It boasts alliteration but the concept seems fanciful: beautiful Baghdad. Iraq’s capital is famous for violence, degradation, occupation and blackouts, not aesthetic appeal.
Everywhere there are concrete blast barriers, sandbags and razor wire. Rubbish lines streets which are sometimes ankle-deep in sewage. Bombed buildings remain in ruins. Giant mosques commissioned by Saddam Hussein lie unfinished on idle building sites.
April 9 2003 was the day United States troops took the city and toppled the dictator’s statue in Firdos square.
Two years later debate over the war still rages, but one point Baghdadis agree on is that Saturday marks the anniversary of when their city became an eyesore.
”The place looks awful,” said Hussein Abd Emir (52) a cafe owner in Karrada, a district for the well-heeled. ”It’s like a military base. A dirty military base. My God, it’s ugly.”
But in big and small ways things are changing.
City authorities and residents themselves are injecting colour and vitality through initiatives designed to beautify Baghdad.
Municipal workers have planted thousands of bushes and trees along thoroughfares and intersections. It is easy to miss them now but within six months some species will be waist-high foliage, said Mustafa al-Ubadi (35) pointing to freshly planted rows of leafless saplings opposite his fish restaurant on Abu Nawas street.
Emboldened by better security and business, he plans to return paintings he stored at home for safety to the bare walls of his restaurant.
This week trucks unloaded tonnes of soil on to the east bank of the Tigris, which is to be laid with grass, dotted with benches and linked to a new park due to open later this year. There will be a fountain, swings and slides, said Kadhim Radhi (40) a council worker at the site.
This weekend the city will regain a favourite playground: Jadriya lake, formerly known as Saddam lake.
Built on farmland a year before his fall, the 36ha expanse of water with kiosks along its banks was popular with families and couples. But United States tanks smashed the paving and when looters stole electric cables and pumps the lake drained into the Tigris, leaving the site dry and desolate.
Six months ago the tourist board, part of the culture ministry, funded its restoration and the lake is back.
Kiosks with pictures of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck have been painted in vivid blue, red and yellow. Speedboats were tested on the lake on Friday and musicians practised for the opening ceremony.
”It’s like a lung for the city,” said Abdul Razaq Ali, a supervisor. He looked forward to the return of foreigners. ”Give me security and I’ll give you tourists,” he said.
Hilal Shawkat, head of the Iraqi investment firm which restored the lake, said he would build restaurants and amusement parks around the shore.
”This will revive the nightlife of Baghdad,” he said, carrying an armful of glossy company brochures for architectural plans. One of them, entitled Happy Land in Baghdad, included a 500-room, five-star hotel near the lake.
”Iraq will be back to normal in two years,” said Shawkat, ignoring a burst of gunfire and sirens in the distance.
Ordinary Baghdadis are puncturing the drab greyness with flowers and potted plants which have become more visible in homes and shops, cheering the likes of Talab Hadi (38) a third-generation horticulturist.
”Business is 10 times better than six months ago,” he beamed. ”People want colour.”
But the city is far removed from its glorious heritage. Said by some historians to be the site of the Garden of Eden, it was founded in AD762 by Caliph Abu Ja’far al-Mansour and became the heart of medieval Muslim civilisation, a political capital as well as an architectural wonder immortalised in stories such as the 1001 Nights.
The Mongols, among others, razed it several times, but Baghdad recovered and 19th century visitors proclaimed it the most beautiful city in the east.
In the 70s it began to deteriorate. Saddam Hussein erected brutalist apartment blocks and kitsch monuments, and uprooted trees from river banks lest they provide cover for assassins. War with Iran and the first Gulf war drained resources, while economic sanctions and an explosion in population, estimated at 5,6-million, crippled the infrastructure.
US dollars gushed with the occupation, but they did little to alleviate banes such as the green zone, a heavily fortified swath of embassies and government buildings which burned a hole in the city’s heart, closing bridges and roads.
In addition to concrete and razor wire, the security crisis necessitated a curfew which prevents night-time street cleaning, producing mounds of waste.
Four children collecting litter on Friday were killed by a bomb hidden in the rubbish which was probably intended for US or Iraqi security forces.
When Saddam fell the new-found freedom eroded civic mindedness because there was no authority to fear, said Adnan Omran (57) a municipal manager.
Drivers would park their cars anywhere they liked and rubbish was dumped at random.
Increased staffing and pay have given him the means to crack down on these nuisances, starting with shops which displayed wares on pavements. ”What about pedestrians?” said Omran, indignant.
Six months ago Bradt Travel Guides published what was probably the first postwar guidebook for Baghdad. If you do not enjoy Iraq’s capital, at least appreciate the residents, it said.
”They are a justifiably proud people, whose city was the capital of the world when London was an overgrown village and Columbus several centuries away from America.
”War has not destroyed this and western condescension is met with the scorn it deserves.” – Guardian Unlimited Â