BAGHDAD, 29 March 2004 — Iraqis are buying political and religious books and snapping up satellite dishes once banned under the strict regime of Saddam Hussein, to quench a thirst for information they were once denied.
On the famed Mutanabi Street book market of Baghdad, shopkeepers and vendors who work right off the pavement shrug off any concern about the skyrocketing sales of satellite dishes since the end of the US-led war to oust Saddam a year ago.
“People are buying more books since the end of the war,” said Mohammed Al-Yawi, who owns Al-Naktha, one of the oldest bookshops in Baghdad.
“Foreign languages are top sellers, particularly English manuals, and religious and political books are in much demand because they were banned by Saddam,” said Yawi, who serves clients from across Baghdad.
Ayssar Al-Kobaissi specializes in the sale of legal books.
He said business has been brisk since the US-led coalition brought down Saddam’s regime and that book sales are often influenced by what the Iraqis see on television thanks to the satellite dishes they now own.
“The day after religious programs are shown on television, clients come in here to buy books” he said.
Iraqis, he said, are spurred into buying books for both political and economic reasons.
“The price of books is down because there are no sales taxes,” he said, about import tariffs that have been suspended since the fall of the regime.
“People also can buy whatever their hearts desire. There are no police controls,” he said. At the Shahbandar cafe, a favorite haunt of bookworms, academics and artists, Amir Al-Mosuli believes firmly that Iraq’s older generation will never stop reading.
“We are addicted to books,” said Mosuli, who translates English literature classics into Arabic.
“Yes, people do watch television more than before because they now have access to all the (once banned) channels but that does not keep them from reading,” he said.
Mosuli believes that many Iraqis have turned to religious books “to seek solace from the crisis facing our society”.
“People can come to this coffee shop to get away from their families, read and forget the situation,” he said.
Many Iraqis seek their escape in periodicals that are piled up high on dusty plastic sheets dotting the sidewalk on Mutanabi Street: Faded copies of French fashion magazines, bodybuilding publications from the United States and even an old edition of the German weekly Der Spiegel with a picture of the late actress Marlene Dietrich on the cover.
One sidewalk vendor offers prewar schoolbooks rife with pictures of the ousted president side by side with Saddam-free school manuals that were printed after the end of the war last April.
Partisans of political parties outlawed under Saddam also have their say now on Mutanabi Street, where Communist literature is among that on offer.
There is literally something for everyone, from a discourse on military strategy by an ex-Soviet Army officer to books on wanted terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden, the memoirs of a former Saddam adviser, biographies of Iran’s late spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini and the latest manuals on information technology.
