Book Market in Iraq
Majed Al Samarrai Al-Hayat 2004/08/6
Baghdad
Arab books, foreign books and books printed in Iraq were scrutinized and subjugated to the "instructional scrutiny" of the Iraqi government. It was as if the " department surveillance over publications" was a " house of obedience" and if any book was published without being inspected by this department it was considered " a crime that the should be answered into in front of the law."
This department choose its experts and the majority of these experts were intellectuals and writers. The problems of the book with the surveillance process are well known. They are also the same problems the publishers face as a book might be prohibited from being circulated because of a "phrase" mentioned on one of its pages or because the "subject" of the books and sometimes because of its author. All books should be inspected before published and after being inspected if the book contains the phrase "contradicts with the instructions of inspection," this phase is enough to prohibit the book from being published.
Suddenly books can circulate freely in Iraq no matter what the source was and no matter where it came from. Books can now be published in Iraq without any scrutiny. The "scrutinizer" was discharged from his work as a result of the Iraqi government's decision to disband the ministry of information.
Because of this situation of "absolute freedom" the Iraqi merchants were encouraged to import from all across the globe whereby the Iraqi markets are now over flooded as opposed to the Iraqi demand. Books can be found now abundantly and any book that an Iraqi reader dreamed of reading can now be found. The Iraqi reader can find different kind of books from every kind and every color. The "openness" of the Iraqi market despite the terrible security conditions encouraged counterfeit copies of books, and even this business of counterfeiting is competitive. Perhaps for the first time in Iraq one could find books that belong to the fundamentalist ideology with its different factions. One could find books about metaphysics and book that interpret dreams in addition to various religious books that belong to all sects.
Non of the Iraqi merchants bother are involved in importing modern literary books such as poetry books and theoretical books because first the demand for these books is limited as opposed to other books, secondly the returns from the selling of these books is limited and thirdly the readers who are mostly intellectuals and writers do not buy these books unless they bargain for its prices.
The question remains: why type of reader are we going to see in Iraq today and in the future if the over flooding of books continues. The second question I would like to ask: will the book market in Iraq find someone who will work to rebalance this market by providing "the other book" such as philosophical books, or books that represent the creative sprit of our modern time?
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