Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq
by Riverbend
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Book Summary Information
Author: RiverbendEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2005-04-01
ISBN: 1558614893
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY
Book Reviews of Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq
Book Review: Life interrupted . . .
Summary: 5 Stars
With the Internet, we are now able to read accounts of war by noncombatants who are not journalists - while the war is happening, even as armies invade and bombs fall. Someone has called Iraq the first postmodern war in that we get simultaneous reports of what is happening from many different points of view besides the "official" ones. This remarkable blog by a young woman in Baghdad is a day-by-day record of the experience of the war in her city - and told from the perspective of someone not unlike her Western readers (so convincingly that some readers consider her blog a hoax). She writes fluent English and is familiar with American culture; she is educated, urbane, politically informed, and computer savvy (having worked at a software company before the war - a job that was lost at least in part because she is a woman in a rising tide of fundamentalist sentiment). Most of all, she demolishes any stereotypes of Iraqis that Westerners might have - stereotypes that often serve to justify the war itself.
In the 13 months covered in this published volume of her blog, we see the American invasion become an occupation, and the initial sporadic resistance to it evolve into a widespread insurgency with a mounting death toll. The focus, unlike news coverage, is on the casualties among noncombatants, and we are reminded on nearly every page of what it is like to live life literally "under the gun." And in a city where law and order are up for grabs, citizens must arm themselves for protection, while running the risk of being taken for "terrorists" because they are armed. Added to that, there are daily explosions, kidnappings, home invasions, and the continuing problem of power shortages. Meanwhile, the TV and internet news reveal the blunders of the American authorities and the follies of a do-nothing, American-installed provisional government. Then we hear again of the siege of Fallujah, with its staggering loss of civilian life, and finally the humiliations on all sides of the photos released from Abu Ghraib. Most poignant and disturbing is her retelling of the 1991 Amiriyah Shelter massacre, in which 400 women and children were killed by an American missile during the Gulf War.
There is understandably a lot of anger in this book. While certainly justified - often even restrained and measured - the book avoids becoming an endless and wearying diatribe. The mood modulates among a range of emotions and attitudes. We are treated at times to interesting descriptions of Iraqi culture, accounts of daily routines (like filling the water tank on the roof), and reports, laced with irony, of the laughable incompetence of appointed public officials, plus rejoinders to readers who have sent her emails revealing their own ignorance. Finally, the book is a record of clinging to sanity in a world gone very wrong. For those who support the war, don't support it, or are indifferent about it, it's important to read for what it has to say about the impact of foreign policy decisions on those whose lives are - through no fault of their own - suddenly in harm's way.
Summary of Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq
In August 2003, the world gained access to a remarkable new voice: a blog written by a 25-year-old Iraqi woman living in Baghdad, whose identity remained concealed for her own protection. Calling herself Riverbend, she offered searing eyewitness accounts of the everyday realities on the ground, punctuated by astute analysis on the politics behind these events.
In a voice in turn eloquent, angry, reflective and darkly comic, Riverbend recounts stories of life in an occupied city-of neighbors whose homes are raided by US troops, whose relatives disappear into prisons and whose children are kidnapped by money-hungry militias. At times, the tragic blends into the absurd, as she tells of her family jumping out of bed to wash clothes and send e-mails in the middle of the night when the electricity is briefly restored, or of their quest to bury an elderly aunt when the mosques are all overbooked for wakes and the cemeteries are all full. The only Iraqi blogger writing from a woman's perspective, she also describes a once-secular city where women are now afraid to leave their homes without head covering and a male escort.
Interspersed with these vivid snapshots from daily life are Riverbend's analyses of everything from the elusive workings of the Iraqi Governing Council to the torture in Abu Ghraib, from the coverage provided by American media and by Al-Jazeera to Bush's State of the Union speech. Here again, she focuses especially on the fate of women, whose rights and freedoms have fallen victim to rising fundamentalisms in a chaotic postwar society.
With thousands of loyal readers worldwide, the Riverbend blog is widely recognized around the world as a crucial source of information not available through the mainstream media. The book version of this blog will have "value-added" features: an introduction and timeline of events by veteran journalist James Ridgeway, excerpts from Riverbend's links and an epilogue by Riverbend herself.
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