ON Aug 1, 1990, when much of Iraq was observing Ashura, the 10th of Muharram, to mark the martyrdom of Imam Husain in Karbala in 680 AD, Saddam Hussein was massing his troops along the border with Kuwait. On Aug 2, Iraq invaded the tiny emirate over a festering oil resource-sharing dispute. Saddam believed he had the approval of April Glaspie, the US ambassador in Baghdad. She had met him a week before the invasion. Controversy arose from reports that she told Hussein the US had “no opinion” on Arab-Arab conflicts, interpreted as a ‘green light’ to invade. She later defended her actions, claiming the transcript was misleading and she had warned against violence. In other words, Glaspie gave Saddam Hussein a go-ahead for conflict but without violence. Figure that out.

That year, a journalist friend requested some footage of the Muharram procession in my ancestral qasbah of Mustafabad about 100 kilometres from Lucknow. It so happened that Ashura in 1990 coincided in India with the Aug 2 invasion of Kuwait, the variation in date caused by a near routine difference of opinion among the clergy in the sighting of the new moon. I remember the date because the tension in the Middle East was a major discussion for radio addicts in Mustafabad. I took a friendly cameraman to film the Ashura procession replete with the tazias, zuljinah, horse depicting Imam Husain’s loyal and wounded steed, and a very high standard, the alam, held by a muscular adult and controlled by three others with the help of ropes. The........

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