A revolutionary monument: Reclaiming the Naṣb al-Ḥurrīyya in Baghdad

Abstract

The monument that stands in Tahrir Square in Baghdad, known as Naṣb al-Ḥurrīyya (the Freedom Monument), is a site-specific work. Spatial in its conception from the very start, this monument came to exceed both primary historical event and iconographic representation to become the heart of the identity of the protest movement in the city of Baghdad, and to define its terrain. And it has now come to signify people’s rights across all of Iraq today. Commissioned soon after the 1958 revolution that overthrew the Hashemite Dynastic house, the Hurriyya monument has to do with the Event of revolution in the sense of event as defined in the philosophical writings of Alain Badiou, as a moment which emerges outside of, and changes the conditions and the frame of existence of its appearance. Thus, the Hurriyya monument commemorated historically the 14 July 1958 revolution in Iraq (the 14 Tammuz Revolution), yet it exceeded historical commemoration to signify the Evental character of a people’s revolution and its reclaiming of the city space.