I grew up in Abu Dhabi, an Iraqi with a British passport. My connection to Iraq was shaped almost entirely by my mum’s stories and the fragments of tradition my family carried with them. The curiosity was always there; even as a child, I would beg my parents to take me to Iraq, not yet understanding the emotional weight of returning or the reality of the country they had left behind. Over the years, as the situation in Iraq grew calmer and relatives began visiting more often, my mum slowly opened to the idea too. Eventually, it felt like the right time for her to go back — and for me to see the country for the first time.
Landing on Iraqi soil
My mum felt an immediate rush of familiarity when she saw the sign ”Maṭār Baghdād al-Duwalī” (Baghdad International Airport), convinced it looked almost exactly as it had when she left three decades earlier. And, in true Iraqi fashion, our arrival wouldn’t have been complete without spotting none other than renowned singer Ilham Al-Madfai stepping off the same plane, as if personally welcoming us back.
What struck my mum was the friendliness of security officials at the airport — a sharp break from the fear she remembered from her youth, when speaking to officials meant offering only the safest, most neutral phrases. This time, they were effortlessly chatty, even debating football teams with us — Manchester United or Liverpool — a level of casualness my mum couldn’t quite process. When I handed over my British passport with its Iraqi visa, one officer told me I needed another stamp. I paused, trying to follow his Iraqi Arabic, which I didn’t fully understand. He laughed, muttered ”Injlīzīi,” (English) and waved me along, and my mum started laughing too. Later, she told me the whole exchange felt surreal — she never imagined she’d one day be laughing or discussing football with the very people she once barely dared speak to.
Stepping out of the airport triggered instant chaos: a chorus of relatives calling, each insisting we come to their house first, for their lunch, with all the urgency of a diplomatic crisis. But my mum had only one priority: the beloved Ali Allami Fast Food. She remembered it from the days when it operated out of a tiny grocery store – but now it stands proudly on the street as a fully-fledged fast-food spot. And while the storefront has changed, the smell and taste of the burgers have not: the same simple spices, the same perfect grill, the same unmistakable Baghdad flavour she grew up with. It was as if time had moved on, but the burger had stayed exactly where she left it. It was a small moment, but it set the tone for the days ahead – a city both changed and unchanged, waiting for us to rediscover it.
Our family traces in Baghdad
We all wanted to visit the house my mum had lived in as a teenager in Al-Jadriya, a neighbourhood nestled along the Tigris river, but it was her cousin who took charge. She was utterly convinced we’d be let in by its new owners — her aunt had once known the owner’s mother, which, in classic Iraqi logic, was apparently all the credentials we needed. Her confidence was unwavering, so we simply followed her lead.
Decades of wars and displacement had scattered the family across continents. Siblings who had once shared bedrooms were now oceans apart; meals that had been daily rituals had become rare, almost ceremonial.
The house had, unexpectedly, become the Philippine Embassy – a twist none of us anticipated. Next door stood my uncle’s old home, where he moved after marrying. My mum often recalled the two houses side by side: big lunches, late dinners, cousins darting through doorways, a rhythm of closeness life has since scattered across continents.
Two security guards waited at the gate, somewhere between politeness and scepticism. My mum’s cousin launched into a detailed introduction, tracing family connections and the emotional weight of the visit. Before the guards could respond, my aunt jumped in — thirty years of absence condensed into one breath, explaining that I wanted to see where my mum and grandmother had lived, to touch a part of our story I had grown up hearing about but never seeing.
The guards listened, blinked, and then one said with weary amusement, “zayn zayn, lā tibchīn” — “okay, okay, don’t cry.” No one was crying, but it worked. Laughter broke the tension, and after a quick call to the owner, the gate opened.
Inside, my mum moved through the rooms with a careful attention, remembering how life had once unfolded there. She pointed out where her nieces and nephew had raced through corridors, the corners where family meals spilled across rooms, the spaces where daily life once felt ordinary. The house wasn’t their families’ anymore, but the pull in her voice spoke of something far deeper than bricks and plaster: a longing for the rhythm of togetherness that had shaped her teenage years.
Decades of wars and displacement had scattered the family across continents. Siblings who had once shared bedrooms were now oceans apart; meals that had been daily rituals had become rare, almost ceremonial. Standing there, it was clear what my mum missed most wasn’t just the building itself, but the laughter that echoed through hallways, the small quarrels over seating at the table, the sense that everyone belonged. For a fleeting moment, she was back in that rhythm, and so were we — briefly reunited in the memory of a home that had shaped our family, long before life pulled them away.
