The box of lies in Basra

Since 2003, a fragile box of lies has been growing in Iraq, painted over with the rhetoric of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’. Yet every layer of paint peels away at the touch of a child’s tear´-or-the sweat of a labourer whose dignity is crushed under the rule of oligarchs and state thieves in what is cynically called ‘democratic Iraq’.
In Basra, the city of cities, this box collapses with every kick from its people, who are enduring injustices unseen in their modern history. Every street, every market and every neighbourhood speaks of bitterness and suppressed truths.
During the 2022 Gulf Cup, the world caught a glimpse of Basra through a carefully staged television lens: a city dressed in bright colours. But behind the cameras lie slums drowning in sewage, tin shacks and mud houses, hidden by walls built from the hunger of the poor. This is in a city that sits on top of Iraq’s richest oil fields. Add to that the raging battles between militias over the smuggling of oil and narcotics, with Iran only a short distance away.
No matter how hard the powerful try to patch up and repaint this box of lies, it keeps rolling under the feet of the people of Basra, in a city once called the ‘Venice of the East’. Billboards and cheap slogans cannot cover the truth. Basra resists, and its truths will not be silenced.
The latest lie is that Basra will not allow concerts under the pretext of sectarianism. The ban on Mohammed Abdul Jabbar’s performance was a laughable mockery of mourning. After all, Basra was born to sing. I lived there briefly during my university years, when the city itself felt like a hymn. Kuwaiti singer Awadh Doukhi came to pour his heart into its gatherings, and Abdul Karim Abdul Qader was swept away whenever the winds of Basra touched him. Fuad Salem left for Kuwait, but his voice remained bound to Basra’s musical soul, carried by composers such as Dhiab Khalil and Tariq al-Shibli and poets like Taher Salman and Dawood al-Ghannam. Riyadh Ahmed sang only when his heart pointed towards Basra. Seta Hagopian performed across Iraq, yet she remained a sweet fragment of Basra. And whenever Amal Khudair sang, Basra was never far from mind.
Has Basra’s song ended because sectarian zealots want to silence it? This city was born to be a symphony of rhythms and chants, a place where even the sea cannot rest without music. Who could forget the anthem ‘Ma Qassarto’ (‘You Did Not Fail’), written by Jabbar al-Najdi and composed by Dhiab Khalil?
The Shatt al-Arab river tells its story through song. How can the city’s voice be silenced when it has been singing since it was founded by Utbah ibn Ghazwan in the era of Caliph Umar? How can its voice be silenced, as the graveyard mind and Iran’s proxies in Iraq desire?
Basra is not alone. Iraq itself is a legend of song, from the Sumerian father who sang in grief for his slain daughter. Do the sectarian zealots realise that an Iraq without song would lose its eternal identity? Does Basra not lose its very meaning without music, from Abu al-Khasib to al-Ashar, from Bashar ibn Burd Street to al-Zubayr and Kuwait?
The false Iraq, where song is silenced and only sectarian lamentations remain, was once a place where Prime Minister Nuri al-Said performed the Iraqi maqam with master Hashim al-Rajab. After composer Saleh al-Kuwaiti emigrated to Israel, he helped preserve this tradition. Today, the maqam is deliberately crushed and turned to rubble and oblivion.
The city that once trembled with every note and pulsed with poetry and maqam is now held hostage by sectarian decrees and corrupt power. Yet it has not lost its soul. Even during the darkest days of the sanctions regime, Basra’s streets echoed with song amid the abandoned fields and muddy pavements, as if the sea itself refused to be silenced and the voice of the Shatt al-Arab was stronger than all the lies.
Basra is not just a port´-or-an oil hub. It is Iraq’s living memory, condensed into voices, songs and longing. From Abu al-Khasib to al-Zubayr, from the old markets to the slums, the echo of music endures as an enduring truth, crying out against all attempts to falsify it.
What kind of Basra is there without song? What kind of Iraq is this, where boxes of lies attempt to erase its music and assassinate its cultural memory before the world’s eyes? The box may grow and be painted in pale colours, but it will collapse before every honest melody and every Basrawi heart beating with truth. Song will triumph over all the lies, and Basra will keep singing.

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