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Elliot Ziwira At the Bookstore

The story of Iraq has always been a controversial, yet enduring one. It is a transcendental story that cuts across geographical boundaries, religion and ethnicity in which hope wears so many faces that it risks obscurity. 

Indeed, it is the tale of lack, where reality and the metaphysical are intertwined with symbolic elements that pervade humanity’s toils to create interfaces of hope and regeneration.

In this story, the individual’s voice is reduced to a muffle of suffocated hope due to poverty, subjugation and fear; real or imagined.

But there is a method to this misery.

It smacks of imperialism, royalism, feudalism and materialism, which all conspire to rob the common man of his daily bread and usurp his dreams. 

Unable to find solace in the reality of his condition, the common man seeks the elixir in reverie, religion, alcohol and death.

He is not alone, however, as his voice, crying out in the dustbins of his dreams, is amplified by the artist among his people, who steps in, in defence of the truth.

As the voice of the voiceless and “truth’s defence”, the artist avails himself as a sacrificial lamb whose ink becomes the blood that is shed on the printing press to give a lifeline to his people.

True, the story of Iraq has been captured in many books, for it is a story of many stories. 

But, one book that probably does justice to it is “Iraqi Short Stories: An Anthology”, edited by Yassen Taha Hafidh and Lutfiyah Al-Dilaimi.

Published by Dar Al-Ma’mun for Translation and Publishing (1988) Ministry of Information and Culture, the book is the work of 37 Iraqi writers born between 1921 and 1957.

The writers, whose works were previously published in Arabic, tell the Iraqi story stretching from the 1930s to the 80s, using different tropes. 

The artists are on a social mission to denounce misery through effective use of metaphors and symbolism, which allows the reader leeway to interpret the fictional experiences in a plethora of ways.

Vast outcomes are possible.

“Sickness”, by Abdul Malik Nouri, the opening story in the collection, pokes at the universal neurosis that leads to the stasis, paralysis and malaise at the core of the family unit, community and nation.

Told in the first person voice, the story visits the familiar turf of normlessness, alienation and the search for identity. It is the story of Amin Uthman, who, in his search for an identity, runs away from himself.

Torn between himself, the world that he believes hates him, and his runaway sweetheart; Amin believes that life owes him an apology. Everything becomes a “sickness” that waylays him.

Tormented by the loss of his sweetheart, whose features he scantly recalls, the protagonist bumps into her as a prostitute. Ironically, she has assumed a novel way of impassionate kissing.

Amin is overwhelmed by the desire to hold her as in the days of old, yet the distance that was created by her sudden departure haunts him. His entire world becomes a mist that consumes him, but he somehow remains outside.

Nizar Saleem’s “Song of the Turnip Vendor” explores the darkness of Man’s heart; his selfishness and propensity for deceit.

The story highlights the dearth of values, the rise of individualism steeped in violence, and the demise of a collective struggle against poverty and oppression.

Khamees, the turnip vendor, recalls the days he used to sell hot turnips in winter and ice-cream in summer to an exuberant and tightly knit clientele that called him “Uncle Khamees”.

His story merges with Noriya’s, whose aunt is fond of boiled turnips, which the vendor is no longer keen to deliver to her street, because of the closure of the students’ hostel as a result of violent disturbances. The students were the vendor’s friends and gave him good business.

They would ask him to sing for them. He would willingly do so, and everyone would rejoice in between mouthfuls of hot turnips, or gleeful licks of ice-cream.

Khamees recalls Sami and his friends, Shamil and Ali—great buddies, indeed. However, as the voyeur inherent in Man, usually excited by trauma, beckons for its share, Khamees’ heart sinks when he witnesses betrayal at its ugliest slot.

As violence erupts at the students’ hostel, Shamil and Ali turn against Sami, their supposed friend, whom they clobber to death.

