AFP uses a lot of words to avoid calling out Turkey violating Iraq's national sovereignty on Saturday. They never get around to that reality -- even as much of the world says "HELL NO!" to Turkey joining NATO. They do allow that three drone attacks Turkey carried out on northern Iraq may have killed Iraqi civilians.
The first attack was on Agjala. It supposedly targeted PKK fghters. Whomever was attacked, 3 people died. After the attack, two civilians in a truck tried to help those who had been attacked and they died as the drone attacked again. At a refugee camp in Makwmur, 1 refugee was killed by a Turkish drone.
Friday, Iraqi poet Muzaffar al-Nawab passed away.
Al-Nawab was born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1934 into an aristocratic Shi'ite family of Indian origin that appreciated art, poetry and music.[3][4][5][6] He showed a talent for poetry from an early age. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Baghdad and became a teacher, but was expelled for political reasons in 1955 and remained unemployed for three years, at a difficult time for his family who was suffering financial hardship.[7]
He joined the Iraqi Communist Party while still at college, and was tortured by the Hashemite Government. After the Iraqi revolution in 1958 which overthrew the monarchy, he was appointed an inspector at the Ministry of Education. In 1963 he was forced to leave Iraq to neighbouring Iran, after the intensification of competition between the nationalists and the communists who were exposed to prosecution and strict observation by the ruling regime. He was arrested and tortured by the Iranian secret police, before being forcibly repatriated to the Iraqi government. An Iraqi court handed down a death sentence against him for one of his poems, later commuted to life imprisonment. He escaped prison by digging a tunnel and fled to the marshlands, where he joined a communist faction that sought to overthrow the government.[8]
Known for his powerful revolutionary poems and scathing invectives against Arab dictators,[9] he lived in exile in many countries, including Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and Eritrea, where he stayed with the Eritrean rebels, before returning to Iraq in 2011.[1] Before he returned to Iraq, he had been essentially stateless being able to travel only on Libyan travel documents. The first complete Arabic language edition of his works was published in London in 1996 by "Dar Qanbar"[10] He died on 20 May 2022 in the University Hospital Sharjah in the UAE.[11]
JYforeal Tweets:
Muzaffar Al-Nawab is a celebrated Iraqi poet. He was born in 1934 to a wealthy family in Baghdad. After studying literature and becoming a teacher, he began to associate with the Communist movement in Iraq. For this he was imprisoned and tortured by the oppressive Hashemite regime; however, following, the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958, Al-Nawab was offered a position at the Iraqi Ministry of Education. As political tensions continued between nationalists and communists, Al-Nawab was forced to flee Iraq because of his communist allegiances in 1963. He was arrested again, this time for writing poetry critical of the Iraqi Republic. He was able to escape prison and continued writing dissident poetry.
Despite, or perhaps because of his political troubles, Al-Nawab's reputation grew steadily in the 1960s. His work spread across the Arab world and was as inspiration to those standing against political regimes. As he writes in "v-Letter-Word," his work was seen as a rallying call to all those that wished to "speak out frankly of your reality." Further expanding his notoriety, many musicians set music to Al-Nawab's work. After his exile from Iraq he continued to move around Arab countries, including Egypt and Lebanon. Due to the controversial nature of his work, it was not published officially until 1996, however much of has become available on the internet. Still, it is incredibly difficult to find in printed form and many bootlegged copies circulate, though an official poetry collection was again released in 2010. Al-Nawab returned to Iraq in 2011 where he has been reportedly suffering from Alzheimer's.
He was buried Saturday. Sebastian Usher Tweets:
He last visited Iraq in 2011, when he was received in grand pomp by the presidency. Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi called Friday for his body to be repatriated by ministerial aircraft.
The poems of Nawab, who was unmarried and had no children, were often evoked during the autumn 2019 wave of youth-led anti-corruption protests that swept Iraq.
"Why did Muzaffar al-Nawab die in the Emirates?... Because you've governed Iraq for 19 years, because Baghdad hospitals do not treat patients, because the country is not livable," Iraqi journalist Omar al-Janabi tweeted.
Yes, his work and life spoke to The October Revolution. So what happened was no surprised except for people who don't have time to pay attetnion. Desperate to hold onto his post as Prime Minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi tried to turn the day into a photo op for himself and the youth weren't having it. MIDDLE EAST EYE reports:
Iraqi Prime Minister Moustafa al-Kadhimi was forced to leave the funeral of the country's renowned communist poet Muzaffar al-Nawab on Saturday after a section of mourners began chanting slogans of contempt at his delegation.
The funeral procession started peacefully at the Association of the Iraqi Writers in Baghdad’s Karrada neighbourhood after the wooden casket containing the poet's body arrived from the airport.
A few minutes later, some of the mourners started shouting slogans against the prime minister and Iraq's political elite.
Waving Iraqi flags and pumping their fists in the air, they shouted "The people want to bring down the regime," and "Oil is for the people not for the thieves."
The chaos forced the pallbearers to return Al Nawab's casket to the hearse and speed away with Mr Al Kadhimi's convoy.
Some of the mourners pelted the convoy with stones, bottles of water and shoes as it left.
Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Hollywood V. Reality" went up Saturday. The followng sites updated:
