I completed my B.Sc. degree in 1975, it was customary then for Iraqi scholarship students to carry on with their studies supported by the Iraqi government. So I and other fellow scholarship students moved on to doing our M.Sc. degrees. Initially the signs were positive in terms of extending the scholarship, then half-way through, we were told otherwise and that we were to go back to Iraq. Some did, some like me decided to carry on to finish the M.Sc. degree self-supported. For me that entailed taking on such jobs as night loading bread onto early morning delivery trucks, working at petrol stations, selling insurance, selling kitchenware and working in a rubber reprocessing plant – a most awful place- in the then sprawling Trafford Park industrial complex in Manchester. Luckily when I completed my M.Sc. degree I was offered a job as electronics design engineer at Ferranti, one of the great engineering firms in the UK at that time.
The UK in the severities was going through great turmoil with enormous economic challenges. In 1973/74, Edward Heath Conservative government took on the miners union, who demanded higher wage increases above what the government limit was. The union took industrial action. This limited supplies to power stations, forced the government to put the nation on a 3-day working week. I actually thought it was fun studying by candle light and driving through extraordinary dark towns!
The UK then had two general elections in 1974 ending with a Labour government led first by Harold Wilson and then by James Callaghan. But the economy was still teetering and the government was forced in 1976 to ask for $3.9bn bailout from the IMF. A huge sum of money, still the biggest loan provided by the IMF. But that was to no avail, inflation was rampant and strikes were widespread. The winter of 1979 was the coldest for 16 years, but it is remembered for the endless strikes that we had. Public sector employee strike actions included an unofficial strike by gravediggers, and strikes by refuse collectors and even NHS ancillary workers formed picket lines to blockade hospitals. It was our winter of discontent.
In Iraq, however, the seventies were boom years, thanks mainly to increasing revenue from oil. The 1973 oil crisis began soon after the October 1973 Arab/Israeli war, when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries proclaimed an oil embargo. The embargo occurred in response to United States’ support for Israel during the October 1973 war. The embargo caused severe shortages which in turn sent the oil price rocketing. The price of oil had risen from US$3 per barrel to, nearly $12. Then another shock took place in 1979, the price of crude oil shot to $40.00 per barrel due to shortages in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. Iraq’s GDP grew almost 14 times bigger between 1970 & 1980 to $48bn. Iraq’s currency, the dinar (ID) was worth over two pounds sterling, (Contrast this to today’s price of over 1500 IDs to one pound).
The moderate policies of the then president of Iraq, Ahmad Hassan Al-Bakr, and the relatively low levels of state corruption, have ensured that the increased state revenues were put to good use, in particular in health and education. The middle class was growing and prospering and the country outlook was looking promising.
Naturally, I came under pressure, from my family and friends, to go back home to Iraq to escape the UK’s economic woos and to benefit from Iraq’s economic boom. On top of that the penalty of not going back was to reimburse the Iraqi government the scholarship money. That came to £12,000, (about £40,000 in today’s money), a considerable sum when you consider that my annual salary was £4000.00 a year. I somehow stood my ground and remained in the UK. I guess I felt that after 9 years and I was more in tune with life in the UK. I also felt all was not well in Iraq and that the apparent calm was superficial.
The wind of change was coming. 1979 was a momentous year. Saddam Hussain became president of Iraq and power of the Baath party was cemented further as the sole ruling party. Meanwhile, in the UK , the Conservative party was back in power and Margaret Thatcher was elected Prime Minister. The rest as they say is history