Baghdad Diaries

by al-Radi, Nuha;

  4 February

  Done it again, at the airport, this time. I left my carry-on bag at the house, so am waiting for Halim to bring it. It’s good we came early. The families Afghan fighters – who are called ‘friendly fighters’ by the USA – get an apology and 1,000 dollars when a soldier is killed by ‘friendly fire’. ‘Friendly’ is a much-used word in this war in Afghanistan.

  Iraq, meanwhile has not been let off the hook. They have tried very hard to find a connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda, but with no success. But every now and then they bomb Iraq just to keep it in line, and also as a reserve for when they next need to bomb for some political pretext or other.

  28 March – Beirut

  The Arab Summit is meeting in Beirut. The first day was an absolute disaster: the Palestinians walked out. The second day, exactly the opposite happened. Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Izzat Ibrahim of Iraq kissed and looked happy, Iraq and Kuwait shook hands and all the Arabs signed the Saudi peace plan. Let us see how far it will go; now that the Arabs have signed, will Israel accept it?

  Amer Musa (head of the Arab League) is clever, witty and charismatic. When Sharon let it be known that he might like to attend the summit, Musa’s reply was ‘We’ll have to see if we can allow him to return to Israel.’ That is what Sharon threatens Arafat with all the time.

  The Arab world certainly lacks female representation. The conference was a sea of men in suits and abbayas. I don’t mean that women are the answer, but as we consist of half the world surely we should be working together.

  30 March

  Blair has gone to see Bush because they are going to join up for an attack on Iraq. Bin Laden has not been found, so it’s back to Iraq again: the Weapons of Mass Destruction Syndrome – it’s all such a sham one wants to cry, but where does crying get one?

  Rafsanjani calls Bush ‘a dinosaur with the brains of a sparrow’.

  12 April – Amman

  Powell has gone to see Sharon, the situation is very sad and there doesn’t seem to be any solution. Thousands of Palestinians are homeless, 4,000 arrested, an unknown number killed. Israel will not let any journalists in to see what has happened in Jenin. The Arabs are, as usual, silent. Europe is sort of trying to help. Will they be able to mount a boycott against Israel?

  Ever since Bush‘s statement (‘you are with us or against us’), everyone has their own view of who is their terrorist and acts accordingly. For Sharon, all Palestinians are terrorists, for Russia, all Chechens and so on. Human rights have disappeared into thin air.

  Meanwhile, I am in Amman trying to work for an exhibition at the end of this month, I want to cancel it as it is so difficult to work in this terrible situation, but no one will let me. Life has to go on, they say.

  25 April

  There is nothing to write about except horror stories, so I haven’t been writing. But I heard the other day that Rehavan Zaavi, the Israeli tourism minister who was killed and who sparked this whole new fighting, was called ‘Gandhi’ in Israel not for his views but for his shaven head. He said, ‘There is no place for two people in our country ... Palestinians are like lice; you have to take them out like lice.’ No wonder he was killed.

  13 May

  Long story to write about re: my exit from Jordan. But first, just to mention that despite everything the exhibition came off very successfully. They said I cheered them up, so there was a purpose.

  I came by car to Amman, so I left by car for Lebanon. I arrived at the border; the officer asked, ‘Where is your letter from the palace?’

  Oh, oh! ‘What do you mean,’ I said, ‘I gave up my residence permit in Jordan one and a half years ago. It’s all stamped legally in my passport.’

  ‘Sorry, you can’t leave.’ This even though I had registered with the police in Amman. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘your passport has expired.’

  ‘It has not,’ I said, ‘I have ‘til 2004.’

  He said, ‘Two weeks ago the Iraqi embassy sent out a memo. You need a new passport.’

  I was sent back to Amman.

  Next day, I go with Yak to the embassy; it always helps to know someone who knows someone.

  ‘Yes,’ they say, ‘you have to change your passport, we advertised two weeks ago.’

  I said, ‘My nephew is in Honduras, he’s hardly likely to have read the papers there ... Anyway, can I have a new passport now?’

  ‘No,’ he says, ‘we don’t have them yet.’

  ‘That’s lovely, so how am I supposed to leave?’

  ‘We’ll give you a safe passage permit, you can get your new passport from Beirut when you get there.’

  So I get my first piece of paper.

  Then I go to the Jordanian police. Their computer is busted. ‘Come back in an hour,’ they say. Later, an officer tells me:

  ‘There is nothing in your name here. It is all wiped out.’

  So why did they send me back from the border? It could have been the secret police, we think.

  We go get a fixer. ‘Nothing doing,’ he says, ‘if it was the secret police you would have been picked up at the border.’

  So I am armed with a photocopy of my not being a runaway Filipina, with the telephone number of the police, incase of a problem.

