Traveling with Circus2Iraq

Jo Wilding’s commentary while traveling inside Iraq creates a brief but valuable glimpse of what is happening inside the country and how the war has affected the lives of Iraq’s people. Here, the circus performers, traveling past minefields, watch the celebrations in Kurdish Erbil on the signing of Iraq’s interim constitution.

Whatever it means for the rest of Iraq, in Kurdistan the interim constitution was celebrated, giving the Kurds a federal state of their own for the first time ever. Drums announced the coming of the parade, men and boys, the red, white and green of the Kurdish flag, with a many-pointed gold star in the middle, the placard featuring Mustafa Barzani, the murdered Kurdish leader. The Kurds have been stateless people in the empires of others more or less forever, ruled by the Ottomans, the British, the puppets of the British and, until 1991, the Baathists. Winston Churchill authorised the crushing of their demand for an independent state in Kurdistan in the 1920s with poison gas.

Sinan and Selim are studying English at Salahudin University in Erbil. It’s a strange thing, but a lot of Kurdish people are unaware that the weapons they talk about, the weapons Saddam used against them, were sold to him by the UK, the US, Germany, France and so on, paid for with funding granted by the US in the full knowledge of what he was doing to the Kurds. We talked about the war, why it happened. Kurdistan wasn’t the target of much bombing and there are no troops on the streets, no house raids, no detentions without charge, no random shootings. People here know as little about what’s going on in Baghdad and the rest of Iraq as people in Jordan do. It’s another country … read more

Be sure to stop by Jo’s photo gallery as well.

What is the Circus2Iraq? In their own words: “A small group of performers and activists currently in Iraq performing and running circus skills workshops for the kids. People are traumatised, tired and worn down by years of war and sanctions and are still without many basic necessities. We are not aid workers. We think the best thing we can do is bring a bit of colour, a bit of normality, a bit of playfulness and make people smile.” Visit the Circus2Iraq website for more information about this great group of caring people.