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Baghdad Burning: A Young
Woman’s Diary from a War Zone
Baghdad Burning
was not intended to be a book originally. The book takes shape from a
Girl Blog on the Internet (http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/), a sort
of on-line diary, as a young girl, mature beyond her years, describes
the life of her family amidst bomb and missile attacks and the overall
destruction of Iraq’s infra structure and This is how she begins: "So this is the beginning for me, I guess. I never thought I’d start my own weblog . . . All I could think, every time I wanted to start one was ‘but who will read it?’ I guess I’ve got nothing to lose . . . but I’m warning you—expect a lot of complaining and ranting. . . I little bit about myself: I’m female, Iraqi, and 24. I survived the war. That’s all you need to know. It’s all that matters these days anyway." Baghdad Burning reminds me of another book I read a while ago—Reading Lolita in Tehran—which is Azar Nafisi’s memoir about seven of her female students, all of whom are spirited and opinionated but subdued publicly by political and cultural pressures of the mullahs and the doctrines of the Islamic Republic. Riverbend could easily have been one of Nafisi’s girls, so firm is her grasp over politics. She exposes through her witty and searing comments how the search for WMD turned overnight into a "war against terrorism" when Saddam’s nuclear arsenal could not be discovered. From here on, links were sought between Saddam and Al-Qaeda, failing which American rhetoric did a quick turn and announced its desire to "liberate" the people of Iraq. "Call it whatever you want," writes Riverbend, "to me it’s an occupation." She has the arrogance of a teenager and the confidence of a survivor. At times cheeky, she gives the following reply to those mailers who call her "na`EFve" and "spoiled": "And keep one thing in mind—tanks and guns can break my bones, but e-mails can be deleted." Yet the vulnerabilities invariably creep in, particularly as she recounts the terror of waiting for a bomb to explode any moment and lists why and when she hated American troops the most—as when they opened fire on school children and their parents in Falluja, or when they humiliated her by searching their car and belongings, or when they shot her friend’s family as they were preparing to evacuate their house and leave for a safe place. Notwithstanding these atrocities, Riverbend is fair to the US soldiers by pointing out their suffering in an alien land under the scorching Iraqi sun, away from their families. Several entries in this blog are about the changing face of women in Iraq. From a safe haven where women dressed up as they willed to a fundamentalist environment where women do not go out at all, or if they do, cover themselves up well as protection against abuse and abduction, is now part of Iraq’s daily reality. Riverbend’s Iraq (before the occupation) is one where women had the same opportunities as men and earned equally; it was an Iraq where words like "rebuild" and "reconstruct" were anomalous because it had modern highways, an advanced communications system and the most advanced education system in the Middle East; it had trained engineers and doctors, intellectuals and teachers. It is a picture of Iraq that is vastly different from that projected on CNN. Riverbend’s blog is irreverent, funny, sarcastic and speaks openly against the current Iraqi establishment. It could only have been written by someone her age. Deeply troubled by the problems facing her country and the way in which American occupation has affected their lives, this young woman’s diary, like Rigoberta Menchu’s (the Nobel Laureate for Peace) memoirs of the atrocities committed by the American supported Guatemalan army upon the Indians, reveals a hope, a wish unfulfilled for freedom and happiness, that would not have been possible to glimpse if it were written by someone older. Women Unlimited has done us all a tremendous service by bringing this book to India.
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Riverbend