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BAGHDAD: Members of rival Iraqi biker gangs dressed in studded leather and black berets emerge from their semicircles to break the dance, their arms covered with tattoos waving fluorescent glow sticks.
The Mongolian Motorcycle Club dance circle was one of the many actors of the Riot Gear Summer Rush event, a car show and a stadium concert held in the heart of Baghdad.
The scene was far from the usual images broadcast from the city of violence and chaos. But nearly two years after Iraq proclaimed its victory over militant Islamic State, the capital has silently revived its image.
Since the anti-blast walls – a feature of the capital since the US invasion in 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein – have begun to collapse, a less restrictive lifestyle has emerged.
"We have organized this holiday so that people know that Iraq has this kind of culture and that it loves people who love life and music," said Arshad Haybat, a 30-year-old director. and founder of the event company Riot Gear.
Riot Gear has already organized similar parties in Iraq, but Friday was the first to be open to the public. The day began with young men showing imported motorcycles and motorcycles. By nightfall, the show had become a thrilling show of electronic dance music (EDM).
The Iraqi hip-hop band Tribe of Monsters played a mix of EDM and Trap music as young men, clutching elaborate vape pens, dancing through strobe lights and smoke machines, broadcasting their movements on Snapchat and Instagram.
It was an intoxicating mix of emerging subcultures in Baghdad: bikers, players, EDM fans. What most people had in common was that they had never been to a party like this in Iraq.
"We've never seen that kind of concert on TV and in movies," said Mustafa Osama, 21. "I can not describe my feelings for seeing such a thing in Iraq."
Posted in Dawn, August 19, 2019
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