[spectre] Fwd: [jeanpaulhan] Portrait of a day in Baghdad--National Philistine (fwd)

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sorry for crosspostings
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Portrait of a day in Baghdad
  
By Paul Chan 
  
Dec 28       
  
2AM          
  
My first drink of Arak, an Iraqi liquor that tastes like licorice and stings
like rock candy. The poet Farouk Salloum told me he was drinking Arak at his
house when the missiles hit Baghdad in the first gulf war. After his first
glass he prayed the attack would end quickly. After the second he wished he
had more Arak at his house because there was no way he was going to get more
during an attack. After his third glass he screamed at the missiles to bring
it on.

9AM

I remember now the party last night at Farouk's house. Members of the Iraq
Peace Team were invited to a private party of musicians, journalists, and
poets. Farouk dressed in casual black. He had sleepy eyes. He was gracious
and demanding, ordering drinks to be constantly filled, especially for the
women. The Socialist Baath Party banned public drinking in 1995. Ever since,
Iraqis have taken their drink underground and at each other's homes.
Farouk's second daughter is named Reem, which means one who is as graceful
as a deer running. She doesn't have her father's eyes.

A droll pianist and a veteran of the Iran/Iraq war in the early 80's played
Bach and a jazzy funeral march. Earlier in the evening the pianist told me
he killed six men in the war and that the men and women of Iraq are all
trained in combat, and will take to arms and stones if need be to stop the
Americans from entering Baghdad. I ask him if his experience in killing
shaped in any way his piano playing. No response

NOON

A word or two about Kubbe in soup. At the Al-Shadbandar Café, where the
Iraqi literati come to drink tea and speculate about the war and who is the
number one poet of the week, Almad, a young sculptor, invites me for Kubbe
in soup. It is close and it is good, he says. Fair enough. I'm ready for it.
Before I left the states, Aviv, a dear friend and member of New Kids On The
Black Bloc, an artist political collective in Barcelona, asked me to seek
out Kubbe in soup. "I know you're not going to Baghdad for a culinary tour,
but promise me you will try it."

It is a meat dumpling the size of my head swimming in greasy soup. The skin
of the dumpling is thick and wheaty. Inside, a mixture of ground meat of
unknown origins and cinnamon. Other spices too, but who can tell. The soup
is hot water with onions. Sometimes with tomatoes.

Almad wants me to come. But Haider, another sculptor, says it may not be
such a good idea. It will be crowded, he says, and the water is not so good
for foreigners. Okay I say to Almad, next time. I drink my lemon tea and
dream of dumplings the size of my head. A cinema critic enters the café.
He's the number one critic in Baghdad, Haider tells me, because he is the
only one in the city. He jokes to Ellen, my travel companion for the day and
a full time peace activist from Maryland, that he would like to do a
cultural exchange with her; she can take his post as the number one critic
in Baghdad if he could get a visa and go to the US.

3PM

We wander around the booksellers row, a suk (open market) next to the
Al-Shadbandar Café. Former engineers sell their collection of books on
statistical analysis here and whatever else they can find in their house.
Books are indiscriminately piled on the sidewalk for people to browse
through. Iraq had, before the sanctions, one of the highest literacy rates
in the Middle East and the largest number of PhD's. This is why you will
find not only books on mathematics and structural mechanics, but also
Hegelian philosphy, Pop Art, and Modern absurdist drama, in Arabic, English,
French, German, and even Chinese. I find a nice copy of Tom Stoppard's play,
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Also a beautiful book on Islamic
Calligraphy.

We have what's called a magic sheet. On one side of this piece of paper is
an explanation of what the Iraq Peace Team is about and why we are in Iraq.
On the other side, the same thing in Arabic. We pass this out and hope to
enlarge our family. It does work like magic and a bookseller quickly becomes
a friend (because not surprisingly everyone is against the war). It is only
paper but has the weight of gold.

I meet a poet named Suha Noman Rasheed. He is slowly selling his collection
of poetry books on the row to live. He has published three books of Arabic
poetry and promises me he will bring a copy of one next week. A writer
friend in the US asked me to bring back some books in Arabic so they can be
translated into English. This is our rescue mission, he tells me.

4:50PM

Walking back to the hotel, Ellen and I noticed the pristine quality of the
Iraqi police cars. Some of the plastic coverings haven't even been taken off
the seats. Ellen, who served for four years in the US army, and I agreed
that one can tell the health of any regime by the cleaniness of the police
cars.

