The Saddam Hussein Purge, as atrocious as it was, would undeniably make for an insane movie scene. Six days after taking power and in the middle of trying to unite Iraq and Syria as one Ba’athist country, Saddam organized an emergency conference. Among the invitees were many that Saddam accused of organizing a coup against him. He lights up a cigar and says “how should we deal with these betrayers? You know the procedure… Nothing but the sword.” A roar of applause erupts in this hall as he goes back to his cigar. “Anyone whose name I say I read, stand up, recite our slogan and leave.” One man can be seen literally wiping the sweat off his face. Men start to stand up one by one, some in their suits, others in military uniform. Most leave silently, knowing their fate has been sealed. Mohammad Manaf Al Yasin pleads but only receives the same line again “Anyone whose name I say I read, stand up, recite our slogan and leave the hall.”
The last name is said and Saddam announces sarcastically “are the people that have remained in the hall not enough for the Arab Socialist Ba’ath party?” And the room explodes in ecstasy and relief. People are hysterically jumping and chanting party slogans as Saddam wipes tears from his eyes. This was always the most surprising scene to me, to the point that I want to believe he’s wiping sweat off his eyes, but he goes directly to his eyes multiple times. He begins to speak again, but one man’s maniac weeping cuts him off, and Saddam himself goes back to wiping his tears. The military commander to his right cannot help but cover his tears too. “In soul, in blood, we sacrifice ourselves for Abu Oday”.
21 men were executed, some allegedly shot by other men whose names were called.
This is not a post to discuss any opinions regarding this act, but do you not think this would be an insanely intense movie scene? The Middle East between 1900 and 1980 has so many crazy stories that need to become movies. Yemen is suddenly communist. Syria and Egypt say fuck it and become one country for 3 years, Iraq and Jordan respond by uniting for 6 months, before bloody coups end both of those unions. And you’ve got cult personalities everywhere. Charmastic leaders that some love and some hate, and many die at the hands of. These need to be movies.
Yet the obvious one, the banker, the one that can never fail, is a coke ridden 70s Palestinian spy movie. I will make my case by telling the story of one Ali Hasan Salameh, better known as: The Red Prince. This is the story of a wealthy Palestinian playboy who was directly involved in an attempted coup on the king Jordan, the kidnapping and killing of Israeli athletes in the olympics, a botched assassination attempt on him that led to the murder of an innocent Moroccan waiter, the CIA, Miss Universe (his wife), and befriending the Israeli that would ultimately assassinate him.
“I call him a friend and a mortal enemy at the same time. It’s not easy. Not easy. You know, at your core, that he has to die.” Said the Israeli spy that killed him.
’ll let you read about his life on your own because I’d like make a point on the Israeli use of language, particularly in how they name certain events. I mentioned an innocent Moroccan waiter who was mistook for The Red Prince. Not only a ‘tragic mistake’ as we usually hear but a flaunting of international law as Israel and Mossad have done countless times, and a disgusting act with real consequences. This event has been officially named as The Lillehammer Affair. What a pathetically passive name, only apt for the pathetic cowardice that followed. One of the Mossad agents, Dan Arbel got so nervously claustrophobic when placed in a cell that he gave up many details of the operation in exchange for a window. Israel never took responsibility for the murder.
This disguising of acts of terror as housewife scandals is not new in the Israeli repertoire of manipulation; of the top of my head:
1. The Lavon Affair: not a tale of a love triangle but in fact a failed Israeli bombing of Jewish areas in Cairo with the intent of blaming it on various communities such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian Communists
2. The Sargeant’s Affair: not a gay story of two soldiers who found love, but the time Zionist terrorist group Irgun kidnapped two British soldiers, hung them, and rigged their bodies with booby traps so the following soldiers that found them and cut them down also get blown up.
I’m sure there’s more examples of this. But the point is a cinematic universe of the Middle East would be incredible, especially written without restrictions. The restrictions on art in the Middle East are two fold: of course there can be state censorship, but there is also a remarkable form of self policing in the Arab world. A common statement you may hear when a movie or show represents real people not trying to promote an image of a role model is “This film does not represent us”. Since when are movies meant to represent the best of you? Movies are an expression of the human condition, which is often times… horrible. This represents a wider issue of the culture of self-policing and the double standard it always leads to. People are judged not on their real faces but on their outward projection; about how loudly they oppose something. It leads to a culture that values words more than actions, and as long as we remain like this we will always be prisoners of the demagogues.