Louis Yako

SUMMARY
Tourists only see what they go to see. In a strange sense, tourists may miss seeing everything except what they go to see… There is so much life on the sides, the margins, in dark alleys, in parks, and remote villages that most tourists never get to see, and thus never get to feel and capture the real spirit of the places they visit. And thus, Dear Readers, I ask: can we travel without being tourists? Indeed, can we stop being tourists altogether? Can we begin to master the art of getting lost; the art of finding hidden gems, beauty, or simple experiences after which life is never the same?

I can’t help sharing a pattern I have observed about tourists: they often come across as not only individuals who weren’t profoundly altered by their travel experiences, but also, in many cases, I find them to be more narrow-minded and sticking to their old beliefs and values as if what they already know is and remains the only truth in the universe. Many encounters with tourists have proven to me that, for many, travel is a way to confirm their biases and worldviews rather than challenge, expand, disrupt, and turn their worlds upside down. It is like people who only watch TV news channels or read books that confirm their prejudices and beliefs of being from the “best, most wonderful, most civilized country in the world,” or such nonsense.

This perhaps explains why the perspective and worldview of many tourists not only are not expanded after traveling, but their perspective is arguably narrowed further after touring countries… Going father is not enough – what matters is the extent to which we master the art of seeing, knowing, and sensing the world as we go farther. Perhaps only travelers who know how to get lost and even be vulnerable can get close to seeing? Traveling, on the other hand, Dear Friends, is not only the art of getting lost, but true travelers, in a sense, never return home. If they do return, they never see home the same way they did before leaving. They begin to see the foreignness of home after experiencing being at home in other foreign lands.

Traveling, I have learned, is not all about the touristy and the beautiful places as we see them in tourist guides. Traveling can be frightening in many ways, most important of which is the realization of how much sadness, pain, impoverishment, and despair exist next to, behind, under, over, and above the mountains, the blue lakes, the pristine beaches, the highly rated hotels and restaurants, the well-designed museums and historic and cultural sites, the fancy shops that, in many places, most locals can neither access nor afford. There are places so sad that the fanciest building one can see there is the airport! There are other places where the airports are run down and depressing, but once you step out of the airport, you discover that such places are full of life, meaning, and physical and spiritual nourishment. There are countries, namely the developed countries, where everything looks shiny and perfect, yet as soon as you enter, you encounter so much loneliness, depression, hate, racism, and lifelessness. Things are never as they appear at first glance. Traveling leaves us with more questions than answers – it is so bittersweet. There is something sad about traveling, because as you discover the enormous amount of life and living that exist in all these places and hidden corners, you are left with two contradictory feelings: first, traveling strongly confirms the idea that one can only see what one is intellectually, spiritually, and physically prepared to see…Everything we encounter depends on our palate in the same way tasting food is that encounter between the food and the palate. Second, there is something excruciatingly painful about leaving a place as soon as you begin to feel at home. There is a deep sorrow in knowing that all the things, places, lakes, wildflowers, animals, and people that we encounter will continue their lives without us. Even more painful is the realization that there are many more lives and much more beauty that we will never get to experience. It is a feeling akin to what many writers experience when they write a story or a poem in which they feel fully alive, yet they also know that as soon the piece of writing is finished and the work is out in the world, they will feel that painful void and loneliness as if they have just lost a very dear friend. The only solace they have is that their beloved piece of writing will continue to have a life of its own in the hearts and minds of readers. The reader’s bodies and minds become like a shelter that protects the life and the meaning they have put on paper. With all that, dear Readers, is it fair to say that traveling is life itself? It is like seeing endless beauty, pain, desolation, beautiful hearts and minds, and nature through the windows of a fast-moving train where everything is fleeting and impossible to capture.

