The restored buildings of Mutannabi Street. Ali Ali. All rights resrved.After a series of horrific bombings, the
worst of which was in the shopping district of Karrada, people from all over
Baghdad lit candles in remembrance of the victims. A heavy sadness consumed the
city, but also an intense anger at the political elites.
When Prime Minister Abadi visited the site, people on
the streets shouted insults and threw shoes at him. Checkpoints across the city
were still using the fake bomb detectors sold to the Iraqi government by a
British businessman now jailed for fraud.
The explosive-laden truck passed through several checkpoints
before reaching Karrada. But it was only after the bombing that the prime minister
announced that the fake detectors would be replaced with reliable technology. However, inside the Green Zone, where the political class live and work, K-9
sniffer-dog units prevent such attacks from happening.
In a video circulating on social media, people
were insulting Abadi and those in power, but not the
police men guarding the prime minister’s motorcade as they know that they are
not the real problem.
It isn’t just that people are angry that their
politicians are corrupt and not keeping them safe, they are also angry about how
exhausting and expensive daily life has become. The corrupt political class are
largely to blame, and they themselves are another part of the legacy of the
military occupation.
I got a
sense of this grind in February this year when I went to visit relatives and explored
the pockets of beauty that remain in the city. It has changed enormously since
my last visit in 2001. Last time I travelled by land, taking a taxi from
Damascus. This time I flew from London. The officers at Baghdad International
Airport were actually more welcoming than the border guards were in 2001.
Rows of
majestic date palms greet arrivals along the airport highway, one of the few
roads in the city that is well maintained. Just a few years ago it was a
highway of death, with frequent clashes between American soldiers and the
forces resisting their occupation. The city is greener than I expected, Iraqis
still cherish their trees and green spaces. There was a long queue of cars
waiting to enter Zawraa park, a popular place to relax in Baghdad.
Animated conversations and fresh juice in Baghdad. Ali Ali. All rights reserved.The signs of the ongoing
war against Daesh were visible across the city; posters commemorating the
martyred soldiers and the brigades of Al-Hashd Al-Sha’bi, the Popular
Mobilisation Units fighting Daesh, dotted the city. The body of a martyr was
carried to Al-Kadhimiya shrine as I wondered
around the nearby market. And there was a sense that the war was being fought
outside of Baghdad.
A martyr of the war against Daesh is carried to the Kathimiyya shrine in Baghdad. Ali Ali. All rights reserved.People were
enjoying the evenings; spaces in popular restaurants were hard to find on
weekends. Nightlife options are not wide ranging, but it is pleasant to dine on
delicious Iraqi grills and stews in one of the park restaurants on the banks of
the Tigris. Concerts are also still running in the national theatre.
A popular restaurant in Baghdad. Ali Ali. All rights reserved.The
booksellers were busy on Mutanabbi Street, an old
street in Baghdad which was restored after being hit by a car bomb in 2007. It was
pedestrianized for security measures, which isn’t such a bad thing. On Fridays,
booksellers arrange books on protective sheets and the street comes to life from
the colours of the book covers.
Book sale on Mutannabi Street. Ali Ali. All rights reserved.Mutanabbi
Street is where the Shabandar Café is – a place where writers, artists, and
intellectuals meet; more like a cultural club than a café. Old photographs of
Baghdadi life and personalities adorn the walls, and thick smoke from fruit
flavoured water pipes obscure the view.
Around the
corner is Al Qishla, built by
the Ottomans to house the government of Iraq. Its spacious garden by the Tigris
is where artists display and sell their creations, and poets recite words of
love and loss on Fridays.
Al
Mustansiriya University is nearby; a beautifully preserved thirteenth
century building that is among the oldest learning hubs in the world.
Constructed from dense and ornately engraved mud walls, its rooms provide a
cool refuge from the scorching sun without the need for air-conditioning.
Shabandar Cafe on a Friday. Ali Ali. All rights reserved.Baghdad’s
streets are filled with new and old cars. Korean cars outnumber the rest, but some
Japanese and American cars share the roads with the poorly made Iranian Sabas
that seem to emit more pollution than the rest combined. I’m told they are
cheap to run.
