The BBC’s recent documentary 'Once upon a Time in Iraq' is wonderfully made. The interviewees are edgy and articulate and the weaving of personal testimony with fascinating footage is provoking and engaging. However, with the end of the fifth episode entitled ‘Legacy’ and of the series, I was left stunned that a major part of the story was entirely airbrushed out of the sleek narrative.
If the purpose of the documentary was to reveal the arc of the consequences of the 2003 invasion, it missed a crucial point. In August 2020, just weeks after the final episode was aired, Yazidis and Christians marked six years since the genocide that has left hundreds of thousands displaced. If the documentary was trying to point to the legacy of the Iraq war, surely the decimation of certain Iraqi communities should have been at least mentioned.
It is not only Iraqis from religious and ethnic minorities who have been affected by brutal violence and displacement, as the documentary shows. However, for these small communities, the legacy of 2003 is the possible end of their presence in their ancestral lands.
