Iraq Wars: From A literary text to Social Context

Wasit University Comparative Studies Conference 2022

Abstract

This article investigates Iraq wars presentation in literature and media. The first section investigates the case of the returnees from the war and their experience, their trauma and final presentation of that experience. The article also investigates how trauma and fear is depicted to create an optimized image and state of fear that could in turn show Iraqi society as a traumatized society. Critics such as Suzie Grogan believes that the concept of trauma could expand to  influence societies rather than one individual after exposure to trauma of being involved in wars and different major conflicts. This is reflected in Iraq as a country that was subjected to six comprehensive conflicts in its recent history, i.e. less than half a century; these are the Iraq-Iran war, the first Gulf war, the economic sanctions, the second Gulf war 2003, the civil war, and the wars of liberation against ISIS.

The second section investigates Franco Moretti's theory of the Dialectic of Fear and the implication of this hypothesis of stereotyping on the Iraq war and its transformation from an anomaly expressed issue in the media and creative texts to a social reality that is measured by presenting what is not acceptable as an acceptable pattern in the case of war and shock between Iraq and the wars that took place in the west, and the extent of its impact on the protraction of the state of social trauma suffered by Iraqis, who are still suffering under the effects of prolonged political conflicts even after the end of military field conflicts.

The research sheds the light on studies such as the Dialectic of Fear by Franco Moretti, Risk Society by Ulrich Beck and Oh My God: Diaries of American Soldiers in Mesopotamia edited and translated by Buthaina Al-Nasiri.

Key words: Iraqi war, trauma, risk society, social context, stereotyping.