Iraqis
have the latest smartphones and laptops. Shopping malls have grown in number. But
the consumer boom is not matched by progress in restoring public infrastructure
or Baghdad’s functionality as a city.
Certain
neighbourhoods, like al Amiriyah by the airport, remain enclosed by large
concrete walls. Checkpoints in Baghdad are many. They appear to be run by state
forces, not militias, although the lines between them are blurred.
Life goes
on in Baghdad. In February Baghdad felt calm, but at the same time, as if it
were stuck on a path leading it from one war to the next.
Tens of
thousands of protestors were camped outside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone in February and March, home to government ministries, the parliament, and
foreign embassies. They blocked the main entrance and demanded an end to the
corruption and sectarianism in Iraqi politics, a legacy of the Anglo-American
invasion and occupation thirteen years ago.
Sculptures on display in the gardens of Al Qishla. Ali Ali. All rights reserved.Secular
protestors were already making these demands in Tahrir
Square, a few hundred metres away from Iraq's parliament, across the Jumhuriya
bridge. They were joined, and outnumbered,
by the Sadrists, led by Muqtada Al-Sadr.
Muqtada
gave a speech in Tahrir Square in late February,
denouncing corruption and sectarianism. He called for a new technocratic
government composed of ministers unaffiliated to any political party. Terrorists' bombs killed dozens in a Sadr City market a few days later.
The
Sadrists, who can mobilise hundreds of thousands of men, including members of
their militia, joined the protest camps outside the Green Zone. There was a
thriving protest camp at the entry point to the walled-off government zone.
Sadrists mixed with the secular progressives; they were sharing food and
protecting them. Had the secular protestors been alone, security forces would
have probably succeeded in dispersing them.
They were
gradually joined by protestors from other parts of Iraq. They used their
smartphones to spread footage of protest songs on social media. They proudly
showed the diversity of the camp: of secular and religious Iraqis protesting
together, and Sunnis alongside Shias, and of their clerics praying together.
They challenged the claims that it was an exclusively Sadrist protest camp.
Popular
discontent was not quelled by a cabinet shuffle. There were further protests,
and the Green Zone was occupied
by protestors at the end of April – some of them
entered the cabinet building for several hours. Protestors were angry about
delays to political reform. Later four were killed and dozens more
injured by government security forces.
The
Anglo-American invasion dismantled
the Iraqi state but replaced it with corrupt and dysfunctional identity
politics.
The
Anglo-American invasion toppled the detested dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, dismantled
the Iraqi state but replaced it with corrupt and dysfunctional identity
politics, which benefits the corrupt diaspora elite.
Occupation
forces neglected many of the legal obligations which govern occupations. Other
offences included: the sledgehammer purge of the old order, institutionalising
governance which allocated power and resources on the basis of ethnic and
religious identity, and incredibly poor financial accountability which ushered
in immense and endemic corruption.
This
catastrophic combination has resulted in intense protracted violence in large parts
of Iraq, but especially in Baghdad. It also resulted in the neglect of
meaningful state-building and the associated regulation of the economy and
society. This is what the protesters seek to change.
Iraqis
have lived with these repercussions for too long. The state is not providing
adequate public services, and where private actors have stepped in, they face
little formal constraints or accountability. War and corruption have
deregulated daily life and routinized disorder and unaccountability.
The
national electricity grid is still inadequate. Even in winter and early spring,
when the cool temperatures reduce demand, power cuts prevail. Households rely
on neighbourhood generators, for which they pay a fee, and on their own
generators when the neighbourhood generator falls short. This is no joke in
summers with temperatures as high as 55 degrees Celsius. If there is no electricity,
there is no water pumped into homes. The system sometimes works, but only if you
can afford the extra expenses, and if your neighbourhood generator is well
maintained and not oversubscribed.
Wires from a neighbourhood generator. Sundus al-Bayati. All rights reserved.The city
pays an aesthetic price; clumps of hanging generator cables clutter and
disfigure the streets. Iraqis should be entitled to reliable and affordable
national power generation; underneath them are the world's fifth largest oil
reserves, and above them a powerful sun – the solar energy potential of which remains
untapped. They receive neither.
