Putting a human face to war
[Books]
Review By TAN GIM EAN, The Star
EARLY on April Fool’s Day, 2003, Shahanaaz Habib took a taxi from Jordan, across 1,000km of desert into Iraq. She had no visa to enter the country, which had been under attack by the Americans since March 20, only a verbal statement by an officer at the Iraqi embassy in Amman that, “By the order of President Saddam Hussein, you can go to Iraq...”.
Thus began this Star journalist’s four weeks in a war zone. Between Blood & Bombs: A Journal of War, Iraq 2003 is a day-to-day account of that period (April 1-28). The final four chapters chart Shahanaaz’s return to Baghdad (Nov 14-Dec 1), and the weeks after she came home to Malaysia.
A chronology of some significant dates leading to the war in Iraq, and another covering May to November 2003, give readers a fuller picture of the fate that befell that country.
Basically, the book tells how she coped during the war, and her attempts to record what she witnessed in an honest but impartial manner. More than that, it puts faces and names to a battle that evoked conflicting views, with people taking opposing sides, but had the same sad consequences – death, sickness, separation and suffering.
Shahanaaz had waited 12 days in Amman before she managed to cross over into Baghdad, where she set up base at the Palestine Hotel. She had enough cash, stashed in various places, but no bulletproof vest and, more importantly, the vital equipment to send stories and photographs back – a satellite phone and digital camera. But fellow journalists rallied to her aid and she was able to relay her articles home.
Still, it was shocking to find that she had to pay to report on the war. “It was US$100 (RM380) per day for media fees, another US$50 (RM190) for the press accreditation card, which they kept changing every few days, another US$50 for some other fee and US$20 (RM70) for something else,” she writes. All that in a country where the average income was only US$3 (RM11.40) per month!
What was more disturbing were the sounds of explosions in the middle of the night. But she found solace in the azan (call to prayers) chanted by Muthana Mohamad Saleh at the Ramadan Mosque near her hotel, each time a bomb fell.
Muthana is one of countless voices that speak through Between Blood & Bombs. There is also the very vocal Usma, a human shield who shoved pictures of dead children at the US Marines, screaming, “How many children have you killed, you mercenaries?”
War brings out the worst in everyone, and the citizens of Baghdad, the cradle of civilisation, were not spared. Shahanaaz tells of looters carting away everything they could get their hands on – chairs, sofas, refrigerators, curtains, bags of cement, ovens, gas cylinders.... Even the zoo was stripped of its animals, big and small.
She tries hard to be detached and unemotional as she records what happened after the American troops marched into the capital. She visited hospitals where lack of medics, medication and facilities added to the suffering of the wounded and dying. She observes that lawlessness in the country spilled over to the borders, where travel restrictions fell to the side.
But after the initial euphoria of “freedom” from the old regime, she felt the resentment and despair of villages hit by no electricity, phone lines, gas or clean water, no garbage collection, no school, and no post-war plan for Iraq.
On the ground, she was often frustrated by how ill-equipped she was, and how her inexperience as a war correspondent almost cost her her life, especially when she encountered jittery, armed Marines after Baghdad fell on April 9.
She spoke to drivers, guides, doctors, hospital volunteers, academics, kind folk who did not hesitate to share their food with a stranger, gun-toting Iraqi teenagers, American soldiers and veteran journalists from other countries for feedback on the ousting of Saddam.
Many Iraqis were glad to see the dictator fall. But many more cautioned that “Americans came not to save but to kill”, and questioned their agenda. Some, who lamented that, “with freedom we lose our sons”, voiced outright hatred for the invaders.
In the final chapter entitled “Iraq, the never-ending story”, Shahanaaz writes that despite the United Nation’s resolution to hand back sovereignty to the Iraqis by June 2004, “security remains a monumental problem .... Killings, bombings and political assassinations continue unabated. Anger is on a fierce boil .... And the people are still stuck between blood and bombs.”
‘Between Blood & Bombs: A Journal of War, Iraq 2003’ have launched by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak at 18 October 2004in Kuala Lumpur.
