The unpublished novel Get Out, You Damned One will not win any literary awards. A forgettable piece of pulp, it features a scheming traitor, an invading army of Zionist-Christian infidels and an Arab liberator. The only thing that sets the novel apart from numerous others like it in Arab bookstores is its author: former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
When Raghad Saddam Hussein, Saddam's exiled daughter, announced plans to publish the 186-page novel in Amman earlier this week, she set off a fierce debate over Saddam's legacy. Jordan's press and publications department quickly banned the book. Bootleg copies then sold out.
Experts said Saddam, long held in high esteem by many people in Jordan, retained his popularity even as evidence against him was being gathered for a trial in Iraq.
"A lot of people still like him, and he still commands popularity," said Suleiman al-Horani, owner of the tiny Horani Kiosk in Amman.
Within hours of the ban on the book, Horani says, he sold 50 bootleg copies.
"His popularity is increasing because of the success the resistance is now having in Iraq," Horani said.
The continued turbulence in Iraq has served to credit his tight grip over the country during his 30-year rule, experts in Amman contend. US missteps, prison scandals and growing corruption have added to his support.
"People are comparing the old regime and the new, and the sense is that things have simply gotten much worse," said Muhammad Abu Hdeib, a member of parliament and chairman of its Arab and international affairs committee. "All this has made people see American propaganda as a flat-out lie."
The novel, which Saddam is said to have completed on the eve of the US invasion in 2003, is seen as a prescient picture of the occupation of Iraq.
Many see Raghad's announcement of her publishing plans as part of an orchestrated campaign timed to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the handover of sovereignty and the acceleration of a special tribunal that is to try Saddam for war crimes.
"The goal was to return Saddam to the public eye," said Mousa Barhouma, executive managing editor of Al Ghad, a daily. "This may have been an attempt at raising nationalist sentiment and bringing him back on the stage."
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS