Iraq
/ Baghdad / The City
Baghdad is
a real city, not just a large town, and its lights are still twinkling
in the river at half past one in the morning. It is the river
that 'makes' Baghdad. The Tigris, brown and swift, is the heart
and soul of the City of the Caliphs.
For- one
might as well declare it at once- Baghdad is not a city of stately
majesty. It is not ornate and grand. It does not take your breath
away like Venice, or make your heart beat a little faster like
New York. It is, so to speak, a water colour, not an oil painting.
It is flat and dusty - indeed, from time to time it is enveloped
in maddening storms that fling dust into your room, your car,
food, eyes, ears, mouth. Baghdad has muted values.
It is an
ancient city struggling awkwardly to be modern. If it lacks glamour,
it has considerable charm. And if even the charm must be delved
for, to me such delving seems worthwhile because, more than many
cities, Baghdad reflects the most unusual, country that frames
it. Iraq, after all, is the old, old Mesopotamia of Sumer, Babylon,
Assyria, of the glorious sun-burst of the Abbasid Empire of Harun
al Rashid, of Persian intrusions, and the affliction of four hundred
dead years of Turkish rule. In other words, Baghdad is the still-beating
heart of a former cradle of civilisation, a country as historically
dramatic as Ancient Greece or the Nile Valley.
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