"Alcohol ban sends nightlife north; Restrictions in Baghdad boost Kurdish clubs" by Yahya Barzanji, Associated Press / February 6, 2011
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq — Dozens of dance halls and clubs have opened across the Kurdish region during the past months, capitalizing on a crackdown against alcohol in Baghdad, where officials in November began closing clubs serving alcohol and banned its sale at stores.
Related:
Occupation Iraq: Viva Las Baghdad
Occupation Iraq: Baghdad Bingo
Also see: Occupation Iraq: The Party's Over
Things going backwards, huh?
That prompted the capital’s nightlife — its musicians, dancers, and impresarios, and the patrons who flock to them — to migrate north.
“Baghdad has become a dead city where there is no more amusement, no drinks, and no music. They have dressed the capital in religious clothes,’’ said Hameed Saleh, a Baghdad Academy of Music graduate who plays the drums and oud, the Arabic forerunner to the lute, at Kurdonia Club....
Baghdad in the 1970s and 1980s was renowned for being the capital of Middle East nightlife with the most raucous nightclubs and an endless flow of whiskey.
Under Saddam?
UN sanctions and Saddam Hussein’s newfound piety dimmed its star a bit in the 1990s, but it was the US-led invasion in 2003, the violence that ensued, and the rise of conservative Islamic militias that all but snuffed it out.
We call it liberation over here -- at least, my lying, war-mongering government and mouthpiece media does.
Nightlife in Baghdad tried to rise from the dead after violence declined in 2008, but the final blow came when religious conservatives began enforcing a Saddam-era ban on alcohol in clubs and added a ban in stores.
Now many artists and entertainers have joined the refugees, who over the past seven years streamed from other parts of Iraq into the three provinces that make up the Kurdish autonomous region in the north, seeking a safe haven from violence.
In Iraq?
At the Love Club in Sulaimaniyah, Muhanad Hamad, a 26-year-old trader from Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, was showering one of the singers with wads of cash.
“This is the only place in Iraq where I can enjoy my personal freedom....’’
What a sad comment.
Dancers of the Night members performed at a club in Sulaimaniyah, Iraq, last month. Dozens of dance halls and clubs have recently opened across the Kurdish region as the Kurds seek to capitalize on a crackdown against alcohol in Baghdad. (Yahya Ahmed/Associated Press)
Nice beer guts.
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