Stepping into our family history
My mum’s grandfather was Kamil Chadirji: politician, lawyer, photographer, and the founder of Iraq’s National Democratic Party, widely regarded as a prominent figure in the country’s intellectual life in the mid-20th century. Growing up, I knew his name mainly through old photographs and brief family anecdotes. Visiting his former home in Baghdad made those fragments tangible for the first time.
The house sits next door to that of my great-uncle, the architect Rifat Chadirji, whose work shaped much of modern Baghdad. My mum spent much of her childhood in Kamil’s home, yet she had never seen her grandfather’s archives in person. My mum spoke about how this was history she had inherited but had never been allowed to inhabit.
Inside, the rooms felt suspended in time. Folders, documents, and photographs remained stored in cabinets and shelves, a quiet testament to the political world that once pulsed here. My mum pointed out the room where politicians used to gather for meetings, slipping through the side entrance to avoid attention. To me, it felt like stepping into a missing chapter of our family’s story; to her, it was stepping into a past she had only ever been told about.
A deeper tension: a political legacy silenced by dictatorship
Growing up under a dictatorship meant my mum learned early that political identity was something to tuck away, not explore. It wasn’t just fear – it became habit, a kind of internalised censorship. What made this silence heavier was the contrast between her upbringing and the world she came from. Her grandfather and uncles belonged to a generation that came of age before the Baath era, during a time when civic life was vibrant and contested: newspapers, debates, public space, argument. Their lives were shaped by politics as participation – the idea that citizens had a responsibility to the public sphere.
My mum’s generation, by contrast, learned politics as danger. Meetings became whispers. Opinions were kept indoors. Even family history became something that lived in the margins, spoken about only with caution. She grew up surrounded by traces of political life – walls that once heard debates, relatives who had shaped national conversations – yet she wasn’t allowed to inhabit that part of her identity. Returning to those rooms meant confronting the gap between two Iraqs: the one her family helped build, and the one she came of age in, where political thought was something to survive, not engage in.
Seeing her grandfather’s archives — the photographs, the documents, the evidence of a city that once imagined itself differently — made visible a lineage she had spent her entire youth being told to avoid.
Growing up under a dictatorship meant my mum learned early that political identity was something to tuck away, not explore. My mum’s generation … learned politics as danger. Meetings became whispers. Opinions were kept indoors. Even family history became something that lived in the margins, spoken about only with caution.
Outside, just a short drive away, stood the most public symbol of our family’s imprint on the city: the Freedom Monument. Its architectural base was designed by my great-uncle, Rifat Chadirji, and the monument itself was sculpted by Jawad Saleem. I had seen photographs of it all my life, but standing beneath it was entirely different.
The monument stretches 50 metres across Liberation Square, in the center of Baghdad, a sequence of bronze figures in motion. At first glance, it resembles a long page from ancient Mesopotamian reliefs — but its story is unmistakably modern. The figures depict the people’s struggle against tyranny, the spirit of the 14 July Revolution, and the dream of a nation emerging from repression. The travertine base curves like a banner being lifted in protest, anchoring the monument in the language of public uprising.
We stood quietly in front of it, taking in the scale — not just of the sculpture, but of the history it carried. This was the Baghdad her grandfather and uncle had worked toward: a city with a political and artistic heartbeat, where ideas were debated, where public space meant something. Standing there, I felt the weight of history pressing against the reality around me: public spaces and freedom of expression remain fragile, and the ideals etched into the monument felt enduring yet elusive. This is a reminder that history can inspire, but never fully erase the challenges faced today.
For me, seeing it with her felt like watching a thread being reconnected — between generations, between memory and presence, between the Iraq she left and the Iraq we were finally seeing together.
Returning to Baghdad: Thirty years gone, and a city still breathing
As our trip went on, everyday conversations with taxi drivers, vendors — the ease with which people criticised the government or joked about services — kept surprising my mum. Such public expression was never possible for her. At her age, a careless comment could alter the course of a life. Today, risks around free speech and online expression are still very real, with arrests and prosecutions a reminder. Yet people spoke more openly – sometimes cautiously, sometimes defiantly. The air felt different: not unburdened, but changed.
One evening, we passed a group of women eating together at a local restaurant — a sight she had never seen when living in Baghdad. I asked my mum if it saddened her, seeing Iraqis enjoy a kind of ease she never knew.
She said, ‘A little, but I’m happy for them.’
It was a small answer, but it held everything: the years she lost, the acceptance of them, and the quiet relief in knowing that even as the country’s struggles remain heavy and unresolved, its people still find space to breathe, to speak, to live.
And maybe that’s what returning offered her — not closure, not transformation, but a gentler truth: that Iraq no longer feels impossibly far away, and that parts of it, despite everything, continue to slowly inch toward the life she once imagined for it.
