November 26, 2009

AL-ZUHOOR - Squeezed between a rubbish dump and a dry riverbed, Al-Zuhoor has no clean water or electricity and the gypsies who live here are at the margins of the new, ultra-conservative Iraq.

In smelly alleys bordered by brick hovels, without glass windows or doors, men wander without work, a young girl plays on a squeaky swing and women return from a day’s begging in Diwaniyah, 180 kilometres south of Baghdad.

In the distance, smoke from burning rubbish blackens the sky and, when the wind turns, the nauseous odour is overwhelming. Before 2003, under the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein, the situation was much better. The dictator’s iron fist did not weigh on the gypsies or Roma.

The men were professional singers or musicians and the women were invited to dance at feasts, weddings and parties in Iraq, having migrated to the Middle East from India centuries ago.

With the rise of radical Islamists in 2004 however, they were marginalised, attacked and robbed by the Mahdi army, a militia loyal to the radical, anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who regarded the gypsies as morally repugnant. Today, with the war-torn country primarily run by religious leaders, as opposed to the mostly secular society that existed under Saddam, the Roma community feels ostracised.

Despite being Muslims, the "Kawliya" — as the community is known in Iraq — are seen as outcasts.

"We live worse than dogs," says Ragnab Hannumi Allawi, a villager, wearing a sombre, piercing black look, surrounded by a group of women and sitting on a dusty carpet.