Turtles can fly — or drown

The issue of disputed territories suggests that Obama’s ‘mission accomplished’ declaration was slightly premature.

The year is 2003. The setting is that of a village along the Kurdish-Turkish border. A teacher walks into a makeshift classroom. Children are working diligently. But not with chalk. These young orphans (a mix of villagers and refugees) are busy loading ammunition into rifles. At suggestions that their time would be spent better learning maths, the group’s ringleader cannot contain his scorn. This, he says, is what they need to learn. The Americans are coming and Iraq is going to be plunged into war. Again.

This is a scene from Turtles Can Fly (2004), the first film shot in post-Saddam Iraq. Although a joint Iranian-Iraqi venture, acclaimed Iranian-Kurdish director Bahman Ghobadi is its ardent storyteller. He went to Iraq two weeks after the fall of the Saddam regime. “My intention,” he has said in interviews to promote the film, “ was to make a movie in the city about adults, but when I went there I saw so many children with such desperation … without limbs.” Ghobadi describes the film as showing the tragedy of war through the eyes of children who have never had a childhood, having been born to the sound of bombs.

Earlier this week, in a speech to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Kurdish uprising against the Saddam regime, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, also secretary-general of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, irked other ethnic groups when he said that Kirkuk, one of the country’s disputed regions, was the Jerusalem of Kurdistan. Critics believe that a more appropriate description from the Iraqi president would have been the Jerusalem for all Iraqis.

The issue of disputed territories suggests that Obama’s own ‘mission accomplished’ declaration of August 2010 was slightly premature. Post-conflict Iraq may have a functioning parliament but referendums to settle the status of disputed territories have yet to be held, despite being initially scheduled for 2007.

For some, this makes a mockery of the Strategic Framework Agreement signed between the US and Iraq, also in 2007. Among the principles enshrined is the recognition to support the political process and reinforce national reconciliation. The latter has never been properly addressed. Indeed, the crimes against humanity charge sheet against Saddam did not extend beyond the Shia massacre of 1982. Thus he was never held accountable for the chemical weapons genocide campaign against the Kurds (1986-99). Meaning that notions of justice for all were artificially removed from the freedom, democracy and self-determination discourse.

For those not realising the urgency of fulfilling these pledges, Turtles Can Fly is a must watch. Ghobadi’s protagonist is Satellite, a streetwise 13-year-old who plays father figure to the village’s orphans. His nickname comes from his talent of adjusting television antennae to catch international transmissions. The village elders want news from foreign networks about the impending war. Of course, none can understand the broadcasts. In Ghobadi’s words, he wanted to ridicule all the satellite networks, which he says, were “producing Hollywood type action news items … The war was for the people, but you didn’t see the people.” He sought to turn the tables.

He succeeded. Despite their suffering, the children never lose their humanity. When a blind infant, is marooned on a landmine-riddled field, Satellite risks his own life in a rescue attempt. The inevitable happens. Miraculously, the child is unscathed. Satellite survives, although his foot bears the brunt.

That the children are not actors underscores the poignancy of their story. Indeed, it almost shames the viewer, who has the luxury of being a silent observer, watching from afar. But the intention is to provoke. Ghobadi describes his film as a protest. “America can’t make a heaven for us … Saddam was much more violent, but this, while still violent, comes forward with the slogan of democracy, saying that we want to free people, but in practice, it’s just a game.”

Unless national reconciliation is addressed and the political process consolidated, Ghobadi may, tragically, be proved right.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 12^th, 2011.