BAGHDAD — For four long years, life has been brutally unkind to most Iraqis, but Friday night they had one of those rare moments to focus beyond the daily violence that is swallowing their lives. One of their own took first prize in the Arab version of "American Idol."
In Baghdad, a city that becomes deserted and plunges into darkness after nightfall, residents who had electricity to watch televisions celebrated with gunfire that briefly pierced the quiet just before midnight.
Wearing a turquoise evening dress, Shadha Hassoun wrapped herself with the white, red and black flag of Iraq and broke into tears as fans swarmed the stage in Beirut, Lebanon, where the contest was held and broadcast live throughout the Middle East.
"Her triumph will show the world that Iraqis will still sing despite their wounds," Israa Tariq, a homemaker from Baghdad's al-Ghadeer neighborhood, said before Friday's final episode.
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Hassoun's run to the final in what is perhaps the Arab world's most-watched TV entertainment program coincided with a particularly painful time in Iraq.
More than 500 people had been killed in the last six days alone. Most of them perished in a series of horrific suicide bombings targeting busy markets and in a sectarian massacre where innocent men were dragged out of their homes and shot execution-style.
Dubbed the "Daughter of Mesopotamia" by fans, Hassoun has for weeks served as a pleasant distraction for a people in the fifth year of a war that harvests scores of Iraqi lives each day.
With a nighttime curfew in force and the streets too dangerous after sundown, Iraqis have been finding refuge in the wide variety of TV channels provided by satellite dishes, banned under Saddam Hussein but now sprouting on nearly every rooftop.
Iraqis have been glued to their TVs each Friday since December, eagerly monitoring Hassoun's progress in the "Star Academy" contest that is produced by a Lebanese satellite channel.
Hassoun, a 25-year-old brunette who has lived most of her life outside Iraq, outpaced three other finalists — men from Egypt and Lebanon and a woman from Tunisia.
Television viewers across the Mideast voted for their favorite performer by e-mail and text-messages to the satellite channel.
Iraq's al-Sharqiyah satellite channel devoted hours of live coverage Friday, urging Iraqis to vote for Hassoun and broadcast a phone-in program for her supporters. Some fans called to say they had voted for Hassoun so many times they had used up the credit on their prepaid phone cards.
