

Have Felix, will travel

Iran, Iraq, Orientalism, Photography, Syria, Travel, Turkey

In 1924 Major F. A. C. Forbes-Leith decided to drive a “motor-car” from London to India, a journey that took almost half a year to traverse ten countries. Overall, a total of 8,527 miles were covered, with 3,000 of them devoid of road or track and 1,500 over desert, not to mention detouring around 150 broken bridges. This was three years before Lindy flew from Mitchell Field (next to the university I currently teach at) to France. The rationale for a ridiculously long auto adventure? That was simple: no one had done it before. As Major Forbes-Leith puts it, “Airplanes had already flown to India on several occasions, airships for a regular mail service were in the course of construction, even one of the submarines of the Royal Navy was on its way, but as yet no effort had been made to bridge the distance by mechanical transport.”

Attempting such an adventure at the time no doubt took a sense of humor. In this case the auto was labeled “Felix” after the cartoon character Felix the Cat. Continue reading Have Felix, will travel →

Music in the World of Islam

Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Central Asia, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Malaysia, Morocco, Music and Dance, Syria, Teaching Resources, Turkey, Yemen

A year ago from August 8-13 an international conference on “Music in the World of Islam” was held in Assilah, Morocco, jointly sponsored by The Assilah Forum Foundation (Assilah, Morocco) and the Maison des Cultures du Monde (Paris, France). The papers from this conference are now available in pdf format online. Music and dance are described for Afghanistan, Algeria, Andalusia, Azerbeijan, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Central Asia, East Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kurdistan, Kuwait, Liberia, Malaysia, Morocco, Russia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey and Yemen.

A description of the conference is described by its main organizer, Pierre Bois: Continue reading Music in the World of Islam →

Colonizing Iraqi Cuisine

Food and Drink, Iraq, Journalism and Media

by Omar Dewachi

On April 23 , the New York Times published an article, “A Bit of Old Baghdad With a Western Twist,” in its ‘Dining and Wine’ section, reviewing La Kabbr, an Iraqi restaurant in New York City. Instead of drawing on an expert of Iraqi cuisine, the author of the article chose to focus on the Times Bureau Chief in Baghdad, now the editor of the world section of the Times Magazine, who had spent 4 years covering the war. The article celebrated how this restaurant in New York has become a “clubhouse for journalists and officials who have spent time in Baghdad, and for Iraqi expatriates and Iraqi-Americans.” Aparisim (Byline, Bobby) Ghosh the Baghdad Bureau chief seems to speak as an authority of Iraqi cuisine when he is quoted in the article saying:

“I wonder why Iraqi cuisine is not more sophisticated,” he said. “It is essentially peasant food, which I happen to love because it fits my palate perfectly. But intellectually, you wonder why, with all of its influences, the food isn’t more complex.”

Continue reading Colonizing Iraqi Cuisine →

Despair Drives Suicide Attacks by Iraqi Women

Ethics, Iraq, Iraq War

By ALISSA J. RUBIN, The New York Times, July 5, 2008

BAQUBA, Iraq — Wenza Ali Mutlaq walked a bit uncertainly up the long street near the main government offices here on June 22, the hot wind stirring her heavy black abaya. She passed the concrete barricades put up to ward off suicide car bombers and made her way alone, almost haphazardly.

Suddenly, a police car zoomed in. A policeman got out to talk with her. And then their lives were over — torn apart, along with 14 other people, by the huge blast of fire from her concealed explosive vest.

Ms. Mutlaq, who was in her 30s and whose attack was captured on a security video, was the 18th female suicide bomber of the war to strike in Diyala Province, which has been hit by female attackers much more frequently than any other province of Iraq, according to Iraqi police records and the American military. So far, 11 of the 20 suicide bombings carried out by women in Iraq this year have occurred in Diyala. Continue reading Despair Drives Suicide Attacks by Iraqi Women →

Iraq after a Millennium

Iraq, Iraq War, Islamic Sciences, Travel

There is an old saying, renewed whenever we reflect on contemporary politics: the more things change, the more they remain the same. A little over a millennium ago, the widely traveled scholar Shams al-Din Abu ‘Abd Allah Muhammad al-Muqaddasi wrote a geographical compendium of the world. He is as opinionated as any op-ed columnist, but also an astute observer of the foibles of his own time. So how did al-Muqaddasi, who had traversed much of the known Islamic world in his time, view Iraq? Here is his assessment; c’est la vie!

This is the region of men of refinement, the fountainhead of scholars. The water is delightful, the air marvelous; it is the chosen place of the khalifs. It produced Abu Hanifa, the jurist of jurisprudents; and Sufyan, the best of the Quranic Readers. From here came Abu ‘Ubayda, and al-Farra‘, and Abu ‘Amr, author of a system of Quranic reading. It is the birthplace of Hamza, and al-Kisa’i: of virtually every jurist, Reader, and litterateur; of notables, sages, thinkers, ascetics, distinguished people; of charming and quick-witted people. Here is the birthplace of Abraham, the Compansion of God, thither journeyed many noble Companions of the prophet. Is not al-Basra there, which can be compared to the entire world? and Baghdad, praised by all mankind? sublime al-Kufa and Samarra? Its river most certainly is of Paradise; and the dates of al-Basra cannot be forgotten. Its excellences are many and beyond count. The Sea of China touches its furthermost extremity, and the desert stretches along the edge of it, as you see. The Euphrates debouches within its limits.

Yet it is the home of dissension and high prices, every day it retrogresses; from injustice and taxes there is trouble, and distress. Its fruits are few, its vices many, and the oppression of the people is heavy.

[Excerpt from al-Muqaddasī, The Best Divisions for Knowledge of the Regions. Translated by Professor Basil Collins. Reading: Garnet Publishing, 2001.]

Me without my hijab

Gender and Sexuality, Iraq

Removing my head covering changed how I saw myself and the world.
By Zainab Mineeia, Los Angeles Times, June 8, 2008

When I came to this country, I took off my hijab. It wasn’t an easy decision. I worried at night that God would punish me for it. That’s what I had been taught would happen, and it filled me with fear.

I was 27, coming from my home country of Iraq to study in California. I hoped that by taking off the hijab I had been wearing for eight years, I would be able to maintain a low profile. In Baghdad, you keep a low profile to stay alive. But in the United States, I merely wanted not to be judged.

Still, I was filled with anxiety. As I flew toward the United States, I wondered how I would feel when the moment came to appear with my head uncovered. Continue reading Me without my hijab →