The History of
the Iraq Memory Foundation
For a society that has been politically
brutalized on a massive scale, and for so long, comprehensive and
accurate documentation of the past is essential. Citizens of a new
and free Iraq have whole new identities to build. And what is
identity if not memory? Identities that are quickly cobbled together
on the basis of half-truths, or false and distorted memories of the
blameworthy and blameless invite new transgressions. To keep an
accurate record of Iraq’s traumatic past, the Iraq Memory Foundation
has developed five core projects, and plans more.
In November 1991, shortly after the establishment of a safe-haven
zone in northern Iraq,
Kanan Makiya
traveled
to northern Iraq to see the archive of Ba’th documents seized by
Iraqi rebels. Makiya was accompanied by a BBC filmmaker who filmed
his investigation of the Iraqi government’s campaign of ethnic
cleansing of Iraqi Kurds (the Anfal), an investigation made possible
by the information in the documents.
The film, “The Road to Hell”, aired in January 1992 on BBC and then
on PBS as a Frontline documentary under the title “Saddam’s Killing
Fields.” On April 27, 1993, it received the Edward R. Murrow Award
For Best Television Documentary On Foreign Affairs in 1992. The film
stressed the importance of the documents as an information resource
on the legacy of abuse in Iraq and argued the case for their
collection and removal from the country for safekeeping. It shows
the archive in its original state: mounds of files and records
randomly stacked on the floors of buildings previously occupied by
the Iraqi government, covered with dust and vulnerable to
deterioration. The importance, volume and condition of these
documents drew attention to the urgency of preserving and studying
them as an invaluable historical record.
The Memory Foundation is an outgrowth of the Iraq Research and
Documentation Project (IRDP), founded by Kanan Makiya at the Center
of Middle East Studies at Harvard University in 1992. In 1993, the
IRDP developed a plan to create an archive that would organize and
preserve the documents already in its possession for more long-term
scholarly purposes. Utilizing a 1993 grant from the Bradley
Foundation, followed by a 1994 bridging grant from the National
Endowment for Democracy, the IRDP began its work processing the
small collection of documents in Makiya’s personal possession and
transcribing interviews conducted with Iraqi refugees. The IRDP
continued to receive and process small datasets over the next ten
years.
After the fall of Saddam’s regime in 2003, the management of the
IRDP relocated to Baghdad, and expanded the organization’s mission
to the documentation of all facets of the Iraqi experience of
dictatorship. The new name of the Iraq Memory Foundation reflects
that change. At this time, the MF was also incorporated as a
Jam’iyah (a society) in Iraq.
Soon after relocating the organization to Baghdad in 2003, after
long negotiations with the municipality of Baghdad and the Iraqi
Governing Council, the MF was granted use of the “Crossed Swords”
monument and parade ground in Sahat al-Ihtifalat in central Baghdad
as the prospective site of its office, research and museum complex.
That same summer, the organization acquired a major document
collection, which the MF named the Ba’th Regional Command
Collection, from the basement of the Ba’th party headquarters in
central Baghdad.
On March 8, 2005, the MF gave an official presentation hosted by the
Library of Congress titled: “The New Iraq—Memory and National
Identity.” Speakers included Library of Congress Associate Librarian
Deanna Marcum, Baghdad Mayor Ala’a al-Tamimi, University of
Pennsylvania Law Professor Carole Basri, Library of Congress
Director for Preservation Diane Van der Reyden, Iraq Institute for
Strategic Studies Director Falih Jabar, University of Utah History
Professor Peter Sluglett, and Harvard University History Professor
Roger Owen.
On September 21, 2005, MF Directors Kanan Makiya and Hassan Mneimneh
testified in front of the Congressional human rights caucus. Their
testimonies described the demand for and urgency of the work of the
Memory Foundation. Professor Peter Sluglett also joined them to
testify on the importance of the Foundation’s documents collection.
The Memory Foundation has offices in Baghdad, London and Washington
DC.
IRDP website:
www.fas.harvard.edu/~irdp