  I leave three days later, my heart in my mouth, with two bits of paper as my only protection. At the border I get taken into the inner sanctuary yet again.

  ‘We can’t accept a photocopy,’ the officer tells me.

  So I say, ‘You are to telephone this number.’

  He makes them read the whole letter over the telephone and then reluctantly stamps my passport. His parting words:

  ‘Better keep this paper with you always.’

  ‘Forever,’ I say.

  But they didn’t ask me for the Iraqi embassy paper, not at the Jordanian or Syrian or Lebanese borders.

  Beirut

  The new passports have not arrived in Beirut either. ‘In a month,’ they say, ‘maybe.’

  A Cess story, to be taken as always with a pinch of salt: He has a friend living in the USA for twenty years, who decided he wanted to marry an Iraqi girl. So he goes off to Baghdad, where they line up 120 girls for him to choose from! I ask,’ How did he find so many?’

  ‘He has a lot of relatives,’ Cess said. Anyway he chooses this 16-year-old girl and goes back to the States. They have a kid. Now, Cess says, he has gone back to look for another wife! What happened to the first?

  ‘Oh! He divorced her, she had too demanding a mother.’

  I said, ‘Well, he didn’t marry the mother.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘she kept pestering him to get her a green card and carry money for her, etc.’

  So now he has gone back to look for another wife to look after his kid. The poor first wife is back with her mother with no husband and no kid. They saw twenty girls only this time and he liked one, a college girl, but she hasn’t finished college yet.

  5–6 July

  At the Baalbek Festival, the Alban Berg Quartet played in the Temple of Bacchus. It’s an open-air concert in the ruins. The Mozart was accompanied by the persistent screech of a baby owl or owls. The Bartòk had bats squealing throughout the concert, and a bat kept dive-bombing the audience, which was the dumbest ever and clapped after each movement. People kept trooping in late. The musicians were very unhappy, a pained expression on their faces throughout. I loved the birds, and wondered what Mozart and Bartòk would have thought of the additional sounds.

  24 August

  Bush has come out with a new statement or decree, re: the enormous forest fires going on in the USA. He has allowed the lumber people to take out the dead wood plus cut large areas, as if there is a fire it won’t be such a big one: lovely bit of environmental protection. On the radio the other day, I heard him described as ‘as environmentally friendly as an oil slick.’ In the 12th century, a new wali (governor) was posted to Iraq and complained about the heat. He was told that this heat is what ripens the date palms – so he gave the order to
chop down the palm trees.

  14–15 September

  The Herald Tribune this weekend had an article about an Icelandic conceptual artist, Hlyner Hallsson, invited to have an exhibition by the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas. It consisted of four graffiti-style sentences in English and Spanish:

  ‘The real axis of evil are Israel–USA and the UK’;

  ‘Ariel Sharon is the top terrorist’;

  ‘George W. Bush is an idiot’;

  ‘Iceland is Banana Republic No. 1.’

  It caused such an uproar that they were threatening to close down the institute. He answered that he had read all these things in the newspapers and that everyone in the USA, everyday, says that George W. is an idiot. So he proposed a sequel. In the second and new part of the exhibition, he wrote:

  ‘The axis of evil is North Korea, Iraq and Iran;’

  ‘Osama Bin Laden is the top terrorist;’

  ‘George W. Bush is a good leader;’

  ‘Iceland is not a banana republic.’

  He added, ‘I just wrote now what people want to read.’

  21 October

  Saddam has just freed everyone in prison in Iraq, except spies for Israel and the USA. Pictures were in the papers today of hundreds rushing out of the prisons waving jubilantly. Saddam says he did it in gratitude for getting a 100% vote to reinstate him for another seven years as president.

  Meanwhile, North Korea has now admitted to developing its nuclear capabilities. But the USA wants to deal with them through dialogue. Condaleezza Rice says the difference is that North Korea has no money and might listen (they haven’t so far), and Iraq has a lot of oil ... or is it that North Korea has nuclear power and Iraq doesn’t? It is well-known that Iraq’s nuclear facility was bombed in the 80s by Israel, and even the International Atomic Agency has cleared us. It’s safer to bomb Iraq: less dangerous, fewer body bags come home.

  24 October

  First spontaneous demonstration took place in Baghdad. It seems about 1,600 prisoners are missing of those freed from prison, and their families were demanding to know their whereabouts.

  27 October

  Went to the Iraqi Embassy to get a new passport; I had been using the old one all this time. It was full of chaps. It turns out that Saddam also declared an amnesty for all army deserters at the same time he freed all prisoners, so everyone wants to return now.

