The first Gulf War and the 1991 Uprising were cataclysmic events in the life of Iraqi citizens. The Uprising is currently one of the most memorialized events in recent Iraqi history. Particularly in the Southern Provinces o f Iraq, events commemorating the victims of the Uprising are often accompanied by the consecration of public spaces named after the Intifada. Political blocs consisting of the families of the victims of the Intifada, push for their rights in local governments. In December of 2008, the Iraqi High Tribunal concluded its 18 month trial of the leadership of the Ba’th party responsible for the suppression of the Intifada. It accused the defendants of crimes against humanity and of inflicting great suffering on a population that had rebelled against an oppressive regime. Most analyses of the uprising focus on its failure to dislodge the regime as well as its nature: was it a Shi’i uprising supported by opposition parties in Iran or a chaotic rebellion that had not leadership? I am less interested in this aspect of the uprising than its impact on the public culture in Iraq that was shared by all parties to the conflict. I will argue in my paper, that 1991 marked the introduction of a language of suffering that highlighted the epic encounter between the forces of “good and evil” in the Iraqi press, among opposition groups who supported the Uprising, as well as by Iraqis who were witness to the events. Furthermore, I argue that the break-up of the Iraqi state, the disintegration of the armed forces, and the level of violence that the state and the rebels unleashed led to the description of the violence in a depoliticized language of the “apocalypse” that removed agency from all parties in the violence. The language of suffering and victimization was further reinforced by the reports of human rights groups on the uprising and its suppression. What were the implications of this new language of suffering and victimhood on Iraqi public culture in the 1990s? I hope to conclude my paper by speculating on this question. My paper will draw on the government controlled press of the 1990s as well as the press of the opposition. It will also draw on a number of interviews I conducted with witnesses and participants of the Intifada in Amman and Damascus.