Iraq revolution will be dramatized, written, read, and painted
The pops of gunfire rang out across the protest camp in Iraq’s capital. Blood-stained bodies writhed on the pavement, and smoke from burning tires smarted the captive audience’s eyes.
But for once in recent weeks, the scenes playing out in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square were a dramatization, put on by actors who traveled 600 km from the port city of Basra.
To an audience in tears, they acted out protesters railing against corruption and the lack of jobs, and filming with smartphones to broadcast the rallies live on social media.
Suddenly, the actors crumpled to the ground, motionless, under a volley of tear gas canisters and live rounds.
Each actor took turns recounting the story of his “martyr,” weaving through the stunned spectators and occasionally folding into one of their hands an Iraqi tricolor labeled with the names of towns where dozens have died.
The south has been particularly bloody over the last week, pushing the two-month toll to nearly 430 dead and 20,000 wounded — the vast majority of them protesters.
In a time of such hope and heartbreak, art is the answer, says 30-year-old Ali Issam, one of the actors.
“Art is finally playing its true role: Carrying the voice of Iraq,” he told AFP.
As anti-government demonstrations in the capital and Shiite-majority south enter their third month, they are being turned into plays, paintings,
Art is finally playing its true role: Carrying the voice of Iraq.
poems and literature.
Tahrir has become an art hub, a rare space for free expression in a country where conservative tribes, paramilitary forces and powerful politicians have at
various points tried to snuff out criticism.
“It’s a mini-ministry of culture,” said Muslim Habib, a young director from Baghdad.
Every day at dusk, he sets up a small projector in a tent on Tahrir, marked with a huge banner identifying it proudly as “Revolution Theater.” Inside, he screens documentaries, shorts and other works by Iraqis both at home and abroad and hopes to soon show “films from the revolutions in Ukraine, Egypt or Syria.”
Rows of chairs spill out from the tent onto the pavement, packed nightly with young and old, men and women, protesters and curious onlookers.
Even police officers poked their heads in for a glimpse. Across the rest of the square, poets puffed out their chests and recited their latest revolutionary verses while small groups debated politics and philosophy.
Busking musicians dotted the nearby streets and painters canvased the walls with large murals and “calligraffiti” — a hybrid of graffiti and intricate Arabic calligraphy.
Culture even reigns in the “Turkish restaurant,” the gutted 18-story building that has been occupied by protesters for two months after decades of abandon.