Barefoot in Baghdad (5 page)

A week later I had my answer.

No.

Although Fadi had become my new confidant in Baghdad, Yusuf and Mais still treated me with stiff formality. I didn’t have much time to worry about team building, though, because my relationship with the other NGOs had grown strained after the NCCI coordinating meeting. I had been labeled as an American NGO. Heaven forbid. Apparently American NGOs were seen to have a different code of conduct than European NGOs.

I couldn’t exactly blame them. European NGOs had strict guidelines about entering the Green Zone and working with the Coalition Provisional Authority. Most American NGOs were more relaxed. They were willing to attend meetings in the Green Zone and often went to events hosted by the CPA. The fact that I leaned more toward the European code of conduct and was leery of being associated with the military’s purpose instead of women’s rights was irrelevant. I was an American who worked for an American NGO. Sides had been chosen by default.

Meanwhile, Mais habitually pulled Mark to the side to complain about my announced policy against interacting with U.S. military. Mais fell into the pro-war camp, the lead cheerleaders for all things American. He repeatedly argued that the Iraqis were in debt to the United States for toppling Saddam and that we should not shy away from interactions with the U.S. military. I tried to turn to Fadi for support, but his area of expertise revolved around the best music, the best kebab, and the best sites to see.

Yusuf stayed on the sidelines. He was a real mystery to me. I tried to engage him in conversation, but he would silently smoke a cigarette and let me ramble on awkwardly.

While NCCI ostracized me for being too American, Mais incessantly labeled me as anti-American. I simply could not win.

At the same time, I wasn’t making any friends among the Iraqi women leadership either. I quickly learned not to take it personally, however.

They barely trusted one another.

For thirty years any form of organization in Iraq was considered treasonous, and membership was punishable by death. Few organizations existed underground. Any opposing parties fled to the neighboring countries, mainly Iran. The majority of Iraqis lived in a climate of fear. Their best coping mechanisms had been to avoid the public sphere. Iraqi life was focused mainly inside the home. Even then, Iraqis were not guaranteed to escape the wrath of Saddam and his cronies. Stories were plentiful of families wrongfully accused of treason by a member of the Baath Party intent on a personal vendetta. If you were lucky, you were imprisoned or stripped of your Iraqi passport and driven to the Iranian border. Most Iraqis were not lucky. They were either publicly executed or just disappeared. Nonetheless, Iraqi families desperately tried to hide in the sanctuary of their own homes. Trust had completely disappeared, and interaction with neighbors, colleagues, and even extended family was often minimized.

The culture of mistrust didn’t just vanish the moment U.S. tanks rolled into the streets of Baghdad. In fact, it was stronger than ever. The old style of writing Big Brother reports and informing on those who had anti-Baathist sentiments often led to people’s disappearance in the middle of the night—and this practice still continued. The only thing that had changed was the subject line and the recipient. Now the reports were accusations against former Baathists, and they were directed to the U.S. military. These reports often resulted in job dismissals or a midnight visit by soldiers breaking in doors and yelling “Go! Go! Go!”

The dissolution of any form of local government and the lack of grassroots organizations meant that there were no natural counterparts with whom we could work. This was true at all levels, from government institutions to civil society organizations to women’s groups. International organizations were dropped into a black hole and forced to navigate the new terrain on their own.

Despite the challenges, local civil society inside Iraq was growing. In fact, it was about to burst at the seams. Within a few months of the announcement of the conclusion of Operation Iraqi Freedom at the end of March 2003, thousands of Iraqis were standing in line outside the Green Zone to declare their membership in nongovernmental organizations. With this mushrooming of NGOs, it was hard to weed through the opportunists to find the real thing.

With Iraqis unable to trust one another, they sure were not about to trust me. In fact, they made it clear they had no idea what to make of me. Since most of the Iraqi women leaders were in their early fifties, they were primarily put off by my age and openly questioned if the best America had to offer to champion the Iraqi women’s cause was a twentysomething Palestinian.

I struggled to make myself open to their inquiries. It was extremely difficult to allow them to ask so many personal questions, some of which verged on private attacks. One woman openly questioned how I could say I promoted women’s rights while wearing a head scarf, which in her opinion was the epitome of a misogynist interpretation of Islam.

These women were very different from the women I had met in the impoverished areas of the country. In fact, most of these women refused to admit there were any impoverished areas. They argued that poverty existed only in the southern governorates. When I tried to show them photos from Baghdad neighborhoods, they accused me of playing a divisive role among Iraqi women.

“You want us to feel sorry for ourselves,” one Iraqi woman activist yelled at me during a meeting of women leaders. “You are trying to make us look like we are Afghan or African women. Well, we are not. We are women of power!”

Another woman added, “You say you come from America, but I never see you with the Americans. How do we know you are not from Iran? You want to make all Iraqi women cover their heads like you do. We love our freedoms, and now that we have got it, nobody can take it away!”

I couldn’t decide whether to be impressed by their spirit or insulted by their attacks. I knew that wearing a veil would be a challenge, but I hadn’t expected that the only people who seemed to be questioning my
hijab
were the Iraqi elites! I had never before had people so outwardly affronted by my religious dress, and I was having trouble knowing how to respond. I realized that the only way to gain their trust and understanding was to maintain an open and transparent style—no matter how hard some of the Iraqi women were making it.

