Culture

The traditional olive oil soap mostly known as Aleppo Soap, has a famous reputation. It is lesser known that the traditional formula with pure olive, which plays a major role in the Iraqui cuisine indeed, and laurel oils, water and soda extracted from sea salt is not only a Syrian one but is the traditonal way to make soap in many countries of the Middle East and also Iraq. The well known Marseille soap is also comparable.

The mixture oil, water and soda is heated in big cauldrons for at least three days and is then poured onto the ground to cool and solidify. Then the soap bars are cut with a special rake-like utensil. The bars are then stacked into columns to dry and mature in the open air for a at least six, sometimes up to nine months. During this stage the colour of the drying olive oil soap will change from green to turquoise blue to its final visual nature, a reddish-brown hue.

Traditional soap making can still be found all over rural Iraqi villages like Bizayez Abu Hallan, Al Harooja and others.

War is tough and soldiers need any support possible to get through this life-changing, often life-ending experience. To give soldiers a feeling of home, the states open up fast food restaurants in war zones and famous people visit to boost soldiers’ morale and give them a chance to escape reality for a while.

Even Marilyn Monroe travelled to Korea to support the troops, the pictures are famous worldwide. Sending a standup-comic to Iraq seems to fit the tradition, but completely expended the original purpose.

The pen is mightier than the sword, but when writing about the war, who is the better record keeper? The veteran who replaced the gun with a pen or the professional writer with an objective and distant perception?

Watching Kathryn Bigelows ‘The Hurt Locker’ which is based on a screenplay by Mark Boal (who won an Oscar for the script), makes you wonder how to truly capture war as a writer. Boals curriculum vitae reveals he is a non-veteran, but went to Iraq for research, giving him the experience needed to turn his writing into an intensive and realistic portrayal of the incidents on location. But does the military agree as well? Is it more important to be a writer or a veteran? Who does the better job? And what is a good job in war reporting anyway?

It can be a good thing when kid’s play imitates society. But in the case of war toys like tanks, knives and guns, it is a rather disturbing outlook on propagating violence even in early age.

There have been many problems with the selling of toy guns in Iraq recently. First and foremost it seems to be a dangerous gateway to see violence not only as a daily occurrence but as an actually joyful past time.

Destruction and reconstruction, beauty and chaos combine in Reem Alsadi’s fashion collections that are nothing short of amazing. Her new collection „Twisted Oliver“ plays with Charles Dickens famous character and dark fairy tale elements.

Reem Alasadi lives in London but was born in Iraq. Right now she has her own label called REEM and she works with old, vintage materials that she fuses into new collections. There is – aside from the economical aspect – a certain worldview behind, to take something old and interpret it into something new.

A derogatory term for soldiers that never really leave their Forward Operating base is the title of David Abrams biting novel about a weirdly dissonant haven amidst the Iraqi war.

A ‘Fobbit’ is a soldier that is spending all his time overseas at the Forward Operation Base (FOB) and therefore never really leaves the safe compounds to fight.

The FOB is the suburban version of every military base, a place where chain restaurants, desk jobs and idling around thrive.

Fobbit: David Abrams invents his experiences new

David Abrams was a Fobbit himself, he admits, not really knowing that he was called like that but fully aware that he was in the comfort zone of the Iraq war.

He worked for the press and public department and adapted news about causalities, suicide bombs and death into media-friendly bite-sized pieces.

In his novel, it therefore is no surprise when his protagonist Staff Sgt. Chance Gooding Jr. is equally involved in public affairs.

The blend of Western guitar music and Iraqi traditionals has made Ilham al-Madfai one of the most popular Iraqi musicians with a platinum record and a live album from the Hard Rock Cafe.

Born in Baghdad, young al-Madfai began to play music early on and started playing the guitar with twelve, forming the first Iraqi Rock’n Roll band with 18 and then – surprisingly – moved to England to graduate as an Engineer.

More commonly known as Shisha in Western countries, the Hookah is a water pipe which for a very long time was a daily ritual like the coffee in the morning. Now, smoking bans seem to be a halt for cafes in which the Hookah is equal to conversation and comfort.

The build of a shisha is simple, the smoke of burning tobacco gets passed through a body of water as to purify and cool the smoke and therefore give it a more refined taste. Its origin is not fully known although mostly ascribed to a Persian physician.

Although one hardly hears about it, the metal scene in Iraq is not nearly as dry and forlorn as one might think, in fact, there is quite a handful of bands that stretch from black to thrash metal.

On many occasions throughout history music has proven to be an outlet for silenced masses, an outcry even for all the emotional, physical and intellectual pain of society.

The godfather of British humor has created a movie length spin off of his political satire „The Thick of it“ and addresses the horrendous involvement of hapless British politicians in the Iraq war.

Accidentally, Simon Foster declares on National radio that a war in the Middle East is „unforeseeable“ which might not have caused any problems if he wouldn’t be the British Minister for International Development. When he fails to even out his mistake and even worsens the situation it calls a few U.S. State Departmet officials into action who see a perfect groundwork to include Britain in their promotion for a war with Iraq. Foster and the British enforcer Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) travel to America to smooth things out. Oh dear.