Ahmed Goda was among the first foreign journalists to enter Basra following its fall to coalition forces in May 2003. A writer with the respected Asharq Alwsat newspaper, he arrived amid the chaos of the invasion to find himself pursued through the streets by a hostile crowd who assumed the Egyptian would be sympathetic to Saddam. Goda explained he held no such partisan views and was, in fact, a journalist based in London who counted many exiled Iraqis among his friends. Among them, he went on, hoping to win the crowd over, was a man who had himself escaped imprisonment and torture at the hands of the regime.
The crowd demanded to know the name of this so-called "friend", and although Goda thought it a rather pointless request, he told them anyway: "Nabeel Yasin, he's a writer, a poet." The effect was immediate. Anger dissipated into generous applause, while many recited lines from Brother Yasin, a poem they seemed to know by heart. Goda was astonished. He had no idea that his friend's name meant anything to the people of Iraq - which Yasin had left in 1980 - nor that this poem, a personal recollection of life before and during Saddam's regime, published modestly in exile, had become the object of such obvious public affection.
Goda returned to London and immediately called Yasin - both poet and poem had got him out of a sticky situation. When Yasin heard the story he was similarly incredulous. The discovery that Brother Yasin and its sequel Brother Yasin Again had been smuggled into the country came as a total shock. No one, least of all its author, could have predicted the poems' decade-long journey right to the hearts of Yasin's countrymen and women.
Only 1,000 copies of the original works were published, in one private UK pressing back in 1994. That slim volume contained both the original Brother Yasin, (written in 1974 and published to great acclaim in Egypt and the Lebanon), and its follow-up, a more mature work flowing out of the experience of exile. Most copies were sold through Arabic bookshops and a handful of copies were sent abroad to a female poet in Amman. That was where Yasin believed the story ended. "Once it had been published I forgot all about it," he says today. "It was impossible to imagine it inside [Iraq] while I was in exile. In separating me from my country Saddam had effectively silenced my voice."
It was only on further investigation that Yasin discovered what had truly happened. The female poet (who still wishes to remain anonymous) had kick-started a journey that ended in Iraq. At the end of 1995 a lone copy was smuggled across the Jordanian border, legend has it, in a lorry carrying food supplies. Although the borders were supposedly impenetrable, it was possible to bribe the poorly paid guards and smuggle illegal materials - such as Yasin's banned poetry - across.
The penalty for both this and any distribution of such works was savage, ranging from imprisonment, the loss of a tongue or hand, to death with retribution against family and friends thrown in for good measure. There were, however, brave individuals who routinely risked their liberty and lives to ensure literature and culture were kept alive within Iraq.
One of these underground figures was known as Tawfiq the tailor. He ran one of Baghdad's most reputable garment repair shops and it was from here that many banned works were distributed, sewn into suit linings or hidden pockets. Among the people Tawfiq passed Brother Yasin to was Miqdad Addulrida, an actor and now director of Baghdad Radio. He ran a corner shop and with the aid of a rickety old photocopier, ran off copies of the poem. He would then travel alone by bus around Baghdad, delivering copies hidden about his person to individuals he knew to be sympathetic. Word-of-mouth soon helped spread the poem's reputation. Yasin had, without knowing it, touched an Iraqi psyche that was struggling under the daily hardships of the regime.
This proves all the more extraordinary given that Yasin's writing had been banned by Saddam Hussein himself in his famously indiscriminate cultural blacklist of 1978. Issued promptly after he assumed absolute power it prohibited thousands of names including such diverse luminaries as Virginia Woolf, Tin Tin and Sartre as well as the homegrown voices of Yasin, Saidi Yusuf and others. Only military literature survived the purge, together with the many books and articles that glorified Saddam's "triumphs" as leader.
Abdul Hameed Alsayah, an Iraqi writer and commentator, explains the poem's impact: "Brother Yasin and Brother Yasin Again became part of the body of work that has come to represent the secret, silent fight against Saddam Hussein's regime. It is one of the most important poems exploring, in a revolutionary way, the link between man's ethereal, spiritual nature and his everyday, habitual life. It expresses simple sentiments while yielding something new with each reading." Another writer says: "The Iraqis, who love tragedy, find themselves drawn to this."
However the writer himself had not intended it to become an anthem for the oppressed. These days, Yasin, who lives in west London, cuts a discreet figure with his small stack of papers and an Arab/English dictionary under his arm. He appears genuinely bemused, although grateful, at the reputation his poem has acquired.
It started life, he says, as a personal expression of the difficult path he and his family, with their leftist politics, had embarked on decades earlier, long before Saddam came to power. From the bloody riots at the 1960 International Worker's Festival that involved three of his brothers to the night in 1972 when he was attacked by the secret police for performing a reading of a new Arabic translation of King Lear at the Iraqi Writers Union their lives had been tainted with violence, intimidation and terror. Making it home that night, he saw the fear and relief on his mother's face and realised that her faith was central to the family's unity. It had kept them strong. This became the point of inspiration for the poem; with the family acting as a metaphor for the country as a whole.
Some artists chose to work under the wing of the regime. Yasin is one of many more that were ostracised. The year before he went into exile he was offered the post of director general of the Iraqi Cultural Office. He turned it down. Now that Saddam Hussein is gone, Yasin's contribution can be openly acknowledged. He does not have to rewrite his place in history as a victim of the regime, as others are doing.
Immediately after liberation in June 2003 Brother Yasin was taken up by a small coalition of new generation designers, artists and painters who designed, artworked and hand printed the poem themselves (this in a country where paper is as rare as gold dust) so that it could be made publicly available. And now, the Iraqi Ministry of Culture is set to further its legitimate circulation by publishing a new 2004 edition.
Yasin saw the bloodthirsty future in 1974, and the long road back to creating an Iraq for Iraqis while in exile. Now that people are free, Hassan Abdul Hameed, who wrote the first public critique of the work after liberation, says, "they are looking to poets like Yasin, books like The Poets Satirise the Kings, and are inspired to do the same." After all, even Saddam knew that a country needed its poets.
