Believe it or not, Mickey’s Disney-friends are off to join the cause in Iraq. An American development firm based in Los Angeles is spearheading the multi-million dollar “Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience,” a 50-acre amusement park that will feature a skateboard park, rides, a concert theater and a museum. The park is being designed by Disney’s “Imagineering” pioneers, Ride and Show Engineering (RSE).
Llewellyn Werner, chairman of C3, the Los Angeles-based holding company for private equity firms that’s funding the Pentagon-backed project, admits he’s facing certain unusual obstacles – namely, insurgent attacks and looting.
The story hit the news this past April, but a new Facebook group created by Rudy Duboille out of France “Non à Disneyland en Irak – Go Home !” is bound to stir some notice on the social media network. 
Nonetheless, it’s doubtful American policy-makers will take much notice, considering the 200,000 American government-sponsored skateboards already shipped to Iraq for assembly to promote the new skateboard park opening in advance of the complete “Baghdad Experience.”
Whether or not the skateboard PR stunt will win the hearts of Iraqi children remains to be seen, considering the actual experiences of Iraqi civilians since the current occupation began in 2003.
The 50-acre swath of land sits adjacent to the Green Zone and encompasses Baghdad’s existing zoo, which was looted, left without power and abandoned after the American-led invasion in 2003.
As of Wednesday, June 11, 2008, at least 4,095 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Although the US military doesn’t keep an official body count of Iraqi casualties, legitimate independent studies cited by
the BBC News, including Iraq Body Count and the peer-reviewed Lancet Medical Journal, put the civilian casualties at close to 1 million or more.
Considering these numbers, the Iraqi’s could use a little American-style diversion…
As The Times of London reports:
Mr Werner, who has been sold a 50-year lease on the site by the Mayor of Baghdad for an undisclosed sum, says that the time is ripe for the amusement park. “I think people will embrace it. They’ll see it as an opportunity for their children regardless if they’re Shia or Sunni. They’ll say their kids deserve a place to play and they’ll leave it alone.”
Ali al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for the Government, is equally optimistic: ‘There is a shortage of entertainment in the city. Cinemas can’t open. Playgrounds can’t open. The fun park is badly needed for Baghdad. Children don’t have any opportunities to enjoy their childhood.” Mr al-Dabbagh added that entry to the park would be strictly controlled.
Now that’s what I call spreading the American Dream (albeit in a Hunter S. Thompson Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
Doesn’t everyone deserve just a little slice of the Happiest Place on Earth…?
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3 comments ↓
Holy moly! Everywhere I look I see fellow US Citizens in shock and disbelief and yet – unable or unknowing how to do anything. This is truly surreal! Nero played while Rome burned, right?
Keep visualizing Peace & Joy – but not with an admission fee!
It is offensive that the US is exporting one of its most specialized purveyors of American culture and the status quo to the Middle East. I do not think of Disney as the Happiest Place on Earth. I think of it as a site we should resist as conscious beings who are aware of the impact of materialism and commercialism on us. I find it repulsive to think that Disney is paving the capitalistic highway to the Middle East. Disney is not in the business of innocence and joy. They are in the business of making money and in perpetuating the status quo. Their animated works are offensive to Arabs, Afro-Americans, Latinos and women to mention only a few people who have been portrayed in stereeotypical ways in Disney films. I could cite readings that intelligently critique Disney and interrogate this unquestioned cultural product of American culture. I may sound cynical. Sorry. After all, who questions Disney? Well, I do. So do lots of other people who reject a culture of consumption and consumerism.
Have you ever been to Disney? Have you ever seen the look on your child’s face the first time they stepped into a place that hold the space for nothing but sheer enjoyment, amazement, entertainment and enhancement? If you have then you know what a sign it is to have anything like a Disney Park in Baghdad. When I saw this my heart leapt for joy! My husband served in Agfhanistan for 14 months. I saw the pictures of the children that would swarm him and ask him for candy and such. I can only imagine the fun and joy of seeing these children having a day in a place like Disney and what’s more having it accessible to them in their own country. Disney is just like money, neither inherently good or evil…it’s what you do with it. Anything can become an obsession or an addiction…anything and that includes do-gooding and hoarding and suffering. To me this event is a herald of what is to come. We are coming to the end of suffering. This whole world. We are one.
Blessing to you all.
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