The
drainage system is so poorly maintained that ordinary winter rains cause
flooding in the city. A restaurant owner explained that private contractors,
paid by the government, tarmacked over the drains and manholes on his street,
taking no notice of his remonstrations.
Another
set of private contractors, who own the drainage-trucks, and who were sent by
the local government, demanded payment from residents. Instead of paying the
high fees each year for what should be a free service, he decided to conduct
his own repair works privately. However, the other residents did not contribute
to the cost, so he set it up to only deal with his part of the road.
Corruption
and lack of regulations also have implications on the health sector. There is a
belief that many bogus drugs are sold. Receptionists in clinics can be bribed
to slip people’s names into the top of the doctor's waiting list. In hospitals,
nurses regularly demand bribes. Doctors commonly prescribe high doses of
steroids for a range of conditions, without considering the long term side
effects. Who will hold them to account? Rather than traversing the city to
reach a hospital or a clinic, some Baghdadis visit the Mudhammid, the
neighbourhood first aid man with limited medical training.
The lack
of regulation means some can claim to be doctors, qualified to fix fractures
and tie stitches which real doctors eventually have to correct in hospitals.
Some Mudhammids sell ‘recreational’ narcotics. Understandably, when
Iraqis need major surgery, those who can afford to travel to Lebanon or Turkey.
However, Turkey
is losing this as well as other sources of revenue from Iraq, owing to the
strict new visa regime which it imposed on Iraqis this year. It is widely believed
to be another consequence of Turkey's 'dirty deal' with the EU, curtailing the
movement of populations from conflict-affected countries to Europe in exchange
for several billion Euros, and for reviving the issue of visa-free travel to
the EU for Turkish citizens.
A lack of
regulation and inadequate public transportation has implications for mobility
in Baghdad. Getting around the city is expensive and inconvenient. There are
few road signs and public transport consists of mini buses – ‘Kias’ – and a new
fleet of red double-deckers. Neither display signs to indicate their routes.
The Kias, more numerous than the double-deckers, do not keep regular routes
either. If you can't catch the Kia driver's ear, you can communicate with him
using hand signals to ask if he's going (roughly) your way.
Most women
feel unsafe riding the Kias, as harassment is too common. Women who can afford
to use taxis, often with a driver known to the family, but this consumes a
sizeable chunk of income.
The lack
of employment opportunities prompts men to use their private cars as unlicensed
taxis. It is not yet socially acceptable for women to do the same. Independent
mobility in Baghdad depends on private car ownership. Baghdadis say there are
now more cars than people in the city. The frequent traffic jams give the
impression this might be true. The basic task of moving across Baghdad is a
polluted grind.
Cars old and new in Baghdad's frequent traffic jams. Ali Ali. All rights reserved.But it
isn't just the number of cars on the roads which cause congestion. City
planning has been neglected. Baghdad has been distorted by the occupation and
the security measures in place to deal with the associated violence.
In many
neighbourhoods, concrete barriers still close off streets to limit access to
roads where there are security checkpoints. Some of the barriers are waist high
with small gaps to allow only pedestrian access. Others, like those enclosing
Al Dora, are sealed and several metres high so that even pedestrian access is
controlled.
In
addition to concrete walls enclosing neighbourhoods, there are walls around all
public buildings. Vehicles are kept at a safe distance from schools,
universities, municipal buildings, and even hospitals. This is not entirely
unwelcome, as these walls and checkpoints have kept some of the car bombers,
kidnappers, and other criminals out.
Certain
mosques and shrines are also walled. The Abu Hanifa Mosque as well
as the Al-Kadhimiya
Mosque and shrine. In addition to the pedestrianisation
of the roads leading to them, there are security search points on the paths leading
to the shrines and adjacent market, as terrorists had targeted millions of Shia
pilgrims from southern Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan.
While the
measures provide protection, they are also a reminder that the dysfunctional
political system has normalised insecurity, not public safety.
