False heroes: a study of Abd al-Rahman Majid al-Rubay'i's novel 'Al-Washm' - The Tattoo - Modern Iraqi Literature in English Translation

Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ), Fall, 1997 by Hussein Kadhim

The post world war II history of Iraq has been characterized by continual strife. In 1958 the British-installed monarchy was toppled and was replaced by a republican regime headed by Colonel Abdul Karim Qasim. The new regime lifted some of the restrictions on individual liberties and introduced extensive social reforms designed to improve the conditions of the poorest sections of society. To many in the south of Iraq, the Qasim era represented a time of high hope, of high expectations. These were soon dashed, however, when Qasim's regime was overthrown in February 1963 by a faction of the Baath Party which rules Iraq at present. During their bloody seizure of power, the Baathists discontinued many of the reforms introduced by Qasim, clamped down on individual liberties, and carried out massive reprisals against opponents and perceived opponents. As a result of these events, the earlier sense of hope and confidence gave way to widespread despair and defeatism and led to a preoccupation with self-interest and individual survival. A number of writers have striven to portray that era. In the forefront of these writers is Abd al-Rahman Majid al-Rubay'i

Al-Washm, al-Rubay'i's first novel, appeared in 1972. Since its appearance, it has received a good deal of critical interest throughout the Arab World. This interest is due to the nature of the subject the work broaches and also to the innovative techniques the author employs in it. This essay will be confined to a thematic analysis of al-Washm, and will attempt to show that the work can be viewed as an exposition and ultimately an implicit indictment of defeatism and self-centeredness.

Al-Rubay'i, one of Iraq's best-known writers, started publishing his works in the Iraqi press in 1962.(1) Following the overthrow in 1963 of the Qasim regime, he was imprisoned for his leftist writings. He credits his imprisonment with inspiring him to later write the novel under review.

The protagonist's name, Karim al-Nasiri, is indicative of the background to the novel. Al-Nasiri refers to someone who hails from al-Nasiriyah, a town on the Euphrates in southern Iraq. The inhabitants of al-Nasiriyah, like the majority of the inhabitants of southern Iraq, are predominantly Shiites most of whom trace their ancestry to hut-dwelling farmers who had migrated from the countryside to escape poverty and the virtual servitude to which they had been subjected by feudal landowners. The narrator sums up the genesis of the town thus:

Al-Nasiriyah, our small quiet town to which our fathers one day headed, having cast aside their sickles and axes in search of a new type of work that would throw in the hungry mouths of their children a morsel of food which the land no longer provided.(2)

The theme of betrayal by the land, of being uprooted from homes and land, forced into internal exile in towns and cities, and of facing an uncertain future is a thread that runs through much of the fiction written in Iraq in this century. This forced internal exile is not an isolated case confined to the particular region the novel is set in but is in fact a broader phenomenon that has affected much of the country especially the south where poverty and social deprivation are especially rampant. The grievance of the inhabitants of al-Nasiriyah is reiterated in the novel:

If you look at the inhabitants of our town, you will find that they were bare-footed farmers who made al-Nasiriyah their abode after they had been betrayed by the land. None amongst them could afford not even one meal a day.... (23)

Such reiteration of the inhabitant's grievances serves to underline their deeply-felt sense of injustice. The sense of oppression is intensified by the graphic depiction of the conditions of the farmers: "bare-footed," and "not even one meal a day."

On another level, the land itself is metaphorically culpable for their condition. For there exists between farmer and land a kind of a pact whereby each sustains and nurtures the other. The land's withholding its bounty - it no longer provided the morsel of food - amounts to a breach of faith, a breach of the pact, indeed, as the narrator states, a betrayal. The farmers did not opt to migrate to the town, they did so only after "they had been betrayed by the land." Thus where they expected faithfulness, they were met with betrayal; where they expected plenitude, they endured barrenness. As will be seen later, images of barrenness permeate the entire novel. Moreover, allusions to betrayal by that with whom they had entered into a pact of loyalty foreshadow further betrayal and disillusionment.

However, the sought-after better life in towns and cities continued to elude these transplanted farmers through lack of opportunities and through their own lack of skills necessary to enable them to wrest a living in increasingly competitive environments. Most earned meager livelihoods as manual laborers. Predictably, their situation made them acutely conscious of the social injustices that were rampant in their midst, and of the disparity between the rich and the poor. In the passage quoted above, the protagonist states the origin of his involvement in politics thus: