This article explores the work of the artist Lorna Selim in the context of a period of modernization and urbanization in Baghdad, the city she moved to in 1950 with her husband, fellow artist Jewad Selim. Following the neglect and destruction of thousands of traditional houses in Baghdad, the landscape of the city was changing rapidly over time. Modernist architects and planners fuelled these changes, with little consideration for issues of conservation. I aim to show the impact of a variety of policies, historical events and new architectural trends on the Iraqi environment, and show how Lorna captured a snapshot of Iraqi cultural and architectural history which has since been lost.
{"title":"Painting architectural heritage in modern Baghdad: The art of Lorna Selim","authors":"Mysa Kafil-Hussain","doi":"10.1386/jciaw_00045_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jciaw_00045_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the work of the artist Lorna Selim in the context of a period of modernization and urbanization in Baghdad, the city she moved to in 1950 with her husband, fellow artist Jewad Selim. Following the neglect and destruction of thousands of traditional houses in Baghdad, the landscape of the city was changing rapidly over time. Modernist architects and planners fuelled these changes, with little consideration for issues of conservation. I aim to show the impact of a variety of policies, historical events and new architectural trends on the Iraqi environment, and show how Lorna captured a snapshot of Iraqi cultural and architectural history which has since been lost.","PeriodicalId":36575,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Iraq and the Arab World","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43572387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article is an overview of the evolution of the ongoing series Land of Darkness by Dia al-Azzawi (born in Baghdad in 1939), which is marked by a lack of colour unusual to Azzawi’s work. This article argues that, although he initially chose the term ‘darkness’ as an ironic reinterpretation of a historic name for Iraq for the title of a single artwork about a specific tragedy, Azzawi was compelled to return to it time and again as he witnessed the ongoing deterioration of his homeland from afar. It also examines how and why, for nearly three decades after the Gulf War of 1991, Azzawi has constantly turned his focus towards Iraq, criticizing its enemies and defending its future, and continuing to make works about the plight of the Land of Darkness.
{"title":"Where have all the colours gone?: Land of Darkness in the work of Dia al-Azzawi","authors":"Louisa Macmillan","doi":"10.1386/jciaw_00047_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jciaw_00047_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article is an overview of the evolution of the ongoing series Land of Darkness by Dia al-Azzawi (born in Baghdad in 1939), which is marked by a lack of colour unusual to Azzawi’s work. This article argues that, although he initially chose the term ‘darkness’ as an ironic reinterpretation of a historic name for Iraq for the title of a single artwork about a specific tragedy, Azzawi was compelled to return to it time and again as he witnessed the ongoing deterioration of his homeland from afar. It also examines how and why, for nearly three decades after the Gulf War of 1991, Azzawi has constantly turned his focus towards Iraq, criticizing its enemies and defending its future, and continuing to make works about the plight of the Land of Darkness.","PeriodicalId":36575,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Iraq and the Arab World","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45348528","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In August 2003, Iraqi exile Zaid Kubra returned to Baghdad to restore and conserve the country’s marshes, once drained by Saddam Hussein, as the signature emblem for the new state. Under Kubra’s leadership Iraq’s marshes conservation initiative became the ‘success story of the war’. Photographic images of Iraq’s restored marshes were potent markers of this success, used by more than 75 news articles since 2003 to fuel special interest good news reportage. Through a comparative of occupation imagery with the Iraqi canon of literary and visual arts centring on the marshes, the article analyses how Iraqi exiles cultivated an occupation aesthetics of the marshes that deployed images of wetlands’ nature – its towering reeds and its soaring birds – to advance the occupation.
{"title":"The art of nature in Iraq’s marshes: Images of the occupation","authors":"Bridget Guarasci","doi":"10.1386/jciaw_00046_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jciaw_00046_1","url":null,"abstract":"In August 2003, Iraqi exile Zaid Kubra returned to Baghdad to restore and conserve the country’s marshes, once drained by Saddam Hussein, as the signature emblem for the new state. Under Kubra’s leadership Iraq’s marshes conservation initiative became the ‘success story of the war’. Photographic images of Iraq’s restored marshes were potent markers of this success, used by more than 75 news articles since 2003 to fuel special interest good news reportage. Through a comparative of occupation imagery with the Iraqi canon of literary and visual arts centring on the marshes, the article analyses how Iraqi exiles cultivated an occupation aesthetics of the marshes that deployed images of wetlands’ nature – its towering reeds and its soaring birds – to advance the occupation.","PeriodicalId":36575,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Iraq and the Arab World","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45447911","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The monument that stands in Tahrir Square in Baghdad, known as Naṣb al-Ḥurrīyya (the Freedom Monument), is a site-specific work. Spatial in its conception from the very start, this monument came to exceed both primary historical event and iconographic representation to become the heart of the identity of the protest movement in the city of Baghdad, and to define its terrain. And it has now come to signify people’s rights across all of Iraq today. Commissioned soon after the 1958 revolution that overthrew the Hashemite Dynastic house, the Hurriyya monument has to do with the Event of revolution in the sense of event as defined in the philosophical writings of Alain Badiou, as a moment which emerges outside of, and changes the conditions and the frame of existence of its appearance. Thus, the Hurriyya monument commemorated historically the 14 July 1958 revolution in Iraq (the 14 Tammuz Revolution), yet it exceeded historical commemoration to signify the Evental character of a people’s revolution and its reclaiming of the city space.
