January 17th - Writers
A group of writers, artists and others, some of them former poitical prisoners, has established an organisation for children and the environment.
“I used to smuggle my poetry outside the country, to friends in Canada who would publish it for me. I was caught by the security police. I was in hiding and they arrested my relatives then my wife and my two-year-old son, so I was forced to go to them. Even then they did not release my family straight away. They were not tortured but while I was questioned they kept them in jail for about a month, as a form of pressure on me to answer all their questions.”
Bashir Al Majid is a poet and was a member of an Islamic organisation which opposed the former government. He was tortured for nine months in the Mukhabarat [security police] prison and transferred to Abu Ghraib under a twelve year sentence. “I am sorry. I still cannot talk about that time.” Instead he took out a laminated card bearing his name, year of birth, 1962, the length of his sentence and the insignia of the Independent Political Prisoners’ Association, based near the National Theatre in Karrada.
“It is too difficult to explain life in jail. The most time that I suffered was when my little son came to visit. He could not understand that his father was in jail so he asked me always a lot of questions which I could not answer so I was forced to lie to my own son. It was impossible to write during the nine months in the security jail. There was not even a pencil.
“But even in Abu Ghraib, where there was some sort of comfort after the security prison I could not write. Even in the prison there were spies and there could be searches at any time. I was not in the same section as most of the political prisoners. I was in a special section. I tried to write in my mind instead and to repeat the poems in my head to remember them. I would like to publish them now but there is no money.”
He had served three of his allocated twelve years in jail when Baghdad fell. “To remove Saddam is good but to invade the country is a violation of our beliefs and thinking. It is nice to feel free and not invaded, but unfortunately this is invasion. Freedom has no meaning here. There was no freedom with the invasion.
“The gamble of removing Saddam wasn’t dependent on an external power but on us, because Saddam always ran away from things. He always backed down under pressure. The Iraqi people could have removed Saddam, even if it took a long time. There was no way for people to help me. Even when human rights groups visited, we were hidden so no one would know about us.
“Yes, I would have been in jail for longer, but there are other people. I knew Saddam was a dictator and a criminal. I was under his crimes and dictatorship, but it was up to us. The French freed themselves with the French Revolution, not by US invasion. Bastilles fell by revolution, but this is a new way to colonise a country.”
I asked him nothing about his feelings about Saddam’s capture, just let him talk, his eyes burning with the same sadness I saw in those of the political prisoners in Suleimania. “I was tortured by the past regime but when I saw Saddam on television, captured by the Americans, I was sad because this wasn’t the way it should happen. I can’t agree with showing him that way. As a human being I can’t agree. As an Iraqi I felt suffering when I saw him, even though I know he was a criminal, but he was my president and we had to remove him by ourselves, not by US invasion.”
Did he ever regret writing the poems that got him into trouble? “Ani, akeed la. For sure, no. As a human being I had to do it and even if I paid with my life, I have to stand by my beliefs. Voltaire said [and here we debate the translation] if I stand in the dock for a moment, I shall forget a thousand books I have read about the meaning of freedom.
“I say, if I stand for one second in the dock knowing that I am innocent, I shall write a thousand books about the meaning of freedom.”
Mr Bashir is a member of a group of around 1000, many of them writers, artists, musicians, journalists, religious figures and teachers who were opposed to the former government, called The National Association for Children and the Environment. It was created on May 1st and first campaigned for a ban on the import of militaristic toys, like replica guns and tanks. They met with the Minister for Health and persuaded him to extend the milk ration for children from one year to two and to make all hospital treatment for children free.
They made a film about damage to the environment before and after the war and met with the Minister of Justice to ask him to indict the former Ministers of Education and Health. Last week they asked the Minister of Trade to test imported food for fitness for human consumption. There’s also a problem with imported toys being already used and unsafe.
They have been meeting with the Environment Minister, asking for environmental legislation, for families of newborns to plant a tree, for the new government to sign the Kyoto treaty. They asked the Minister of Agriculture to ban the use of pesticides in summer and to licence pesticides for use only after testing the levels of poisons in them. Disastrously, for the soil and water, there have never been any limits before.
