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| Sunday, 29 June 2003 |
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Baghdad cafes become the political pulse of the city BAGHDAD, Saturday (AFP) The pictures of Saddam Hussein have been stripped from the yellowing walls of Baghdad's cafes where men still getting used to the idea of life without his regime sit and discuss the "New Iraq." One question comes up time and time again: Who was worse, Saddam or the Americans? The ancient cafes have become the pulse of political life in the city, and through a haze of smoke rising from cigarettes and water pipes, men pass the time with talk of the bad old days and what the future will bring. In the Al-Mustansirya cafe, built in 1587 on the banks of the Tigris River and restored in the 1960s, the walls are dotted with old photographs of poets and long-dead Iraqi singer Mohammed al-Qobbanji. Men play backgammon. Unemployed, like half of the city's population, they mull their future. "There's no work for us, no hope of finding any and no electricity. Just sticking your head out the door at night is a gamble, but we chat and chat," says Faruk Khalil Zada, a 31-year-old former postal worker. "We haven't got any money, so pretty soon we'll have to eat our own words." The cafe's owner, Abdallah Fuad, in his 70s, says the city's population has yet to really recover from the shock that the former regime has fallen, and seeks solace in the coffee houses. "Baghdadis have taken refuge in the cafes. They find it comforting to be among people who are as lost as they are," he says. "Three months ago they would come in silent, with eyes still heavy from questioning." They didn't believe that Saddam could have fallen at first, but now they realise they will not be arrested for speaking their minds and freely discuss ideas long-supressed. Karim Nussaibi, an avid stamp collecter, remembers with horror the day, while sitting in the Al-Shahbandar cafe, that he dropped a stamp bearing Saddam's face as he was carefully placing it in an album. "It could have been a crystal vase, the way I tried to catch it. My heart missed a beat as his smiling face landed face down in a small puddle of tea." He was denounced by another client in the cafe for despoiling Saddam's image and spent six weeks in prison, he says. The cafe is now alive with political debate. Different corners are occupied by journalists, poets, artists and founders of the myriad political parties that have sprung up since the old regime was ousted. Above the chatter, one of the poets picks up a snippet from one of the journalists' conversations and cuts in: "No, it was not the poets, but the journalists who glorified Saddam. You were supposed to tell the truth but you just misled people," he insists, visibly upsetting the press camp. The waiter intervenes, bringing tea to cool the heated debate. "With no authority, things can rapidly get out of hand, and we don't want the chairs going flying," he explains. One of the clients, Mustafa al-Chujairi, describes how attention after the end of the war initially focused on former Iraqi dissidents who returned to the country after Saddam's fall. "Talk turned to their credibility and whether the Americans would accept those chosen by Iraqis" to lead the country, he says. "Today, the power cuts, the lack of security, unemployment and the general chaos are what people talk about. "Iraqis are trying to decide which is better: to be able to eat, even if not a lot, under Saddam, or to be able to talk, perhaps too much, under the Americans." |
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