{"title":"A revolutionary monument: Reclaiming the Naṣb al-Ḥurrīyya in Baghdad","authors":"Z. Bahrani","doi":"10.1386/jciaw_00038_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jciaw_00038_1","url":null,"abstract":"The monument that stands in Tahrir Square in Baghdad, known as Naṣb al-Ḥurrīyya (the Freedom Monument), is a site-specific work. Spatial in its conception from the very start, this monument came to exceed both primary historical event and iconographic representation to become the heart of the identity of the protest movement in the city of Baghdad, and to define its terrain. And it has now come to signify people’s rights across all of Iraq today. Commissioned soon after the 1958 revolution that overthrew the Hashemite Dynastic house, the Hurriyya monument has to do with the Event of revolution in the sense of event as defined in the philosophical writings of Alain Badiou, as a moment which emerges outside of, and changes the conditions and the frame of existence of its appearance. Thus, the Hurriyya monument commemorated historically the 14 July 1958 revolution in Iraq (the 14 Tammuz Revolution), yet it exceeded historical commemoration to signify the Evental character of a people’s revolution and its reclaiming of the city space.","PeriodicalId":36575,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Iraq and the Arab World","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44312484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction","authors":"T. Ismael","doi":"10.1386/jciaw_00027_2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jciaw_00027_2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36575,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Iraq and the Arab World","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47259450","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Over recent decades, countries have been competing to attract foreign investments to benefit from the advantages they offer in financing economic development, providing modern technology and effective administrative methods, as well as providing job opportunities. In addition to the problems of financing development, Middle East and North African (MENA) countries experience high unemployment rates. We therefore believe that one way to overcome this issue is to bring in FDI as more investment provides new job opportunities. This article explores the dynamic relationship between FDI and domestic investment (DI) on unemployment in MENA countries using panel data for the period 2003‐18. The empirical analysis, based on the Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) model, finds that FDI increases unemployment and domestic investment reduces it. Further, the findings show that the prominent determinant of unemployment rates is corruption.
{"title":"Do FDI and domestic investment affect unemployment in MENA countries? Dynamic panel data analysis","authors":"Mufeed Almula-Dhanoon, Marwan Abdul-Malik Dhannoon, Mohannad Muneer Al-Salman, Mustafa Fadhil Hammadi","doi":"10.1386/jciaw_00031_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jciaw_00031_1","url":null,"abstract":"Over recent decades, countries have been competing to attract foreign investments to benefit from the advantages they offer in financing economic development, providing modern technology and effective administrative methods, as well as providing job opportunities. In addition to the\u0000 problems of financing development, Middle East and North African (MENA) countries experience high unemployment rates. We therefore believe that one way to overcome this issue is to bring in FDI as more investment provides new job opportunities. This article explores the dynamic relationship\u0000 between FDI and domestic investment (DI) on unemployment in MENA countries using panel data for the period 2003‐18. The empirical analysis, based on the Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) model, finds that FDI increases unemployment and domestic investment reduces it. Further, the\u0000 findings show that the prominent determinant of unemployment rates is corruption.","PeriodicalId":36575,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Iraq and the Arab World","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46118080","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This reading attempts to trace the awareness and mention of Marx in Iraqi writing, focusing on some signposts that also shed light on the intellectual history of Iraq since 1914. It argues its case through an exploration of texts and recollections to present another side of this history as a controversial narrative of multiple positions and contentions. If the spectre of Marx shocked conservatives and was widely manipulated in Cold War politics, its theoretical permeation of an Iraqi discourse of social justice cannot be ignored. Almost every Iraqi narrative, poem, or essay speaks of the need for equitable balance of power, social justice, and social and political emancipation. To have these concerns materialize, there has been a need for some organized forum, a party, society, or a forum. British intelligence service began to trace the specters of Marx early on, and held all, even nationalists, suspect. The trepidations of the Empire were well conveyed in the reports of its agents in Iraq.
