Nuri Pasha’s ‘washrooms’
nuri al-said was born in 1888. he is the most famous iraqi politician in the history of modern iraq. he served 14 times as prime minister of iraq from 1930 to may 1958. nuri al-said was a subject of controversy, and opinions differed on him as some loved him others hated him. he had to flee twice from iraq due to coups woven against him, but during the third military coup, he could not escape and was killed in july 1958.
pasha was born in baghdad and graduated from the military school in istanbul, where he served in the ottoman army and contributed to the arab revolution and joined prince faisal in syria, and after the failure to establish the monarchy in syria under the french mandate, and the inauguration of faisal asking, because the french rejected him, nuri al-said returned to iraq and contributed to the founding of the iraqi kingdom and the iraqi army.
many stories and tales were told about him, as a man of rare personality, and he was jovial and had a sharp political intelligence.
among the stories that are told about him that the president of the reconstruction council (was the first arab fund to be established from oil revenues to spend on vital projects) complained to him about the members of the council about his proposal related to building dozens of public baths, toilets, in various parts of the capital, not only because of their scarcity, but also to eliminate the uncivilized way in which men, in particular, were answering the calls of nature.
the pasha was a title given to him by the ottoman turks, and remained close to him, asked him to give him an opportunity to resolve the issue.
days later, pasha invited all the members of the reconstruction council to his house, and there he honored them with extravagance with all the pleasures and goodness, and that include binge drinking.
when the heads turned and nature began calling on men they rushed to find the nearest bathroom to meet the call, they found that all the bathrooms in the house were closed. most of them had to urinate in the garden, and some of them went to him complaining that the bathrooms of the house remained closed, and here he told the complainants that he did this on purpose to make them feel what the ordinary person feels while on the way to market, and how important it is to have decent bathrooms, especially for women, and that they should speed up the implementation of the proposal to build bathrooms in various parts of the capital, and this is what was done, but the “blessed july coup” ended all of this.
it seems that we need the new and costly prime minister to host the members of the municipal council to his house and close the washrooms, after having saturated them with pleasure and delight, to make them feel the importance of having suitable places to eliminate the need.
it is indeed a shame that there is not enough of this service in a country that has not left a state except for its good, and those responsible for it in the capital did not think about paying attention to this vital matter despite our contacts with a number of senior officials and writing about this problem more than once, which suffers from unavailability of the citizen as the resident, the minor before the elder and the woman before the man.
this is in addition to the dusty squares and ruins in many parts of the capital, and the never-ending road works.
