What a difference there Is between Death and Eternal Life. The water of deep valleys will not quench
A thirst that burns in your heart;
Seek the clouds in the early morning and ask For the water coming from an unknown sea.
The stones of the road curse you because so often You w a l k e d Jon them, going^to enj o y a sinful love. You have given your body as a prey to sins
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Many sons have you left in her lap — Dead ! 'What a sinful criminal you are !
The crumbles of your body will to-morrow be buried
In the same dark tomb as that of the voluptuous prostitute. Between these two poles, Platonic love and sexual desire,
Badr was swayed on a troubled sea as he was looking for an emotional harbour with little success. His studies became hateful to him because they limited the free time he would have liked to devote to an enjoyment.of his youth. In a
poem, 11The Prisoner'1, ^ which he wrote in April 1914^ he considers the book his prison, and its lines his fetters; and he laments the loss of his life in darkness amongst dead books. Yet to his teachers, he seemed to be doing well. At
the end of the academic year 19^3-191+4 his marks were as follows
Arabic Language (Grammar) 85
Arabic Literature - Composition 85 ^
English Language 79
Geography 8l
Ancient History 81
Average 82 %
But in spite of this good result, Badr was not happy at the Arabic section at college and he began thinking of joining the English section in the following year. Perhaps he thought he would be more wanted as a teacher of English in future and the change would give him better security. On the other hand, his readings in English literature must have
(1) Iqbal, "al-SaJIn", Dp.107-109
(2) College of Education: Dean's letter to the author ito.k898.
whetted his appetite for a fuller exposure to Western thought. His Syrian class-mate, the poet Sulayman al-Isa, says that
Badr frequently asked him to translate for him some of th^-e I
l
French poetry, he used to read such as that of Lamartine, De Musset, Hugo, Verlaine and especially Baudelaire.
A new horizon was opening up for him and Badr wanted to be able to make it part of his vision. Yet for one more year he remained in the Arabic section. In his free time, he was now seen, not with Abu Tammam, al-Buhturi and al-MutanabbT,
but with Shakespeare’s plays and the collections of the Romantic
(2.)
poets, especially Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley and Keats.' ' Among his unpublished papers, I found four poems dated dedicated
nTo the soul of the poet, Wordsworth” and one uTo the soul of Wordsworth, the poet of Nature” . Yet Badr did not cut himself off completely from his old favourite Arab poets, nor did he become disinterested in the current literary movement in the Arab world. To keep abreast with current matters, he read the papers and listened to the radio regularly; and the Beirut monthly magazine al-Adib was his constant c o m p a n i o n . ^ )
This literary magazine, started in 19i^2 by Albert Adlb, fostered the younger generation of writers and poets in the Arab world and was becoming quite influential in literary circles. It Introduced new poets, short-story writers and critics who were to change the literary tastes of their contemporaries
(1) Sulayman al-Isa*s letter to the author, Aleppo, July 26,1966. (2) ibid. Cf. Mahmud al-Abta, op.cit., p.10
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by their modern culture, and it .strictly followed a non political line.
The Second World War was coming nearer to its end every day. The Allies were victorious in the Far East as well as ijn Europe. The U.S.S.R. had established diplomatic relations with Iraq In September 19ljl|- snd, as one of the Allies, was commanding admiration from many young people in Iraq and other Arab countries. It was especially admired because, within a quarter of a century only, it had built itself up
into a modern and powerful state. It therefore pointed to the way the young men could follow to build up their Arab homeland. Communism thus appealed to many of them and was considered a panacea for all the ills of their countries. The Soviet Union capitalized on this situation as well as on its own achievements and victories, and launched a strong propa ganda campaign in the Middle East. Arab Communist bodies which were defunct or ineffective in the twenties and the thirties became active again. But now, Communism adopted the "popular front” tactics in its international attempts to win over adherents to support its anti-fascist strategy and, later, its anti-Western policy. The Soviet Union took advantage of its being an ally in the war to embark on activities that were otherwise not permissible..in Middle Eastern countries*
Communists infiltrated into the ranks of the intellectuals and workers in the major cities of the Middle East. Their papers and magazines were permitted, and appealed especially
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36
-to the young who, by nature, are’ more radical than adults and more prone to accept change and be swayed by idealistic aspirations.^^ Under names such as uThe National Liberation Front11 and the like, the Communists enlisted many liberally- minded young people in the Middle East as well as anti-Western politicians.
Although communism had been declared illegal in Iraq since 1938* it continued to exist underground. Its votaries new made every effort to seduce the organizers of nascent trade unions in the middle forties, and by the later war years it had gained ground perceptibly in Baghdad and other main cities. The League of Iraqi Communists drew its membership from the educated classes under the leadership of the lawyer, D a fud al-Sayigh. Yusuf Salman, a Christian whose party name was Comrade Fshd, led the Iraqi Communist Party and produced the secretly-printed newspaper, al-Qacida. The movement gained adherents amongst the poor and the thwarted, especially amongst the Kurds and the Assyrian, Armenian and Jewish
minorities who had lost hope In the rulers. l!This Communism of the ‘Iraq of 19l|l|-5 had little intellectual background, although It attracted the intelligentsia, and showed scarcely
(2 ) a link with the doctrine, or even the agents, of Moscow.11 1
Secret meetings, leaflets and talks amongst workers and students were its main forms of outreach and action.
(1).Richard Cornell: Youth and Communism, New York 1965,pp.2-3 (2) Stephen Hemsley Longrigg: cIraq, 1900 to 1950* London
I
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Amongst Badrrs'friends there wore some who had been attracted by communist tactics in Iraq. Pretty soon, he was drawn to their circle and becane a member of the Iraqi Communist
I
P a r t y . T o him the world was now divided into the imperialist capitalist countries and the democratic socialist ones; society was divided into the exploiting rich bourgeoisie and the
exploited poor proletariat; culture was divided into the right-wing reactionary type and the leftist progressive one; and he liked to identify himself with the second category and feel a responsibility to reverse the order of things and put right the march of History. He deeply felt the injustice
of the distribution of wealth and power in his society, and firmly believed in the justice and justification of a leftist standpoint.
Amongst his fellow communists, he found furthermore the precious attention he needed, and the brotherly feeling of
an esprit de corps that seemed to give his life a purpose. He concentrated on his studies and read widely in the college library. By the end of the year, he had decided definitely to leave the Arabic section and join the Erg-lish section at the college. He later said that he felt there was no additional knowledge that his teachers had at,the Arabic
(2)