6PM

An action planning meeting for the Peace Team. Productive. There will be an
action on Dec 31st entitled "Resolutions and Celebrations". The goal is to
throw a party and get Iraqi mothers, fathers, kids, poets, writers and peace
activists together to make New Year's resolutions that would replace the UN
resolutions now serving as the litmus test for war. I am in charge of the
visuals. I imagine 10,000 Iraqi children dressed in white suits and dresses,
singing and waving their hands up as if they were surrendering. Musical
accompaniment: Aretha Franklin. Special Guest: subcommandante Marcos. I
don't tell the other about the plan. Let's see what I can do in four days.


7:30PM

Found out George is leaving the team because his father in Massachusetts is
in serious condition after he broke his hip. I'm very fond of George. A
Lebanese man who also stays at the Al-Fanar hotel who may or may not be a
war profiteer said George has a heart of gold. I believe him. He's been to
Iraq nine times and financially supports eight families here. On this trip
he brought two suitcases of medicines and toys. Baghdad is the city of
infinite need.

8PM
  
Saddam is on television. He is sitting on a white leather couch. The
reception is bad. Just now there was a cut-away shot to the crowd listening
to him speak. It is immense. But there is never a shot of the crowd and
Saddam together. Did you know the Russian KGB was the grandfather of Adobe
Photoshop? Not only did they make people disappear, they made their
appearance in photographs disappear as well. With a razor blade, pen and ink
they would retouch photographs with such precision that it was as if the
person never appeared in the original photograph. Now, the cut-away is the
standard, whether it is used to subtract or add people. Reality has never
been so elastic. Now a music video of children singing and images of Saddam
at various state functions.

11PM

Saf, a young student who I play dominos with sometimes, asks me if I have
any asprin for him. I tell Saf tomorrow.
  
11:50PM      
  
Every night at 11:30 Iraq television plays a movie. Tonight it's "Mission to
Mars" starring Val Kilmer. Kilmer, incidently, came to Iraq in 1998 as a
part of a campaign called "America Cares". One of the board of directors on
AC was Barbara Bush. The campaign was set up to take the media spotlight
away from former attorney general Ramsey Clark's delegation called "The
Sanctions Challenge", which was in Baghdad at the same time. It worked. No
one paid attention to Clark and his crew, who were campaigning to stop the
sanctions. All eyes were on Val and his vague promises to bring democracy
and bad movies to the Middle East. 

1AM

Cannot sleep. The wild dogs of Baghdad are out, barking and laughing at the
few cars that are still out on the street. I find the following quote in a
book about Laozi, mystical chinese philisopher, that seems appropriate to
the times: "Vulgar people are clear, I alone am drowsy. Vulgar people are
alert, I alone am muddled."
  
  
------------------------------------------------         
  
ABOUT PAUL CHAN AND THE IRAQ PEACE TEAM PROJECT          
  
------------------------------------------------         
  
Paul Chan is an artist living in New York City and a member of the Iraq
Peace Team,       a project of Voices in the Wilderness, a campaign to end
the sanctions against 
Iraq. The goals of IPT are to rally support for resisting a war on Iraq and

publicize the effects of a possible or ongoing US assault on Iraqi
civilians. IPT members all firmly oppose another war against Iraq for moral,
religious or humanitarian reasons and are thoroughly committed to
nonviolence.

Since September 2002, Iraq Peace Team members have traveled to Iraq and have
taken up residence in major cities. They have sent back reports, digital
still photos, open diary entries, digital video footage, press releases,
opinion articles, recorded audio, letters to the editor, and more. Chan is a
member of the December Iraq Peace team and will be in Iraq until mid
Janurary 2003, creating media and art that tells the story of this
unspeakable drive for war and the people caught in its path. Chan's video
work is distributed by Video Data Bank (www.vdb.org) and his new media work
is online at (www.nationalphilistine.com) 

-----------------------------      

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT

-----------------------------

--NATIONAL

Voices in the Wilderness

1-773-784-8065
1460 West Carmen Ave    
  
Chicago, IL 60640       
  
USA          
  
info@vitw.org
  
--WEB        
  
Voices in the Wilderness
  
http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw    
  
Iraq Peace Team         
  
http://iraqpeaceteam.org

National Philistine

http://www.nationalphilistine.com