Iraqi women carry a sack of flour from a food distribution centre.
In the game of nations power interests override people's interests and official pronouncements are highlighted while the responses of the ordinary man and woman are dismissed or ignored. Thus the crucial importance of reading contemporary Iraqi literature if one is interested in grasping the dimension of the human drama unfolding there. This mass destruction was complemented by an unparalleled siege of the people. For eight years Iraqis have been suffering hunger, lack of medicine and medical equipment, economic hardships and cultural isolation. It is also clear that the so-called sanctions are only punishing the subalterns and are neither hurting the political elite nor the affluent sector of society that can afford to buy, at exorbitant prices, what it needs.