Alcohol returns to Baghdad

Militants' control diminishes as secular social life returns

Alcohol is openly for sale once more in Baghdad. All over the Iraqi capital, drink stores, which closed their doors in early 2006 when sectarian strife was raging, have slowly begun to reopen. Two years ago, al-Qa'ida militants were burning down liquor stores and shooting their owners. Now around Saadoun Street, in the centre of the city, at least 50 stores are advertising that they have alcohol for sale.

The fear of being seen drinking in public is also subsiding. Young men openly drink beer in some, if not all, streets. A favourite spot where drinkers traditionally gathered is al-Jadriya bridge, which has fine views up and down the Tigris river. Two years ago even serious drunks decided that boozing on the bridge was too dangerous. But in the past three months they have returned, a sign that militant gunmen no longer decide what people in Baghdad do at night. "I drink seven or eight cans of beer a day and a bottle of whiskey on Thursday evenings," said Abu Ahmed, a former military intelligence officer who now makes a living driving a taxi.

The reopening of the liquor stores is a sign of a slow if limited return of normal social life for Baghdad's embattled residents. Shops are beginning to stay open later, particularly in mostly Shia east Baghdad. Other social freedoms have also expanded in the past three or four months. Strict Islamic dress for women is no longer quite so common.

This return to normality can be exaggerated. The much-talked-of improvement in security, evident since the second half of 2007, is largely in contrast to the bloodbath of 2006 when up to 3,000 civilians were being killed every month. But it is true that explosions no longer reverberate daily across the city, allowing a semblance of the old secular atmosphere to resurface.

Iraq was one of the most secular of Arab countries until the early 1990s. Restaurants all served alcohol and there was a plentiful supply of nightclubs. None of the prohibition on alcohol seen in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait held sway. In Basra, in the late 1970s, the main local complaint was that Kuwaitis were pouring across the border and drinking the city dry.

In Baghdad it was possible to sit in one of the restaurants off Abu Nawas Street on the bank of the Tigris River eating fish grilled over an open fire and drinking beer and arak (a spirit made from dates and flavoured with aniseed).