 “They took hold of him. I shouted at them: ‘You’re brothers. What is wrong with you? What has happened? You, Shamil, and you Ali…you’re brothers. Yesterday you’re all together, but today you are against him,’” Khamees recalls.

Although there is no direct reference to political violence in the story, and most of the stories in “Iraqi Short Stories: An Anthology”, connotative deductions can easily be drawn through interpretation of the symbols, metaphors and images used.

 As brother rises against brother in the rat race for superiority, the feeble and vulnerable remain rooted on the first rung of the ladder to spiritual and physical satiation.

The vendor, like most of his ilk, who are a creation of the capitalistic inclinations of the imperialistic oppressor, is far from being a beneficiary of the system, as his poor customers may presume.

As a conduit between the oppressor and the oppressed, he does not only offer a service to mitigate their misery, but he also suffers the vagaries of nature and Man alike.

He has to be in the open day and night. The heinous side of Man confronts him in the solemn streets as he tries to keep body and soul together.

Although the book recollects episodes of the Iraqi story through realism and inspiration from the French, Russian and English traditions, the stories are refreshingly unique.

The narrative points of view vary and heighten the thematic issues raised. Love, marriage, oppression in all its facets, and culture, are some of the themes given prominence in the anthology.

“Government Bread”, by Edmon Sabri, and Abdul Rahman Majeed AL-Rubai’i’s “The Hero and the City”, explore the tendency to sugar-coat real issues affecting the common man through policies that are only stop-gap measures or fodder.

In “Government Bread”, misery, a culmination of the rise in the prices of basic consumer goods and souring unemployment rates, is aggravated, instead of being mitigated.

The government’s idea to give free bread to the hungry masses fails to solve the problem. Ismail, who had been a soldier for 10 years before losing his eye, believes that his wife, Maheeba, needs more than bread to be able to provide milk to their suckling baby.

Like all the others braving the cold dawns of their lives for a morsel of bread, Ismail wants a little money. He decides to write a petition, which, unfortunately, is not delivered.

In pursuit of new heroes, citizens are entranced by a wrestling hero in town as depicted in “The Hero and the City”.

In the story, all roads in Baghdad are leading to the Mal’ab (stadium) as people throng to watch the great wrestler, Fawzi al-Baghdadi (hero of Baghdad), who has defeated “many challengers who had come from Europe”, and is said to be “a source of pride to Iraq and the Arab nation.” 

The protagonist, Adil, and his friend Nassir, being conscious of the nascent lie within, try not to be swayed by this frenzy. However, in their quest to escape, they remain entangled in the same web they purport to be running away from. Wherever they go; cafes, hotels or any other public place, the talk on TV or Radio is all about the new hero in Baghdad.

In a community where everyone is blind, indeed, the one-eyed man is king.

Stories like “Orbit”, “The Five Rivers of Paradise”, “The Spectacles” and “Mud Structures” by Mahmoud Al-Dhahir, Ghazi Al-Abadi, Abdul Razzaq Al-Muttalibi and Khudhayir Abdul Amir, respectively, highlight oppressive tendencies that stifle individual expression.

With everything seen through borrowed or stolen spectacles, rented solutions to internal problems become baneful. Solutions should always be sought through a collective and selfless platform.

Notwithstanding the travails that have become the alpha of the feeble and vulnerable, the omega should not be seen embedded in death, or any other form of escapism. 

There is so much hope in spirituality, yes, but that alone cannot take everyone to Kingdom come.

In “Picking Season”, Lutfiya Al-Dilaimi is conscious of the social barriers that impede women’s progress and freedom.

She also lashes out at rigidity, and the fight against change outlined through Time, as both oppressive and retrogressive. Time brings about change, for the predominant feeling of change is difficult to subdue; but that change should not in any way be confrontational. It has to be compromisingly constructive.

“Iraqi Short Stories: An Anthology” does not only tell the story of Iraq, but it chronicles a universal story that engrosses all of mankind.