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https://theconversation.com/iraqi-journalist-ghaith-abdul-ahad-watched-saddams-statue-topple-in-2003-his-standout-war-memoir-de-centres-the-west-203962>
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Review: A Stranger in Your Own City: Travels in the Middle East’s Long War
– Ghaith Abdul-Ahad (Hutchinson Heinemann)
Baghdad native and former architect Ghaith Abdul-Ahad traces his start as a
journalist to the day Saddam Hussein’s statue was toppled in central Baghdad,
on April 9 2003 – two weeks after US troops invaded the city.
Framed as a watershed moment, Western media coverage at the time “heavily
implied” the statue was taken down by “a large crowd of cheering Iraqis”.
But Abdul-Ahad, who was standing in the Green Zone in Baghdad, “along with a
few other Iraqis and a much larger crowd of foreign journalists”, remembers
watching an armoured vehicle with a large crane on it reverse into the square.
“Oh no, don’t do it,” he thought. “Let the Iraqis at least topple the statue of
their dictator.”
Climbing to the top of the monument, a US marine secured a length of thick rope
around its neck, and “with all the arrogance of every occupying soldier
throughout history”, covered the statue’s face with an American flag.
Abdul-Ahad reflects on the image of a handful of Iraqi men defacing Hussein’s
toppled monument with glee and rage: “That iconic image has played again and
again on every report on Iraq ever since, as if those men represented all the
nation.”
Indeed, images and stories that reduced the Iraqi population to a monolith (and
epitomised Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism) were rife in Western media
coverage at the time. They helped manufacture consent for the indiscriminate
violence of the occupation.
But expressions of gratitude for the American goal of “restoring democracy”
were not unanimous. Describing the moment US troops massacred a crowd of
unarmed civilians on Haifa Street in 2004, Abdul-Ahad – who was on the scene
and wrote about it for the Guardian – recalls being pulled aside by a man who
noticed a camera in his hands:
‘Take pictures!’ he told me. ‘Show the world American democracy.’"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
