Baghdad Journal

'58 Revolution fete

Friday night in El Cajon, a suburb east of San Diego which boasts an Iraqi population of 20,000 -- most of which are Chaldean Christians who were persecuted and run out of Iraq by the Ba'ath regime. There are 200 or so exiles at the Crystal Ball Hall in downtown El Cajon, a town whose growth is hampered by the immediacy of the looming Cuyamaca Mountains to the south.
Imran and I arrived to the Hall late, having been stuck for hours in I-5 traffic all the way through Los Angeles, 130 miles to the north.

We enter thorugh the back and emerge at the wet bar, where younger Iraqi men look up at us from their bottles of Amstel Lights with curiosity. We obviously have crashed the party. The men direct us to the front entrance where we are informed about the $25 donation to the Iraqi Democratic Forum, the organization hosting the event. By chance, I run into Mazin Yusif, an Iraqi exile living in Orange County who I've interviewed several times -- mostly about the Iraqi National Congress. Mazin, who is the West Coast spokesperson for the INC invites Imran and I to sit at his table and orders us some Amstel Lights. We feel more at home now. Mazin explains that this celebration is to honor ´Abd al-Karim Qasim, the Iraqi general who lead the revolution in 1958 which lead to the death of the royal family in 1958. Qasim seems like the only leader Iraqis can agree on, and, for some, Qasim was too kind. He pardoned those who made attempts on his life, one of whom was a young Ba´athist by the name of Saddam Hussein. Unfortunately his would-be killers did not return the favor. When Qasim was finally overthrown in 1963, his bullet-ridden body was shown on national television for all to see. Mazin explains that most of the people present at the fete are communists or were at least condemned as communists by the former regime. Mazin says that the celebration for the ´58 revolution in Baghdad will be the biggest ever this year, since its celebration was banned under the Ba´athist regime. Why did Qasim have such universal appeal among the Iraqis? Because he brushed aside this notion of pan-Arabism and embraced all of Iraq´s minorities as equals, many at the fete answer.