Baghdad Art Gallery Offers Some Hope
By HAMZA HENDAWI
.c The Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – Automatic fire rattled a short distance away as
Qasim al-Sabti and a group of friends gathered around a makeshift fire
in an outdoor cafe on a cold January morning to debate Iraq’s
election.
What caught the men’s attention, however, wasn’t the gunfire, but what
al-Sabti said next.
“I am going to vote for Ayad Allawi,” al-Sabti, a prominent Sunni
Arab painter, casually declared. That caused disapproving looks from
some sitting around the logs burning in a metal tray at the cafe of
Baghdad’s famous Hewar Art gallery.
His support for Iraq’s Shiite prime minister, however, did not lead to
any violence or hate-filled arguments. Instead, in this gallery that
serves as a gathering place for Baghdad’s artistic and intellectual
elite, the statement kicked off a debate on the country’s Sunday
elections that went on for nearly two hours.
No one yelled, everyone remained friendly and no one sought to openly
challenge al-Sabti’s choice of Allawi.
Sunday’s vote has taken on a dangerous racial and religious slant
because of the likelihood it will lead to a new era of political
domination by Iraq’s Shiite majority and a loss of power long held by
minority Sunni Arabs.
A Sunni-led insurgency is stepping up attacks to derail the vote,
targeting Shiites, electoral workers and polling centers.
Against this backdrop, al-Sabti and his friends offer a ray of hope
that Iraqis – a mix of religious and racial groups – can live together
in peace. At Hewar, Arabic for dialogue, they prove it every day when
many others are fast losing faith.
“We speak about the election every day. It is like the biscuits we
eat with our tea,” said al-Sabti.
“Sometimes, voices are raised, and that’s when I intervene,” said
al-Sabit, who has an uncanny ability to improvise rhymed verse, and
often inserts a funny line. “But, I swear to you by God Almighty,
it’s a healthy exchange.”
Al-Sabti’s friends are painters, poets, actors, sculptors and
critics. They come from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds from all
parts of Iraq – the Kurdish north, the mainly Sunni Arab center and
the mostly Shiite south. There are Christians and ethnic Turks among
them, too.
Their vision of Iraq contrasts sharply with the sectarian incitement
posted on the Internet by Sunni militant groups, with the views of
Shiite extremists or with the calls to boycott the vote from Sunni
clerics.
They speak with pride and confidence of the bonds that keep Iraqis
together – tens of thousands of cross-ethnic and cross-religious
marriages – and of the large and influential tribes that include both
Shiite and Sunni clans.
Politicians, including some in Allawi’s Cabinet, have warned that
growing sectarian tensions and a Sunni Arab vote boycott could plunge
Iraq into civil war.
But al-Sabti, who is married to a Shiite Muslim, passionately
disagrees.
“This thing about Shiites and Sunnis is purely political,” he said.
“Politicians are exploiting it. When I went to ask for my wife’s hand
in marriage from her family, they did not ask me whether I was a
Shiite or a Sunni.”
Sculptor Ali Risan, a Shiite member of the group, is similarly open,
saying with bravado that he doesn’t care who gets to be the next
president of Iraq. “He can be a Muslim, a Christian or a Yazidi “
referring to a small religious sect.
Another member of the circle, Sunni Arab painter Salam Omar, says he
is against boycotting the vote. A native of the town of Ana in Anbar
province, where the insurgency and opposition to the vote is fiercest,
he has lived outside Iraq most of the past decade.
“The election offers us a chance to protect our rights. It’s better
than losing everything by not voting at all,” he said.
Some might see such views as overly optimistic, given the examples of
past conflicts such as the 1990s Balkan wars, when extremists
prevailed, managing to silence a moderate majority
And it is certainly true that Sunday’s elections have failed to
inspire some Iraqis. Wissam Zakho, an Armenian Christian painter from
Mosul, Iraq’s third largest city, says he has not yet decided whether
to vote.
“It’s all a mystery to me. I don’t have to vote, do I?” asked the
slender Zakho as he showed a visitor one of his watercolor works, a
scene of a stream and its banks.
Al-Sabti, who quit Saddam Hussein’s Baath party to protest the 1990
invasion of Kuwait, created Hewar in Waziriyah, a mixed Baghdad
neighborhood, in 1994 to give Iraq’s artistic community a meeting
place. Saddam’s ouster nearly two years ago resulted in international
fame, when the gallery showed sculptures depicting Iraqi suffering and
the perceived cruelty of the U.S. military.
But al-Sabti says it is the chance to talk openly and with warmth that
sets Hewar apart.
“This place is like Iraq in the 1960s,” he says. “It was such a
romantic time, even in Iraq. Everyone now tries to resurrect the
spirit of the 1960s. In Hewar, we succeeded.”
01/27/05 02:48 EST