A petite woman in a gold brocade robe appears on stage in a smoke-filled Baghdad club. The crowd jumps up, enticed by the raw power of her voice.
This is the magic of Sajida Obeid, an Iraqi singer of Roma origins. For older Iraqis, the 63-year old is a symbol of a bygone golden era. To the young, her upbeat love songs and subtly racy lyrics have become a channel for self-expression in a largely conservative society.
And regardless of age, her catchy melodies make the audience want to dance. She is embraced as a unifier in a fractured society, a singer for the people.
photo: AP
At her Monday night concert at the Yarmouk Club in Baghdad, men and women of all ages and social backgrounds swayed and mouthed the words to her songs. Some women donned headscarves, while others danced bare-legged in tight tube dresses. They had come from all areas of Baghdad, cutting across sectarian divides that have long tormented the city.
After a career spanning decades, there is also political baggage. She was a darling of the party scene during the era of dictator Saddam Hussein, who was toppled in a US-led invasion in 2003. And music experts say her tunes lack the sophistication of Iraq’s classical music traditions.
Yet her broad appeal is undiminished. She has toured the Middle East and parts of Europe. She feels most at home in Baghdad, even though she has lived for years in Irbil in northern Iraq’s more stable autonomous Kurdish region, away from the chaos of the post-Saddam era in the rest of the country.
“In Baghdad, I find myself. It is me,” she said during an interview in Irbil, ahead of the concert.
Obeid was 12 when she performed for the first time. Her brother, Iyad Aouda, who is also her manager, recalled having to find a small table for her to stand on.
By age 14 she was a favorite of the military party circuit, organized by the Defense Ministry.
Her parents never objected. Obeid was bringing in money to support her family, who came from modest means in Baghdad’s small Roma minority community.
In the post-Saddam era, Iraq’s Roma, estimated to number between 50,000 and 200,000, have been living on the fringes, facing discrimination by mainstream society. Some were persecuted by militia members who accused them of being Saddam supporters.
Still, Roma singing styles continue to influence Iraqi popular music. Obeid is an example.
One of her most popular songs is Inkasarat al-Sheesha (I broke the hookah), sung in Iraqi dialect. The lyrics obliquely refer to a woman who has lost her virginity — “What will I tell my mother?” “It addresses subjects that are still very taboo for women in Iraqi society, that is why it’s my favorite,” said Nour Rubaie, 27, a dentist who attended Monday’s concert.
Obeid dismisses both praise that her music addresses taboos and criticism that it is too vulgar. “I sing about love. I don’t consider that taboo,” she said.
Her favored status during Saddam’s time came with pitfalls. It was a dictatorship after all, and that meant adhering to the whims of Saddam and his sons.
On one occasion, Saddam’s son Uday, known for his hot temper, said he enjoyed her singing but couldn’t come to terms with a Roma singer having the same name as his mother. Silence fell across the room, she recalled. “It’s not my fault,” she said she told him. “I was born before your mother.”
Her closeness to the regime meant people sometimes asked for her help.
“People in the audience would ask me for favors,” she said, including helping sons locked up in Saddam’s prisons, or finding missing relatives.
After the fall of Saddam, who was later executed, the Obeids sold their Baghdad home and moved to the relative safety of Irbil. Her inner circle remains outside of the spotlight after they received threats, her family members said.
Obeid is dismissive of reports that she is under threat.
“You don’t remember that time when they shot at us with bullets and it hit the door of the car?” her brother Iyad asked, challenging her.
“I remember, but every singer in Iraq has a story like that,” she said.
May 18 to May 24 Pastor Yang Hsu’s (楊煦) congregation was shocked upon seeing the land he chose to build his orphanage. It was surrounded by mountains on three sides, and the only way to access it was to cross a river by foot. The soil was poor due to runoff, and large rocks strewn across the plot prevented much from growing. In addition, there was no running water or electricity. But it was all Yang could afford. He and his Indigenous Atayal wife Lin Feng-ying (林鳳英) had already been caring for 24 orphans in their home, and they were in
On May 2, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), at a meeting in support of Taipei city councilors at party headquarters, compared President William Lai (賴清德) to Hitler. Chu claimed that unlike any other democracy worldwide in history, no other leader was rooting out opposing parties like Lai and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). That his statements are wildly inaccurate was not the point. It was a rallying cry, not a history lesson. This was intentional to provoke the international diplomatic community into a response, which was promptly provided. Both the German and Israeli offices issued statements on Facebook
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday delivered an address marking the first anniversary of his presidency. In the speech, Lai affirmed Taiwan’s global role in technology, trade and security. He announced economic and national security initiatives, and emphasized democratic values and cross-party cooperation. The following is the full text of his speech: Yesterday, outside of Beida Elementary School in New Taipei City’s Sanxia District (三峽), there was a major traffic accident that, sadly, claimed several lives and resulted in multiple injuries. The Executive Yuan immediately formed a task force, and last night I personally visited the victims in hospital. Central government agencies and the
Australia’s ABC last week published a piece on the recall campaign. The article emphasized the divisions in Taiwanese society and blamed the recall for worsening them. It quotes a supporter of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) as saying “I’m 43 years old, born and raised here, and I’ve never seen the country this divided in my entire life.” Apparently, as an adult, she slept through the post-election violence in 2000 and 2004 by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the veiled coup threats by the military when Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) became president, the 2006 Red Shirt protests against him ginned up by
RSS