May 2010 - Issue 432

Seven years after the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, Hadani Ditmars returns to a land she last visited in 2003. With more than a million people dead in the wake of post- invasion violence, an infrastructure in ruins despite $53 billion in aid, and a corrupt Government whose human rights abuses echo the terror of the Saddam years, the prognosis is bleak. But there are signs of life amidst the devastation. The national theatre has re-opened, women continue to defy oppressive fundamentalism, and young people dream of a better future, where a renewed sense of national identity trumps sectarian divisions. Join the New Internationalist on a dramatic journey of return.