Secret toil of passion in a place with 'no love'
A Baghdad musician struggles to keep his labours hidden from the local militia. In a tiny workshop on the roof of his Baghdad home, Farhan Hassan works in secret, lovingly carving wood and tightening strings to make music. Hassan produces ouds, a traditional musical instrument whose muted sounds are dear to Arabs. Only close family and friends know what he is doing, because neighbourhood militiamen frown on such frivolities.
The oud's angst-filled tunes define Iraq's music, the way the Tigris and Euphrates rivers define its landscape. But nowadays few in the country play or make the oud, a pear-shaped, deep-voiced cousin of the lute. Hundreds of artists fled Iraq during recent years, and continued instability and the power of religious hard-liners give them little desire to return. So Hassan's ouds have come to symbolise a lost Iraq, or maybe the country it could become. What they don't speak of is today's Iraq.