When the Baʿthist party came to power they imposed deportation on those who refused to join its ranks. Many of Iraqi intellectuals left the country during this period, which is called the khayār al-hijra (migration option) period, leading to a dichotomy between outside and inside literati, and between state and anti-state literati (reference).
Under the campaign of Baʿthification of the entire Iraqi society, those who stayed in Iraq, were forced to sign Article 200, requiring them to embrace the party’s new rule (reference). Many of the Iraqi literati that were termed ‘the 60s Generation’ therefore provided early models of Baʿthist state literati. Some produced novels and poetry that represented the party’s ideology and fostered a personality cult around Saddam Ḥūssayn (reference) (see also in 1980 – 1988: Iran- Iraq war).
- Ḥaydar Ḥaydar (1936 – 2023, Syria) – Walīymah li-Aʿshāb al-Baḥr (‘Feast for Seaweed’, 1984). This novel interweaves two narratives: the Communist uprising in the Marshes of Southern Iraq in 1968, and the daily realities of 1970s Algeria where the Iraqi communists live in exile, among them Mahdī Jawwād (reference). After the rise of the Baʾath regime in Iraq, Mahdī, was jailed and tortured before escaping to Algeria, where life after independence did not correspond with the dreams of the revolution. The novel is a bitter portrait of revolutionary failure in the Arab world (reference). When re-published in 1999, the novel was met with protests by Islamists who claimed it was blasphemous, as the novel predicted the rise of Islamic fundamentalism (reference) (also in I: Ideologies and Political Movements: Communism and Marxism).
- Ḥayāh Sharārah (1935 – 1997, Iraq) – Idhā al-Ayyām Aghsaqat (‘When the Days Grow Dark’, 2000). This semi-autobiographical novel, published posthumously by her sister Balks Sharārah after the author’s controversial suicide, is set at Baghdad University during a bleak period when intelligence agents and informants linked to the ruling Baʿth Party fill the hallways. Its protagonist, Dr. Noaman, “depicts the agonies of the Iraqi intelligentsia” and, despite all his efforts to be a reputable academic, is forced to give false evaluations of his students’ work (reference). The novel portrays the dire circumstances of social and intellectual life in the period following the Baʿth Party’s coming to power, a time marked by repression and economic stagnation due to sanctions. Sharārah’s life closely reflects the novel’s themes, as she herself was an Iraqi educator and translator who refused to succumb political repression (also in O: Occupations, Professions and Hobbies: University Life: Academics and Students).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Yaseem Hanoosh. 2012. “Contempt: State Literati vs. Street Literati in Modern Iraq.” JAL 43: 372-408, p. 399
- Ikram Masmoudi. 2015. War and Occupation in Iraqi Fiction. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, p. 10
- Yaseem Hanoosh. 2012. “Contempt: State Literati vs. Street Literati in Modern Iraq.” JAL 43: 372-408, p. 338
- Sabry Hafez. 2000. “The Novel, Politics and Islam: Haydar Haydar’s ‘Banquet for Seaweed’.” New Left Review 5, p. 128, 131, 132
- Māhir Ḥassan. 2017. “‘Walīmah li-Aʿshāb al-Baḥr’… Riwāyah fī Muwājihat al-Jamīʿa” www.almasryalyoum.com, 26 June 2017, https://www.almasryalyoum.com/news/details/1154353 (last accessed 31 March 2019)
- Fadil Chalabi. 2018. “Herioc outcry against injustice.” Banipal 63: 26-28, p. 28