Antoon is also keen to complicate conventional notions of life in Baghdad after 2003. Many foreign narratives of post-war Iraq emphasize ethnic and sectarian divisions as essential groups of categorization by the Iraqi people. By following Jawad’s story, which begins long before the invasion, we can see that Antoon addresses sectarianism, but in ways that counter common sectarian narratives. One example is that of Jawad’s work. In a jarring scene, two Sunni men come into Jawad’s business. Jawad is a Shia and generally washes other Shia men. Death rituals differ slightly between sects. The two men present Jawad with a burned corpse of a Shia man who had been killed in a car bomb. For days his body sat outside the wreckage, so the men decided to collect the corpse for washing. “God bless you. There are still good people in this world,” is all that Jawad replies. This emotional sense of togetherness, despite the admission that the car bomb was an act of sectarian violence, shows that in chaotic times such lines are not as clear as they are made out to be.
hwilson3 on 29 Mar 16This scholarly research article looks at the relationship between women and media in the Middle East. One interesting perspective that I took from this article, is that they not only looked at how Middle Eastern women can be negatively portrayed, but also a lack of representation of women in media at large.
