Hoda Jassim (Baghdad)
It did not occur to the Iraqi artist, Jawad Selim, that the “Freedom Monument” in the middle of the capital, Baghdad, would become an icon of those claiming their rights, at the same time that it became a background for the most beautiful memories of those coming to Baghdad as they took pictures and documented their most beautiful times.
Artist Jawad Selim did not witness the opening of the monument, which he worked on between Iraq and Italy in 1961, to be completed by his British wife Lorna, who had lived in Baghdad since his return from studies in the forties of the last century.
However, Salim Muhammad Saleh, who was one of the protesters calling for reforms and job opportunities in 2019, was a witness to the reopening of the “Freedom Monument”, after its rehabilitation with the garden in the middle of it in Tahrir Square.
Saleh, 44, who was a driver of the “tuk tuk” that gained wide fame in transporting the victims of the October 2019 protests, said that he sold it due to circumstances that afflicted his family. This monument and its surroundings are demanding their most basic rights.
Saleh indicated that he was active in everything that affected those protests, in which strange elements entered that made them suspicious to some observers.
In turn, the nurse “S, L”, who participated in the 2019 protests, said that with the imposition of “Corona” restrictions and with cases of repression, the demonstrations largely faded in early 2020, even though she achieved an important reputation and was able to force the prime minister at the time to resign and hold early elections. .
However, Hajj Abdul Karim, who is close to 70 years old, says: Tahrir Square and the “Freedom Monument” have witnessed many revolutions since their first opening in the sixties of the last century, but the 2019 protests were the strongest and most widespread.
The square was also a starting point for the demonstrations of the “Sadr movement” towards the “Green Zone” before the formation of the government of Muhammad Shia’ al-Sudani by the forces of the “Coordination Framework”.
Observers of political affairs and activists assert that this arena and this monument will remain a starting point for protesting against any deviation or injustice, pointing out that all governments were afraid of the meaning behind the monument that the artist, Jawad Selim, wanted to say: that the restrictions must be broken before the will of the people.
Tahrir Square and the “Freedom Monument” returned to their former era as a site for memories and photo-taking, with some limited gatherings and demonstrations demanding job opportunities and services, with a constant presence of riot police, especially on public holidays, for fear of any gathering developing towards the “Jumhuriya Bridge” that connects the region. In the “Green Zone”, which includes government headquarters and the House of Representatives.
Despite the widespread disappearance of the protests, the drawings on the walls of the tunnel linking the square and Al-Saadoun Street still bear witness to what happened.
Louay Ahmed says, “I was a student at the Academy of Fine Arts when the protests began. We carried our colors with a group of students, engraved the events we saw on the walls, and wrote our memories about them, and they are still coloring those walls.”
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