Giant billboards call for unity. Posters assure skeptics that the January election will be fair. Car bumper stickers plead for divine protection for a nation that needs all the help it can get.
With anger and despair mounting over a seemingly endless cycle of violence, Baghdad's streets, airwaves and newspapers are being used to reassure the city's 6 million residents and try to imbue them with hope.
That's a tough sell in a city where most people have lost a friend, a relative or an acquaintance to the violence. Thousands of middle class families are fleeing the country in search of safety.
Yet, Baghdadis -- a racially and religiously diverse people -- are again showing signs, albeit small, of the resilience that helped them through three wars since 1980. They are seeking ways to restore a semblance of normalcy to their life while a vicious 17-month-old war pitting militants against US and Iraqi forces rages around them.
"Divided we fall. Iraq: one nation, a promising future," declare giant billboards at the city's main squares with the image of a crack in a wall slashing the word "divided" in half.
Sponsored by an alliance of independent politicians and intellectuals, another one, depicting a pair of hands building a wall symbolizing Iraq, says: "Our hands build it and protect it."
"Remember how Abu Nawas street looked like?" asks a giant poster in a central Baghdad square, referring to a thoroughfare along the Tigris river once teeming with restaurants and nightspots. The area is now a thicket of blast barriers, sandbags and razor wire with dozens of armed security guards protecting hotels used by foreign contractors and journalists.
"God willing, and with every-one's help, we will restore its glory," promises the poster sponsored by Baghdad's local government.
Some Iraqis say they may be too afraid to vote in January's key election if security does not improve by then. Some also question the vote's legitimacy given the presence of 160,000 US and other foreign troops in Iraq. Hundreds of posters by the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq address these fears.
"Iraq will in January witness the birth of a life of dignity and prosperity when the first democratic and fair election will be held on this benevolent land ... your vote is the future of Iraq," say hundreds of blue posters plastered across the city.
Al-Sharqiyah, a new privately owned Iraqi satellite television channel, is airing a series of brief interviews with ordinary Iraqis calling for a halt to the violence during the holy month of Ramadan, which began over the weekend.
Baghdad's embattled police have suffered dozens of casualties in car bombings blamed on militants. Not surprisingly, some police patrol cars bear window decals saying "May God protect this nation." Others boast Iraq's flag in what appears to be a message to militants that the police work for Iraq, not the US.
Such propaganda may provide little solace to the city's residents. Yet this city has always displayed a glimmer of hope even during some of its darkest moments.
Less than two weeks after a truce ended fighting in the Baghdad Sadr City slum between US troops and Shiite militiamen, the fruits of peace already are in evidence. Small trees have been planted on median strips where mounds of festering trash grew during weeks of fighting.
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