Enjoying ice cream in Saddam’s Iraq was illegally political

Evidence

There was no ice cream in Saddam’s Iraq. This is not a metaphor about a black hole of happiness between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Dictatorships may make life miserable, but you can never truly legislate joy or enforce its absence. What had gone missing was the actual ice cream, that slow-churned deliciousness that can easily be taken for granted. It disappeared not because a dimpled scoop of pistachio dream was too luxuriously expensive or because, like the love of a good man or woman, it was hard to find. No. It was because ice cream in Iraq was more like expressing a political opinion—completely illegal. If you were an average Iraqi, savoring its sweet cold on your lips was tantamount to sedition. One lick could land you in trouble, and trouble under Saddam, as everyone knew, was something you worked very hard to avoid. — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 579 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Saddam’s regime banned tasting pleasure, making ice cream illegal — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 579; In wartime Ramadi, procuring ice cream risked arrest — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 627; Exiles could not stomach the mandatory reverence for Saddam — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 592 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Saddam’s regime banned tasting pleasure, making ice cream illegal #corroborates (0.92) — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 579