Farnaz Fassihi is an
Iranian-American journalist and The Wall Street Journal's deputy bureau
chief for the Middle East and Africa. She was a war correspondent in the Middle
East from 2002 until 2006. While many reporters were covering the political
aspects of war, Farnaz Fassihi captured the ordinary life of Iraqi people,
writing about their lives and their suffering in her memoir titled “Waiting for
an Ordinary Day: The Unraveling of Life in Iraq”.
In an interview with
Sara Sarnaz, Fassihi talked about her personal journey and life in the
post-occupation Iraq.
Sara Sarnaz: Thanks for having this
interview, please tell us about yourself. How did you become a journalist?
Farnaz Fassihi: I was born in the United States to Iranian
parents and grew up both in Tehran, Iran and Portland, Oregon. My family left
Iran after the Iran-Iraq war when I was ten years old and then returned again
when the war ended. I decided to follow them back to Iran out of curiosity and
yearning to be with all my relatives again. In my freshmen year in college, in
Tehran, I stumbled into journalism by becoming a translator for an American
journalist visiting Iran. I was hooked. I loved how journalism allowed me a
pass into people's lives and a chance to get under the society's skin. One day
I could be interviewing a president and the next day talking to a refugee in a
camp. There is serendipity and adventure and more importantly, the gratifying
sense that what you do matters. I also always loved writing and so the creative
aspect of the craft appealed to me. I moved to New York after college and
attended Columbia University's graduate School of Journalism. I worked for
several years as a free-lancer and then a local news reporter for American
daily newspapers such as The New York Times, The Providence Journal in
Rhode-Island and The Star-Ledger in Newark, New Jersey.
I
must say that my career completely changed after Sept.11, 2001. I went to cover
the war in Afghanistan and then never really came back home, I went from one
war zone to the next traveling all over the Middle East. I joined
The Wall Street Journal in January 2003 and was immediately dispatched to Iraq
to cover the pending war.
My
dream was always to become a foreign correspondent and cover the Middle
East. Unfortunately, covering the Middle East also means covering wars. I
also think my personal history has something to do with my attraction to
wars. My life was turned upside down as a child in Iran during the
revolution and the war, we left our home and my family became immigrants.
So I've always wanted to make sense of conflicts and tell the stories of
people caught in the midst.
SS:
For Iranian families, it’s usually very
hard to send their daughter to a battleground. You have covered three wars. How
did you manage to become a war correspondent? How did your family react to your
decision?
FF: On
Sept.11th, 2001, I was a few blocks away from the World Trade Center towers
when they collapsed, I was running toward the towers along with firefighters
and policemen when it came crumbling down and thick black smoke and a sea of
debris surrounded us. I thought I was going to die but when the smoke cleared,
instead of running the opposite direction, I ran back toward the destruction.
I couldn't even imagine otherwise. I was there to tell the story and
I had to do it, no matter the risk or difficulty. I spent two
weeks at ground zero in New York and then begged my editors to send
me to Afghanistan to cover the war. Why did I want to go? Because it was the
biggest story of my generation and I wanted to see it for myself and
witness history in the making. I wanted to tell the story of what was happening
on the ground. I think war correspondents are driven by something much deeper
than ambition or adventure. War reportage is not for every one. You have to
have a real passion and a sense of mission. Because you not only witness
horrendous things but you are constantly risking your life and well-being and
living in very primitive conditions, often without clean water, electricity and
sometimes even food.
As
for how my Iranian family reacted, you can only imagine. My mother cried for
two days straight and commissioned every relative from around the world to call
and talk me out of going. I've been covering wars now for seven years, I know
it has taken a heavy toll on my family and I'm hugely indebted to
them for their support despite all the anxiety. Eventually, however, they
came around to accepting and understanding what I do and why I do it.
SS: You spent your childhood and parts of your
adulthood in Iran. What do you think about the mental and social effects of the
Iran-Iraq war on people especially youth? Do you think people’s ordinary lives
are still affected by those 8 years or has “the genie of chaos been put back
into bottle”?
FF:
Of course, war scars people but I think Iranians have had an easier
time healing to some degree. The Iran-Iraq war, as horrible and long as it
was, was not on the same scale as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Tehran and
most other cities, with the exception of those near the Iraqi border, were
pretty untouched by the war and our foe was not the world's military
superpower. We also didn't have the phenomena of terrorism, civil war and
guerrilla warfare plaguing both Iraq and Afghanistan.
