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Guns and Gaiety

In the perennial battleground of Iraq lies a vibrant society which was once the hope and pride of the Middle East. India Today's Ashok Malik travels to the dream that died.

Iraq is a third world country with first world roads. Its highways, bridges and flyovers are comparable, in his writer's humble estimation, to even those of the United States. They leave
India far, far behind.

Lest you feel my stories of Saddam Hussein's country—which my photographer colleague, Fawzan Hussain, and I were fortunate
to visit in the third week of October—are likely to be no more than griping about how bad India is, hold on. The roads aside, there's little Saddam's regime has done that we found worth recommending.

The Great Dictator's popularity is impossible to measure on the basis of street conversations, raucous crowds and their
contrived cheering. Yet if Iraq is happy with its lot, it certainly fooled me. Iraqis are a proud people. One uses the phrase not in the cliched sense in which journalists turn to stock phrases but with a deliberate empathy.

Iraq stands alone among Arab countries in its edificiation of its pre-Islamic past. Babylon, just outside Baghdad, is a favourite picnic location for young people. Nineveh, near the northern city of Mosul, is an archaeological treasure the local governor preens about. Even the leader himself talks of the civilisational
continuity from Sumer to Saddam.

A decade of American-led economic sanctions has crippled Iraq, distorted its value system and caused social atrophy. America may be the arrogant superpower and may have no right to demand a "regime change". The fact is though Saddam has become a liability. His best years, as the benevolent patriarch, are behind him. In any case, you can't fight sheer strength. It's
a cruel world but if the price of Iraqi-American detente is the removal of Saddam, so be it.

It is popular to describe isolated and isolationist countries as "stagnant". That's putting it charitably; they don't stay where they are, they actually from Baghdad to Karbala—one of Islam's holiest sites and of particular significance to Shias—Fawzan and I realised nobody in the car was wearing seat belts. The highway looked empty enough but we were driving at 110-120 kmh.

"Don't you use seat belts in Iraq?" I asked Abbas, our driver. He laughed, "No, no. We are brave people." Were there no rules making seat belts obligatory? Ten years ago, Abbas sighed, you could be fined upto 10,000 dinars—$ 5 at today's prices—for not wearing seat belts. Today, the regulations still exist but nobody bothers to enforce them.

Certainly Abbas himself has other things to think and feel nostalgic about. When the Gulf War began in 1991, he owned three spanking new cars and rented them out to tourists. Now, he's left with one ancient Toyota, which he drives around the city himself, looking for anyone who may want to hail a cab.

Does Abbas like Saddam? "Yes, yes, of course, I voted for him." So did apparently almost 12 million other Iraqis in the October 22 election in which Saddam says he won every single vote. Farewell Abbas; my friend, you are such a fine actor.

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