الاسم: حاتم عبد الواحد 
By Hatem Abdulwahid
If culture remains after everything else disappears, politics will definitely disappear after everything else takes its proper shape, particularly in those societies which are left to choose between the tattered garment of theocracy or the state of standing naked in the face of their historical destiny. However, when trends fluctuate between a false alternative as white as a coffin and a black alternative that is as black as the dead pupil of an eye of a dead man, the choice would go in most cases for politics, and it is politics that has shaped the destiny of Iraq for these thirty decades with the media playing the role of a clown and concubine entertaining dictators and a long train of their hooligans and cutthroats. Such was the role of Iraqi media depicting blood as flowers and cemeteries as gardens in the eyes of ignorant audience.
The word all the way through these turbulent and embittered times has not changed its basic role. During the one-party system it used to serve party feudalism; now, it serves religious feudalism, it used to glorify the one leader; now, it glorifies the religious one and only one ineffable authority. The word used to polish the shoes of military generals; now, it polishes the sandals of the Ayatollahs. It was a prostitute who had taken to sleeping with the one who pays more; now, it is a slave-girl whose master possesses her flesh, blood, virginity, life and death. But, alas regardless of all this wretchedness, decadence and corruption; media continued telling political lies and the old cheats are the new turncoats who are extraordinarily capable of shifting, chameleon-like, their faces and features to fit the changes in the political milieu and, worse, feel proud of having such capacity for moving in accordance with the movement in the compass of death!
So, what has virtually, changed?
Culture in Iraq was an obedient servant, it became a professional killer. The situation is so miserable that it suffices a self-titled sectarian writer patronized by a sectarian person in power to write a few words motivated by envy to put a fellow writer to abominable death. Culture during the one-party system was intended to be a sort of trivial item internally manufactured and merchandised to half-wits; now, it turned into a commodity which our newly-made Westernized writers inadvertently pump up into the nowhere of hypothetical spaces of a non-existent audience in tandem with the half-baked cultural globalization of which their knowledge is next to nothing. The result is a grave absence in the feeling in the existence of the other in the modern Iraq’s cultural scene. Such trend will definitely end up in the culture of the ghettos and in the mawkish petty wars of words that has created various cultural barriers which separate writers from one another while politicians are being given a free rein to dictate sectarian and ethnic allegiances among writers deepening discord among them.
For instance, Fadhil Thamer the chair of the Union of Iraqi Writers has recently threatened to file a complaint against the poet now resident in London Saadi Yousef who criticized those Iraqi communists who hailed the American occupation. He filed demands for an apology and financial indemnification to be exacted on the exiled Iraqi poet. His plea was that his reputation the formal as a chair and the personal, which counts to nothing, has been damaged. The man has placed his pen and person in the service of whoever that pays him more, so what does his reputation worth?! I wonder why Hameed Saeed keeps silent before such a conglomeration of hypocrites and opportunists who we very well know that their heroic acts and literary contributions do not exist but in their corrupt imagining. We know them to be mere opportunists who place one hand in the hand of the murderer while wiping with the other the crocodile tears for the slain.
Let alone, the newly emerging class of word tradesmen represented by religious illiterate hooligans who patronize such writers. In retrospect, one may ask what has these writers added to the grand literary pyramid built by the great Iraqi minds since Ur, Nippur and Uruk? Utterly nothing!
