Combative Narratives: Baghdad Burning and the Western Media

Schuyler Kerby

Jeannina Perez

WST 3015

5 April 2010

The human mind thinks with narratives. They are how we interact and think about the world. Our inner monologues are how we process information. Because of this, the construction of narratives by institutions in culture and society can be powerful. Stories are being crafted, most noticeably by the media. They inform their audiences about how the world works, acts, and is. When Iraq was invaded by multinational forces March 20^th, 2003, one narrative was prevalent in the United States media. Iraq was a dangerous nation with weapons of mass destruction. When evidence began to lack for that story, the message was changed. Iraq had ties to terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda. When that story began to crumble, the final narrative was drafted. The Iraq people are oppressed, and America will liberate them.

One blogger decided to speak against this narrative. Riverbend, who began to publish posts from Baghdad in August 2003, sought to provide a voice from Iraq and to provide a counter-narrative to the one being perpetuated by the occupying countries in Iraq. Her blog Baghdad Burning can be characterized as a personal, politically-affected educational ethnic occupied narrative. It is personal because it is her life. The entire work is politically-affected by the decisions of the occupying forces and the new government installed in Iraq. The primary focus of the blog is to educate the audience about the myths in the narrative about Iraq. This education occurs because the narrative is ethnic (she is an Iraqi woman) and from an occupied view (she writes from the perspective of a person living with occupying armed forces). A notable entry that seeks to destroy the myths in the dominant narrative is titled “The Promise and the threat” published on August 28^th, 2003.

She starts this entry with a contrast between “The Myth” and “The Truth” (Riverbend). The myth, she states is “Iraqis, prior to occupation, lived in little beige tents set up on the sides of little dirt roads all over Baghdad” (Riverbend). She lists more myths that deal with gender roles (not every Iraqi woman wears a burqa at home while taking care of 10 children) and education (the boys do not just learn rudimentary math to count the sheep). She counters these myths with her own story about the large amount of engineers in Iraq and how the proposed $90 billion rebuilding fee is the result of not using Iraqis to help rebuild. She identifies the cultural desire for buildings to be more than “functionary”. Buildings “have to have artistic touches” (Riverbend).

The issue that sparked this post was the announcement by Bremer that $90 billion would be required to reconstruct Iraq. This figure, and the fact it exists at all is due to what Kirk and Okazawa-Rey call “the quest for control of strategic locations and scarce resources” (508). Riverbend believes that the War in Iraq is a War for Oil. Because the goal of the multinational forces was for a source-turned-resource, the occupation of Iraq can be seen as an act of colonization. This idea is enforced because of the presidency installed. It consists of nine rotating members, with divisions among ethnic and religious lines. This kind of division, according to Kirk and Okazawa-Rey, is one of several factors that “were central to this process [of colonization]” (377).

550

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. "Living in a Globalized World." Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 371-92. Print.

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. "Women and the Military, War, and Peace." Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 493-511. Print.

Riverbend. "The Promise and the Threat." Web log post. Baghdad Burning. Google, 28 Aug. 2003. Web. 4 Apr. 2010.