2003-06-15 13:23:29 -- The graffiti-marked pedestal bears a sign with the sculpture's title: NAJEEN, which means "survivor," and also happens to be the name of the group of young Iraqi artists who created the artwork.

"Freedom is not a gift from people with tanks," says sculptor Basim Hamad, a Najeen member and the driving force behind the new artwork.

Fardus Square, now also called Freedom Square, is in the city center. Traffic wheels around the square—unless protests clog the flow. The sidewalks teem with a minibazaar of currency exchange booths and men selling satellite telephone calls. The Paradise Hotel stands just off the square.

On May 29 about 30 Najeen members gathered to unveil the sculpture before a small crowd of Baghdad residents and journalists while, from behind razor wire on the block-long square, American soldiers looked on. The artists decorated the pedestal with ribbons, exchanged flowers, hugged and kissed one another, and sang a traditional Iraqi lullaby, "Il Walad," or "My Child."

"A simple group made this great sculpture," said Baghdad resident Ziad Zubaidi. "When [Hussein] was the leader of Iraq, all he made was a statue of himself."

Art Uncensored

Indeed, almost all the public art in Baghdad—murals, mosaics, statues, and sculptures—contain an image of Hussein or a reference to his Baath party.

For the new plaster sculpture, 23 feet tall (7 meters), the Najeen created abstract figures of a mother, father, and child holding a crescent moon, symbol of Islam, around a sun, symbol of the Sumerian civilization. The Najeen dedicated the sculpture to "every person in Iraq and to freedom-loving people everywhere."

The week before the unveiling, the artists worked through the night to put up the sculpture and avoid the 120°F (49°C) early summer temperatures in Baghdad.

Publicity about the sculpture brought offers of support from around the world but Hamad has declined them: "If I take money from others, I'll have to create what they want. I want to create something that is purely my image, so we don't accept any money."

Hamad calls the Najeen Group "an old family"—formed in 1991 in the wake of gulf war I. The collective of actors, artists and filmmakers has worked mainly underground to avoid run-ins with Hussein's Ministry of Culture, which approved work for public display.

"Building the sculpture was not a political dream, but an artistic one," Hamad says. "The last thing artists think about is politics. Politicians get paid to talk, that's the opposite of what artists do."

After Hussein

On May 4, the Najeen Group staged a new play, They Passed By Here, in the Al Rashid Theater, Baghdad's most famous, now badly looted. It was the first play performed since the city fell—and the first uncensored play in decades.

The Najeen took the show to the Kurdish area of Sulaymaniyah. Before Saddam Hussein fell, Iraqis in Baath-controlled areas were forbidden to travel there.

The group plans to build a sculpture in the Kurdish town of Halabja telling the story of the chemical-weapons attack in 1988 by the Baath party figure Ali Hassan al Majeed, known as Chemical Ali, that killed thousands of civilians.

Dhurgham Abdulwhid, a painter, has been a member of Najeen for 12 years. He wants to open a gallery. Formerly he displayed his avant-garde work in university student apartments.

Asked about Najeen's future, Abdulwhid says, "I beg god to give Najeen a chance," then corrects the translator: "I beg the people to give us a chance, not god."

In Baghdad, people yearn for the restoration of order and basic services like electricity. But now they also will have more choice about their future and the role that art will play in it.

The Najeen artists are ambitious for art to be visible everywhere and to help redeem the destruction in Baghdad. "I want to sweep all the dust off my beautiful city," Hamad says.