“We asked for a law preventing anyone from cutting down any trees at all, even the Americans,” said Kerim Hassan, a famous Iraqi writer and one of the group’s founders. “My philosophy is to ask for everything and get what we can.”
We talked about the environmental organisation Husni and I and some others are setting up, the possibilities for working together, our research informing their lobbying work. They invited us to the next meeting with the Environment Minister, about how to use information to improve the environment.
The group meets in the garden of an art gallery I went to back in 2001 when the owner invited us over to eat fish and sing songs among the sculptures. Most of them opposed the former regime in one way or another. He introduced Mr Sami, a musician, Mr Wisam, a sign writer, Mr Ziyad, a clothing designer, Dr Hanaan, who used to teach childhood education. Several of them met in the political prisoners’ wing of Abu Ghraib prison: Kerim described it. “There were many high religious people there as well as writers and politicians. We taught each other, to avoid being cut off from society. We were 25 or 30 men to a room but we were able to meet with prisoners from other rooms as well in the daytime.”
This was not the same part of the jail Bashir was in. “I wrote many stories in prison and five plays and gave them to my family to smuggle out when they visited me. Two of the plays have been performed and Iraqi newspapers and magazines have been publishing the stories. We secretly had paper and pens and books about politics. We got them sneaked in and his them under the beds and we cut the water barrels to make secret compartments.”
Kerim was arrested in 1996 for membership of the Wafaq Watani party, led by Ayad Al-Awi, in opposition to Saddam, sentenced to death after a year in Al-Haqmeeya, a Mukhabarat prison, then transferred to the political prisoners’ wing of Abu Ghraib, where his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He held out his arms to show the uneven bones where his wrists were broken.
“I was surprised that the place where I was most abused was a place where we used to publish magazines about children. When I was first taken there, on November 8th 1996, I remembered working there with my friends, but the regime changed in from a place for education to a place for torture. I was kept in solitary confinement for the whole year there. I did not see sunlight.”
Unlike Bashir, Kerim’s party believed Saddam could only be removed by force, by a strong power like the US but he acknowledges the role of the US in keeping him in that position. “I agreed with the invasion because there was no other choice. The US let Saddam stay in power in 1991 because their main aim was to prevent a Shia government like in Iran. The sanctions helped Saddam because they made people weak. They were just on the people, not on the government and Saddam’s policy was also to keep the people thinking about food and not about political change.
“They kept him in power because they needed him to stay, to prevent a Shia state, but the policy to remove him began long before September 11th. The CIA and White House did not need him any more, like Anwar Sadat: they kicked him out after he fulfilled his purpose of making peace between Egypt and Israel.
“But the US did not do anything except remove Saddam. Why did they destroy ministries and everything, allow looting, stop the army? This was the main mistake they made and the other was to disrespect the Iraqi people and our beliefs and rights. What we need now is an independent government, not one named by Bremer. I am against Bremer’s view that Iraqis are not ready to lead the country. He wants to delay elections.”
Of the armed resistance, Kerim says this is not the right time: “Non co-operation through peaceful means is the best way, because the US is strong and it is impossible for us to kick them out by force. Personally I think they did not come to stay as a military force but as an economic one. I don’t believe there would be a civil war if the US troops left. For 6000 years we lived together without civil war. We were the first people to have words for peace and freedom – salam and hurriya. We are part of history.
“We are not writing now, just talking, talking. The US does not want the writers to work now. The budget for the Ministry of Culture is only $1 million for the year. It’s not enough for a month and the money is only for maintenance of Ministry buildings damaged during the war. It’s a disaster for Iraqi culture.”
They are trying to use the Association as a writers’ and artists’ group as well but we got onto discussing setting up an artists’ and writers’ collective or union, the way the actors have, through which they can support each other, co-operate with counterparts in other countries and receive financial help that can be shared between them.
Mohammed Jabar Hassan was an accountant in the Ministry of Oil. Now retired, he writes books for children: to date, three of stories and twelve of poetry. He translates the gist of one. I’m afraid it loses something in translation, notably its rhyme and rhythm, but I liked it anyway:
The Birds Don’t Pay Rent
How beautiful the trees are
Around the nests and birds
Through day and night
They do a lot for us freely and with love,
They give us wood and shade and fruit
But the best thing of all
Is they don’t ask any bird or pigeon to pay the rent.