And so, Dear Friends, if there is anything the art of traveling teaches us, it is perhaps to never stop practicing single acts of kindness and compassion that can have profound and long-lasting effects on our communities wherever we are. We learn from traveling that it makes a huge difference to simply acknowledge and greet each other; to ask whenever possible or appropriate, whether someone is alright; and most importantly to foil the plans and intentions of fear and warmongers using every medium and platform to get us to distrust, hate, and be afraid of each other, or to beware of strangers. The American poet, John Berryman, reminds us to reject our fear both literally and metaphorically speaking, which is a product of everything we’ve ever been exposed to and shaped by. Berryman, like many writers and poets before and after him, reminds that “we must travel in the direction of our fear.” When I was a kid in Iraq, people used to say one could travel the entire world just by sitting in a library and reading books. Sadly, in the age of billionaire-controlled social media functioning and governing bodies and minds based on carefully engineered algorithms, I don’t believe this is true anymore. The saying should be revised in our times to be “one could hate the entire world and see everyone as a villain or an enemy just by browsing through reels and social posts carefully selected to confirm one’s limited knowledge, perspective, and prejudices.” With that in mind, we need more than ever to master the art of traveling, whether we go near or far. We need to undo the unreasonable, amplified, and exaggerated fear of strangers.

Key Points:
• As an anthropologist, my job is not to love or hate, like or dislike, admire or disdain others. My purpose is primarily to understand not only how things are, but how/why they became the way they are…if I could sum up the most valuable thing I have learned from anthropology, it is this: the problems we have in this world are not Black, Muslim, Russian, Chinese, white, and so on. Our problems are simply human problems. They happen because we are born or thrown into certain contexts, places, circumstances, and structures that are often much bigger than ourselves, and we then try to make sense, resist, fight, accept, or give in to our circumstances in various ways. All our human successes and failures highly depend on our will, awareness, and the resources available to us to make individual or communal changes.
• The most important thing we need to remember about white people is that they are people! And like any people, they have the virtues and vices of any human being on this planet. But also, like any people, when they exist in certain circumstances, live under certain structures or systems, or are influenced and agitated by malicious media narratives, they behave like any other humans would if in their place.
• We must be suspicious of the fact that we are still hearing about Trump and his trial, while more important cases, like that of Assange, are shrouded with secrecy and no time was wasted to throw him in jail. The reason for that is that Assange did in fact expose the lies, manipulation, and corruption of the U.S. and world elites, whereas Trump has been doing nothing but serving their interests. Same can be applied to Snowden who is still in exile. The key point here is that it’s time for Trump supporters themselves to begin questioning how they, too, are being co-opted and exploited to keep the nation divided and to crush any possibility of wider resistance in which people see each other as allies fighting for similar causes not divided enemies fighting each other like sardines trapped in a can, while the unlimited wealth and power of the few at the top remain unchecked.
• The American ruling class has been deliberately capitalizing on and exploiting the history and wounds of racism and white supremacy for the sake of producing more divide, keeping potential and existing Trump supporters feeling ever more agitated and disenfranchised. The age-old racism and white supremacy are being exploited here without any intention to fix, let alone end, either. This is done to ensure that people in the U.S. remain distracted from the real conversation, which should be about the frighteningly small ruling class that often pretends to be anti-Trump but has been using every social and psychological tool to ensure that what Trump embodies and represents continue to serve their interests.
• The fact that Fox news condones or glorifies Trump’s deeds or those of his supporters, while CNN supposedly bashes him or his supporters doesn’t necessarily indicate that these two channels, both controlled by the wealthy, are divided on Trump. It is more an indication that their coverage of him and his supporters is for the purpose of keeping the American people fighting with each other instead of together against the wealthy and the powerful.

