For Iraq (with)out Saddam

By Nadia Abou El-Magd
At Al-Watani theatre in Baghdad, the queue for tickets to The Bodyguard, starring Egypt's leading comedian Adel Imam, winds around the corner and people have been waiting here since the early morning. The same is true at Al-Rashid theatre, where Samir Ghanem's play, Me, My Wife and Monica, is running. Last Ramadan, Egyptian comedian Mohamed Sobhi brought his famous play Mama America here, also to great success.
This is a city where the Arab artist is given a hero's welcome. Theatres are swathed in posters bearing pictures of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and offering catchy slogans that draw comparisons between the revolutionary and the artist, the pen and the gun. Ten years after Desert Storm and the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq, a visit to Baghdad still carries complex connotations -- is it a show of solidarity with the Iraqi people, or simply a boost for the Iraqi regime? One Egyptian commentator has described the parade of Egyptian pop and movie stars, intellectuals and businessmen jumping on the Baghdad bandwagon as a "black comedy."
Advocates of greater solidarity with Iraq, on the other hand, base their case on more than just principle. They argue that the US-led sanctions regime runs counter to Egypt's interests, not only on the political and national security levels but also on more immediate economic and business-interest levels.
Businessman Emad El-Galada has chartered six planes since last October. The latest carried the banner "No to aggression, no to sanctions." Detractors, however, cite El-Galada's business interests in Iraq to shed doubt on the motives behind what some of them have derisively named "the pilgrimage to Baghdad."
Still, last Sunday's trip to Baghdad was crowded full of more than 200 members of a growing solidarity movement. "These trips don't simply defy the illegitimate and unjustified sanctions against Iraq, but also counter the latest wave of cowardly American, British and Zionist aggressions on Iraq," El-Galada retorted. Speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly aboard the flight, El-Galada called the visits a "successful show of support for the Iraqi people," but Akhbar Al-Youm columnist Anwar Wagdi (a nom de plume) begs to differ. It is all well and good that Egyptian businessmen are dreaming of Egyptian-Iraqi cooperation, Wagdi wrote, but "it is ugly and ignominious to see this popular support transformed into support of the Iraqi regime."
Last Monday, Iraqi newspapers were loaded with articles on "the valiant Iraqi triumph over evil" and "10 years of American occupation of Kuwait." Back in Egypt, the tone was considerably more contrite. "In our hearts, we are all with the Iraqi people, and Egypt condemns the tough sanctions imposed on Iraq," wrote poet Farouk Goweida in Al-Ahram. "At the same time, and with the same passion, we are with the Kuwaiti people, who want to live securely in their homeland without threats from their brothers and neighbours." Why, noted Goweida, did these artists not go to other countries, like Sudan, Libya or Somalia. What about showing their solidarity with the children of the Al-Aqsa Intifada?
Comedian Adel Imam has defended his visit to Baghdad by saying his performance there was in his capacity as a United Nations goodwill ambassador. Comedian Mohamed Sobhi, who has never shied away from politically charged material, has not gotten off so easy. His photo with Saddam Hussein has brought on more anger than anything he has done in his esteemed 30-year career. Attempts to defend himself by saying that he is equally against the invasion of Kuwait and the sanctions on Iraq have fallen on deaf ears.
On the other side of the fence sits Syrian-Egyptian actress Raghda. "Art mends what is distorted by politics. But when art is politicised, it harms them both," she says. Like Sobhi, Raghda has come under fire for her frequent visits to Baghdad, but unlike him and Imam, she faces the criticism head on. The campaign against her, she told the Weekly, only "distorts the main issues, which are the suffering of the Iraqi and Palestinian people." Raghda has been quoted as saying Saddam Hussein is not a dictator, "because the Iraqi people love him." She has also boldly defended her support of Hussein -- "Why shouldn't I like him? He is the first Arab leader to fire a missile against Israel." She added: "Saddam Hussein is not a catastrophe -- but the situation in Iraq is."
Respected leftist writer and chief editor of the weekly Al-Qahira Salah Eissa claims the problem lies in the lack of depth in popular movements in Egypt. These movements, he told the Weekly, "lack a clear-cut political agenda." Egyptians welcomed the trips to Iraq at first because they "expressed real spontaneous feelings that didn't involve personal interests." It is easy to rally support for lifting sanctions against Iraq. It is not so easy, perhaps, to admit that these sanctions have persisted largely in part because of the Iraqi regime and its continued threats against its neighbours. Without emphasising this important point, Eissa noted, local movements will simply become fuel for the Iraqi media machine. "We have to get past this Cold War mentality that anyone who is America's enemy is our friend," he said.
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