Bashir Al Majid is a poet and was a member of an Islamic organisation which opposed the former government. He was tortured for nine months in the Mukhabarat [security police] prison and transferred to Abu Ghraib under a twelve year sentence. “I am sorry. I still cannot talk about that time.” Instead he took out a laminated card bearing his name, year of birth, 1962, the length of his sentence and the insignia of the Independent Political Prisoners’ Association, based near the National Theatre in Karrada.
“It is too difficult to explain life in jail. The most time that I suffered was when my little son came to visit. He could not understand that his father was in jail so he asked me always a lot of questions which I could not answer so I was forced to lie to my own son. It was impossible to write during the nine months in the security jail. There was not even a pencil.
“But even in Abu Ghraib, where there was some sort of comfort after the security prison I could not write. Even in the prison there were spies and there could be searches at any time. I was not in the same section as most of the political prisoners. I was in a special section. I tried to write in my mind instead and to repeat the poems in my head to remember them. I would like to publish them now but there is no money.”
He had served three of his allocated twelve years in jail when Baghdad fell. “To remove Saddam is good but to invade the country is a violation of our beliefs and thinking. It is nice to feel free and not invaded, but unfortunately this is invasion. Freedom has no meaning here. There was no freedom with the invasion.
“The gamble of removing Saddam wasn’t dependent on an external power but on us, because Saddam always ran away from things. He always backed down under pressure. The Iraqi people could have removed Saddam, even if it took a long time. There was no way for people to help me. Even when human rights groups visited, we were hidden so no one would know about us.
“Yes, I would have been in jail for longer, but there are other people. I knew Saddam was a dictator and a criminal. I was under his crimes and dictatorship, but it was up to us. The French freed themselves with the French Revolution, not by US invasion. Bastilles fell by revolution, but this is a new way to colonise a country.”
I asked him nothing about his feelings about Saddam’s capture, just let him talk, his eyes burning with the same sadness I saw in those of the political prisoners in Suleimania. “I was tortured by the past regime but when I saw Saddam on television, captured by the Americans, I was sad because this wasn’t the way it should happen. I can’t agree with showing him that way. As a human being I can’t agree. As an Iraqi I felt suffering when I saw him, even though I know he was a criminal, but he was my president and we had to remove him by ourselves, not by US invasion.”
Did he ever regret writing the poems that got him into trouble? “Ani, akeed la. For sure, no. As a human being I had to do it and even if I paid with my life, I have to stand by my beliefs. Voltaire said [and here we debate the translation] if I stand in the dock for a moment, I shall forget a thousand books I have read about the meaning of freedom.
“I say, if I stand for one second in the dock knowing that I am innocent, I shall write a thousand books about the meaning of freedom.”
Mr Bashir is a member of a group of around 1000, many of them writers, artists, musicians, journalists, religious figures and teachers who were opposed to the former government, called The National Association for Children and the Environment. It was created on May 1st and first campaigned for a ban on the import of militaristic toys, like replica guns and tanks. They met with the Minister for Health and persuaded him to extend the milk ration for children from one year to two and to make all hospital treatment for children free.
They made a film about damage to the environment before and after the war and met with the Minister of Justice to ask him to indict the former Ministers of Education and Health. Last week they asked the Minister of Trade to test imported food for fitness for human consumption. There’s also a problem with imported toys being already used and unsafe.
They have been meeting with the Environment Minister, asking for environmental legislation, for families of newborns to plant a tree, for the new government to sign the Kyoto treaty. They asked the Minister of Agriculture to ban the use of pesticides in summer and to licence pesticides for use only after testing the levels of poisons in them. Disastrously, for the soil and water, there have never been any limits before.
“We asked for a law preventing anyone from cutting down any trees at all, even the Americans,” said Kerim Hassan, a famous Iraqi writer and one of the group’s founders. “My philosophy is to ask for everything and get what we can.”