In this article I carefully analyze the narratives and debates surrounding the great resignation and the notion that “Americans don’t want to work.” I examine how these debates are framed by neoliberals in the U.S., whose perspectives are easily accessible and available in most mainstream media covering this topic. As usual, the ruling class approaches the debate with many silences, blind spots, deliberate omissions, and total disregard to people’s voices. I was able to capture some of their key concerns, which I cover in the first part of the article. In the second part, I conclude with capturing people’s side of the story. I captured this part over the last year by informally talking to many people from different walks of life about these topics and looking for patterns that emerged from their stories. I also sifted through hundreds and thousands of public comments posted under online videos on YouTube or news articles about these topics where people shared their experiences. In putting these two parts together, I seek to show the frightening disconnect and total disregard of the ruling class in the U.S. with how people feel and experience the horrendous and draconian workplaces and work conditions that are driving millions of people out of the workforce, not because they can afford to do so, but despite the serious risks that come with walking away. I acknowledge that this topic is massive, and therefore this work is certainly just a small contribution to a wider scope of work that needs to be done by other conscientious writers and scholars. Much more research and writing are needed in the future. I hope this work will open some doors.

2018 no será ni nuevo ni feliz-Rebelion https://rebelion.org/2018-no-sera-ni-nuevo-ni-feliz/ 1/3 Recomiendo: Por Louis Yako | 09/01/2018 | Opinión Traducido del inglés por Nora Fernández. Después de una larga re exión con una querida amiga sobre algunas di cultades que encontró el 2017, terminó con la frase típica, «esperemos que el 2018 sea un año mejor». No sé por qué esta frase me suena a fracaso y desesperanza. Es una frase que mucha gente repite año tras año incluso aunque profundamente dentro de sí saben que es una falsa forma de optimismo con la que nos consolamos, como un niño asustado canta en el callejón para distraerse de la oscuridad. Es una forma de encontrar consuelo sobre la realidad de que la mayoría de nosotros somos rehenes en manos de unas pocas élites económica y políticamente opresivas que nos sofocan. Por lo tanto, vayamos directamente a las malas nuevas sin engañarnos más: 2018 no será un año nuevo ni feliz mientras estemos gobernados por los mismos belicistas que buscan destruir todo lo que nos es signi cante y bello en nuestra hermosa Tierra. A quienes controlan el poder les encanta que nos agarremos a ese falso optimismo año a año, en vez de rebelarnos contra estas gastadas celebraciones. Les encanta ver millones de consumidores sin mente atacar los mercados para comprar y consumir más regalos brillantes y resplandecientes, como si fueran señales genuinas de amor y preocupación entre nosotros. Les encanta cuando nos callamos y seguimos como si tal cosa mientras «esperamos un año mejor». Por eso, declaremos fuerte y claro: ¡No somos felices! Y que no hay nada nuevo en estas celebraciones tradicionales secuestradas por la gente de negocios que las han reducido a nada más que una excusa para consumir bienes. Necesitamos cambiar, rebelarnos como hizo Jesús en el templo cuando echó, con rabia justi cada, a todos quienes allí vendían y compraban. Navidad y Año Nuevo no deberían ser una dosis temporal de heroína que apacigua a la gente y los pone a consumir bienes, ir de vacaciones o sentarse con la familia y amigos a cenar en las mesas de la trivialidad o a presumir «logros» o a compartir historias patéticas sobre «cambiar el mundo.» Así, el asunto más importante que hay que considerar mientras nos aprontamos a enterrar el cuerpo de otro precioso año es: ¿Puede un año nuevo ser realmente feliz con toda la injusticia que pasa en el mundo bajo nuestra mirada? No es un asunto analítico o académico. Es una realidad oscura que debería ser penosamente obvia para cualquier persona que tenga un corazón que late. Si hay alguna exactitud en las palabras de William Faulkner «el pasado nunca está muerto. No es ni pasado», entonces sigue que el 2018 no será un año feliz mientras las causas de la miseria humana, guerras y destrucción existan, y mientras 2018 no será ni nuevo ni feliz Fuentes: Counterpunch

