Fame kills

Most television reporters, often classified among the most cutthroat animals known to vanity, enjoy being on air as much as breathing, eating and making money. Today, one of Arab TV’s star broadcasters in Iraq told me, he can’t do it anymore. "Fame here kills," he said.

"I want to work in the shadows," said my old friend. "I can’t put my face on TV anymore."

Most of his colleagues from news agencies and TV networks in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul have either quit, fled the city, escaped the country, or at the very least moved out their families.

The man who calls my friend on his cell phone always says the same thing: "We want money, or we will kill you."

"I don’t have any money," he always answers. "If I had any money I would have already left."

"We don’t want money from you, but from Washington."

"They think we all work for the United States government," he said.

Dangerous for a long time
It has been dangerous in Mosul for a long time.

Last year, masked gunmen stopped my friend on the road.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked them. (He knows everyone in Mosul and is considered something of a local celebrity.)

"Get out!" one of the gunmen screamed, and opened fire. Amazingly, my friend was only shot in the leg. Today he walked into my office with a limp.

"You know my wife had a daughter last week," he told me. "She gave birth on exactly the same day that I was shot."

My friend already has a seven-year-old daughter. She was in the car with him during the shooting. She was not injured, physically.

"Richie (he calls me Richie… I don’t know why… he just always has), my daughter still can’t sleep at night unless she is close to me or my wife. She comes into our bed and I sing her lullabies until she falls asleep."

A shave before heading home
After a few cups of coffee it was getting dark and my friend had to leave. But first he had to shave.

"I’m staying in Dora tonight and they don’t allow these," he said, fingering his goatee. Islamic militants who effectively run hard-line Sunni neighborhoods like Dora, Azamiya, and Ameriya have imposed Taliban-like restrictions: no jeans, no shorts, and even (although this is a rumor I find hard to believe) no mixing tomatoes with cucumber. The word for tomato in Arabic, ‘Tomatum,’ is feminine. Cucumber, ‘khear,’ is masculine. Evidently, mixing the two is somehow the sinful vegetable equivalent of pre-marital sex.

After two hours of coffee and conversations, my friend left, to go shave, to go to a neighborhood run my murderous, sexually-obsessed psychopaths, and to quit the job he’s always wanted, and worked so hard to get.

NEXT POST The dumb militant

EMAIL THIS

5 COMMENTS

Still LOL on not mixing tomato with cucumber--I suppose to really stir things up, one could always make salad...

Olivia Elizabeth Burdon, Peoria, Ill. (Sent Jun 5, 2006 4:33:20 PM)

Having spent the better part of the last 4 years trying to master the "sonic" nuances of French, I now know that so much of a language lies in the tone. With your fluency in Arabic, would it be feasible to hear more of your interviews with fewer voiceover translations, and perhaps subtitles? If not, I'd be very interested to hear your explanations why not.

Michael R., Paris, FR (Sent Jun 5, 2006 5:34:57 PM)

You know......if they weren't so deadly and horrible......the Islamic terrorists would be rather sad and pathetic. Living for nothing but to maim and kill is more than I can understand.

Bonnie Tucker, Mountain Home, Arkansas (Sent Jun 6, 2006 10:34:48 AM)

Your blog really makes me appreciate everything we have here in the states -- we're so spoiled! If we want to make a career out of journalism, it's ours if we're willing to put in the time, learn the tricks of the trade and spend countless hours on reporting and editing our work. Your blog isn't the only one reporting the violence against Iraqi journalist ... NPR has done the same thing on several occassions.

I can't thank you enough for continuing to work in an environment where your life is on the line every day. Please keep up the great work, but more importantly, please return home safe when your assignment is over.

As for the tomato and cucumber issue, as a Southerner I prepare the combination countless times every year and I never knew it could be considered taboo in anotherm culture.

Guess I'll have to make a dish tonight to honor your work and our freedom.

Mark Kelly, Jasper, TN (Sent Jun 6, 2006 1:17:55 PM)

How can there be any hope of a happy ending for a country who's people are so under educated and caught up in such religions fanaticism. Their is no logic to their thinking and no way to turn it around. It is a horrible thing to say but at least the people were not killing each other under Saddam Hussan and a lot less people were dying.

Raymond, Atlanta, Ga (Sent Jun 9, 2006 4:01:03 PM)

SEND A COMMENT

PLEASE READ: All comments must be approved before appearing in the thread; time and space constraints prevent all comments from appearing. We will only approve comments that are directly related to this post, use appropriate language and are not attacking the comments of others.

Slide Show

Life beyond the violence
Suicide attacks and murders due to sectarian conflict continue around Iraq. See how residents live their lives amid the attacks.