National Review: Back in Basra

[Barrett808]

Back in Basra
One year later, what Iraqis are saying.
By Steven Vincent
June 09, 2005, 7:54 a.m.

Basra, Iraq — It’s been a little over a year since I was last in Basra, and at first glance little has changed. The buildings are just as dilapidated, livestock still periodically cross the rubble-strewn streets, and the once beautiful canals remain clotted with trash. The heat, too, is the same, although the summertime onslaught of humidity that afflicts this southern port city — situated about 40 kilometers from the Arabian Gulf — is still months away.

Beneath the surface, though, this is not the easy-going municipality of 1.5 million people I recall. For one thing, I can no longer wander the streets, take a cab, or dine in restaurants for fear of being spotted as a foreigner: Kidnapping, by criminal gangs or terrorists, remains a lucrative business. Instead, for safety’s sake, I’m tied to my hotel, dependent on expensive drivers, unable to go anywhere without Iraqi escort. “You really shouldn’t be here at all,” a British-embassy official warned me.

After a week of cautiously exploring the city — usually with Layla, my friend, guide, and protector here in Basra — I noticed additional changes. For example, the plethora of religious imagery one used to find on the street has largely vanished. Gone are the glamorous posters of those Shia icons, Imams Ali and Hussain, and the broadsheets featuring fictitious renditions of Moqtada al-Sadr cradling his assassinated father. In their place are numerous billboards featuring the Iraqi flag, soldiers, and smiling children: advertisements for the new Iraqi state.

The reason for this apparent diminution of religious fervor is the mainstreaming of Shia political organizations. “After the elections, the Islamic parties seized control of Basra,” Layla explains. “Now they want to appear more respectable.” Indeed, all but six of the 41 seats on the province’s Governing Council are filled by a cluster of Islamic groups, such as Dawa Islamiyya, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and the up-and-coming Fadillah party — affiliated with Moqtada al al-Sadr — which scored a coup when one of its members became the provincial governor.

Another change is the number of abiyas you see around town. As the religious parties flex their muscles, their various sheikhs and imams exert a steady, if unlegislated, pressure on women to cover themselves in hejab. Layla once wore Western-style clothing and a scarf; now she has to add a thin black tunic to appease Basra’s guardians of female virtue. “If you don’t abide by their wishes, they will harass you on the street — or worse,” she complains.

“This has become an Iranian city,” contends Salaam Wendy, a Basra native who recently returned to his hometown for the first time since he fled to Canada in 1986. “In the ’70s and ’80s, you used to find bars, nightclubs, casinos — and no women wore hejab. Today, you can’t even find secular books or music CDs, the religious parties have such control of the city. This isn’t the place I remember.”

(more)

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/vincent200506090754.asp

Funny, he doesn't mention the destruction caused by the US putting down the Sadr rebellion.

[Igel]

1. I inferred from the reports that the destruction in Basra was

similar to the destruction in Jenin (in geographical extent, not severity, at least).

The heavy damage was confined to a rather small part of the town. Damage elsewhere was mostly due to the occasional firefight or transportation.