Grounded in my own praxis of how I strive to decolonize my engagement with knowledge production (reading, writing, sensing, and doing) as an independent scholar, and building on Anibal Quijano’s “colonial matrix of power” and Walter Mignolo’s’ concept of “epistemic disobedience”, this article addresses the critical components we must consider if we are to engage with knowledge production and consumption as equals not as submissive minds and souls who have nothing to contribute. The critical components I identify, each addressed in a separate section, include what it really means to decolonize knowledge; why decolonizing language is essential; and how do we decolonize academia. On the latter, the article identifies and addresses specific areas. Those include research inception and funding (e.g. the formation of ideas and funding research projects); the politics of citation (who is citable and who is ignored and why); academic writing and publications; the question of objectivity (the myth that the West is more objective than the rest, which keeps the game unchanged in favor of Western knowledge production); thought and intellectual classification; and the worn-out mantra of “publish or perish”. I close with reflections on how to decolonize other aspects of our daily life such as: reading and writing, relationships, social and professional connections, hobbies, activities, and even travel destinations. I do so because everything is connected and intertwined, and therefore, a holistic approach to decolonize our entire existence is a must. We can’t decolonize knowledge production until we decolonize everything else, and we can’t decolonize anything before we rigorously begin the process of decolonizing knowledge production.

I wrote previously about the field research I conducted in the early months of 2020 for an international organization supporting Iraqi youth. The research focused on young boys and girls attending sessions in different parts of Iraq to engage in dialogues and conversations about pressing issues in Iraqi society such as citizenship, gender, culture and heritage, media, and other critical topics. As part of the research, I had the opportunity to make quick day trips to Mosul to observe. Today I would like to share with you a glimpse of the destruction, pain, and heartbreaking stories that I saw and heard in Mosul. The unimaginable atrocities inflicted on this city by a group of mercenaries known as ISIL should undoubtedly be considered one of the most horrendous crimes of the twenty-first century. The most incredible thing about ISIL is its name. It is incredible for two reasons: first, because the name disguises how this group came to be and who created the perfect circumstances for its existence. This group of mercenaries has been directly and indirectly created, funded, and armed by regional and international states whose main purpose was to destroy Syria and isolate its government in proxy wars, and to discipline any parts of Iraq where there has been a strong objection and resistance to Iraq’s occupation from the start.

I would like to share with you some scattered and memorable moments I spent with some brilliant Yazidi young girls and boys whose dreams, like those many Iraqis from different diverse backgrounds, have been shattered by the brutal consequences of the US occupation of Iraq, which include the creation of ISIS. It goes without saying that the Yazidi suffering is inseparable from the horrific violence experienced by many Iraqis like Assyrians who had their homes, culture, and history in Mosul and its surroundings intentionally erased by all the internal and external parties that funded and created a monster they named “ISIS” to cover their tracks. Same applies to the horrific consequences experienced by Sunni Arabs, Turkmen, and other religious and ethnic groups in different parts of the country who have suffered a great deal. Yet, of course, the mainstream media will always focus on some groups and neglect others, depending on their political agendas.

Desde marzo hasta julio de este año, para poder soportar los toques de queda y las cuarentenas mientras estaba en Iraq, me puse a escribir breves reflexiones del tamaño de una postal que compartí con algunos amigos cercanos. En esas postales trataba de captar sencillos momentos, reflejos e imágenes cotidianas de la vida en un mundo golpeado por una pandemia. Hoy, Queridos Amigos, quiero poner esos momentos fugaces en sus manos y en las manos del Tiempo.

From March until July of this year, to cope with the curfews and quarantines while in Iraq, I wrote short postcard-length reflections that I shared with some close friends. In these postcards, I captured simple daily moments, reflections, and images from life in a world struck by a pandemic. Today, Dear Friends, I want to put these fleeting moments in your hands and in the hands of Time.

