Baghdad Better but Audiences Still Avoid Theaters
Looted Antiquities Museum is reviving, but other cultural sites are not.
BAGHDAD, Dec. 10, 2007 — -- Abdul Sattar al-Basri, a popular actor at the Iraqi National Theatre, has stayed in Baghdad throughout the U.S.-led invasion. But on a recent walk along the crumbling floors and staircases that surround the theater where he performs, he was in no mood to celebrate his perseverance.
"We hear for weeks and months that things are better in Baghdad," the cherub-faced 50-year-old told ABC News. "I don't see it here at the theater."
Baghdad is in the middle of a lull in the deadly violence not seen in more than a year. Car bombings and other attacks are at their lowest levels since January 2006 and the number of civilian casualties has plummeted in recent months, according to U.S. military figures.
While the fragile respite from bloodshed is rejuvenating once dormant businesses and commerce around the city, important cultural institutions — from museums and theaters to concert halls — are still struggling to regain their footing, interviews with a string of cultural and political leaders reveal.
The National Museum of Antiquities, severely burned and looted after the 2003 invasion, remains closed and in desperate need of repair. The National Symphony and National Theater operate on reduced schedules, performing at best once a week. The Baghdad International Film Festival, heavily promoted to kick off this month, was canceled because of security concerns.
The same forces fracturing Iraq are slowing the artistic community's progress: scattered violence, government bureaucracy and a lack of basic services, nongovernmental organizations and other outside monitoring groups say.
Further compounding the problem is the failed effort to lure back the thousands of artists, performers and managers who fled the sectarian bloodletting that erupted here in the years after the United States toppled Saddam Hussein. Many have yet to return and scores more remain in hiding, fearing they could still be targeted by religious extremists who labeled the artistic and literary class heretical because of its often liberal interpretation of Islam.
