This past Sunday, SMU hosted a special showing of the documentary “About Baghdad” in the Hughes-Trigg Forum. Sinan Antoon, the filmmaker and a native Iraqi, introduced the film to a diverse audience, which included a member of the U.S. army who was in Iraq during the same period that the movie was filmed.
“About Baghdad” is the work of a team of American graduate students, including Antoon, who traveled to Iraq in July 2003, three months after the fall of Sadaam Hussein’s regime.
“We felt that the information citizens were getting was problematic”, Antoon says, “[They] didn’t know much about Iraqis and how they felt. We never really heard about the people.”
The majority of the film depicted Iraqis on the streets of Baghdad, expressing their views about the American invasion. “We want an Iraqi government!” one woman exclaimed early in the film. Another woman told the filmmakers that that the presence of American soldiers was an “imposed occupation, against our will.”
In one scene, a crowd of men gathered around the camera, saying “We want someone who suffered with us, not someone who lived abroad for 40 years and then says ‘I will rule you.'” The men, who lived in a middle-class area of Baghdad, spoke out against other Arab governments as well, saying they remained silent during the years of Sadaam’s reign when they should have cut diplomatic ties with Iraq.
Antoon and his team shot footage of libraries, colleges and museums which were bombed by American planes and then looted and burned by Iraqis. They traveled to a hospital where newborn babies were dehydrated and malnourished because of the lack of medical supplies. “We try very hard here”, said one doctor in “About Baghdad”, “But only 50% of these infants will survive.”
While in a town called al-Dijayl, the filmmakers attended a memorial service for townspeople who were killed by Sadaam Hussein. The walls of the meeting room were covered by pictures of the men, many of whose bodies still have not been found after 20 years.
At the memorial service, a crowd of men displayed their scars and acid burns from torture they endured under Sadaam’s reign. Many of the men attending the service had been imprisoned in the now infamous Abu-Grayb prison.
The film also showed interviews with a female lawyer who fought against Uday Hussein, Sadaam’s son. She was tortured and imprisoned in a prostitute’s jail for several years because she dared to question a Hussein.
The “Baghdad Crew”, as the filmmakers called themselves, also visited an insane asylum whose inmates escaped after U.S. troops mistakenly attacked the building.
The crew also managed to interview some American soldiers, one of whom described Iraqi children throwing stones at him as he walked down the street. Another, when asked how he felt about being called an occupier, replied, “Well, we are.”
“About Baghdad” covered a wide variety of Iraqi opinions. They interviewed Baghdad citizens from rich, middle-class and poor neighborhoods. There is so much anger and violence”, Antoon says. “[Iraq] has been chopped up by dictatorship and by occupations.”
At least under Sadaam there was a viable health and education system, Antoon said. Now, “there is no functioning society.”
After the film, Antoon opened the floor for a question and answer session. When asked for his opinion on the current Iraqi constitution, Antoon said he is concerned because “it does not ensure the rights of citizens-more importantly, the rights of women.” He said that, should the current constitution remain, all the gains Iraqi women have made in the last 60 years “will go down the drain.”
Several audience members asked questions about the sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1990, and about their effects on the Iraqi people. Antoon described the sanctions, meant to weaken Sadaam’s Ba’th regime, as “13 years of the most Draconian sanctions.” He cited estimates which state almost 800,000 Iraqi civilians died because of the sanctions, and called them “basically genocide” against the Iraqi people.
Antoon fled Iraq in May 1991 to “escape the stifling atmosphere of Sadaam.” He recalled driving into Jordan after leaving his home and noticing that there were no images of Sadaam for miles, something that was a direct contrast from the streets of Iraq.
“There are no simple answers”, Antoon said when asked what he thinks should be done in Iraq. “Life is not a Hollywood movie. Unfortunately, life is much more complicated than the Bush administration has portrayed.”
Antoon and his team have no plans to go back to Iraq soon. “We made the film when we did because we thought America should see as soon as possible what these Iraqis think.” he said. “Now, it’s almost impossible. There is no security.”
