THE “WORLD”’S OPINION – MUST SEE
Would we be a fan of artistic expression, holding in this regard to the primacy of formatting over content, we would have to recognize that on certain occasions, history, by its exceptionality, its power, its edifying content, carries everything in its path. If we told it with our feet we would find it interesting. It is not particularly targeting the approach of Halkawt Mustafa, an Iraqi Kurdish director based in Norway, to specify this, as this truth poses, in return, a problem for those who want to stage it.
So let’s say that Halkawt Mustafa decided one day to meet the man who hid Saddam Hussein (1937-2006) in his garden, and that he proceeded a little televisually, by interweaving the testimony of his character with a reconstruction that was inevitably a little summary of the events he recounts.
His name is Alaa Namiq. He is a rough, eminently friendly man, a peasant from a village adjoining the Tigris, who saw Saddam Hussein land in his garden one fine morning, with, in his wake, 150,000 American soldiers who do not wish him well. . Namiq is still the straight guy for whom Saddam represents a sort of semi-divinity. It also satisfies the sacrosanct principle of oriental hospitality. He finally welcomes him all the more willingly since Saddam is not in the best of shape. Three armed guys accompany him, of course, but he has lost a lot of his aura, and we can see that he does not have the shadow of a weapon of mass destruction in his jacket.
Emerging friendship
Alaa Namiq will therefore sleep in the forest with him, so that Saddam can rest before crossing to the other side of the river where supporters have remained loyal to him. But the thing is already proving too dangerous. So Alaa invites Saddam to stay with him, and to hide, in case of alarm, in a hole that he makes for him in a flower bed in his garden. And Saddam, who clearly has few options, complies.
Alaa recounts, in the most natural way, their cohabitation. Their budding friendship. The baths they took together. The affliction that touched them when the news of the death of his two sons was made public, Alaa, beautiful soul, going so far as to declare to Saddam that he was henceforth his son. It is true that the deposed leader, locked up doing nothing all day in his friend’s house, was beginning to frankly lose his compensation despite the plans for reconquest that he wrote down daily on sheets of paper.
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