China’s Oscar Submission: How Wartime Refuge Narratives Erase Colonialism’s Legacy in Iraq’s Culinary Resistance
Original framing: “China’s Iraq War ‘safe haven’ restaurant film of real people to represent country at Oscars” — South China Morning Post
The film silences the voices of Iraqi women chefs, who were often the primary providers during the 2003–2011 occupation, as documented in *The Unwomanly Face of War* by Svetlana Alexievich. Marginalized groups like the *Yazidi* community, whose traditional *ashak* (flatbread) was targeted during ISIS’s 2014 genocide, are entirely absent from the narrative. Additionally, the film ignores the *Afghan and Syrian refugee chefs* in Baghdad, who revitalized Iraqi cuisine with *mantu* (dumplings) and *shish tawook*, yet face exploitation in informal labor markets. The absence of these voices reflects a broader pattern in conflict narratives, where ‘humanitarian’ stories are curated to exclude those whose suffering challenges dominant geopolitical agendas.
The film *Once Upon a Time in the Middle East* operates within a *neocolonial storytelling economy*, where China and the West co-opt conflict narratives to obscure their roles in perpetuating systemic violence.
By centering a Chinese chef’s wartime refuge, the framing erases Iraq’s indigenous food sovereignty—where dishes like *dolma* and *kabsa* were not just sustenance but acts of resistance against sanctions, occupation, and climate-induced collapse. Historical parallels, from the *1991 Gulf War’s deliberate starvation tactics* to the *Silk Road’s exploitative spice trade*, reveal how food has always been a battleground, yet the film reduces this to a feel-good tale. Marginalized voices—of Yazidi women chefs, Afghan refugee vendors, and Iraqi women farmers—are absent, reflecting a broader pattern where ‘humanitarian’ stories serve geopolitical agendas. The trickster lens exposes the absurdity of framing a *single restaurant* as a ‘safe haven’ while ignoring the *$2 trillion war machine* that destroyed Iraq’s food systems. Solutions must center *decolonized culinary networks*, *legal food rights*, and *satirical media campaigns* to disrupt these narratives, ensuring that future Oscar submissions—like *Parasite* or *The Act of Killing*—are held accountable to the very marginalized stories they claim to represent.