The representation of war on Iraq in contemporary drama

By Assist Instructor. Asmaa Sadoon Falih

        Although there is a belief that art is art and politics is politics, many researches prove that there is and must be a connection between politics and art especially literature. Twenty first century has witnessed many social, economic and political events. These events have stirred the interest of writers. Playwrights deal with various types of violence in different situations; violence in wars, the violence of powerful governments and the last and new one the violence of terrorism. The contemporary war drama is a reflection of the hard conditions and deep suffering that come from war and its consequences. In general, contemporary drama became one of the most important literary means that deal with the issue of war as a serious subject. Political theatre, in particular, plays a vital role to be an activated connection between politics and drama.

      Political theatre deals with the wars and the psychological, sociological and ethical influences consequences to humans. Some of the contemporary plays appeared as examples for political theatre that represented the rebirth of the connection between dramatists and a universal audience. These examples include the documentary and verbatim drama. These two new genres return to flourish as a reaction to the 11 September attacks. The literary production after the 9/11 subscribes a new scale of theater studies, and establishes a new level of literary response that has a connection with new methods of analyzing texts by researchers and theorists. It helps the readers understand cultural changing that becomes responding to such event.

  The war on Iraq is seen as the most striking event in this century. There are different opinions and responses concerning the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The war of Iraq is an invasion carried out by the United States and coalition forces in 2003 under flimsy justifications of possession of weapons of mass destruction and the relation between Saddam regime and Al-Qaida. The war on Iraq took place only to save the elite economic interest using their military and political leaders to serve far-reaching aims and objectives. So, the false consciousness is used to be an activated instrument to show the role of moral panic. Some plays that deal with this invasion from many points of views . They are usually written in verbatim, or documentary style such as David Hare’s Stuff Happens and Norton Taylor’s Justifying War. Other Plays written by “embedded reporters,” such as The Pull of Negative Gravity (2004) and Live from the Front (2005), or by playwrights like Simon Stephens’ Motortown (2006) and Gregory Burke’s Black Watch (2007). Some plays portray violence targeting Iraqis violence exerted by the Americans as Jonathan Holmes’ Fallujah, and Judith Thompson’s Palace of the End, which deals with the issue of Abu Ghraib torture. Moreover, there are plays that explore the issue of responsibility and relationship between the American and British soldiers/ personnel and the Iraqis such as Teevan Colin’s How Many Miles to Basra? and Betrayed. So, these plays could be considered as part and parcel of the establishment strategy for managing public belief and disbelief that is conducted continuously in courtrooms and parliaments and press conferences.

Throughout these plays, the reader will understand that the propaganda of the elite in their manipulation using media and its sources of power to convince the public and mobilize them for the necessity of the war on Iraq. This war led to tragic consequences, so that a lot of playwrights discussed Iraq war from many perspectives and they questioned the policy of the United States and its manipulation of facts in order to justify its actions. So, economic domination of U.S. government and its success of convince its people by using the mass deception and political lies.

 The media and the political rhetoric play a vital role for justifying the war of Iraq and convincing the lower class about the legitimizing of this war. Concepts as ideology, hegemony, discourse are an important element that help the Bush and Blair government to manipulate their people. Such texts show the process of deception in which an unjust order is naturalized and legitimated through wrong information, embedded language, framed images, and fake stories.  Finally, these plays concerning this topic prove that the elite in Britain and U.S succeed in deceiving the public opinion for supporting the war decision through creating moral panic and recruiting veterans under justification of protecting their countries from the danger of terrorists. They focuses on the influence of the concept of the (Other) which is built in the Westerner's mind. It shows how the media and political figures use the stereotypical image of Arab and Muslim to manipulate and frame their people.       

References

-       De Waal, A. (2014). (Sub) Versions of the them/Us dichotomy in Iraq war drama. Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, 2(1), 131-144.

-       Lacey Stephen and Derek Paget(edits) (2015) – War on Terror Post 9⁄11 The Television Drama, Docudrama and Documentary. University of Wales Press. Wiltshire.

-       Paget, D., & Lacey, S. (2015). The War on Terror: post-9/11 television drama, docudrama and documentary. University of Wales Press.