A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal Read Online Free Page A
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
working his way around the copy of one of Babylon’s famous statues: the lion overpowering a man.
- No, says Takhlef. - That’s impossible.
- Why?
- That’s one of Saddam’s palaces.
That’s what I thought. That’s why I asked. If only we could walk up the few hundred yards to the villa. We might meet one of his sons, the dreaded Uday? Or the ice-cold Qusay? Curiosity gets hold of me and almost impels me towards the building, but then I look at Takhlef and common sense takes over. I see before me the president’s sons as little boys, on nocturnal wanderings around Babylon. Perhaps they climbed the lion, tamed it, fought imaginary barbarians.
Back in the dust of the present I tag along behind Takhlef to the exit. Hamid opens up the souvenir kiosk. I buy two Babylon T-shirts, a slab of ceramic depicting the holy ox, a picture book of the excavations, a bunch of postcards and stamps with images of the ruins, unaware that this little kiosk in a few months will burst into flames and become a gaping black hole. The display cases in the museum will be emptied, the ceramics smashed, the miniatures of the Tower of Babel and the Hanging Gardens broken to pieces. The light bulbs will be unscrewed from the lamps, the sockets torn out of the walls, the cords cut up and sold as scrap at the markets. Every age has its own catastrophe. But it is still some time away. In the meantime, Hamid, like most other Iraqis, lives in fear of the storm that is brewing. Will the wrath of God strike Babylon again?
Takhlef is more talkative. - Show me America’s Babylon, he guffaws. - They were nothing at the time we ruled the world. They are historical upstarts. They don’t build, they just tear down. It’s important that you write about Babylon, show the world who we are!
Takhlef drops me off outside the hotel. Do I want him to fetch me for dinner?
I pluck up enough courage to say no.
- Saddam’s Art Centre? he asks. He is planning the following day’s programme.
I am here to find dissidents, a secret uprising, gagged intellectuals, Saddam’s opponents. I am here to point out human rights violations, expose oppression. And I’m reduced to being a tourist.
- You have to follow the rules, Takhlef says. - That’s very important; otherwise you’ll have to leave. You can’t wander around alone, talk to anyone or write bad things about Iraq. Believe me, trust me, do as I say.
My head is spinning.
- OK, I say. - I look forward to seeing Saddam’s Art Centre. I’m very interested in art and culture.
Back in my room I throw myself on the bed. There is a knock on the door. Said and the toiletries. I thank him and pay. He straightens the bedcover, nods and leaves. I tear the cover off.
Patience. That is what Gertrude Bell recommended. Patience.
Saddam’s Art Centre is a huge concrete structure in the middle of Baghdad. It consists of a few floors of Iraqi paintings from the last centuries and two floors of Saddam Hussein. We proceed quickly through the first centuries and stop at the 1970s. From there on it is all about the big leader: painted, photographed, woven, appliquéd, reproduced in graphic art and woodcut, in mosaics, in silk and cotton. With sunglasses, in a white suit, presenting arms, in an armchair, genial, or upright, mounted on a horse.
One of Saddam’s official painters shows us around. He looks like a Montmartre artist: long hair swept back, sensitive fingers, casual but stylish attire. But instead of Sacre Coeur or the Eiffel Tower, Khalid is reduced to one and the same motif.
- This painting is to commemorate the victory over the Americans during the Gulf War. This one celebrates the triumph over Iran in 1988.
Khalid shows us his pièce de résistance - a fifty metre square painting representing Iraq’s history. The central motif is naturally the president himself, in uniform, riding on a white horse, sword aloft. He is
- No, says Takhlef. - That’s impossible.
- Why?
- That’s one of Saddam’s palaces.
That’s what I thought. That’s why I asked. If only we could walk up the few hundred yards to the villa. We might meet one of his sons, the dreaded Uday? Or the ice-cold Qusay? Curiosity gets hold of me and almost impels me towards the building, but then I look at Takhlef and common sense takes over. I see before me the president’s sons as little boys, on nocturnal wanderings around Babylon. Perhaps they climbed the lion, tamed it, fought imaginary barbarians.
Back in the dust of the present I tag along behind Takhlef to the exit. Hamid opens up the souvenir kiosk. I buy two Babylon T-shirts, a slab of ceramic depicting the holy ox, a picture book of the excavations, a bunch of postcards and stamps with images of the ruins, unaware that this little kiosk in a few months will burst into flames and become a gaping black hole. The display cases in the museum will be emptied, the ceramics smashed, the miniatures of the Tower of Babel and the Hanging Gardens broken to pieces. The light bulbs will be unscrewed from the lamps, the sockets torn out of the walls, the cords cut up and sold as scrap at the markets. Every age has its own catastrophe. But it is still some time away. In the meantime, Hamid, like most other Iraqis, lives in fear of the storm that is brewing. Will the wrath of God strike Babylon again?
Takhlef is more talkative. - Show me America’s Babylon, he guffaws. - They were nothing at the time we ruled the world. They are historical upstarts. They don’t build, they just tear down. It’s important that you write about Babylon, show the world who we are!
Takhlef drops me off outside the hotel. Do I want him to fetch me for dinner?
I pluck up enough courage to say no.
- Saddam’s Art Centre? he asks. He is planning the following day’s programme.
I am here to find dissidents, a secret uprising, gagged intellectuals, Saddam’s opponents. I am here to point out human rights violations, expose oppression. And I’m reduced to being a tourist.
- You have to follow the rules, Takhlef says. - That’s very important; otherwise you’ll have to leave. You can’t wander around alone, talk to anyone or write bad things about Iraq. Believe me, trust me, do as I say.
My head is spinning.
- OK, I say. - I look forward to seeing Saddam’s Art Centre. I’m very interested in art and culture.
Back in my room I throw myself on the bed. There is a knock on the door. Said and the toiletries. I thank him and pay. He straightens the bedcover, nods and leaves. I tear the cover off.
Patience. That is what Gertrude Bell recommended. Patience.
Saddam’s Art Centre is a huge concrete structure in the middle of Baghdad. It consists of a few floors of Iraqi paintings from the last centuries and two floors of Saddam Hussein. We proceed quickly through the first centuries and stop at the 1970s. From there on it is all about the big leader: painted, photographed, woven, appliquéd, reproduced in graphic art and woodcut, in mosaics, in silk and cotton. With sunglasses, in a white suit, presenting arms, in an armchair, genial, or upright, mounted on a horse.
One of Saddam’s official painters shows us around. He looks like a Montmartre artist: long hair swept back, sensitive fingers, casual but stylish attire. But instead of Sacre Coeur or the Eiffel Tower, Khalid is reduced to one and the same motif.
- This painting is to commemorate the victory over the Americans during the Gulf War. This one celebrates the triumph over Iran in 1988.
Khalid shows us his pièce de résistance - a fifty metre square painting representing Iraq’s history. The central motif is naturally the president himself, in uniform, riding on a white horse, sword aloft. He is
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