Mutanabi Street

[Ghetta Life]

In Iraqi book mart, ideas again thrive

By James Rupert
STAFF CORRESPONDENT

January 7, 2004

Baghdad, Iraq -- On an autumn Friday morning in Baghdad's old city, Bassam 
Janabi arranges aging books for sale on a plastic sheet spread on the 
asphalt of Mutanabi Street. A dusty French edition of former President Jimmy 
Carter's memoirs, dog-eared American political science texts, books in 
Arabic on Egypt's Arab nationalist icon, Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Janabi erects a large poster with his hand-lettered, weekly commentaries, 
some of which promote his view that Iraq should govern itself by restoring 
the monarchy that ruled here from 1921 to 1958.

By 9 a.m., a heavy crowd is milling among the booksellers. Janabi makes few 
sales, but his newspaper- on-a-board holds a steady knot of readers. Up the 
block, vendors sell posters of Abdulkarim Qassim, the Iraqi nationalist army 
officer who overthrew the monarchy. Or of Hussein and Ali, descendants of 
the prophet Mohammed who are icons of Islam's Shia sect.

As Iraq considers its future after Saddam Hussein, Mutanabi Street is 
resuming its role as one of the capital's main marketplaces of ideas. If the 
daily violence in much of Baghdad, Fallujah, Tikrit and other areas 
illustrates ways in which the U.S. occupation is failing to improve Iraqis' 
lives, Mutanabi Street's Friday morning book market is an exhibit of the 
political and intellectual revival under American rule.

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