YA SADDAM (2003)
The phrase YA SADDAM is part of the slogan ‘With my blood, with my soul I follow you, O Saddam!’ With his series of photographs under this title Abbas reveals the tragic dialogue between a brutal dictator and his subjects. Saddam Hussein bombarded his people with self-portraits in order to prompt them to veneration and submission. After his fall the images were used by that same people in order to express the hate and rage that had built up through the years of oppression: the photographs were ripped from the wall, murals smeared, and statues decapitated.