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Turn the clock back thirty years and imagine Iraq’s bursting theatres and teahouses, its shop-fronts misted in argeela smoke and the tunes of Baghdadi maqam colouring its streets. This energetic cityscape is near impossible to find today in downtown Baghdad, a shadow of its former self.
The devastation Iraq has suffered is not simply infrastructural or political. Iraqi culture, a site where national politics has long been contested and re-imagined, remains at risk of decaying.
