Pilgrimaging with Pope Francis in Iraq
By Sardar Aziz For the first time in history, a Vatican pope, Pope Francis arrived in Baghdad on 5 March. The trip lasted four eventful days. He was welcomed by the Iraqi PM, government, members of Christian communities and members of the diplomatic corps. This was the third time lucky as two previous plans for visiting Iraq by the Pope were cancelled for obvious security reasons. Officials in the Iraqi government aimed at turning the trip into a political event. “A political event,” according to Iain MacKenzie (2008: 28), “ is a counter-actualisation of a turning point in the virtual but nonetheless real domain of intensive political relations; a domain which political theorists usually refer to as 'the political’”. The governing elites hoped to turn the visit into a rupture with the status quo and send a positive image of the country to the world. The visit was significant in many ways, hence, worthy of reflections. The current government is a caretaker one and under pressu