It was also apparent that they trusted people who wore uniforms. The CPA sponsored a series of workshops and conferences and invited all the Iraqi leadership to attend if they were brave enough to enter the Green Zone. Needless to say this was a small percentage, but they were an impressive group. Doctors, lawyers, and engineers came to the Green Zone meetings, which were often chaired by someone in a military uniform. The fact that I would not attend these meetings spoke volumes to the Iraqi women leaders. If I wasn’t there, then I wasn’t to be trusted.

Nonetheless, I refused to allow myself to become a darling of the CPA or the U.S. military. The CPA was an extension of the Bush administration, and I strongly believed that the U.S. forces in Iraq would bring nothing but destruction to the country. Despite the enthusiasm for the CPA from many of the Iraqis I encountered, I held firmly to my suspicions. I saw the war as a matter of securing personal gains and interests. It seemed to me that the welfare of Iraqis was the last concern in any U.S. decision maker’s thoughts.

The CPA, however, was doing its best to reach out to the international NGOs. I limited my attendance at any coordinating meetings to those that were hosted by the United Nations. The Canal Building, the main UN base, was not part of the Green Zone. In fact, the UN was headquartered in the building in which I had worked six years before. In addition to the UN meetings, many American-based NGOs were also attending meetings regularly inside the Green Zone. Through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. government was providing seemingly limitless funds for development programs. They were trying to charge forward in attempting to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis.

I wanted to steer clear of their path. I knew they would use international NGOs as a tool for their own goals. While I lacked the sophistication of the diplomats, I thought my best strategy was to focus on the reason why I had come to Iraq: the women. My efforts would be not be directed toward the elite women who clearly needed no assistance in having their voices heard. Instead, I would focus on marginalized women, the women who had been forgotten under Saddam and who risked being forgotten now.

But the CPA campaign to win hearts and minds was all encompassing. The CPA set up a phone system and provided free and open lines to everyone in the international aid community. This global mobile phone system, the first of its kind to be set up in Iraq, had U.S. prefixes. So people in the United States could call Baghdad for the same price as a national call. As if that wasn’t reason enough to head to the Green Zone, outside the convention center the CPA set up a large trailer that housed twenty computer stations with high-speed Internet access. Admittance was granted to anyone with an NGO badge, and within minutes one could be surfing the Internet in air conditioning so strong I dubbed it the “Fridge.” Indeed, surfing the Internet was the best way to cool off in Baghdad’s relentless summer heat.

The convention center was in the midst of the area in the Green Zone formerly known as “Uday’s Playground.” Uday, one of Saddam Hussein’s sons, had a reputation as a mad playboy. (Saddam’s younger son, Qusay, was said to be his father’s right-hand man.) Both sons were at the top of the U.S. military’s most-wanted list, and Baghdad was full of rumors about their latest sightings.

Uday’s Playground included a number of mini-mansions, an underground bunker, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the Al Rasheed Hotel, and the convention center. Between the convention center and Saddam’s presidential palace was a large park that included the statue of crossed swords often photographed during the old regime’s military parades. In the past, the convention center had been open only to loyalists of the Baathist regime. Now it was the main seat of power for the CPA.

At this point Mark and I still had not found an office, and our only connection to the outside world was via very expensive satellite phones. There were a few Internet cafés popping up in the Baghdad neighborhoods of Mansour and Jadrieh, but the download time was exasperating. It took me thirty minutes just to respond to one email. Not to mention I was often the only female sitting in the midst of young male Iraqi teenagers who were discovering the infinite potential of the World Wide Web. Previously the Internet, like mobile phones and satellite television, had been heavily controlled by Saddam Hussein.

The temptation to take advantage of the speed and comfort of the Fridge was incredible.

***

“Beware of Greeks bearing gifts,” I cautioned Mark, who pushed for us to accept the offer of the free phones. Although it would be a godsend on a personal level, I feared our use of the phones and the Fridge would build a bridge of association between the CPA and us. Besides, while it was free to us, someone was paying the bills. If not the U.S. taxpayer, it would inevitably be the Iraqis themselves.

Mark pointed out that this was my call. He also pointed out that we didn’t have sufficient funds to use the satellite phones indefinitely. If I decided not to take advantage of the CPA phones, it would mean being completely without any communication.

“Only you see the Americans as an enemy. We do not,” Mais interjected. He was in an adjacent room and had overheard the conversation. Mais’s English skills were the strongest of my three Iraqi counterparts. He was practically fluent, thanks to Uday’s local television channel—
Shabab
(Youth) TV—which played hours and hours of American movies.

Mais had never seen a mobile phone until U.S. troops entered Baghdad in 2003. Denied this gadget for thirty years, he was not about to have his NGO phone taken away now.

“I am not calling anyone an enemy,” I explained. “ I just want to make sure we remain independent.”

“The best way to be independent is to deal with all sides,” Mais pointed out. “You cannot ignore the Americans. They are in control of everything. They are the new government. Would you ignore a government, even a government you disliked, in any other country?”

Mais was right. NGOs had been working with hostile governments for decades. They would never dream of refusing to communicate with Khartoum while doing work in Darfur. Even during the time of the Taliban, NGOs coordinated with the Afghan government in order to be able to implement programs. I nodded in agreement—the key was our making sure that we were working with all sides.

“You know what, Mais,” I said, “ you have a point. I still have my reservations, but for now, your mobile is safe.”

Mais looked surprised. He had been poised for a fight. Instead, he smiled and thanked me for listening to his perspective.

***

The next few days ran relatively smoothly. I was spending the majority of my time cruising the neighborhoods with Mark and looking for both an office location and a place to call home for the next year. We had to move quickly: in a couple of weeks Mark would leave, and I would be responsible for the entire program.