Given this state of chaos, another question comes to the fore, this time of eligibility and authenticity. Namely, are we meritorious of the respect and recognition of the civil mind? And my answer is No! We do not deserve this respect and recognition since we persist in the efforts of falsifying truth and adumbrating its dictations. For once one feels the need to be recognized by the other, one should know himself properly. Unfortunately, Iraq has for the last forty years not presented any one who upholds the authority of culture. On the contrary, everyone has enthusiastically queued up for upholding the culture of authority which is rather scandalous in a multiethnic, multilingual and multicultural Iraq. This does strongly applies to the people who represented Iraq in the recently held Dakar Pen Conference. The participation of an Iraqi delegation had come in the wake of the formation of an Iraqi Pen Organization and the admission of this organization into the larger forum of international Pen which has been one of the main pulpits of free-expression and a front that abhors any act including writings that harbours hatred, violence and the exclusion of the other. Of course, Iraq as a country, culture and a state deserves meritoriously membership to such a prestigious organization. However, facts must be stressed in this respect, for besides the absence in the representation of Iraq’s pen of creative writers such as Kurds, Turcoman, Mandeans and Christians writers besides many other writers from governorates which I shall come later to; the three representatives shown on the internet screens and journals were by no means apt, competent or qualified to represent Iraqi literature, writers or culture. Moreover, those three who represented Iraqi Pen in Dakar are but three lean threads in the literary mafia that extends from Detroit to Sydney through Malmo, Bern and Geneva. Ample documents exist to support my statement on all the three representatives: As for Amal Al-Jubouri who continues to play the role of German baroness, evidence on her being an intelligence agent lacking any poetic talent runs on every tongue, her being a thief is a first hand reality for it was me who saw her stealing from Al-Bayyan Emir Palace during Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Moreover, she has never produced any work of least literary value since she left Iraq in the 1990s of the last century. Her qualifications were reserved for visiting party literary VIPs in their offices. In this connection Mash’an al-Jubouri the editor in chief of Alitijahalakhar and director of Al-Zawra’ Satellite Station said in a book he wrote on the escape of Saddam’s son-in-law to Jordan on authority of Saddam’s other son-in-law Saddam Kamel that Saddam Hussein had ordered Amal al-Jubouri to assassinate him by thallium poisoning in Amman. However, despite my quarrel with Mash’an, I entertain no reasons not to believe in his story since her being an intelligence agent is well-known fact testified by numerous indications such as her being married to an old intelligence officer who lodged her in 28 Nisan flats allocated for top-ranking party and palace intelligence officers and agents. All that being said, Amal is requested to explain to her colleagues in Diwan Sharq Gharb how the branch of this organization in Baghdad currently occupies a building in Haifa street- a building that has been usurped by force from its legitimate owners. If however, she answers that the building was a gift to her organization by Iraqi government, then a question arises as to the forces behind such illegal practice for Iraqi government is not entitled to give buildings to a foreign party without a parliamentary consent particularly as the Diwan is registered, financed and run by a German administrator. This case applies to the headquarters of the Earth gallery in Baghdad at the entrance to Al-Maghreb Street which is occupied by Ali Al-Shalat organization in Switzerland. It seems that Ali al-Shalat has felt that he has missed the mass looting in Baghdad of the state properties, the cultural treasures the banks the libraries and museums when the Whitehouse tanks swept into Haroon al-Rasheed Palace and the Nidhamiah School Courtyard; so he hurried to take his share in the looting of Iraqi property since stealing the name of Al-Mutanabbi is not considered a crime whose committer is held responsible before the law. I really wonder why he chose this name and left the names of Abu-Alatahiyah, Abu Nawwas or Abu Tammam.. It could be because Al-Mutanabbi belonged to Kufa and Ali Al-Shalat belongs to mid Euphrates region; and according to power sharing system applied now in Baghdad politics, he might felt he should share this poet his name as well. It is odd that this Ali Al-Shalat who writes trivial poetry after the manner of cross-words puzzle has in Dakar conference called not to provide Iraqi writers with a city of refuge but rather provide them with material support as if right of refuge is reserved for such hooligans and cheats like himself and Amal Al-Jubouri and as though Iraq writers wading in their country’s bloodbath are not entitled to a promise of life for a morsel is what they are after. In the result of such sickly proposal, Iraqi writers would be forced to stand at the thieves’ door in Switzerland begging assistance from Ali-Al-Shalat and his like far from the door of real suffering in the flaming home!
