The Baghdad Blogger

The classic example of a political blogger - Salam Pax from Baghdad:

From the Globeandmail.com, Canada, wed Oct 6th 2004, "A weblog's trip to fame" :

"Two years ago, Salam Pax was in his parents' house in suburban Baghdad, preparing for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. On Sept. 7, he wrote the following entry on his weblog: "I'm preparing my emergency lists these days -- any suggestions are welcome. At the moment I have: Candles Alcohol (maybe red wine?) Good books Crunchy munchies. I think that will get me thru [sic] the bombing quite nicely."

Pax's droll, incisive and increasingly frustrated bulletins soon became an international phenomenon. Every day, thousands of people visited what became known as the Baghdad Blog (http:dear_raed.blogspot.com) to read daily updates by this mysterious young man. The topics he wrote about, in fluent English, ranged from the CDs in his collection (Bjork, David Bowie and Coldplay are favourites), to open criticisms of both Saddam's regime and the U.S.-led coalition troops.

After his identity was revealed by a Guardian journalist (there was speculation he was a CIA agent or a Baath Party plant), Pax parlayed his writing into a book of collected blogs, a bi-monthly column for The Guardian and an on-going stint as a video reporter for Newsnight, the current-affairs TV program on BBC Two.

At first, the blog was simply a way for Pax to keep in touch with his friends Raed, who had moved from Baghdad to Jordan to study for his master's degree in architecture, and Ghaith, known only as "G" in the blog, who disappeared after refusing to do military service. The three had graduated from architecture school together in Vienna. And like many of the diatribes, which have become such a hot phenomenon on the Web, Pax's first few blogs were filled with banter and banalities that would hardly interest anyone outside the trio.

As the situation in Iraq became more heated, however, Pax decided he should start documenting the events that were happening around him, such as the feverish stockpiling of food in the weeks before the invasion, fluctuations in the value of the dinar and the fear that surrounded him. He soon began commenting on bits of news he was reading and the blog became steadily more political. As an English-based Iraqi who had spent many years abroad, a homosexual and an atheist, Pax wrote with an outsider's view that helped his Western readers relate.

"My man Salam," William Gibson, the Vancouver-based, sci-fi author wrote on his own blog. "I'm a total fan. Tells it like he sees it, and sees it like I can't."

"It worries me," says Pax, who stopped writing his blog last May. "I don't want people to come looking for answers. I have no idea what's happening in Iraq these days . . . Believe me, I am more confused about what Iraqis want these days than you are, and I'm an Iraqi."

"We are trying to get on with our lives. I hate it when people say to me 'You Iraqis are doing nothing for yourselves, you expect people to do everything for you.' No, we're not. We're really trying as hard as we can. The thing is, we lost a government. There are no laws. We need basic support."

He spares no vitriol for the U.S. troops. But for all the continuing violence and hatred and misunderstanding and uncertainty, Pax still says the U.S. invasion was worth it.

"We have hope now. It used to be Saddam, the son of Saddam, the son of the son of Saddam for the rest of your life. Now you actually have hope for something better if we can get our act together and work out our differences. . . .

"Life does go on and you have to hope that some day we'll have our country back."