An Iraqi Reporter, Now A Refugee, Speaks Here

By Dan Rattiner

Last Wednesday night, a young Iraqi woman named Alaa Majeed spoke in the Senior Auditorium at the Ross School in East Hampton. The public was invited and was asked to leave a ten-dollar donation in a basket at the door to be given to the non-profit group Refugees International.

Ms. Majeed is a small woman of about thirty, with black flowing hair and dark flashing eyes. She is a Shia woman, born into a middle-class family in Baghdad, who is college educated with degrees in English and International Relations. She had, for a number of years, worked for the Iraqi News Agency, covering the news in the Baghdad community and then, after the American invasion in 2003, the war. She did not smile as she spoke to us. She seemed broken and frightened, very glad to be in America, and simply horrified at the disintegration of her country since she had come of age.

"The Americans won quickly. Then came the suicide bombings and the kidnappings. I covered these things as accurately and truthfully as I could. But there is only so much you can take, or I could take, about what was going on with the dead bodies and inadequate hospital facilities. I saw blue, dead bodies sometimes left out in the streets. You could never feel safe anywhere, even if you were a journalist. I had applied for a visa to go to Jordan in April 2004 to cover the refugee situation there, but when it did not arrive, I went anyway using my press pass. As that was about to expire in Jordan, I came back to my home, but I had already made up my mind to go back to Jordan to stay out of the war for as long as I could. The visa arrived in September 2005. I said goodbye to my family and children and went to the border in a car with six people - five men and me. You had to bribe somebody to take you across.

We were stopped at an American checkpoint and told to get out of the car. When they got to me, they said the visa was no good, so then I spoke to them in English and showed them my press credentials, and suddenly several of these other five men were on their cell phones talking quietly to somebody. They were talking about me."

"We got to a second American checkpoint, and I was really terrified at this point. Now I knew I would surely not be going back. But they sent us all back anyway, not to Baghdad, but they told us to drive to Falujah, which was a major killing ground. And so I got my case and I ran away from the men in this car. I begged people. I pleaded with people. And they let me into Jordan. After two months, I went to Lebanon, then back to Jordan. You beg, you shout, you cry, you are quiet. I wanted to come to America. I let my visa expire. I stayed indoors for three months, with the door locked. And finally, here I am. I have been here one year. I am on my fiancé's visa. And I have found work as a translator for media outlets. I work for the BBC, the National Public Radio, the Nation and CBS. I read Iraqi newspapers, websites, and TV programs. I try to write balanced reporting."

After speaking for about twenty minutes, Alaa took questions from the audience.

"How big a breach is there between the Shiah, the Sunnis and the Kurds?"

"There is none at all. It is all manufactured by the press. In my tribe, I have relatives who are Sunnis. I don't even think twice about who is who. In fact, I didn't even know who was who until three years ago. We are all Iraqis."

"But there is talk that Iraq might split into three parts."

"It is all political. It is about control and it is about power. But we are all friends. We have no personal animosity among any of us. To break up the country is ridiculous."

"What is the opinion of the Iraqis about the Americans?"

"Americans invaded us. We all did want to see Saddam gone. But there is no U. S. plan. So now, I'd rather have Saddam back. What was missing was freedom. Now it is missing anyway. So I prefer Saddam."

"Now the violence seems to be subsiding."

"It is. And about 1,000 Iraqis a month are coming home. They can't stay away. They have no rights in Jordan, Syria or Lebanon. They sleep in tents. They may not have anything to come home to, but they will try it."

"Is the decline in violence a trend?"

"Nobody is counting on it. It is more a truce. Until now, it has been everybody against everybody. Kurds, Shiia, Sunnis, Al Queda, the government, the Americans, the tribal leaders. Now the Sunnis and some of the Shia have broken ranks and are joining with the Americans to fight Al Queda and the terrorists. But it is simply a convenience. Nothing is being put forward that could make this last."

"What can we read that will give us accurate reporting on what is going on there on the ground?"

"I worked for Knight Ridder, now McClatchey. They are giving balanced reporting. I do press roundups for UPI. Go online, you can read the news yourself. McClatchey has Iraqi bloggers contributing."

"Have you read something called Iraqi Slogger? I find that fascinating."

"I'm not familiar with that."

The evening ended and everyone filed out quietly. This young independent woman gave us quite a window on what was going on. We hope for the best for her, and for everyone in the Middle East.

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