-Caveat Lector-

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/03/1046540137320.html
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The monumental leader who cuts a fine figure everywhere

March 4 2003

The dust is thick, the flames fierce, but visitors to the chaos of the Sheik
Omar Street foundry stop in their tracks when they come to the imposing
honour guard - 32 fine bronze statues of Iraqi soldiers who have died in
battle.

The detail of these "martyrs" is impeccable. The defence minister who died
in a helicopter crash has all the dignity of high office and the pain of his
tragic war-time death. They clutch the tools of battle - a walkie- talkie, a
stethoscope, a machine gun, a swagger stick. One simply clenches his fist
in anger.

But it quickly becomes apparent that this foundry is not about the dead.
When they pour molten metal here, most often it is in homage to one man
who is very much alive - Saddam Hussein.

He is everywhere. In the first workshop he seems to be toppling from his
horse because the work has yet to be placed on the angled plinth for
which it was designed.

The next workshop is locked. But through its barred windows can be seen
a statue of the President that is more than 10 metres tall, a plaster of
Paris, gun-toting giant. Soon it will be used to cast a hollow mould, into
which men will pour tonnes of molten bronze.

In the next workshop he is a mere six metres, wielding a rifle more than
two metres long.

All of this is the monumental end of one of the most pervasive personal
cults of our time.

In Iraq only one person is allowed to breathe the political, media and
cultural oxygen - Saddam. On TV he is
the news. Towns and cities are wall-papered with his portraits and
scattered with his statues. The people are encouraged to model their life
on that of Saddam; and his life story, especially his rise to power, is
packaged as an Arab legend.

Virtually all of Ottoman Baghdad has been demolished, and the broken-
down, boxy city that has taken its place is a celebration of the leader.

In the face of another destructive war, Saddam presses on with a program
of monumental works, the most grandiose of which is the Grand Saddam
Mosque, second only in size to Mecca. Its dome, still a skeleton of
concrete scaffolding and cranes, will be the size of a football field, sitting
on top of eight colossal arches.

A few kilometres away is the Mother of All Battles mosque - with its
minarets built to look like Scud missiles and a special pavilion in which 600
gilt-edged frames display the pages of the Koran, written in Saddam's
blood. In another direction is a giant sculpture of crossed swords, held by
hands modelled on those of Saddam.

Undoubtedly, there is disquiet with the nature and excesses of the
regime. But equally, there is admiration for how Saddam got to, and
remains in, power in the face of Western hostility. And the deliberate
echoes of the greats of Iraqi history in the cult of Saddam play well in the
hearts and minds of many Iraqis.

Outsiders dwell on how he modelled himself on Stalin and Hitler and
maintains his grip on power through a totalitarian one-party state where
the price of criticism is death.

The self-perpetuating power of the cult was all the easier to understand
on a visit to the Sheik Omar Street foundry, when Abdul Jabar paused in
his work on a series of sculptures of ancient Iraqi philosophers, ordered in
glasses of sweet tea, and talked about the President and the people.

Dr Jabar is a sculptor of note - his five monumental works on display in
Baghdad include two of Saddam - and his views are all the more illuminating
because he worked and studied in the United States for 10 years.

He starts before the rise of Saddam Hussein.

"We were a very poor and hungry people, and as a culture we needed an
historical leader. Our colonial past has given us a great desire to rebuild
our history.

"So in Iraq we all are a part of the leadership. Saddam's confidence comes
from the belief of the people in him, so it is our duty to be good citizens
and fight with him."

And despite his exposure to democracy in the US, the sculptor is happy
with life in Iraq.

"I don't know about the need for an alternate leadership. Saddam has been
good for Iraq."

Dr Jabar produced a bundle of Arabic-language newspapers in which his
artistic criticism had been published. Surely if he believed in criticism in
art he should endorse it in politics?

"We do have criticism here. Criticism of Iraq by the US is not constructive;
it is destructive."

What about the appalling accounts of human rights under the Iraqi regime,
as told by the exiled Iraqi community?

"Who exiles these people? There are no exiles outside Iraq. They go of
their own free will. Some of them have not been here in 40 years, so how
can they be accurate?"

This story was found at:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/03/1046540137320.html
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