Climate of fear fuels Iraq's TV renaissance
Theatre, cinema and art suffer as ongoing violence confines viewers to their homes By Rory Carroll in Baghdad The Guardian | June 22, 2005 http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1511525,00.html Whatever else can be said about the violence and curfews, they do wonders for television. With theatres and cinemas shut, galleries bland, concerts rare and museums looted, Iraq is experiencing a golden age of the small screen. Actors, writers and directors, unable to practise their talents elsewhere, have found a haven in television, producing arts and entertainment denied for decades under Saddam Hussein. >From just three state-run channels under the ousted regime there are now dozens of domestic and satellite channels. The wave of dramas, documentaries and comedies is hugely popular and television sales are soaring, with families buying several sets. Article continues "Now we can show our real talents not just to Iraq but the the Arab world," said Majid Yassin, a comedian dubbed Iraq's answer to Jim Carrey. But there is a caveat. "Television is so popular because there is nothing else. Go to the theatre and somebody might throw a grenade - boom." In the past two years the pervasive insecurity has in different ways atrophied all the arts; music, painting, sculpture and literature, leaving creative types three options: change occupation, emigrate or go into television. For writers such as Falah Latif, 60, it is a bittersweet transition. "I prefer theatre but I need to do television for the money. But it's also true you get big audiences. With the curfew people are obliged to stay in after dark." Under the old regime television meant Ba'ath party conferences, speeches by the president and cheaply produced dramas with patriotic themes. One of the first things people did after the US-led invasion was obtain satellite dishes and tune into foreign Arabic channels such as al-Jazeera, al-Arabiya, al-Alam, LBC and Future TV. As the violence worsened Iraqi television evolved, some programmes offering escapism to a better time and place, others reflecting the horrors of a country at war. Even though programme makers have the luxury of a captive audience, courtesy of dusk-to-dawn curfews, the war raging outside does not disappear from TV screens entirely. Egyptian Benny Hill-style comedies where men drool at women are adored, but homegrown dramas are now proliferating. The privately owned al-Sharqiya's soap opera, Love and War, recently ended its second season. In the final episode a suicide bomber blew up the hero and heroine on their honeymoon, but viewers still clamour for a third season. A drama called Nightwolves features kidnappings, beatings and murders. A reality show follows couples in the run-up to their weddings. For light relief viewers turn to Yassin's sketches and stand-up routines about water and electricity shortages, blundering American troops and corrupt government officials. Such freedom is unprecedented, said Yassin. "In the old days you would be visited by security agents and told there is a red line, don't cross it."But self-censorship continues while insurgents slaughter at will. "There is no one to protect me so I don't make jokes about them." Others echoed his fear. Tariq Abdullah, 50, took a role in Love and War after a play about a historic Shia religious figure was cancelled lest it provoke Sunni Arabs. Shunned by fearful audiences, private theatres have closed. The National Theatre, with a £700,000 government subsidy, stages plays but only between 11am and 3pm. Armed guards search cast and audience alike. Only six out of 26 recent productions addressed contemporary themes, said Fathi al-Bidin, the theatre's deputy director. Many of the others were escapist romps such as Sinbad the Sailor or tales from the 1001 Nights. "Many authors don't want to write about the present because they are afraid of the terrorists." A play in which birds trap a fox and then release him was interpreted by CNN as an allegory on the fallen dictator, said Bidin. "The director was amazed. He thought it was about a bird and a fox." Drama teachers at the Institute of Fine Arts also harked back to older material, said its deputy director, Qutaiba Abdullah, but students were bolder and half of the 20 plays written in the last term were about modern Iraq. "They want to take advantage of the freedom." The institute's music students, no longer obliged to praise Saddam or Iraq's martial prowess, tend to write songs about love or Arab folklore. But fear of radicals inhibits them carrying instruments in public, said Mr Abdullah, and those who want electronic sounds are often stymied by power cuts. Under Saddam painters faced arrest for art deemed subversive: a falling eagle, for example, risked being construed as a commentary on the regime's vulnerability. When it did fall hopes of a renaissance were high. It has not happened, said Nasir Thamer, 39, a well-known painter whose works have been exhibited in Europe. Exiled artists have stayed abroad and Thamer, having lost a brother to the violence, intends to join them later this year. He pointed to a withered plant. "Here the soil, the climate, it is not good for art." Most galleries stock only kitsch, idealised scenes of bedouins, horses and dancers. "Ultimately this is not art," said Thamer. Nostalgia flourished under the old regime, and now it has a new market in the form of US soldiers who dispatch Iraqi translators to buy souvenirs. Hassan Ali, the owner of Baghdad's Abu Ali gallery, said Iraqi clients, like the Americans, wanted escapism. "Buyers don't like Iraq now, they prefer Iraq before. 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