A highway and concrete walls run through Dora in southern Baghdad. Ali Ali. All rights reserved.Baghdadis
still find barriers appearing in unexpected places, roads which may have been
open just a month ago may be closed off today. It can be infuriating. Even
during the course of a journey, the contours of the city can change in
obstructive ways.
The night
before Muqtada Al-Sadr's sermon in Tahrir Square, certain roads were closed off
as part of a security arrangement. The closures happened unannounced on a busy
Thursday night, which is the start of the weekend. As we made adjustments to
our route, another road was blocked off. We, like so many other Baghdadis, were
expecting these closures the next morning. It is exhausting and another cause for
discontent.
Concrete blocks seal off roads to cars. Sundus al-Bayati. All rights reserved.Endemic
corruption is a major source of popular resentment at the political class. Political
connections to a religious party are needed to access salaried public sector
jobs as well as government scholarships for study abroad.
This
corruption has also produced a major fiscal crisis. The cumulative total budget
since 2003 is close to $950 billion, averaging $67 billion per year, and based
almost entirely on oil and gas revenues. The 2016 budget is $99.6 billion,
optimistically based on a $45 per barrel oil price, with a $25.6 billion
deficit. Plunging oil prices and corruption threaten to put the country in dire
fiscal crisis.
Mishan
Jabouri, a senior parliament anti-corruption official, admitted
his own corruption to a Guardian
journalist. Jabouri threatened
a corrupt official with investigation if he did not pay him $5 million. He took
the bribe and prosecuted him anyway.
Corrupt
practices mean that there are still ghost employees and ghost soldiers, these
are individuals who may not exist or do not show up to work, but to whom
salaries are being paid. Billions of dollars of public funds are paid for
projects which are not built. Despite this cash sloshing around, official unemployment
is still above 16 percent,
possibly even higher in reality.
People
across Iraq are fed up. They are angry at the grand larceny committed over the
years as they and their children struggle. The cost of living in Iraq has
increased enormously since 2003 but economic prospects for most people have
not. Many government employees have had their salaries cut.
Even in
northern Iraq – where two Kurdish parties effectively run their own ‘statelettes’
– there are similar problems. Infrastructure is in much better shape in areas
of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), dominated by the Kurdish Democratic
Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. But without membership or a
connection to one of these parties, it is extremely difficult to acquire a
salaried public sector position. They are not as desirable as they used to be,
as many government employees have not received their salaries for months.
Iraq's
Kurdistan was supposed to be the successful poster-story of the occupation but
its residents, who experienced severe persecution under Saddam’s regime, are
still struggling. To its credit, the KRG has kept its doors open to the
hundreds of thousands displaced by the war with ISIS in Iraq, and to refugees
from Syria.
Thirteen
years later, the country has not recovered from the legacy of the occupation.
Iraq is paralysed from corruption and protracted wars which continue to
displace and dispossess. The war with Daesh is another phenomenon whose
numerous causes include the invasion of Iraq and the resulting communal
politics of exclusion.
Ordinary
Iraqis across the country are paying the price while their politicians, and
global arms manufacturers, accumulate vast profits. Those in the protest camp
outside the Green Zone attempt to make the most out of an arduous situation.
They continue to protest on Fridays. If they are successful, then there is some
hope of ending Iraq's political paralysis and state of perpetual warfare. But
this prospect is far from being imminent.
Many young
Iraqis, especially men, have decided it is not worth waiting around for the
positive outcomes of potential changes, and have decided to leave. Protests in
Iraq have been under way since the Arab Spring began in 2011. In some areas
protestors were killed by government forces, such as in Hawija where twenty
people were killed by ‘gunmen’, according to
the government. Life is leaving so many young Iraqis behind.
As of 31 December 2015, over three million
Iraqis are estimated to have
been displaced internally. It is no wonder that Iraqis remain highly
represented in global refugee statistics.
The war
with Daesh will continue, resulting in more displacement. If there is no
political solution and people’s calls for political reforms
are ignored, violent expressions of discontent will continue.
As life
goes on in Baghdad, plans need to be put in place to make people’s lives a
little more bearable. Planning should not wait until the war ends, because in
Baghdad, as in much of Iraq, war is now the new normal.