As I read the names of those who were named by Amal Al-Jubouri to make the Iraqi Pen in their conference in Damascus, I never saw a name of a single creative writer from among the writers of Mosul, Tikreet, Kerkok, Diyala. Hilla, Kut, or Umara and found that 90% of those invited to this conference were Shiites which called to mind an old rumour that Ali Al-Shalat was distributing promises in Al-Sayyeda Zainab quarter in Damascus to his Shiite fellows of invitation to visit Europe whenever on his way to Iraq.
As for hameed Al-Mukhtar, I knew him as writer to respect before his arrest in 1999. Reasons for the arrest were that he was storing weapons for Muhammads Baqir Al-sader in his house in Al-Thawra city which still harbours Al-Sader following, the other reason was that he smuggled antiques abrad. Each of these will shore him inti the Intelligence prison. However, after the fall of the regime in April 2003, I came to believe that the former story was the true reason behind his arrest in 1999. After the fall, I lost my job as a proofreader and linguist in Bait al-Hikmah and while the capital was being looted, I started selling egg sandwiches in Al-Maidan Square. Later on, I met a friend who introduced me to a Karbala’i colleague who suggested that I work with him in Al-Iraqi Newspaper and took me to the building which was the Directorate of Occupational Teaching in Al-Sarafiyah. The place looked more of a Husseiniyah ( frequented by Shiite clergy with beards and black cloaks) than a Newspaper office.
I preferred to while away time at the entrance when a fashionable blue-greenish car stopped and Hameed Al-Mukhtar came out of it. Mr. Nadhim told him that Hatem will replace Hussein Al-Gasid as a proof-reader and editor of the journal. All I received was cold answers and procrastination. I frequented the Office to inquire about my appointment only to learn from an acquaintance who worked there that an order has been issued to liquidate me by a militia called (The Just Punishment) and that Hameed al-Mukhtar who was the Intformation Consultant of Muqrtada Al-Sader tried to defend me against the militia decision in vain. So, it was better for me to escape. The militia called (The Just Punishment) Ar: (Al-Qasas Al-Aadil) was the seed from which the Mahdi Army has grown out and Hameed Al-Mukhtar was one of the leaders of that militia. In fact, the Shiites have in such act been imitating a practice common during the reign of Saddam Hussein who used to enlist writers and literary figures in intelligence activities as when Hameed Saeed was the chair of Janeen organization which was the military and intelligence arm of the Baath Party and which was similarly the seed from which the Saddam’s Iraqi Intelligence has grown out. I really am astonished at the statement which Hameed Al-Mukhtar gave to As-Sabah official journal that Hameed Saeed will be the executive manager to Iraqi Pen organization!!
I have paid dearly for not sideling with Al-Qasas Al-Aadil following for they entered my house and sprayed me with Kerosene and set fire to my body which still bears testimony to that terrible act in 8/6/2003. After a medication of 42 days I escaped my hospital room for one of the medical workers who sympathized with me told me that strangers were trying to enter my room without convincing reasons. Persistent in his role, Hameed Al-Mukhtar agreed to put my name in the blacklist in a conference of the Union of Iraqi writers which he headed and the list was published in Al-Mashreq, a Baghdadi newspaper on 12/1/2004.
I place these facts before my colleagues the members of International Pen in London, and propose that our representation should be collective and expressive of a multicultural and multi ethnic Iraq and not a monopoly of certain individuals who are by no means harbouring any touch of sympathy, tolerance or justice. If to be asked who to nominate for an Iraqi pen, I won’t hesitate giving the names of Duniya Michael, Hameed Qasim, Ahmad Khalaf, Golala Nori, Fawzi Akram Turzi, Thamer Maayoof, for those and many of their like enjoy the white-handed honesty and creative conscience beside a distinctive literary production, and to follow is much more embittered talk.
Note: All my witnesses to this report are alive just to add a sharp flavour to the truth of what has really taken place
كتبها حاتم عبد الواحد في 01:25 مساءً ::
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