Over thirty years ago, I asked my friend Fawzi Rashid (1931–2011), an Iraqi archaeologist, “Where did the Sumerians go?” He confidently told me, “They went to the marshes with black turbans in mourning for the fall of the Third Ur Dynasty. Thus, Iraq was called the Land of Darkness after the color of their turbans.”

Knowing that Rashid, a proficient reader of cuneiform, was both worried and devastated by the fate of the Sumerians, I did not press him about the post-exodus phase in the marshes. The Sumerians were his family, and I did not want to interfere in his family affairs.

If the Iraqis had triumphed over illiteracy in 1972—a great achievement indeed—the specter of cultural illiteracy nevertheless remained dominant and strongly influential, especially in party circles, where access to power formed the core of their existence.

It is required for the ideologue to have a closed mind and spirit, with limited patience and little room for maneuver, after which violence prevails. This was the prevailing pattern that characterized political transformations in Iraq over sixty years of proclaiming a republic liberated from both feudalism and colonialism.

It is not a banana republic, but a republic of eggplants, tomatoes, cucumbers, wheat, and rice—all of which are vegetables whose growers received no respect. A cunning society that eats without respecting the hands that provide the food. Although the Ba'ath regime eradicated illiteracy, its neurotic stance on the freedom of reading imposed a more dangerous form of illiteracy on life. Book bans were carried out whimsically, with no fixed standards.

Have you heard of Salman El-Mankoub? In short, he was a famous Iraqi singer born in Al-Majar Al-Kabir in Amarah, southern Iraq, in 1918, and who died in Baghdad in 2011. It is not important here to search for the reasons behind his misfortune as much as it is important to recall the tons of tears Salman brought with him to Baghdad.

The man never entered the Iraqi Broadcasting House nor appeared on television, yet through the cassette market in the latter half of the twentieth century, his songs infiltrated the public space. The Baghdadis did not listen to his music, and if they did, they would consider it a harsh punishment—not only because they would not understand anything he said, but also because the mournful rhythm characterizing his songs would destroy their refined musical taste.

In contrast, I can recall Hudairy Abu Aziz (1909–1973), who moved from Nasiriyah in southern Iraq to Baghdad. He abandoned his rural singing style, adopted Baghdadi mannerisms, and sang “Aami Ya Bayaa El Ward,” “Sallam aalaya bi taraf ayno w hajbo” and “Ayen ya Doctor,” which enabled him to sing comfortably in Beirut. The man who came to Baghdad in traditional rural attire put on European clothes and became a romantic figure for girls who saw him as a romantic young man coming from Baghdad.

That was something Salman, burdened with his misfortune, could not do—not out of bad intentions, but because of misunderstanding. Salman’s phenomenon, and those rural singers who followed him, disrupted Baghdadi life, as people began to listen to mourning songs in public transport, carrying them into a mournful atmosphere. The cassette era struck Baghdad severely.

When television was everything, Iraqis had three windows through which they looked out at the world: a window called “World of Arts,” by its owner Nuri Al-Rawi; another called “Sports in a Week,” by its owner Moayad Al-Badri; and a third associated with Kamil Al-Dabbagh in “Science for All.” Arts, sports, and science are three vital fields through which nations express their vitality and release their creative energy.

What do Iraqis want more than this in a life dominated by party strife that led them to slaughter one another, being torn between passion reaching madness and blind cruelty? Through those windows, they sought their humanity, sensing its deteriorating condition.

While the economic movement in the 1970s created a kind of interconnection and blending among classes, the social movement achieved significant accomplishments in terms of the democratic flow of information. This meant that the circumstances allowed the three stars “Al-Rawi, Al-Badri, and Al-Dabbagh” to perform their enlightening roles with enviable efficiency. But has Baghdad been freed from the sectarianism complex that tore Iraqi society in various chapters of its modern history? A self-reliant society cannot be spoken of apart from the ruling system that holds all the levers of power.

Apparently, the three vital areas were on their way to losing their freedom of movement after members of the ruling family sought to gain some stardom through them, which paved the way for the disappearance of the three television programs one after the other. On that day, the Baghdadis were deprived of their common language in art, sport, and science. Baghdad lost its privilege of cultivating civility when its television became a platform for cheap, vulgar singing, distorting the concept of comfortable entertainment through which Iraqis tested their humanity.