Production
Write To Life: The Skeletons
The skeletons emerged like ghosts dragging themselves weakly, hundred of them, raised from their graves, their faces pale like death masks, their long beards and hair filthy and matted. Some of them, dazed at the sight of the excited crowd raised their arms weakly into the air and called out political slogans. A ripple of shock passed through me as I watched that sad scene. I rushed up to one of them who was barely alive. With tears streaming down my face I asked him, ‘How long have you been in that building? Ahmad Hassan al Bakir is long gone. Saddam Hussein is the president now.’ He replied, ‘I’ve been in that dark cell for twenty years. I don’t know what’s going on in Iraq now. ’
It was March 1991 and the Iraqui people had risen up against Saddam Hussein immediately after Desert Storm. The crowd in Basra had rushed to the government offices and security installations, destroying them and liberating the people inside. They had surged towards a huge five floor building, still only half built. It had been in that state for the past twenty years and I had walked past it regularly without noticing anything except the single fire engine and one or two nondescript-looking fire officers. Shouts now went up about sinister goings-on in the basement and a handful of people stormed the building. Only now did the people of Basra realise that beneath it lay a massive underground prison. Five minutes later, the skeletons emerged into the daylight.
Between dream and disbelief the crowd watched, filled with bitterness and awe at the sight of these desperate creatures. Some people burst into tears, others threw themselves at the skeletons, kissing and hugging them and hoisting them onto their shoulders. The skeletons made their way through the astonished spectators, eventually melting into the crowd, still shouting slogans against a long-dead president. As we called for our freedom in the dawn of that day, we could not know that our new-found liberation would be so short. Little did I know that I was destined to meet these skeletal figures again and to share their fate in another underground cell where I too would become a skeleton. For within days Saddam had recaptured the city.
As we called out for our freedom in the dawn of that day little did we know how short our new found freedom would be. And little did I know that I would meet these skeletons again and share their fate in another underground prison where I too would become a skeleton. For within days the city was recaptures and we were all arrested, including those miserable wretches who had just been freed from decades of incarceration.
Dr Qasim Albrisem was one of the many victims of Saddam Hussein’s ’s murderous regime and he was tortured and imprisoned along with tens of thousands of other revolutionaries after the failure of the Gulf war uprising. He wrote this account with Sonja Linden in the Write to Life Project and his book about the failed uprising “The Spark and the Cinder” has been successfully published in Arabic. The character of Jalal in Crocodile Seeking Refuge is partly drawn from such experiences.