Sasson, Jean, Mayada, Daughter Of Iraq, One Woman’s Survival Under Saddam Hussein, New American Library, 2004
Ahmed Chalabi and his allies promoted his book Republic of Fear as an expose of the horrors of life in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. The book is actually about how Chalabi mistakenly thought Saddam was a committed Baathist and his policies were what ruined Iraq. It symbolized how out of touch Chalabi was from Iraq which he left when he was very young. A much better book on the Baathist police state is Mayada, Daughter of Iraq, One Woman’s Survival Under Saddam Hussein. It tells the story of a woman of privilege who was arrested by the secret police for a crime she didn’t commit. She explained the evils of Saddam and his family along with the lives of the other innocents she was imprisoned with.
Mayada was part of the Iraqi elite. One of her grandfathers was Jafar al-Askari who was a founding father of Iraq. He was an Ottoman officer who left the Turks to join the Arab Revolt during World War I. He later became the Minister of Defense when Iraq was formed. Her other grandfather was Sati al-Husri an early Arab nationalist writer who was revered throughout the Middle East. Her mother became a top government official and socialite. The stories of all three of these individuals is relayed in the book as Mayada reminisces about her past while she is in prison.
The second part of the narrative covers the women that were held with Mayada in her cell. The main character is Samarra who was accused of being a spy because she changed her name on her passport after she remarried. She looked after all the other women in the cell including Mayada constantly giving her advice and comfort. For example she told Mayada that she needed to forget about her family and concentrate upon saving herself otherwise she’d go crazy thinking about the two little kids she left behind. When someone returned from being tortured it was Samarra who would meet them at the door and try to tend to their wounds. Everyone in the cell was tortured almost every day.
The last major theme of Mayada was the cruelty of Saddam and his family. Mayada had several stories about Saddam’s wife Sajida. During the Iran-Iraq War the government asked people to donate gold to the government to help pay for the war. Sajida went through the donations and took what she wanted. After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 she ordered all the jewelry that was looted from the country be delivered to her. There were other tales of Saddam, Ali Hassan al-Majid “Chemical Ali,” and Saddam’s sadistic son Uday. This adds to the long tale of horrors about Saddam’s reign.
Mayada’s grandfather Jafar was murdered in 1936 in a military coup. He told his killers that if they executed him it would start endless bloodshed in Iraq. Mayada, Daughter of Iraq can be seen as part of that legacy. It details the cruelty of Saddam and his family and the average Iraqis who had to suffer as a result. Only one of the women imprisoned with Mayada had committed an actual crime. The rest were just picked up for arbitrary reasons and constantly tortured to get confessions for things they never did. It must be noted that Saddam did not rule solely through fear. Other authors have documented how the government provided lots of incentives and rewards for people to be loyal. There were plenty of carrots along with sticks that sustained the Iraqi dictatorship. If one wants to learn about the latter than this is a good place to start.
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