House of Saddam - End of a dictatorship/dynasty

Last night saw the finale of House of Saddam, the four-part HBO-BBC venture that was dubbed the drama series of the summer. It was a bold attempt to capture nearly 30-years of the Saddam dynasty in four 1-hour episodes but it did it and in style too. It sounds a little perverse to take pleasure in a drama about one of the most despicable people ever to have lived but I am talking about the dramatization and the performance of the cast rather than the subject himself.

If Diana was the most photographed person in the world, then Saddam Hussain and his regime was the most talked about, often despised, sometimes ridiculed and inevitably always in the news for the best past of the last 30 years.

We came to know of Saddam exclusively through the media, about how he gained power by terrorising and executing those who dared to oppose. Ironically, he himself went the same way on 1 December 2006 when he was hanged for crimes against humanity.

The 4-part drama begun in the early days of Saddam’s reign following the forced himself into the office of President. What we witnessed in the drama that followed may not have taught us much about the complex character that was Saddam, but it gave us glimpses of his lavish life and which kept the audience eager and curious throughout.

House of Saddam followed a simple story line, a narration of the key events that shaped Iraq and Saddam Hussain during the war with neighbours Iran, the first Gulf war and the most recent American invasion. It ended with the hanging of the man who harboured fantasies of ruling the Arab world, often with the blessings of his makers in the West.

Watching the events unfold gave a feeling of déjà vu. Events in and around Iraq had always dominated the news and some of the events depicted in the drama came straight out of the footage from the BBC and others in the global media. And yet the series gave us a glimpse of some of the background to key events that shaped the Saddam dynasty. We had heard much about the Falluajh atrocities, the killing and murders of his family members, the events leading up the disastrous Gulf war in 1991 and the psyche of a man who even on the 11th hour felt that he had a chance to hold the Americans back and their massive assault in 2003. House of Saddam made a brave attempt to capture the essence of these events.

The key to the success of House of Saddam were the characters and the performances of a truly superb cast. Everyone played their part, often too close to reality. Saddam himself, played by Agil Naor held his own quite brilliantly throughout. Alongside his, his sons Uday and Kusay were just as impressive. They captured the high and lows and captivated the audience with their grasp of the multiple personalities of the people they were trying to play.

We saw examples of how powerful yet lonely, how vulnerable yet fierce and often eccentric and frightening Saddam and his younger son Uday were. Saddam himself was an enigma. A powerful man in the eyes of his people and those around him yet he was also portrayed as being very lonely, insecure, vulnerable and funny. Yes funny. The writers showed us a side to Saddam that few of us were ever told about. And why should we have been told that Saddam had a wicked sense of humour?
In the penultimate hours before being caught in the underground bunker, Saddam jokes with his security men about marriage, cooking and “playing away”. It perfectly characterised a man who was an eternal optimist. I guess you have to be if you run a dictatorship. Believing in your own hype is prerequisite to any power hungry dictator.

We didn’t learn a great deal more about what made Saddam tick or how the House of Saddam was shaped as the drama started at the point at which he took power. We saw glimpses of his family life, torn by his desire for control and discipline at all levels. He, like many people seeking the ultimate political goal, achieved so much at the expense of his family and close circles, the very people he slowly had to “get rid of” for his own safety. Saddam found himself increasingly isolated and removed from the rest of Iraq with his suspicions of anything that moved. He took betrayal badly and dealt his own brand of justice to even his closest kin and kith. At certain moments you could share his pain and anger at being let down by the very people he sough to protect. All around him was chaos, lies, deception and constant haranguing by the US and the UN inspectors and which drove Saddam to take drastic steps to secure his position. We saw him in contemplation at times, clueless as to the way forward and yet he was always defiant. Defiant to the end when pulled out of the bunker, he announced himself as the president of Iraq.

Whilst it no longer matters, the drama left you wanting to know a little more about Saddam Hussain and the things that motivated the actions during his reign. You could simply say that he was a bad man and did wrong but that does not feed the human curiosity to understand more. Saddam was a complex man, confused at times believing in his own hype as the world around him closed in. He became oblivious to the pain and sufferings of his people in his quest to cement his place in the geo-politics of the Middle East.

Saddam’s end in the drama came in the way most of us were told by the world’s news media. As a last, lame attempt to evade capture, he sat in the dark in a hole in the ground as the American’s searched the banks of the River Tigris. As the judge sentenced him to death by hanging, the end of a dynasty a dictatorship was nigh.

In the early hours of the holiest day of the Muslim calendar in 2006, Saddam Hussain. As the news broke, Muslims around the world were getting ready for special prayers to mark Eid-ul-Fitr, the occasion of sacrifice. As hundreds poured out of Mosques and makeshift prayer halls, one subject dominated the conversation. Most people had come to know of Saddam primarily through the news, often fed through a few news agencies in the US and Europe. Most people accepted the fact that Saddam did some terrible things for which he should have been punished. Most people also believed that Saddam was a product of the West and was used and then abused to suit their goals in the Mid-East. Above all, most people resented the fact that he was hanged on the day of Eid, in a sham of a court which was prescribed the punishment to be meted to the biggest liability to the US and its allies. Had Saddam been put on trial away from Iraq, too much may have come out of the mouth of the dictator, once championed by the US in its fight against the Ayatollah. We will never know Saddam but this drama gave us glimpses of a man we had heard so much about and despised to greatly.
Bravo the actors for their portrayal of the House of Saddam. Well done BBC/HBO. Let’s have some imagination and a follow up with the “Trials of Saddam”.