Analysis Of Interpreters Of Occupation By Madeline Otis Campbell

Throughout this chapter of Interpreters of Occupation, Madeline Otis Campbell discusses the vast differences between two Iraqi generations. Campbell categorizes them into the “revolution generation,” who witnessed the revolution in 1968, the rise of the Ba’th Party, and dictator Saddam Hussein coming to power, and the other generation is the more recent one in which Iraqis essentially only have memories of war and corruption and weren’t born yet for the uprising. Campbell empathizes with both groups attempting to understand both generation’s perspectives on their own community and on the world. Furthermore, Campbell concludes that both generations have different outlooks towards the US involvement in Iraq. The revolution generation typically
She splits it into the “Precursors” in which she essentially dissects the background history of Iraq, the “Revolution Generation”, and “The War Generation.” Throughout each generation, Campbell further discusses the changes in the typical Iraqi Family as well as in gender roles differences from generation to generation. When Saddam Hussein came to power during the revolution generation, he stressed that women must have more prominent places in society. Thus, women were placed on the forefront of the revolution, and were well educated and militant. This was the golden age for Iraqi women because in the war generation it was characterized as the “dark days.” Women often became widow’s due to their husbands in war, and they had no means of earning money other than prostitution. Overall, the gender and family roles in Iraq is just one of the vast differences amongst each generation, but it is a very crucial difference because it deals with psychological, sociological, and political
Women didn’t even have the right to vote in the US until 1920, about 150 years after the US was founded. It was around this time when women started to become more prominent societal figures in the US. Prior to the Women’s Rights Movement, women were simply just stay at home moms, and had very little rights in society. I read an article in one of my classes in high school that was titled, “How 19th Century Prostitutes Were Among the Freest, Wealthiest, Most Educated Women of Their Time.” The article described how prostitutes often had more money, education, and independence than the typical American stay at home mom. This fully contrasts the Iraqi prostitute, whom essentially had to do it for survival while their husbands were at war. The journey women took to obtain more equality in the US is completely different from that of Iraqi women. Iraqi women started in the same place as US women, just stay at home moms that weren’t allowed to do much in society. Then, the US begins to realize how important women equality is, and shifts its focus to making women more prominent figures in society. Around 50 years later, Saddam Hussein establishes the importance of the Iraqi woman being well educated as well as militant. All was well, and Iraqi women were on the rise to potentially equality until the turn of the millennium when war broke out in