This article zooms in on the notion of "America is burning with racism right now". To the superficial observers, the picture they paint tells us that American is “burning” right now; Black people are “thugs” who are looting and using “violence”; Blacks are acting with “reverse racism”; that “all lives matter”. This article argues that America didn’t start burning right now, and it is not burning because Black people are “overreacting” or committing “violence”. Rather, America has always been burning for many people. If you haven’t felt that America has always been burning, then you are – consciously or unconsciously – part of the structural, systemic, and calculated racism and marginalization committed against Blacks and other marginalized people in America. The article analyzes this issues from multiple important angles: first, racism is first and foremost a method of governance. Here, we must distinguish between racists that exist in our daily life and the system and structure in place that produce racists and even enable them to operate and practice racism with little or no consequences. Second, the education system has a crucial role to play in all of this, and therefore, it must be held accountable. As we have it, America’s education system continues to operate as succinctly captured by James Baldwin a long time ago in that, "Education is indoctrination if you’re white; subjugation if you’re black.” Baldwin’s words show that such an education system is really not serving anyone at the end of the day. Neither the indoctrinated nor the subjugated can be healthy citizens who can make meaningful contributions to their societies. As such, leading to the third part of the article, rather than seeing racist individuals as "enemies", they must be seen as prisoners of indoctrination with walls built around them by the system and the structure we have in place. Last but not least, building on Claudia Rankine’s insights as she writes, “Perhaps the most insidious and least understood form of segregation is that of the word”, the last section of this article carefully examines and analyzes the language used to build and promote narratives around racism and racial relations. It shows how, in this context, the language itself serves as a tool to further segregate people.

How and why many of us blindly repeat words, idioms, and phrases passed down to us like shabby clothes from our parents or ancestors, without even pondering the exact meaning of what we say. More importantly, in the case of European languages, how the language we uncritically use is an inseparable part of the colonial matrix of power through which the West distinguishes itself from the rest as superior and exceptional. Language is a double-edged sword that can imprison or set us free. There are countless words, phrases, and idioms like “first world problems” that we use daily without pausing and thinking about what they really mean, what do they tell us about ourselves and others, and how using them blindly can hinder free thinking or having broader perspectives on life or our relationship to the outside world. This article takes readers on a journey with a selection of such commonly used words and phrases that have always shocked me to hear them used repeatedly, without questioning them.

First, most Americans (nearly 78%) live paycheck to paycheck, which makes them vulnerable to abuse and bullying by employers. Second, a 2018 Harris Poll found that “seven in ten employers (70 percent) use social networking sites to research job candidates during hiring process,” and another seven percent was planning to do so as of 2018. This means that on top of working under inhumanely precarious and insecure conditions, average American employees are also being watched online and offline by authoritarian employers to make sure they are conforming to their demands. Based on research, work experience, observation, and collecting insights from many friends, colleagues, and total strangers, this article shows how most American workplaces operate in ways that make it almost impossible for anyone to speak truth to power or challenge the status quo and be able to thrive or advance in their career. “If you dare to open your mouth, you basically ruin your career,” is one of the most common lines we hear from people when we ask them about what usually stops them from saying or doing what they see as the right thing to do. Here, we must ask, is there a dictatorship worse than this reality? Is there any difference between being ruled by authoritarian leaders and authoritarian employers? This article delves into these questions by examining pre/post hiring practices, America’s workplaces for newcomers (immigrants, refugees, and other underserved/underrepresented groups), workplaces that are centered on mediocrity, intimidation, and stifling creativity, the social and psychological implications on employees, retirement, possibilities to start thinking and challenging this reality.

This article examines some cases that highlight the problems of the corporate customer service culture as we know it on our society at large. It analyzes what it means for citizens to be turned into customers at different work places and institutions.

This article examines the dilemma of exiled Arab intellectuals and their relationship to home in the work of the Syrian novelist, journalist, and feminist, Ghada al-Samman. It argues that for Samman, a writer of multiple exiles, home and exile are dialectically related, making the contributions of intellectuals in these spaces similarly dialectical. That the life of exiled intellectuals is a circle that remains incomplete as long as they are unable to return to home. The article traces three different and recurring thematic components in Samman’s writings: First, how she problematizes and refines the notion of intellectual “commitment”. Second, how and why Samman considers “safe harbors” impossible to find either at home or in exile. Third, how exiled intellectuals in Samman’s writings constantly struggle between the gap between theory and practice. The article conducts a close analytical reading of two of Samman’s major works Laylat al-milyar: Riwaya and al-Qabila tastajwibu al-qatila. The first is one of Samman’s most celebrated novels in the Arab world and the third part of her trilogy on the Lebanese civil war, published in 1986. The second is a collection of journalistic interviews with Samman conducted by Arab journalists, writers, and poets from different countries largely in the 1970s. Paired together, these works offer rich insights on Samman’s philosophy in relation to the dilemmas of Arab intellectuals.