{"title":"The Iraqi spectres of Marx","authors":"M. Al-Musawi","doi":"10.1386/jciaw_00028_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jciaw_00028_1","url":null,"abstract":"This reading attempts to trace the awareness and mention of Marx in Iraqi writing, focusing on some signposts that also shed light on the intellectual history of Iraq since 1914. It argues its case through an exploration of texts and recollections to present another side of this history\u0000 as a controversial narrative of multiple positions and contentions. If the spectre of Marx shocked conservatives and was widely manipulated in Cold War politics, its theoretical permeation of an Iraqi discourse of social justice cannot be ignored. Almost every Iraqi narrative, poem, or essay\u0000 speaks of the need for equitable balance of power, social justice, and social and political emancipation. To have these concerns materialize, there has been a need for some organized forum, a party, society, or a forum. British intelligence service began to trace the specters of Marx early\u0000 on, and held all, even nationalists, suspect. The trepidations of the Empire were well conveyed in the reports of its agents in Iraq.","PeriodicalId":36575,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Iraq and the Arab World","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44824803","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
These notes are a continuation of the recollections of the author’s personal experiences growing up in 1940s Baghdad while actively engaged in the family business of book selling in the old Suq Al-Saray which was located in the centre of what is now identified as ‘old’ Baghdad City. Reflecting the experience of being born and raised within a block of the now world famous Al-Mutanaby Street, aspects of these recollections were recently published in the form of two articles published in the International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies (9:3, pp. 165‐90) and Journal of Contemporary Iraq & the Arab World (13:2, pp. 217‐25). The present contribution represents a continuation of these personal recollections together with some associated historical commentary that terminates in October 1951 on the author’s departure from Baghdad to study engineering in England.
{"title":"The neighbourhood of Al-Mutanabbi Street, Baghdad: A personal narrative and recollections of a childhood in Baghdad in the 1940s","authors":"G. Karim","doi":"10.1386/jciaw_00032_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jciaw_00032_1","url":null,"abstract":"These notes are a continuation of the recollections of the author’s personal experiences growing up in 1940s Baghdad while actively engaged in the family business of book selling in the old Suq Al-Saray which was located in the centre of what is now identified as ‘old’\u0000 Baghdad City. Reflecting the experience of being born and raised within a block of the now world famous Al-Mutanaby Street, aspects of these recollections were recently published in the form of two articles published in the International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies (9:3, pp.\u0000 165‐90) and Journal of Contemporary Iraq & the Arab World (13:2, pp. 217‐25). The present contribution represents a continuation of these personal recollections together with some associated historical commentary that terminates in October 1951 on the author’s\u0000 departure from Baghdad to study engineering in England.","PeriodicalId":36575,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Iraq and the Arab World","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48029075","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Students from the University of Halabja were asked in a survey conducted in April 2019 about their attitudes towards emigration in the wake of a prolonged financial crisis burdening the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) since 2014. While these students are not yet migrants, researching the reasons for their envisaged migration helps to better understand the challenges they face. Despite a continuous development of its post-secondary education sector, the KRI still struggles with low absorption rates of graduates. At the same time, the KRI exhibits a growing youth bulge, as well as high unemployment levels among its young population. These unfavourable conditions might cause a brain drain, pushing the educated youth to leave the country in search of better financial means, as well as waves of social unrest as seen throughout Iraq and the wider Middle East. First results show that more than half of the surveyed students have considered emigrating. Local job opportunities would, however, diminish their percentage.
在2019年4月进行的一项调查中，哈拉布贾大学(University of Halabja)的学生被问及他们对移民的态度。自2014年以来，伊拉克库尔德斯坦地区(KRI)经历了旷日持久的金融危机。虽然这些学生还不是移民，但研究他们设想移民的原因有助于更好地了解他们面临的挑战。尽管高等教育部门不断发展，但韩国经济研究院的毕业生吸收率仍然很低。与此同时，韩国经济也呈现出青年膨胀和青年失业率高企的现象。这些不利的条件可能会导致人才流失，迫使受过教育的年轻人离开这个国家去寻找更好的经济手段，以及在整个伊拉克和更广泛的中东地区看到的社会动荡浪潮。初步结果显示，超过一半的受访学生考虑过移民。然而，当地的就业机会将减少他们的比例。
{"title":"Should I stay, or should I go? Migration attitudes after the financial crisis (2014‐19) among students from Halabja (KRI)","authors":"Silvia Nicola, Shahen Mohammaed Faraj","doi":"10.1386/jciaw_00030_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jciaw_00030_1","url":null,"abstract":"Students from the University of Halabja were asked in a survey conducted in April 2019 about their attitudes towards emigration in the wake of a prolonged financial crisis burdening the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) since 2014. While these students are not yet migrants, researching\u0000 the reasons for their envisaged migration helps to better understand the challenges they face. Despite a continuous development of its post-secondary education sector, the KRI still struggles with low absorption rates of graduates. At the same time, the KRI exhibits a growing youth bulge,\u0000 as well as high unemployment levels among its young population. These unfavourable conditions might cause a brain drain, pushing the educated youth to leave the country in search of better financial means, as well as waves of social unrest as seen throughout Iraq and the wider Middle East.\u0000 First results show that more than half of the surveyed students have considered emigrating. Local job opportunities would, however, diminish their percentage.","PeriodicalId":36575,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Iraq and the Arab World","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46232640","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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