Shocking attack on culture in Iraq

I did not coin this highly controversial title which reads “Whenever I read the word culture, I reach out for my gun”. However, I am aware of the difference between those who carry books in the open and those who conceal weapons under their cloaks and those who love freedom and life’s harmony and those who want to put an end to it.

When the Nazi party ascended to power in Germany in April 1933, Hanns Jost wrote a play that was performed on Adof Hitler’s 44th birthday. The play celebrated the Nazi party’s victory in the elections. During the play, one of the characters is made to say: “Whenever I read the word culture, I reach out for my gun”.

Since that time, the sentence is either related to Herman Goring, Germany’s air force commander and one of Hitler’s senior aides, or the sentence is attributed to Joseph Goebbels, German politician and Reich minister of propaganda in Nazi Germany or to Hitler himself.

In reality, the sentence does not belong to any of these Nazi commanders. However, it is an eloquent text which reflects the ideology of the authoritarian. It does not know anything, but sheer controlling power.

This ideology may stem from different ethnic, religious, sectarian or geographical roots.

It has also been proven in the Middle East that despite the time span between the present and the Nazis’ birth and their military defeat in the Second World War, as well as the Nuremberg trials and death sentences at the end of that war, this line is still alive in the minds of so many individuals and groups that live amongst us today with a small difference — the gun or pistol which clung to Goring’s or Goebbels’s belt was not supplied with a silencer such as the pistols carried by the neo Nazis that are killing Irqi cultural and intellectual symbols.

The forces of darkness have succeeded in eliminating and assassinating hundreds of our intelligentsia — especially those who contributed to building a civilised environment for human beings.

So why all this hatred towards culture? Maybe we need to establish a new definition for culture for us to be able to answer this question with ease.

However, I shall not attempt to do this, because we cannot imprison culture in a cage of words; I shall simply point out that culture is a bridge connecting the roads of life and it is only known by its links to human spaces with open boundaries.

In this context, there are no road blocks, nor are there dangerous and life-threatening checkpoints such as those which check ethnic, religious, sectarian or location indicators as in one’s ID card.

Culture was hunted down by dark forces in Iraq over past regimes, where most of the intelligentsia was forced to flee the country, to live as diaspora and die there afterwards as strangers.

And as we stand helpless and at a loss of comprehension regarding hundreds of crimes committed against symbols of Iraqi culture registered against unknown criminals, we were equally amazed at the animosity of the state towards culture.

Tens of book kiosks were destroyed by armed forces a week or so ago on Al Mutanabi Street in Baghdad (the culture street of the Iraqi capital). The offensive took place suddenly, leading to the destruction of street libraries with all their books. This attack deeply injured the Iraqi cultural body, adding insult to an already bloodied wound.

During the attack, bulldozers were used to create additional havoc and more horror and fear for both the book owners and street visitors. It is worthy to note here that Al Mutanabi Street is only open to pedestrians.

It is hard to believe that this campaign was carried out to clean the street as everyone knows, Iraq’s capital leaves a lot to be desired of cleanliness and organisational scruple, while Al Mutanabi is truly one of the cleaner places of Baghdad.

The campaign was part of an organised raid against a civilised and intellectual country.

Moreover, this campaign was and still is part of a larger operation carried out by forces that have raided cultural, intellectual and community clubs and associations to change the face of the Baghdad that was known to its inhabitants, once upon a time.

So it does not strike as odd that Maarouf Al Rusaffi’s square (Iraqi poet 1877-1945) has turned into a garbage accumulation site.

The story of treatment of culture in Iraq is significant — intellectuals are pressurised and blackmailed as well.

Some of the anti-culture campaigns may be successful in their short-term objectives, but it will be very difficult to kill culture in the land which yielded one of the first civilisations on earth in Mesopotamia.

Dr Mohammad Akif Jamal is an Iraqi writer based in Dubai.