Review By TAN GIM EAN, The Star
EARLY on April Fool’s Day, 2003, Shahanaaz Habib took a taxi from Jordan, across 1,000km of desert into Iraq. She had no visa to enter the country, which had been under attack by the Americans since March 20, only a verbal statement by an officer at the Iraqi embassy in Amman that, “By the order of President Saddam Hussein, you can go to Iraq...”.
Thus began this Star journalist’s four weeks in a war zone. Between Blood & Bombs: A Journal of War, Iraq 2003 is a day-to-day account of that period (April 1-28). The final four chapters chart Shahanaaz’s return to Baghdad (Nov 14-Dec 1), and the weeks after she came home to Malaysia.
A chronology of some significant dates leading to the war in Iraq, and another covering May to November 2003, give readers a fuller picture of the fate that befell that country.
Basically, the book tells how she coped during the war, and her attempts to record what she witnessed in an honest but impartial manner. More than that, it puts faces and names to a battle that evoked conflicting views, with people taking opposing sides, but had the same sad consequences – death, sickness, separation and suffering.
Shahanaaz had waited 12 days in Amman before she managed to cross over into Baghdad, where she set up base at the Palestine Hotel. She had enough cash, stashed in various places, but no bulletproof vest and, more importantly, the vital equipment to send stories and photographs back – a satellite phone and digital camera. But fellow journalists rallied to her aid and she was able to relay her articles home.
Still, it was shocking to find that she had to pay to report on the war. “It was US$100 (RM380) per day for media fees, another US$50 (RM190) for the press accreditation card, which they kept changing every few days, another US$50 for some other fee and US$20 (RM70) for something else,” she writes. All that in a country where the average income was only US$3 (RM11.40) per month!
What was more disturbing were the sounds of explosions in the middle of the night. But she found solace in the azan (call to prayers) chanted by Muthana Mohamad Saleh at the Ramadan Mosque near her hotel, each time a bomb fell.
Muthana is one of countless voices that speak through Between Blood & Bombs. There is also the very vocal Usma, a human shield who shoved pictures of dead children at the US Marines, screaming, “How many children have you killed, you mercenaries?”
War brings out the worst in everyone, and the citizens of Baghdad, the cradle of civilisation, were not spared. Shahanaaz tells of looters carting away everything they could get their hands on – chairs, sofas, refrigerators, curtains, bags of cement, ovens, gas cylinders.... Even the zoo was stripped of its animals, big and small.
She tries hard to be detached and unemotional as she records what happened after the American troops marched into the capital. She visited hospitals where lack of medics, medication and facilities added to the suffering of the wounded and dying. She observes that lawlessness in the country spilled over to the borders, where travel restrictions fell to the side.
But after the initial euphoria of “freedom” from the old regime, she felt the resentment and despair of villages hit by no electricity, phone lines, gas or clean water, no garbage collection, no school, and no post-war plan for Iraq.
On the ground, she was often frustrated by how ill-equipped she was, and how her inexperience as a war correspondent almost cost her her life, especially when she encountered jittery, armed Marines after Baghdad fell on April 9.
She spoke to drivers, guides, doctors, hospital volunteers, academics, kind folk who did not hesitate to share their food with a stranger, gun-toting Iraqi teenagers, American soldiers and veteran journalists from other countries for feedback on the ousting of Saddam.
Many Iraqis were glad to see the dictator fall. But many more cautioned that “Americans came not to save but to kill”, and questioned their agenda. Some, who lamented that, “with freedom we lose our sons”, voiced outright hatred for the invaders.
In the final chapter entitled “Iraq, the never-ending story”, Shahanaaz writes that despite the United Nation’s resolution to hand back sovereignty to the Iraqis by June 2004, “security remains a monumental problem .... Killings, bombings and political assassinations continue unabated. Anger is on a fierce boil .... And the people are still stuck between blood and bombs.”
‘Between Blood & Bombs: A Journal of War, Iraq 2003’ have launched by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak at 18 October 2004in Kuala Lumpur.
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