The Hindu : International : `Our dignity cannot endure this humiliation'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 10, 2004

International

International

`Our dignity cannot endure this humiliation'

BAGHDAD, MAY 9. The crouching man is naked, his hands tied and his head covered with a hood.

The alabaster sculpture on display at a Baghdad gallery bears a striking resemblance to some of the shocking photographs that emerged last week of Iraqi prisoners abused by their American guards at the Abu Ghraib prison.

But the 15-inch sculpture, with the words ``We are living in American democracy'' inscribed on its base was fashioned two months ago.

``We knew what went on at Abu Ghraib,'' Abdul-Kareem Khalil, the artist, said on Saturday. ``The pictures did not surprise me.''

The nature of America's occupation of Iraq, which many Iraqis increasingly perceive as intolerable, is finding its way to the local art scene.

Jubilation over last year's collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime has dissipated, replaced by terrorist attacks, an unprecedented rise in violent crime, inadequate public services and a foreign occupation force that many Iraqis consider heavy-handed and scornful of Iraqi traditions.

Photos of smiling U.S. soldiers — male and female — mistreating Iraqi prisoners only add to the sense of powerlessness among people subjected to house raids, searches, checkpoints, barbed wire, detention of women.

At the Hewar, or Dialogue, art gallery where Mr. Khalil's works are on display, its owner Qasim al-Sabti recently invited artists to write or paint their impressions of the occupation on a 6 1/2-foot by 10-foot rectangular piece of wood in the gallery's garden.

About 40 artists and writers took up his offer. One painted an American eagle with feathers that look like rockets.

``You liberated us. OK. Thank you! Go home,'' someone wrote in English. ``America is the plague,'' another one wrote.

``We are not strangers to what the U.S. Army does,'' said Mr. Khalil, standing next to the statue of the naked man and two other alabaster sculptures also inspired by the occupation. ``Our dignity cannot endure this humiliation. Anyone detained by the Americans is ready to join the resistance upon his release.''

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