Skip to main content

A day in Iraq - Organised by Iraqi Women Solidarity

5 April 2013 (2- 9 pm) at Bolivar Hall*


Ten years on the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, Iraqis are still suffering the destruction of their state, their infrastructure, and their society. Although the direct US/UK occupation has ended, the occupiers have left behind corrupt and brutal mercenary security forces, a government based on ethnic divisions, a broken legal system and a divisive political process. Iraq remains “in a state of low-level war”. Meanwhile, its massive oil wealth is being squandered.

Join us in this Conference to see the reality of 'A day in Iraq' from the political, economic, and cultural perspective. There will be testimonies by Iraqi women, researchers, writers, artists and activists who will shed light on the results of a decade of so-called Western democratization. The aim of the Conference is to maintain solidarity with Iraqi people, particularly women, and to pursue justice for Iraq in the World Courts through the implementation of international law.

During the day, we will launch “And peace be upon you O Fallujah”

A CD with 20 pages booklet which is an audio collage of Iraqi – non Iraqi poetry, songs, music, testimonies, and news clips with the persistent sound of US apaches hovering in the skies above the people of Iraq. It tells the story of Fallujah, A city that has become a symbol of the destruction caused to Iraq by Anglo American war and occupation reminding us of an earlier barbarism – Guernica.

This is how the day will unfold:

14:00-14:10
Welcome and introduction on the work of “Tadhamun” - Tahrir Swift

14:10 – 15:00
Panel 1: chair – Suha Al Khayyat

"Daily routines in the present life of Iraqi women, comparing notes from a study in Early eighties" - Dr Sana Al Khayyat - Iraqi women’ Testimonies read by Suha Al Khayyat

"Iraqi women’s political participation 2003 - 2012" - Dr Sawsan Al Assaf



15:00-16:00
Panel 2: chair – Jehan Helou

"IRAQIS AWARENESS OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL HERITAGE LOOTING ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES IS CRIME ON PAST CULTURES" - Dr. Ghanim Wahida

"Beyond Educide: The struggle for higher education in Iraq" - Dirk Adriaensens

"Priorities for future Iraqi education" – Mundher Al Adhami

***
Break 16:00 – 16:10

***


16:10- 17:10
Panel 3: chair; Dr Nawal Al Obaidy

"The Rule of Law in the New Iraq?" – Sabah al Mukhtar

"Whatever happened to Iraqi oil"- Greg Muttitt,

"Torture and the struggle for justice" - Dr. Lutz Oette

"Why care? Motivating ourselves and others to act"- Sami Moukaddem


17:10 – 18:30
Panel 4: Chair; Khatchatur Pilikian

'The Iraqi trauma: echoes in non-Iraqi art production'. Dr. Dora Carpenter- Latiri

"Gathering for a Return Flow"- Rashad Salim

"The march that shook Blair"- Ian Sinclair

"Blair War Crimes Foundation" - Nicholas Wood

***
Break 18:30-19:00

***

19:00-9.00

The launch of “And peace be upon you O Fallujah”
A CD with 20 pages booklet which is an audio collage of Iraqi – non Iraqi poetry, songs, music, testimonies, and news clips with the persistent sound of US apaches hovering in the skies above the people of Iraq. It tells the story of Fallujah, A city that has become a symbol of the destruction caused to Iraq by Anglo American war and occupation reminding us of an earlier barbarism – Guernica.

Chair: Milan Rai

Zainab Khan, David Wilson, Euan Donaldson , Haifa Zangana

Novelist & Playwright Anne Aylor recites “To the man who buried his son in the garden” by Iraqi poet Nesreen Malak

Zina Ramzi performs a poem on Fallujah
Sami Moukaddem plays the guitar
Narmin Zangana plays My Journey to Baghdad - on Piano

9.00 Thank you.

On the fringe
A photo exhibition showing some aspects of Iraqi daily life since the invasion in 2003.

Book stall, T shirts, and CDs

Bolivar Hall: 54-56 Grafton Way, London, Greater London W1T 5DL
Phone: 020 7387 6727

Transport: Warren Street

Iraqi Women Solidarity (http://solidarityiraq.blogspot.com/)
e-mail: siui_iraqsolidarity@yahoo.co.uk  
Tel: 07989861380

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Keywords: Art, Culture and Society in 1980s Britain

Tate Liverpool: Exhibition 28 February – 11 May 2014 Adult £8.80 (without donation £8) Concession £6.60 (without donation £6) Help Tate by including the voluntary donation to enable Gift Aid Keywords: Art, Culture and Society in 1980s Britain , is a new take on how the changes in the meaning of words reflect the cultural shifts in our society. This dynamic exhibition takes its name and focus from the seminal 1976 Raymond Williams book on the vocabulary of culture and society. An academic and critic influenced by the New Left, Williams defined ‘Keywords’ as terms that repeatedly crop up in our discussion of culture and society. His book contains more than 130 short essays on words such as ‘violence’, ‘country’, ‘criticism’, ‘media’, ‘popular’ and ‘exploitation’ providing an account of the word’s current use, its origin and the range of meanings attached to it. Williams expressed the wish some other ‘form of presentation could be devised’ for his book, and this exhibition i

'Not as dumb as he looks' - Muhammad Ali on Bertrand Russell

In his autobiography The Greatest: My Own Story , Muhammad Ali recounts how Bertrand Russell got in contact with him, and their ensuing correspondence: *** For days I was talking to people from a whole new world. People who were not even interested in sports, especially prizefighting. One in particular I will never forget: a remarkable man, seventy years older than me but with a fresh outlook which seemed fairer than that of any white man I had ever met in America. My brother Rahaman had handed me the phone, saying, ‘Operator says a Mr. Bertrand Russell is calling Mr. Muhammad Ali.’ I took it and heard the crisp accent of an Englishman: ‘Is this Muhammad Ali?’ When I said it was, he asked if I had been quoted correctly. I acknowledged that I had been, but wondered out loud, ‘Why does everyone want to know what I think about Viet Nam? I’m no politician, no leader. I’m just an athlete.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this is a war more barbaric than others, and because a mystique is built up

James Kirkup

James Kirkup has died, aged 91. In 2004 he sent us a copy of No More Hiroshimas . He had originally collected together this volume of hia A-bomb poems in 1983, but it took twenty years before we published it 'as a real book'. James recounts 'My A-Bomb Biography' in his preface. Here are the opening lines of the title poem, No Mor e Hiroshimas . At the station exit, my bundle in hand, Early the winter afternoon's wet snow Falls thinly round me, out of a crudded sun. I had forgotten to remember where I was. Looking about, I see it might be anywhere - A station, a town like any other in Japan, Ramshackle, muddy, noisy, drab; a cheerfully Shallow impermanence: peeling concrete, litter, 'Atomic Lotion, for hair fall-out', a flimsy department store; Racks and towers of neon, flashy over tiled and tilted waves Of little roofs, shacks cascading lemons and persimmons, Oranges and dark-red apples, shanties awash with rainbows Of squid and octopus, shellfish, slabs o