Introduction

The story of Khalid Ahmad Zaki and his guerrilla war in southern Iraq (the Intifada, as it will be referred to hereinafter) ‘barely rates a footnote in the numerous books on Iraq’, as Tariq Ali correctly notes, and, as Salaam Yousif laments, ‘the history of the Marshes guerrilla campaign still awaits documentation’. Outside the Arab context, this episode seems to remain almost completely unknown. So far as I know, Vijay Prashad is the first to include it in a study with global scope, putting it in the context of other failed Maoist rebellions against official communist party lines in his book The Darker Nations. However, this chapter focuses on those left-wing activists to whom Zaki's story did matter, who were fascinated and enthralled by his endeavour, and in whose memory he still has a special place. Two films have been made about Zaki, booklets have been published and ceremonies held in order to commemorate him, and he is featured in a great number of poems, novels and personal accounts produced by Arab, especially Iraqi, writers. Entering into a conversation with Traverso, this chapter explores the changing meanings commemorating Zaki has had for Arab left-wing trends under diff erent historical conditions: while remembering the past was initially a mobilising and instigating force for his comrades, it later turned into a disillusioned, wistful melancholia.

Zaki's Life and the Intifada

Many details of Zaki's life are still unclear, and accounts vary or even contradict each other greatly with regard to numbers, dates and details. Due to its limited scope, its focus on the commemoration of Zaki and the fact that important documents were not (or are not yet) accessible to me, this chapter relates only a basic trajectory of his life as far as is necessary for understanding my argument. A thorough study that collects and evaluates all the dispersed sources on Zaki and the Intifada and extracts from them a detailed and exact account of the life of this extraordinary person remains a huge desideratum. Nevertheless, it is possible to set out something approaching a biographical outline.