A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal (44 page)

I’m profoundly convinced that the only antidote that can make the reader forget the perpetual
I
’s the author will be writing, is a perfect sincerity

1. In the first part of the author’s stay in Iraq, before the war has started, Åsne can’t get people to talk to her openly. It’s just too dangerous for anyone to reveal their real opinions. As Åsne says, “the problem was elementary: no one said anything.” (p.1) “I am here to find dissidents, a secret uprising, gagged intellectuals, Saddam’s opponents. I am here to point out human rights violations, expose oppression. And I’m reduced to being a tourist.” (p.26) How does Åsne get around this seemingly insurmountable problem? Discuss whether you agree that Åsne is correct in feeling that she is performing a service by getting these stories out. Is her quest an essential one?

2. If someone does reveal an honest opinion, Åsne faces a moral dilemma: quote them, thus possibly endangering their lives, or just leave them out of the article. When talking to a group of college students, Åsne is surprised when one of them admits that no one says what they really think. “When I write my small piece about the farewell lunch I wonder whether or not to include the boy’s comments. I add them, then cross them out. Someone might find him. Someone might have seen him.” (p.59) What is Åsne’s responsibility to the people who talk to her vs. the importance of bringing the truth (as she sees it) to hundreds of readers in another country? Is it fair or ethical for Åsne to even try to get an honest response, given that a moment’s honesty could ruin someone’s life?

3. Even among highly competitive war reporters, the women journalists are very solicitous of each other. Åsne reports, “the women excel at looking after each other.” (p.209) Does this merely reflect the fact that women are socialized to be caregivers and nurturers—or is there something about being in a life-threatening environment that causes the women to band together? Discuss the ways men and women in the same very cut-throat field might react differently to this situation.

4. In the early twentieth century, the famous travel writer Gertrude Bell wrote that the most important thing to have when traveling among Arabs is an ample supply of patience. Åsne certainly found this to be true in dealing with the various ministries, minders, and bureaucracies that governed Iraqi life. What other qualities or personality traits help Åsne succeed in this difficult and frustrating assignment? Was this her secret in getting into and then extending her stay in Iraq? Patience is a quality that women are expected to develop and attain—in this one way, is being female an advantage for Åsne?

5. Like all the other journalists in Iraq before the war starts, Åsne’s work is intensely monitored and scrutinized by the Ministry of Information and its employees, including Åsne’s driver and translator. Considering that Åsne can’t honestly report what she sees and that everything published in Norway or transmitted to Scandinavia is censored, why is it so important for Åsne to stay in Iraq? Is she accomplishing anything when she can only deliver a small part of the real story? Is this one of the reasons she wanted to write this story as a book? How are books different than news journalism?

6. Are there any occasions when you think Åsne may have been manipulated by the Ministry of Information? What do you think of the accusations made by some politicians that the reporting from Iraq aided “the enemy”? Is Åsne ever complicit in the Ministry’s propaganda campaign?

7. Despite the frustrations, hardships, and outright danger of working in Baghdad, Åsne is desperate to stay in Iraq and witness the war up close. What compels Åsne to stay when so many other journalists—especially given the threat of chemical warfare, regular bombs and missiles, and being taken hostage and used as human shields—are happy to leave before the war breaks out?

8. Åsne is Western, yet not a citizen of one of the big powers like the United States or Britain. How does the fact that she’s from a relatively powerless country affect her life as a journalist in Iraq? If she were from the United States, would people have seen her as the enemy and been even less forthcoming? Being a woman and having a female interpreter, was Åsne able to have more contact with Iraqi women? Might they have been less afraid of her than they would have been of a male reporter?

9. Åsne doesn’t get to talk to many “ordinary” people, and when she does, what they say is filtered through a government-appointed interpreter, with the interviewee usually terrified of getting into trouble. Even so, Åsne does manage to occasionally convey to her readers back home a sense of what life is like on the eve of the war. The profusion of rumors, the lack of real information, the indecision about whether to escape to neighboring cities or countries, and the uncertainty of everyday life all come through in Åsne’s writings. How does she manage to cobble together a realistic picture of life in Baghdad given the restraints under which she has to work? Or is her portrayal of Iraqis, by definition, biased and slanted?

10. One of the saddest and most moving stories in
A Hundred and One Days
involves Ali, the twelve-year-old boy whose house was hit by an American missile that killed his mother, father, and brother, and covered him in burns, ultimately requiring the amputation of his arms. Seeing this tragedy pushes Åsne over the edge—“I want to go home. I can’t take it any more” (p.296) she says after seeing Ali. Yet she still can’t bring herself to leave. Now that people are finally free to talk about their lives under Saddam, Åsne wants to document the atrocities, to write about them. Has Åsne become too close to her story? Does she have the detachment that a journalist is supposed to maintain? If she has become too involved, does it affect the way she works or writes? Is Åsne unusual in her level of involvement? Can being subjective and reacting as a human being, a woman, help a journalist connect to the people she is writing about? Discuss.

11. Before the war started, assuming Iraq will win, Åsne’s translator, Aliya, blithely offered to defend Åsne: “You are my sister,” Aliya says. “If anyone attacks you I will protect you with my body. . . . You are my fair sister and I am your dark one.” (p. 166) After the war has started, Aliya continues working for Åsne but seems to have totally shut down, while Åsne finds the situation exciting and compelling. Discuss how their different upbringings affect their different reactions to the war. Discuss what Aliya’s story means in the context of the larger picture of Iraq’s people. Few would argue that forcing Saddam from the country is a bad thing, but has it been a completely good thing?

12. In just 101 days—a mere three months—Åsne has witnessed cataclysmic events: the fall of a brutal dictatorship, a horrific war, the deaths of friends, and the wounding and killing of innocent Iraqis. “In . . . ten years as a journalist reporting from war and conflict zones,” reports Åsne, “I have never worked under more difficult conditions” (p. 1), yet she also found the experience “incredibly exciting” (p. 231). How do you think this experience in Iraq affected her life?