Home > Saddam’s Baghdad was lively city, but not today
BY TAREK EL-TABLAWY AND OMAR SINAN
Along the banks of the Tigris River, a young man high on despair and cheap whiskey stares blankly into the evening sky. This is the highlight of his day. Hussein Ali tells a man beside him that death would be welcome.
Across town, outside a rundown theater, a movie poster promises women in lingerie. It’s enough to convince a large group of equally despondent Iraqis like Nazar Flayieh to settle into the cinema’s backbreaking seats.
It’s an escape before ’’going back to my boring life,’’ says the 17-year-old worker.
About 1,300 years ago, Sheherazade — the yarn-spinning heroine of A Thousand and One Nights — dubbed Baghdad the ’’City of Peace.’’ Today, it is anything but.
Its buildings are crumbling or pockmarked by bullet holes. People are as likely to be jolted out of bed by a car bomb or a mortar shell as an alarm clock. Ambushes and kidnappings are rife, jobs are scarce. The power is out almost as much as it’s on. Add to that the closure of many of the riverside restaurants and cafes, amusement parks, theaters and cinemas, the looted museums, the decrepit zoo, and Baghdadis have few entertainment options.
The chaos has not only crushed their spirits, many say, it has left them bored to death.
If not political freedom, people here say, Saddam Hussein’s regime at least brought the freedom of family outings unencumbered by the fear of suicide car bombing.
Mohammed Abbas, 35, says the $20 dinner tab for four at the Saysaban Casino may severely dent his wallet, but it’s a small price to pay to boost his 5-year-old son Ali’s spirits. After 14 months of keeping the family largely confined to the house, Abbas said, life became ’’unbearable.’’
’’This life of boredom is destroying my child,’’ he said. ’’It has to stop.’’ BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP)