A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal Read Online Free
Author: Åsne Seierstad, Ingrid Christophersen
Tags: General, Social Science, History, Biography & Autobiography, Editors; Journalists; Publishers, Sociology, Military, Language Arts & Disciplines, Customs & Traditions, Iraq War (2003-2011), Journalism
is in Berlin. Other stolen items are in the Louvre or the British Museum, our guide sighs resentfully. - The originals still in Iraq are stored in vaults. You know, the war might start at any moment. It’s best to hide things away. The whole of Babylon might be blown to smithereens.
The archaeologist lives alone in Babylon with his young wife and a small son. He is the guide by day and watchman by night. - The Americans want to ruin our country. First they’ll get the Presidential palace, then Babylon, he snorts. - They want to destroy our culture and lord it over us, take our oil, our resources.
He halts by the model of the Hanging Gardens. Cascading down the rock face the Sumerians planted the most glorious flowerbeds. - Well, this is what we think it looked like, he says.
He is on firmer ground when talking about the Tower of Babel. The square ruins have been left standing in Babylon; the copy is in miniature. The story is told in Genesis.
And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone and slime had they for mortar.
And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
Hamid shows us out and we walk along the temple walls. They stretch ahead, straight as an arrow; there is no sign of exposure to wind and weather. A man appears amongst the rebuilt ruins. Hunchbacked and dressed in a long tunic he sweeps a large square with slow, rhythmic movements. The broom is a palm leaf twice his size. He might have been sweeping all his life. Had this been Disneyland one might have thought he was put there to represent a worker from the past. But the hunchback is real, and his task is to keep the desert sand away from the historical copies. The man and the palm leaf seem to be the only genuine articles in all of Babylon.
I tell Takhlef I want to talk to the sweep.
- Why to him? Takhlef exclaims.
- He might tell me something about Babylon.
- That one. Takhlef points and laughs scornfully. - He doesn’t even know where he is, he’s probably illiterate. You shouldn’t interview illiterates; they don’t know what’s right or wrong and won’t give you a correct picture of Iraq.
- But I want to, I say, and regret it immediately. I mustn’t rub my guide up the wrong way so soon. Takhlef approaches the sweep after all. He towers above the skinny man, who looks up at him, terrified, and gives monosyllabic answers.
- His name is Ali. He lives close by and has worked here for many years. Was there anything else you wanted to know? Takhlef asks tersely.
- No, thank you, thank you very much, that was exactly what I wanted to know.
On a hilltop overlooking the compound is a large building. It is square, like the foundations of the Tower of Babel, but brand new. Two dark-coloured jeeps are parked outside.
- Can we go up and have a look? I ask. The sweep has returned to his customary movements and is
The archaeologist lives alone in Babylon with his young wife and a small son. He is the guide by day and watchman by night. - The Americans want to ruin our country. First they’ll get the Presidential palace, then Babylon, he snorts. - They want to destroy our culture and lord it over us, take our oil, our resources.
He halts by the model of the Hanging Gardens. Cascading down the rock face the Sumerians planted the most glorious flowerbeds. - Well, this is what we think it looked like, he says.
He is on firmer ground when talking about the Tower of Babel. The square ruins have been left standing in Babylon; the copy is in miniature. The story is told in Genesis.
And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone and slime had they for mortar.
And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
Hamid shows us out and we walk along the temple walls. They stretch ahead, straight as an arrow; there is no sign of exposure to wind and weather. A man appears amongst the rebuilt ruins. Hunchbacked and dressed in a long tunic he sweeps a large square with slow, rhythmic movements. The broom is a palm leaf twice his size. He might have been sweeping all his life. Had this been Disneyland one might have thought he was put there to represent a worker from the past. But the hunchback is real, and his task is to keep the desert sand away from the historical copies. The man and the palm leaf seem to be the only genuine articles in all of Babylon.
I tell Takhlef I want to talk to the sweep.
- Why to him? Takhlef exclaims.
- He might tell me something about Babylon.
- That one. Takhlef points and laughs scornfully. - He doesn’t even know where he is, he’s probably illiterate. You shouldn’t interview illiterates; they don’t know what’s right or wrong and won’t give you a correct picture of Iraq.
- But I want to, I say, and regret it immediately. I mustn’t rub my guide up the wrong way so soon. Takhlef approaches the sweep after all. He towers above the skinny man, who looks up at him, terrified, and gives monosyllabic answers.
- His name is Ali. He lives close by and has worked here for many years. Was there anything else you wanted to know? Takhlef asks tersely.
- No, thank you, thank you very much, that was exactly what I wanted to know.
On a hilltop overlooking the compound is a large building. It is square, like the foundations of the Tower of Babel, but brand new. Two dark-coloured jeeps are parked outside.
- Can we go up and have a look? I ask. The sweep has returned to his customary movements and is
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