We talked about the environmental organisation Husni and I and some others are setting up, the possibilities for working together, our research informing their lobbying work. They invited us to the next meeting with the Environment Minister, about how to use information to improve the environment.
The group meets in the garden of an art gallery I went to back in 2001 when the owner invited us over to eat fish and sing songs among the sculptures. Most of them opposed the former regime in one way or another. He introduced Mr Sami, a musician, Mr Wisam, a sign writer, Mr Ziyad, a clothing designer, Dr Hanaan, who used to teach childhood education. Several of them met in the political prisoners’ wing of Abu Ghraib prison: Kerim described it. “There were many high religious people there as well as writers and politicians. We taught each other, to avoid being cut off from society. We were 25 or 30 men to a room but we were able to meet with prisoners from other rooms as well in the daytime.”
This was not the same part of the jail Bashir was in. “I wrote many stories in prison and five plays and gave them to my family to smuggle out when they visited me. Two of the plays have been performed and Iraqi newspapers and magazines have been publishing the stories. We secretly had paper and pens and books about politics. We got them sneaked in and his them under the beds and we cut the water barrels to make secret compartments.”
Kerim was arrested in 1996 for membership of the Wafaq Watani party, led by Ayad Al-Awi, in opposition to Saddam, sentenced to death after a year in Al-Haqmeeya, a Mukhabarat prison, then transferred to the political prisoners’ wing of Abu Ghraib, where his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He held out his arms to show the uneven bones where his wrists were broken.
“I was surprised that the place where I was most abused was a place where we used to publish magazines about children. When I was first taken there, on November 8th 1996, I remembered working there with my friends, but the regime changed in from a place for education to a place for torture. I was kept in solitary confinement for the whole year there. I did not see sunlight.”
Unlike Bashir, Kerim’s party believed Saddam could only be removed by force, by a strong power like the US but he acknowledges the role of the US in keeping him in that position. “I agreed with the invasion because there was no other choice. The US let Saddam stay in power in 1991 because their main aim was to prevent a Shia government like in Iran. The sanctions helped Saddam because they made people weak. They were just on the people, not on the government and Saddam’s policy was also to keep the people thinking about food and not about political change.
“They kept him in power because they needed him to stay, to prevent a Shia state, but the policy to remove him began long before September 11th. The CIA and White House did not need him any more, like Anwar Sadat: they kicked him out after he fulfilled his purpose of making peace between Egypt and Israel.
“But the US did not do anything except remove Saddam. Why did they destroy ministries and everything, allow looting, stop the army? This was the main mistake they made and the other was to disrespect the Iraqi people and our beliefs and rights. What we need now is an independent government, not one named by Bremer. I am against Bremer’s view that Iraqis are not ready to lead the country. He wants to delay elections.”
Of the armed resistance, Kerim says this is not the right time: “Non co-operation through peaceful means is the best way, because the US is strong and it is impossible for us to kick them out by force. Personally I think they did not come to stay as a military force but as an economic one. I don’t believe there would be a civil war if the US troops left. For 6000 years we lived together without civil war. We were the first people to have words for peace and freedom – salam and hurriya. We are part of history.
“We are not writing now, just talking, talking. The US does not want the writers to work now. The budget for the Ministry of Culture is only $1 million for the year. It’s not enough for a month and the money is only for maintenance of Ministry buildings damaged during the war. It’s a disaster for Iraqi culture.”
They are trying to use the Association as a writers’ and artists’ group as well but we got onto discussing setting up an artists’ and writers’ collective or union, the way the actors have, through which they can support each other, co-operate with counterparts in other countries and receive financial help that can be shared between them.
Mohammed Jabar Hassan was an accountant in the Ministry of Oil. Now retired, he writes books for children: to date, three of stories and twelve of poetry. He translates the gist of one. I’m afraid it loses something in translation, notably its rhyme and rhythm, but I liked it anyway:
The Birds Don’t Pay Rent
How beautiful the trees are
Around the nests and birds
Through day and night
They do a lot for us freely and with love,
They give us wood and shade and fruit
But the best thing of all
Is they don’t ask any bird or pigeon to pay the rent.