The new freedoms of Baghdad | Middle East | '
Slowly, normalcy returns to Baghdad. Since the terrorist militia "Islamic State" was ousted from Iraq, the eight-million-inhabitant city has changed dramatically.
Most of the protective walls erected over the past decade to secure public and private buildings have been demolished. Instead, there are now parks and green spaces. The so-called "Green Zone" was recently opened to all traffic. In it are the parliament, the ministries and embassies, which not so long ago were secured by fences, walls and checkpoints.
Hookahs and non-alcoholic cocktails
As part of the changes, the first women's café was opened in Baghdad. There, women can meet men without company and discard their headscarves and the long abaya so common on the streets. This is usually the first thing young women do when they enter the La Femme café.
"Fathers do not want their daughters to go to cafes where men smoke hookahs," says La Femme owner Adra Adel-Abid, 47, describing the situation in many public places in Iraq. She also offers hookahs, but her are prepared by a woman. Meanwhile, her daughter Mays, 20, serves non-alcoholic champagne cocktails, soft drinks and snacks.
Adra Adel-Abid and her daughter Mays run Baghdad's first women's café
Even if the café has to keep watch, as is customary in public places in Iraq, women find their way here, says Adel-Abid. "Some men are angry that they are not welcome, others say we secretly sell alcohol and drugs." But so far, no men have ventured into this female sanctuary – though the café is in a skyscraper along with other restaurants, a sports hall for men and just a lift.
Five years ago, the cafe would have been impossible
The clientele of Adel-Abid mainly includes women from the middle and upper classes. For her young customers, she organizes pure women's parties for birthdays, engagements and graduation parties. The older generation prefer to drink coffee and listen to the old Iraqi singers who are preferred to play on La Femme's music system.
Five years ago, she could not have opened the cafe, says Adel-Abid. "People were scared, now there is more openness." This means that women can now run businesses. Women like Adel-Abid. In addition to La Femme, she also founded a project that collects remains of restaurants to supply some of the city's 190,000 poor and displaced people. Due to lack of money, she had to temporarily suspend the project. Currently, she is looking for wealthy Baghdadis who support her.
Change of cultural norms
Adel-Abid is not the only entrepreneur in Baghdad. As the "Islamic State" is ousted and the current political stability is felt, Iraqi women are increasingly demanding their share of the city's public space. In Mansour, the neighborhood where La Femme is located, most of the cafes and restaurants are mixed today, and women also smoke hookah there.
The fresh wind of change has also changed the street scene. Women dress more colorfully instead of hiding behind black veils. The development goes so far that young women less and less often tie a headscarf; like Adel-Abid's daughter, Mays, they prefer to wear jeans – and not a piece of cloth.
The same applies to Merry al-Khafaji, who recently married Mustafa al-Ani. Together, the two twenties sit with a hookah in a popular Baghdad garden, she wears her dark hair open and a green T-shirt with jeans.
The marriage of the two is another sign of the changing atmosphere in Baghdad. The fact that he is Sunni and she is Shiitin would have led to big problems just a few years ago. But since the Iraqis joined forces to eliminate the "Islamic State," mixed marriages have made a comeback in the country; they have even become the new standard among the teenagers in Baghdad.
Mustafa al-Ani and Merry al-Khafaji have found each other: at work, not over their parents
Before the fall of Saddam in 2003, it was normal for Iraqis to marry freely between religions and groups. But the new regime divided the country by faith. And when the Shiite majority came to power, it led to a civil war between religious groups, the rise of radical Islam and finally the "Islamic state". As a result, parents preferred that their children marry within their own group. "But after defeating the IS, many Iraqis decided that they wanted to leave this black era behind and return to the pre-division era," says the young couple.
Traditionally, parents choose their children's partners, but Merry al-Khafaji and Mustafa al-Ani met in the telecommunications company they both work for. Meanwhile, more and more love relationships develop at work, in study or in workshops.
Change through social media
Social media also has a strong impact. They give young people a new way to find new friends in conservative Iraqi society, the two tell. And since most people do not use their surnames – which often reveal affiliation with their group – on social media, people do not actually know which religion their new friends belong to. Until they find out, then maybe love has already blossomed.
Social media has also encouraged young people to be more critical, Al-Ani stresses. "Both Sunni and Shiite youths have criticized the role of religious political parties and religion in our society." But even though mixed marriages in Baghdad are "now quite normal," he says they are less common in the more conservative and demarcated regions outside the capital.
The marriage system itself is another obstacle. A married couple must choose under what religious conditions it would like to register their marriage, since Sunnis and Shiites each have their own inheritance law and their own divorce laws. Although the Shiite divorce laws are slightly better for women, the couple opted for Sunni laws. "The woman from the court advised against it," says Al-Khafaji, "but I really do not care." She has had enough of the division.
Hanaa Edwar, director of the Amal Association
Hanaa Edwar, a respected activist who heads the Amal Association in Iraq, considers the improved security posture to be the main driver of change following the victory over the "Islamic State". "It has a psychological effect of removing all these walls, young women telling themselves that it is now alright to be able to live normally again, drop the headscarf and play a more active role in society, and their families agree. "
Women conquer the public space
Parents understand that their children need more freedom, she says, which has led to an increasingly mixed crowd in cafés, as well as the workshops their organization is carrying out.
"Parents allow their daughters to travel alone to Basra or Erbil." Previously, they would always have been accompanied by their father or brother. "During the fight against IS, we saw young men and women joining forces to support civilians," she says. "Today women play in theaters again without much attention, they talk in public – for example, against forced marriages – they break in the walls and even start to shake tribal traditions."
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