Once upon a time, displaced people had a time and a place. They had a place in which they made plans about what to do with their future and their lives. Their time and place were prematurely destroyed and stolen from them. These people were then forced to exist in times and places that are not theirs. They were forced to learn the art of living and flourishing in the same empire that stole and destroyed their time and place back home...Today I want to share with you eight poems I wrote over the last few years. The poems seek to unpack some of the countless complex feelings, ideas, and experiences that displaced people go through to make sense of a world that has lost its senses.

What kind of language can do justice to capturing the horrors of war in any society ravaged by wars? In this article, I would like to take the readers in a journey to ponder two issues: First, what does it mean when language becomes the only “home” to inhabit when all else is lost for displaced and exiled writers (and people)? Second, why writers and intellectuals seek to find an alternative language to capture the horrors of war? I try to unpack these important questions by looking at selected literary works from post-occupation Iraq. Before that, it is important to note that the need for revolutionizing language as a medium in capturing post-war realities is far from unique to the Iraqi context.

The Road to Understanding Syria Goes Through Iraq: Returning to Iraq After a Decade in Exile (Part Two)

What has been happening in Syria since 2011 is nothing but complex and dirty attempts by multiple regional and global powers to “Iraqize” Syria by other means…What has been happening in Syria is nothing but an attempt to destroy the Syrian people, institutions, and society to restructure them in the image of the imperial, neocolonial players involved in this dirty war. This article paints an image of what has become of Iraq, after more than a decade of its invasion, to hopefully give the reader some important clues as to why the Syrian war has been happening since 2011, and what kind of Syria do the involved neocolonial and imperial players want to create once they finish destroying Syria as we knew it. It argues that the road to understanding the future of Syria goes through what has been happening in Iraq.

What has been happening in Syria since 2011 is nothing but complex and dirty attempts by multiple regional and global powers to “Iraqize” Syria by other means…What has been happening in Syria is nothing but an attempt to destroy the Syrian people, institutions, and society to restructure them in the image of the imperial, neocolonial players involved in this dirty war. This article paints an image of what has become of Iraq, after more than a decade of its invasion, to hopefully give the reader some important clues as to why the Syrian war has been happening since 2011, and what kind of Syria do the involved neocolonial and imperial players want to create once they finish destroying Syria as we knew it. It argues that the road to understanding the future of Syria goes through what has been happening in Iraq.

This month marked the 25th anniversary to the already forgotten crimes against humanity committed against the Iraqi people during the First Gulf War. These crimes are not only forgotten, but most of those who committed them under the banner of the “Coalition Forces” are still free and probably either acting as advisers, consultants, or policy-makers for more such crimes to be committed elsewhere, or they are happily retired on some quiet, peaceful, and colonized island. The First Gulf War is known as the “reaction” of the so-called “international community” led by the Coalition Forces to Iraq’s catastrophic invasion of Kuwait. As a primary school child during those years, my head still carries so many memories, images, scents, and deaths, that I have documented in my diary over the years. Today I would like to share with you a selection of my diary pages from that period as I originally wrote them, with no changes, except for linguistic and editorial purposes related to length.

In this webinar, host and interlocutor, Nour al-Halabi, chats with Dr Louis Yako  about the significance of applied anthropology and its role in creating tangible change in communities worldwide. The webinar also addresses the colonial legacies of anthropology as a discipline, what does it mean to really decolonize anthropology and knowledge production in practical terms, and how anthropological studies are needed more than ever before in an increasingly tumultuous, violent, and intolerant world.

This week we hear from Louis Yako, an independent anthropologist and writer. Louis is the author of a new book, Bullets in Envelopes: Iraqi Academics in Exile, published by Pluto Press in 2021.