  Lots of activity and reporters taking notes – there was good feeling but it was also sad, because they were mostly young men who had run away from military service. They looked much the worse for wear, as if times had not dealt them good cards, or they would already have had a life by now, a future. They are given a white laissez-passer to return.

  30 October

  Magdalena sent me an e-mail. She has found me a publisher and I might be published in Spanish, but I will have to do an update.

  13 November

  As I update for the new Spanish edition, I look through my notebooks and read about Q’s Missoni jacket; I e-mailed to ask about its whereabouts, and I just got an answer. He says he has lost a lot of weight, and so he has it on right now; Sol is arriving, and she will be absolutely livid.

  I also notice there is so much missing or lost, because I write e-mails mostly now and not in my notebooks. Jasmina promises one day to publish our correspondence. She, being a writer, keeps her e-mails.

  Today the Iraqi parliament unanimously voted against the UN resolution re: letting in the international arms inspectors again but leaving the final answer for Saddam.

  14 November

  Saddam accepts unequivocally, and Bush is very upset. He is really angry and keeps repeating the same thing. It sounds to me as if whether Iraq has or hasn’t got weapons of mass destruction, the USA will bomb. We have been given a month and a half, maybe, for the inspectors to check Iraq out. The USA seems very impatient, and I hope they won’t find this wait too difficult.

  Ma goes back to Baghdad on Monday, same as the inspectors. I leave on Sunday for Pakistan.

  15 November

  The Iraqi opposition in the West was supposed to meet today in Brussels, but cancelled it due to infighting about who should be the leader. They also didn’t all get visas.

  Egypt has three new kinds of dates. They marketed them as Arafat, Saddam and Sharon. Arafat and Saddam sold out; Sharon was not so lucky.

  17 November – Pakistan

  Back in Pakistan, second time this year. I have an exhibition in February, so I have come ahead of time to do some work.

  Handy is in the provincial senate this time. She said every election they work so hard electioneering and don’t get in. This time they decided to fill out forms and stay at home, and she got in. So every morning there are a few chaps waiting to talk to her on the veranda. She is aiming to be Governor of Sind, so she can invite her favourite Indian film star, Shah Rukh Khan, to come over. His picture is all over her computer screen. Handy is helping me out on the computer – she is a whiz at it. As we finish typing sections, they go by e-mail to Sol, always my editor. I wish we could have more of this kind of US technology as opposed to all the war machinery.

  The best thing that Musharraf has done for Pakistan is to have 150 women representatives in the National Assembly – some of them veiled, others not – facing the bearded lot, all in one hall with equal rights.

  22 November

  Met an Afghani lady today, Aisha Gailani. She has just come back from her first visit to Afghanistan in twenty-four years. They rented a house, as theirs had been occupied long ago by various sections of the army. She says it’s a tragedy: no water, electricity maybe for two hours a day. No roads, no jobs, people are so poor and no aid filters down to the ordinary Afghan. She says that they all say if any aid reaches Afghanistan it goes to the highly paid UN staff only, and even the local hired Afghans get only a pittance. Everyone is anti-American, and they say, ‘Bin Laden was their guy anyway, so why is Afghanistan being bombed?’

  27 November

  Because of its high ideals, Bush called the USA recently ‘the single surviving model of human progress’. Can one consider as progress the new weapons of mass destruction the USA is working on, like the ‘People Zapper’ (technical name: Vehicle Mounted Active Denial)? The ‘Zapper’ boils the water in your system to 130 degrees in two seconds, cooking you like in a microwave oven. Their so-called non-lethal weapons include lasers that blind and stun you and cut through metal; well, there is not much left of you if they cut through metal. Then there are gasses like the one used in the Moscow theatre recently, and the electromagnetic or E-bomb.

  These weapons are what will be used in Iraq now, this time. They are the latest and need to be tested. Mr Bush and his oil cronies will then have no need to contend with any people, because there will be none, only the oil beneath. If there is any justice in this world, the oil would get microwaved too; experiments can go wrong!

  We are three days into the UN inspectors’ teams, looking for those weapons of mass destruction, so far so good. But still the USA is not happy, and says it’s not the UN but only Iraq that can clear its name. They have to own up to the weapons they have.

  So we are guilty no matter what. Being the eternal optimist, I can only pray and hope that war can be avoided.

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the

  British Library

  ISBN: 978 0 86356 366 9

  eISBN: 978 0 86356 492 5

  First published 1998

  This edition published 2003

  © Nuha al-Radi, 1998 and 2003

  The right of Nuha al-Radi to be identified as the author of this work has

  been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents

  Act of 1988

  Saqi Books

  26 Westbourne Grove

  London W2 5RH

  www.saqibooks.co.uk

  , Nuha;, Baghdad Diaries