The man laughed and said, “No, we arrived too late.” My uncle joined in the young man’s laughter.
After we had left, I asked what he thought of what the bookseller had said.
The young man was too optimistic, especially about secularism, Uncle Sabri said, then acknowledged that perhaps it’s necessary to be optimistic. He added that he was reminded of one of his favorite quotes from Gramsci: “Pessimism of the intellect. Optimism of the will.” He himself was rather pessimistic about sectarianism. What had taken place, he said, was not just an occupation but the destruction of a state more than eighty years old. War and occupation were the final blows, but the process had begun with the destruction of the infrastructure during the 1991 war. Then there was the embargo, which had destroyed the social fabric, and now the void created by the occupation was being filled by these sectarian parties because they had institutions. Their rhetoric touched people’s hearts and they knew how to exploit the political climate. But, my uncle added, the history of secularism in Iraq runs deep. The Da’wa Party, for example, was founded in Najaf, because with the spread of communism even in Najaf and Karbala, people were confusing Shiite with Shiyu’i (Communist), which terrified the religious clerics.
We had reached al-Shahbandar café. I asked: “Did you see all the posters of clerics and all the theology books being sold?”
He said, “Of course, after long years of suppression there is a thirst, but perhaps it will be quenched.”
We entered the café, found two empty seats, and ordered tea. There was a French TV crew conducting interviews with intellectuals. I saw the famous theater director Salah al-Qasab sitting a few meters away. They approached him, but I heard him decline more than once to be interviewed. The journalist insisted and asked him through the translator: “What do you have to say about what has happened?”
“Film the streets of Baghdad. That’s what I think,” he answered.
Ten minutes later my uncle saw a man with a stack of newspapers under his arm. He was handing out copies of Tariq al-Sha’ab, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party. They hugged and chatted for fifteen minutes and then Sabri came back with a copy. He told me that the man was an old comrade whom he’d last seen in Beirut in 1982.
I searched for a familiar face, but I didn’t see any of the people I usually saw here. My uncle started reading the newspaper. There were announcements about public funerals for the party’s martyrs who had been executed years ago. There was an announcement in big letters about a major demonstration in three days to commemorate the anniversary of the 14th of July revolution. It called on all the party’s friends and supporters to assemble at Liberation Square to march to Firdaws Square. My uncle asked whether I was interested in taking part.
“Sure,” I said. “First, to be with you and second, to go to a demonstration freely for the first time in my life, without being forced to do so. I have to do it for the sake of variety at least.” We both laughed.
I looked at my watch and reminded him that it was time to meet our driver. We got out and passed by the young commie again. He greeted us from a distance and we smiled back. My uncle asked Hamid to drive him to the new headquarters of the Communist Party, which was at the insurance building at al-Andalus Square.
“I thought you said you had divorced the party?” I asked.
“Yeah, but I just want to get some news about my comrades … ask about some of them and see who’s been back. I won’t be long,” he said.
I was feeling sleepy so I told him I’d take a nap in the back seat until he came back. When he returned, his smile had disappeared. I asked what was wrong. “Nothing,” he said.
The next day the electricity was back on long enough to see on TV the official announcement of the formation of the governing council under the aegis of Paul Bremer. The council was a hodgepodge of names supposedly representing the spectrum of Iraqi society, but we had never heard of most of them. What they had in common was that each name was preceded by its sect: Sunni, Shia, Christian … We were not accustomed to such a thing. My uncle was furious when he saw the secretary general of the Iraqi Communist Party sitting with the other members. He’d heard at the headquarters that the party had polled its cadres and that they’d voted to be part of the council, but he still couldn’t believe his eyes.
He waved his hand and said, “Look at him, for God’s sake. They put him there as a Shiite, and not because he represents an ideological trend or a party with its own history of political struggle. What a shame that this is what it all comes down to. Now an entire history of resisting dictatorship and rejecting war is being trashed. Communists will be like all these other fuckers and crooks. Look at them. Each has a belly weighing a ton.”
Nevertheless, we went to Liberation Square on the morning of July 14th. My uncle said he wanted to commemorate the revolution and the sacrifices of Communists despite what had become of the party in recent years. Hundreds had gathered under the Liberty Monument. I had not stood under it or passed by it for a long time. It was a bit dirty, because of all the pollution and negligence. It looked like it desperately needed maintenance and restoration, but it still had that aura. I remembered Mr. Ismael and my dreams of becoming a great artist — which had all now evaporated.
There were many Communists present, of course, and the organizers wore red ribbons around their arms. But many others seemed to be sympathizers, or perhaps found themselves closer to the Communist Party than to any of the other sectarian parties. There were even a few veiled women. Perhaps many were attracted by the slogan on many of the placards carried by some: “No to Occupation, Yes to Democracy.” There were other banners as well, many red flags, and posters of Abdilkarim Qasim, who was the first prime minister after the pro-British monarchy was toppled in 1958. I was used to reading his name in the context of condemnations by the Ba’thists because he had supposedly been a dictator. That Saddam had participated in a failed assassination attempt on Qasim’s life had been one of those heroic epics repeated to us hundreds of times, so it was quite strange for me to see Qasim’s image being paraded about, not to condemn him, but in celebration of his memory.
My uncle was one of those who believed that, despite his mistakes, Qasim was the first indigenous Iraqi to rule the country in the twentieth century and that he had accomplished important feats. He said as he pointed to the American soldiers who were monitoring the spectacle from a Humvee that the Americans had been against Qasim and had helped the Ba’thists overthrow him.
The mood was festive. A group played popular music and many danced. I even saw a woman in her sixties applauding and dancing along. My uncle said that she was a veteran Communist who’d returned from exile in London. He knew her because of the articles she regularly published on leftist websites. Passing cars were honking to salute the demonstration. My uncle seemed enthusiastic despite his dismay with the party for its decision to enter the governing council.
I told him that seeing the demonstration one would think that the Communist Party could win the elections in a landslide and rule the country. When I heard some of the demonstrators chanting “Fahad, Fahad, your party isn’t dead and will live forever,” I asked him who this Fahad might be. He was shocked.
“Fahad was the founder of the party,” he said. “He was executed by the monarchy and famously said right before being executed, ‘Communism is stronger than death and higher than the gallows.’ You have to read Batatu’s book on Iraq. It’s the most important and encyclopedic account of Iraq’s modern history.”