Louis discusses education in Iraq before the Gulf war, the effects of the U.S.-led sanctions, and the neoliberalization of the education system following the U.S. invasion in 2003.

The Iraq War: Causes and Ramifications: The modern histories of the United States and Iraq are closely intertwined. Louis Yako, Iraqi-American poet, writer, and PhD candidate at Duke University, explores the relationship between the two countries in the context of the Iraq Wars.

The title of this lecture is based on an article by Louis Yako published in openDemocracy on November 8, 2013, inspired by Alfred Lord Tennyson’s ballad “The Lady of Shallott” (1842 [1833]). Yako, an Iraqi-American poet, writer, and currently a PhD scholar of cultural anthropology at Duke University, will share personal memories about the first and second gulf wars, his experiences in Iraq following the US-led occupation in 2003, leaving Iraq in 2005, and his ongoing doctorate research project on Iraqi academics in exile. Some key questions this lecture raises include: do we really ever leave home? What does exile offer and what does it take away from us? And why we need to pay more attention to the stories of war, exile, and refugees today more than ever.

Yako's Wednesday at the Center lecture was part of Duke University's Middle East Refugees Awareness Week and was presented by the Duke University Middle East Studies Center.

Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, many Iraqi academics were assassinated. Countless others received bullets in envelopes and instructions to leave their institutions (and in many cases the country) or get killed. Many heeded the warning and fled into exile. Having played such a pivotal role in shaping post-independence Iraqi society, the exile and internal displacement of its academics has had a profound impact. Tracing the academic, political, and social lives of more than 60 academics, Bullets in Envelopes offers a 'genealogy of loss', and a groundbreaking appraisal of the dismantling and restructuring of Iraqi institutions, culture and society. Through extensive fieldwork in the UK, Jordan and Iraqi Kurdistan, Louis Yako shows the human side of the destructive 2003 occupation, how things are today, and how they came to be.

Iraqi academics have had a pivotal role in shaping and building Iraqi society, identity, and national structures, since the country’s independence from British colonial rule. Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, a significant number of academics were assassinated and forced into exile and internal displacement. Since this population has always been intertwined with the state and different regimes of power, they are uniquely-situated to provide critical and multifaceted analyses on politics, the intertwined relationship between academics and power, and the complexity of exile. Through what I call a “genealogy of loss,” this ethnography traces the academic, political, and social lives of academics in contemporary Iraq to uncover the losses this population-and the Iraqi people- have incurred in contemporary Iraq. Beginning with the period from the ascendancy of the Ba‘ath Party in 1968, to the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and up to the present, I examine the lives of Iraq’s exiled academics in three sites: the UK, Jordan, and Iraqi Kurdistan. I first examine their experience during the Ba‘ath era to explore their work, struggles, and hardships, as they made significant contributions to building their society and nation. I attempt to provide a nuanced anthropological account of life under the Ba‘ath regime and its ideals and complex realities. The second part examines these academics’ post-US occupation experiences both inside Iraq and in exile. I argue that the reconfiguration of the Iraqi state, and the shift from a secular, unified, one-party system into a divided space ruled by the occupying forces and their appointed sectarian and ethno-nationalist leaders and militia groups, has reconfigured the role of the academic and of higher education. The occupation and the subsequent Iraqi governments used death threats and assassinations, sectarianism, and “de-Ba‘athification” as forms of governance to restructure society. Many academics and professionals were either assassinated or forced into exile by sending them bullets and threat notes in envelopes. I explore how academics’ relatively stable jobs in pre-invasion Iraq are now “contracted lives” with devastating effects on their personal lives, intellectual projects, and the future of Iraq. Such lives entail living in spaces under precarious and temporary contracts and with residency cards subject to annual renewal or termination. These academics now live in constant fear and what I call a “plan B mode of existence.” While an extreme and violent case, this ethnography argues that the conditions of Iraqi academics in exile are connected to neoliberal global trends marked by the commercialization and corporatization of higher education, adversely affecting academic, social, and political freedoms of writing, thinking, and being in this world.