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Saturday, Jul 11, 2009
In a city where porn, drunkenness and radical Islam are on the rise, savvy students who despise both Bush and Saddam are putting out Iraq's only independent newspaper.
May 24, 2003 | Iraq's only independent newspaper is run by high school and college students out of an alcove in the lobby of Baghdad's Al Fanar Hotel. Working with a $5,000 grant from the nonprofit peace group Voices in the Wilderness, 14 unpaid writers, editors, photographers and publishers labored for a month to create the debut issue of Al-Muajaha, the Iraqi Witness, which hit the streets a week ago. In its pages, budding reporters and essayists examine the violent, chaotic but cautiously hopeful world being born around them, expressing outrage at the Americans even as they revel in their newfound freedom.
Newspapers have proliferated in postwar Iraq, but most are the organs of political parties. Al-Muajaha's staff, though, treasure their autonomy. They learned journalism during the war, working as translators and fixers for the legions of foreign reporters who descended on Iraq. Some of them have been interview subjects as well, and they studied the way professionals found their angles and formulated their questions. Now they're turning these new skills back on the Americans, demanding accountability from their would-be rulers.
Three thousand copies of the first issue have been printed (there will be 5,000 of the second), selling for 250 Iraqi dinars each, about 25 cents. There's a single ad, bought by the father of one of the writers. But Al-Muajaha's creators, who are also publishing online, have great ambitions for the paper. As a statement on the editorial page says, "We aim to help the world understand Iraq, and to help Iraq understand the world."
Published in both Arabic and English, Al-Muajaha mirrors the conversations heard everywhere in Baghdad. Its three big subjects are security, Saddam's crimes and America's motives. The lead story is a first-person tale of being carjacked in a taxi near the Palestine Hotel. "For now I feel I'm not living in a city, but in a jungle of buildings and man-beasts," writes Salaam Talib Al-Onaibi. Another piece profiles the Committee for Free Prisoners, an organization that has combed through Saddam's vast prison files to try to provide families with information on disappeared loved ones. Inside, there's a list of American companies awarded contracts in postwar Iraq, capsule bios of American officials involved in the reconstruction, and reprints of egregious quotes by people like Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and ex-CIA chief James Woolsey. The kids who produce Al-Muajaha have been able to talk openly about their country and their lives for only a little more than a month, and they have no experience of a free press, but they have an intuitive ability to capture the mood of the streets in their two-color pages.
Of course, the mood on the streets is conflicted, and Al-Muajaha reflects the disoriented, ever-shifting view many Iraqis have toward their liberation/occupation. Amanj Husam Ferzali begins a series on the world's dictators by saying, "It's my first time, ever, to write in public, being shy to express my thoughts. I'm confused, trying to answer the question: what do the people want?"
It's a question no one can answer right now. Radical Islam is ascendant in Baghdad, as are porn and liquor. People want the Americans to leave, and to put many more troops on the street. Waleed M. Rabi'a, a 19-year-old writer and editor for Al-Muajaha, fantasizes about the baroque tortures he'd like to inflict on Iraq's deposed tyrant, and then muses, "Saddam Hussein was a dictator, but at least he knew how to lead the country."
The estranged son of a privileged family, Rabi'a is the lead singer in a heavy metal band called Acrassicanda -- Latin for Black Scorpion -- and speaks flawless English. With his teen-heartthrob face and his bleak view of the world, Rabi'a is the kind of teenager Western journalists understand, which may be why he's been interviewed so frequently by MTV, Der Spiegel, ABC and others. Last year, he was part of the documentary "Bridge to Baghdad," in which a group of Iraqi students held a dialogue via satellite with a group of young Americans. During the war, Rabi'a put his familiarity with the media to work, hiring himself out as a translator for the London Independent, CNN and Radio France.
Rabi'a's not proud of the first "Bridge to Baghdad" (he has since taped a second, postwar episode), because he had to be so dishonest. He says that Houda Saleh Amash, the only woman among the 55 Iraqis most wanted by the Americans, sat right in front of him as he spoke. "I was really angry," he says. "We had to pretend we were dumb. Either you're going to answer the question, which is impossible because you're going to lose your head, or pretend you're dumb and you don't understand the question and answer another question."
