I first went to Baghdad in 1987 as a journalist, representing the Mail on Sunday, London, at the Babylon Festival. I filed no copy because artistically the festival was mostly rubbish, the Arabic music presented there fit only for tourists at posh hotels.
When I complained, the authorities were unworried: sit by the pool in your hotel, said my “minder”, have a drink, look at the beautiful girls.
I asked a young woman working as an interpreter what she was doing on the Sunday, and she misunderstood my enquiry as the beginning of a chat-up (she was very beautiful, but I was more attracted to the Sudanese bellboy in the lift). She said she was going to church, so I asked if I could go with her. She agreed.
It was a Syriac Catholic church, and while I could not understand the language, I felt a kinship with the worshippers during the Eucharist, elevation of the Host, and so on. I did not go forward to take Communion, since it is my experience that Catholics prefer not to be joined by Protestants for the receipt of the Sacraments.
After the service, we stood and chatted a while on the steps, virtually my only opportunity to talk to ordinary Iraqis during this visit. We did not talk politics. I have always regretted not taking contact details, but of course I did not realise I would be returning sixteen years later.
I met with the great Iraqi oud player, Munir Bashir, and visited his school.
One of my fellow journalists, an Italian, was arrested for photographing the site of an Iranian missile attack, but was released after five hours. We became rather paranoid about what we could or could not do.
Nevertheless, on the way to and from the festival, I took surreptitious pictures of anti-aircraft rocket emplacements. I also tried to get to the front in the current war with Iran, but despite promises that this could be arranged, it never happened.
In the company of a Palestinian journalist, I went to a Shia mosque, and was amazed to find a huge picture of Ayatollah Khomeini in the entrance, at a time when his country was at war with Iraq. This, and the many pictures of Saddam Hussein everywhere we went, caused me to reflect how both supposedly Muslim countries were violating the Biblical (and Qu’Ranic) prohibition of graven images.
On my return to UK, I made contact with members of the Iraqi resistance in exile, and passed to them my photographs. I asked them why Saddam had invited so many of us but his officials seemed unconcerned about what we reported back to our countries. They said our very presence could be said to validate the regime to the local population.
I told them I had met with Munir Bashir, and they said he had been a prominent member of the Iraqi Communist Party before the Ba’athist coup, but had gone over to supporting the regime, like a number of his comrades. We discussed the possibility of my going back to Iraq illegally by travelling over the mountains from Turkey, visiting the Kurdish areas in the north of the country where the Communist Party was very strong.
However, I fell ill with ME, and this dangerous trip never happened.
Despite my active opposition to Saddam Hussein's regime, I had no hesitation in going as a Human Shield to try to protect its people against the US and UK attack. There are many tyrannical regimes throughout the world, many of them propped up by US military aid and billions of dollars, and I would like to see them replaced by people's governments. But this cannot be done with bombs and missiles.
I was inspired in all this by the example of Pat Arrowsmith, the great British pacifist, who was jailed 11 times between 1958 and 1985 and twice adopted by Amnesty International as a Prisoner of Conscience. It was her example that inspired me to go to Palestine in 2002, where my hearing was damaged by an Israeli stun grenade, during an action which is described in my song, Ballad of a Small Victory.
I am not, however, myself a pacifist. I support the right of all peoples to take up arms to defend themselves against aggression. As a Communist who is also a Christian (to me, the two terms are synonymous) I believe this is obedience to the command of Christ:
Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.
And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough. (Luke 22: 36, 38)
