Davis 399end of World War II. These included the artists who formed the Pioneers
[al-Ruwwad], the Society for Modern Art (or Baghdad Group for Modern
Art), the Iraqi Writers Association, the sizeable group of intellectuals
associated with the journal, New Culture [al-Thaqafa al-Jadida], which
appeared in 1953 and was subsequently closed by the government, and
poets who organized the highly innovative Free Verse Movement.^29
National forms of political communication
A third characteristic of the nationalist movement was embodied in
the spread of national forms of political communication that were cross-
regional and cross-ethnic in orientation. The Young Turk Revolt, the
British invasion of Iraq, the 1920 Revolution, and the placing of Iraq
under a League of Nations Mandate encouraged the expansion of the
Iraqi press, which increased dramatically after 1908. Iraqi newspapers not
only became fora for criticism of British colonial influence in Iraq and
the demand for complete independence [al-istiqlāl al-tamm], but a space
in which poets, writers and critics could disseminate their artistic cre-
ation. Some of Iraq’s most important writers and poets, such as Mahmud
Ahmad al-Sayyid, Anwar Shawwal (Ibn Suma’il) and Muhammad Mahdi
al-Jawahiri, were also journalists, indicating that many Iraqi intellectuals
assumed multiple roles.^30 While the Hashimite monarchy and the British
frequently closed newspapers and publications critical of the government,
the groups that published these newspapers quickly reopened them under
new names. The tenacity with which newspaper publishers circumvented
the state’s efforts to suppress them was a strong indicator of the desire of
Iraqis to communicate with one another and represents a critical compo-
nent of the public sphere.
nother important indicator of the desire to communicate across A
regions and ethnic groups was the growth and politicization of coffee-
houses in urban areas. Some of the most prominent coffeehouses in
Baghdad were historically associated either with prominent merchant
families and located near major markets, or were venues for traditional
intellectuals [al-udabā’] to meet. This was true, for example, of the series
of four coffeehouses in the Hamada Market run by the ‘Ukayl tribe that
was known for its involvement in foreign trade.^31 With the rise of the