Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Paint and protest: Iraqi protesters transform Baghdad with murals

When the waters of class struggle are stirring, art takes to the streets.

Facebook Twitter Share
Image: AP/Hadi Mizban

Since the eruption of the protest movement confronting the Iraqi government in October 2019, Baghdad’s Tahrir Square has become an open-air gallery. As the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky would say, the streets were transformed into a canvass for hundreds of popular artists, in this case many of them women.

Image: AFP

One mural painted in charcoal depicts a group of workers advancing and carrying a fallen friend in their arms. In an interview with a New York Times reporter, a young former hospital quartermaster named Abdullah notes, “Look, the man in the middle is begging the security forces, ‘Please don’t shoot us! We have nothing. Nothing.’”

Image: AP

One of the emblematic buildings at the heart of the protests is the Turkish restaurant building, which overlooks the Tigris River. It is the self-professed stronghold of the protesters who are confronting the Iraqi government. The restaurant is adorned with a feast of banners and placards that roar in the wind against the Iraqi authorities and repressive forces.

Image: AP/Khalid Mohammed

Paintings, sculptures, photographs, and altars erected in homage to those who have fallen in the protest vibrate with the colors of weariness and oppression. These artistic monuments are a disruptive image in the face of a gray Iraq crumbling under wars and economic crises.

Image: AFP

Iraq’s streets come alive with many bold images. Some of the themes that have been brought to life include portraits of fiery women who represent all those who rebel against oppression and the government, a painting of Rosie the Riveter with an Iraqi flag on her cheek, Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night has the Turkish restaurant building in place of a cypress tree, many scenes of government repression, trees, and portraits of protesters killed by repressive forces. Sadly, about 527 protesters were killed by the repressive forces, and around 23,000 were injured.

Image: Ahmed Jalil

There is also a young housepainter who now paints murals and signs using refractory paint. He uses these particular colors to outline the edges of the streets because the government routinely cuts off the lights at night, which poses an added risk to the movement of injured protesters.

Image: Getty

Why Did the Iraqi People Take to the Streets?

The demonstrations on October 1, 2019 were a result of rising frustrations with the corrupt practices of senior government officials, declining services, widespread poverty, and unemployment. These protests quickly escalated into anger against the traditional political parties, the government, and institutions perceived as subordinate to foreign interests, particularly Iran and the United States.

By the end of October, the demonstrations forced Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi to resign. Mohammed Allawi, a member of an Iranian-aligned group, was appointed prime minister by parties repudiated by the Iraqi people. As such, the protesters’ demands remain unfulfilled.

Image: AFP

At the beginning of January, the unilateral U.S. attack on Iraqi territory that killed Iranian general Qassim Soleimani led the Iraqi parliament to vote for the departure of American troops from Iraqi territory. While this move was previously unimaginable, the parliament was moved into action by Trump’s imperialist offensive and the continued popular mobilization in the streets.

On Friday, militias aligned with Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric who initially supported the protests, attacked a camp in Al Sadrain Square, in the city of Najaf. This resulted in the death of eight demonstrators. Yet despite the pervasive repression, protesters continue to flood the streets of Iraq, and the rage of Iraq’s hardened people is reflected on the walls.

Image: Getty
Facebook Twitter Share

La Izquierda Diario Mexico

Our Mexican sister site, part of the international network of La Izquierda Diario

Arts

Turning the Greatest Anti-war Novel Ever into Bourgeois Propaganda

All Quiet on the Western Front won four Oscars, and it’s not hard to see why. The production — depicting the horrors of World War I — is spectacular. Yet the producers did not at all understand Erich Maria Remarque’s novel. Spoilers follow.

Nathaniel Flakin

March 16, 2023

Five Years after Ursula K. Le Guin’s Death, We Need Her More Than Ever

Ursula K. Le Guin tended the embers of revolt in a new age of imperialism and counterrevolution. She tasked us with stoking them into a blaze.

Jason Koslowski

January 22, 2023
The cast of "Glass Onion" lounge next to a pool.

Glass Onion: Liberalism’s Dream

Netflix’s new movie, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, is the ruling class’s dream about itself.

Jason Koslowski

January 4, 2023
Main characters in a desert landscape

Selling Suffering and the Spectacle of Blackness in Nope

In his new movie, Jordan Peele examines the ways in which the capitalist system forces us to place our lives in jeopardy and sell our own suffering. Spoiler alert!

Emma Boyhtari

October 14, 2022

MOST RECENT

Despite Threats of Arrest, Refinery Workers in France Refuse to Break Strike

As energy strikes continue, France is faced with a kerosene shortage that’s creating an urgent situation at the country’s airports. With capitalist profits on the line, the government has attempted to force Normandy refinery workers back to work through an anti-strike legal weapon called requisitions. In their first victory, refinery workers forced the police to withdraw in an incredible demonstration of solidarity.

Nathan Erderof

March 24, 2023

“We Need Action Committees Everywhere”: Building the General Strike in France

Workers across France are organizing action committees to build a general strike to take down the Macron government and the Fifth Republic.

Arthur Nicola

March 24, 2023

What’s Behind Xi Jinping’s Visit to Moscow?

Chinese president Xi Jinping has visited Moscow for the first time since the beginning of the Ukraine war, in an effort to strengthen trade relations between the two countries.

Madeleine Freeman

March 23, 2023
Protesters gather during a demonstration on Place de la Concorde in Paris on March 17, 2023, the day after the French government pushed a pensions reform using the article 49.3 of the constitution. - French President's government on March 17, 2023 faced no-confidence motions in parliament and intensified protests after imposing a contentious pension reform without a vote in the lower house. Across France, fresh protests erupted in the latest show of popular opposition to the bill since mid-January.

Battle of the Pensions: Toward a Pre-Revolutionary Moment in France

President Macron's use of article 49.3 to push through an unpopular pension reform bill has opened up an enormous political crisis that has changed the character of the mobilizations against the French government. We are entering a "pre-revolutionary moment" that can change the balance of power between the classes in France.

Juan Chingo

March 21, 2023