Dateline: Iraq

Article Tools

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

On Mutanabi Street, he listened to a group of lounging Iraqi men debate the occupation. In trying to understand Iraqis, Shadid doesn't force answers. "Anybody who says they know how Iraqis feel is talking bullshit," says Shadid. "You are going to find somebody who is going to express contradictory sentiments in the same conversation, at the same moment." Shadid believes the best way to deal with this is not to fight it. On Mutanabi Street, when a stationery store owner, Amran Kadhim, challenged his friend Adel Jannabi on his critique of the American occupation, Shadid printed the exchange. "The Americans are doing well," said Kadhim. "They're working slowly but they're doing well. If there were no Americans here, people would end up killing each other." Jannabi countered, "No, no, my friend. There should still be much more progress." And Khadim shot back, "Why do we blame the Americans?"

Shadid's Arabic allows him to understand the small talk, the intonation, the turn of phrase. But he also knows that the nature of the sentiment is complex, and he says the best way to capture this is to lay it all out. "I'm sure a majority is grateful that Saddam's gone," he says. "A majority does have problems with the occupation. A majority is frustrated with where it's at. A majority is hopeful about the future. All these things are true, and you're probably going to hear them all in the same conversation."

Hassan Fattah, Iraq Today

For Hassan Fattah, Iraq is more than just a story. It is his past and, now, his future. Fattah's family left Iraq in 1964 after being persecuted by the government and eventually moved to Berkeley, California, where he grew up. After the Americans entered Baghdad, Fattah decided to move to Iraq to start an English-language newspaper, Iraq Today. As a journalist who had worked for The Economist and Frontline, he chose this way to help rebuild Iraqi society and restore his family's name. He would try to bring high journalistic standards and train a cadre of young Iraqis in the ethics and professionalism of Western journalism.

Because he speaks Arabic and his journalists are Iraqi, Fattah can do the kind of grassroots reporting that Western journalists often forgo. As he puts it, "You haven't been in Iraq until you have lived in a house, not a hotel, where the generator breaks down, the electricity goes out, and there is nothing you can do about it." The day before his first issue went to press, Fattah was awakened by thieves with machine guns demanding money. He says he goes to sleep at night thinking that his house could be attacked.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print