Is the Saddam Victory Arch still up?

[chacoguy]

This one, modeled after the tyrant’s own forearms.

If so, why?

[aldiboronti]

From the NY Times, 2011

As hundreds of thousands in Egypt protested the iron rule of that country’s president, Iraq quietly began restoring a bronze fist of its former dictator, Saddam Hussein.

Without public announcement or debate, the authorities here ordered the reconstruction of one of the most audacious symbols in Baghdad of Mr. Hussein’s long, violent and oppressive rule: the Victory Arch, two enormous sets of crossed swords, clutched in hands modeled after his very own.

“We don’t want to be like Afghanistan and the Taliban and remove things like that,” Ali al-Mousawi, a spokesman for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, said, referring to the infamous destruction of the Buddha statues in Bamian, Afghanistan, “or to be like the Germans and remove the Berlin Wall.”

“We are a civilized people,” he added, “and this monument is a part of the memories of this country.”

[blindboyard]

Finest English craftsmanship.

[Tim_T-Bonham.net]

@chacoguy

This one, modeled after the tyrant’s own forearms.

What are those things behind it on the street?
They are on piles all along the street, spasced kind of like street lights would be, but I don’t see any lights on them. They seem to have some structure at the top, like a apartment building for birds (a birdhouse condo?).

[chacoguy]

I think they’re speakers; you can see the tip of a stage to the left.

[bahimes]

They were still there in 2012 when I left. Story was told then that the artist was killed because he made the hands look “feminine”.
Those are light banks on the poles.

[buddha_david]

@bahimes

Story was told then that the artist was killed because he made the hands look “feminine”.

Then you probably don’t want to hear what God did to Michelangelo for making Adam’s penis too small…

And part of the Berlin Wall is indeed still standing, as a memorial to never forget the past.