In Firdos Square, Soleimani billboard replaces Saddam statue

Baghdad: “It’s a country of thieves,” one member of the security forces commented in disgust. “Ali Babas, one and all. But there is peace here now.”

Money and ways to survive occupy the minds and time of those here, with neither the time nor the desire to ruminate on anniversaries of what some call an invasion and others “liberation” but which, in any case, happened two decades ago.

The 2003 battle for Baghdad ended here in the minds of many foreigners, in this roundabout in Firdos Square, once the site of Iraq’s monument to the Unknown Soldier and where later a statue was erected in honour of then-president Saddam Hussein.

The statue of Saddam was toppled by local inhabitants and US Marines on 9 April, 2003. Saddam had ruled Iraq for over 20 years when the toppling of the statue was broadcast live around the world by the plethora of foreign journalists staying in nearby hotels.

Decades later — and after thousands of deaths both during the war itself and in the following years of sectarian fighting, and then of the sects in the country coming together at least in part to fight the Islamic State — calm reigns.

Many foreign media bureaus have left the country and the journalists who remain no longer frequent the same hotels as they did two decades ago.

Fountains spray water into the air in the middle of the square on a Friday in the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan as the lethargic surrounding streets begin to slowly pick up. Prayers will be held a few hours later in the mosque named in honour of a military coup by the Iraqi branch of the Ba’ath party in the 1960s, not far from the towering Palestine Hotel.

The mosque is on one side of the square, opposite a short road leading to the Tigris River.

Flowers grow on the spot where the statue came down. Just across the street, a number of pink ostriches wander in the lawn on front of a beauty salon with its photos of heavily made-up women, flowing hair dyed blond and pink.

Views from the street

In response to what he thought of the Americans, the member of the security forces in the square said that the US “is a terrorist regime”.

“And you know how much those American soldiers sitting on bases here get? $10,000 per month. You know how much I get? $700 per month,” he said, wincing.

“And you’ve seen what they’re doing in Palestine? Israel and America. They’re the same thing,” he claimed, voicing a commonly held view here. “The governments, though, not the people. The people are poor. There are a lot of poor people in America.”

Worsening climate conditions and a widely perceived inability of the government to properly address rampant corruption means many are looking into ways to leave Iraq.

Read more: 20 years after US invasion of Iraq, chaos and corruption reign

Affinity for Christians

Many in this Shiite majority country say that they not only have absolutely nothing against Christians and the West in general, they “prefer” dealing with them over dealing with other members of the Muslim community.

“I wasn’t here when the Americans came. I lived in Lebanon for six years,” said a 42-year-old man in the square.

“For political reasons,” he said, his voice trailing off.

The man added that “I came back immediately afterwards but I regret it. There? I was a teenager, but I had a place to stay, a car and 80 dollars a day. Here? I am lucky I have a home from my family to live in and don’t have to pay rent.”

“But I have three daughters. I am trying to move to Europe. Some friends of mine already there will help,” he said. “They will be able to continue their education there. It’s important for them.”

He lives in the Karrada area of the Iraqi capital, where there are a relatively large number of churches compared with the number of Christians in Iraq, where over 95% of the population are believed to be Muslims.

“Christians are our brothers. We in the Shiite community feel like this. Christians are highly educated, polite, and we have Jesus and Mary in the Quran. My neighbours are Christians. They’re good people. Clean,” he noted.

There is a widely held view in Iraq especially among the Shiite community that Christian schools are somehow better than others. One Iraqi man told Al Majalla in recent months that he had, on arriving in Australia, immediately tried to enroll his daughter in a Christian school because he assumed it would be better than others, “like in Iraq”, but that this did not turn out to be the case.

“It’s the Sunnis that don’t like Christians,” the Shiite Muslim man in the square claimed, providing no evidence for this statement. “And we don’t trust Sunnis. You saw what happened with the Islamic State.”

Iran's looming presence

A large billboard overlooking the square 20 years later shows several men with their backs to the viewer including one who is nonetheless immediately recognisable: the Iranian general Qasem Solaimani.

Solaimani was assassinated by a US drone strike in January 2020 just outside the Baghdad airport and was at the time of his death was Quds Forces commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

The 2019 protests, which continued well into 2020 despite the dampening effect of the worldwide Covid crisis and were ongoing when the assassination occurred, railed against both US and Iranian “interference” in the country.

“The US and Iran are both terrorist regimes,” a 42-year-old man in the square said. “Do you see that building there? It’s a hospital for Hashd al-Shaabi [government-salaried Shiite-led Popular Mobilisation Units]. They answer to Iran.”

“But at this point we don’t care anymore. We just want to leave,” he said. “I’m bringing my daughters up well. Other people don’t do this. It depends on the family.”