SS:
What made you sympathize with ordinary
people? Many Western reporters cover the war in detail, but there are very few
correspondents who portray the lives of ordinary people. What made you see the
war from a different angle?
FF:
Because I believe that war happens to people, not just to the military and the
government. It's the people who have to burden the grunt of the war and their
lives are forever changed. I was lucky to be able to focus much of my
coverage in Iraq on the story of the Iraqi people, it gave me more satisfaction
than writing about policy and military. Although I had to do plenty of those
stories too. The reason I wrote this book was because I felt much of the
conversation surrounding Iraq was about military or policy strategies and
the story of what happened to the Iraqis was missing. As for whether being
Iranian changed my perspective, I'm sure it did. I had witnessed war at the age
of eight in the country next door, so I felt a personal connection to Iraqis
and sympathized with what they were going through.
SS: There's a chapter in
your book in which you talk about a seven-year-old who is afraid to go to
school and he wants the teacher to think that he has been kidnapped by
insurgents. How would you analyze the psychological effects of war on the next generation?
|
FF: The
psychological traumas of this war are only beginning to surface and we will see
more devastating signs in the years to come. I think any one who has spent time
on the ground in Iraq--whether you are a solider, a journalist,
diplomat or an aid-worker-- will carry deep emotional wounds. Trauma often
surfaces long after an experience has ended. For example, when I was on
assignment in Iraq I felt like I was in a mechanical survival mode and only
when I would leave for breaks, would the emotions catch up with me. There is
now an entire generation of Iraqis who has seen nothing but war and misery,
from the Iran-Iraq war, the Gulf war, decades of sanctions and now the ongoing
war with the US. This will make it much harder for Iraqis to stand up and
take control of their destinies, to rebuild their country and recover from
their wounds. Every one I knew in Baghdad was taking medication for anxiety,
depression and insomnia. Plus, most of the educated professionals like doctors,
teachers, professors have fled Iraq.
SS: As a little kid, you experienced the
horror of war in Iran. You heard Iraqi planes bombing Tehran. How did it feel
to be on the other side of the border? Did it affect your personal
perception of Iraq and Iraqis?
FF:
It was very bizarre. I went to Iraq for the first time in October
2002 when Saddam Hussein was still in power and I remember how
strange it felt to see his pictures on all the walls and his statue every
where. When my driver pointed out commemoration sites and statues honoring
the Iraqi martyrs of the war, I was speechless. It was
surreal, like being on the other side of a mirror. At first I was
worried that Iraqis would react negatively to my Iranian heritage but I was
surprised to see it was the opposite. They always wanted to focus on the bonds
between the two countries and would always go out of their way to say the war
was between the governments and not the people. They didn't see me as an
American reporter from a privileged far away land. I was from next
door, I still had family in Iran and understood in a very
tangible way how people suffered from wars, sanctions and political
upheaval.
SS: Do you think that the
US has been successful in building a new nation and in bringing democracy to
Iraq? If yes, was it worth the chaos, horror and death of thousands and
thousands of Iraqis?
FF: No, I do not believe the US has been successful
in bringing democracy to Iraq and I think invading Iraq was a big mistake. The
United States' role in Iraq has constantly changed as the realities of the war
have changed. First they invaded Iraq to bring democracy, when that failed and
chaos ruled, they defined their mission as fighting terrorism and when that
failed too and civil war broke out between Sunnis and Shiites, the US's mission
was to act as a buffer zone between the rivaling sects. What are
American soldiers doing now in Iraq? They are holding the country
together. Is that why they went in there? Furthermore, it was shocking to
discover that the US had no plans for post-invasion Iraq and made up the rules
as they went along, creating a security and political vacuum that gave rise to
political Islam, insecurity and mayhem.
SS: Some Iranians, in Iran
and abroad believed that in terms of foreign policy, John McCain would make a
better president than Barack Obama because he is tough with Iran and he was
likely to launch a military attack on Iran. As an Iranian journalist who has
witnessed and covered the war closely, what are your thoughts about a possible
military attack on Iran.
FF: I
think any person who thinks war is the answer or the solution to their
political problems is deeply misinformed and misguided. I would recommend
that they read my book and other books about Iraq and discover what really
happened to the Iraqi people as a result of the American invasion. War is
brutal and unforgivable. It's dark and horrid. It destroys every thing it
touches. No one should ever wish for war. Can Iranians or
Americans imagine waking up to several car bombs and assassinations every day?
Can they imagine not knowing if their kids would return alive from school? Can
they imagine their spouses disappearing on their way to work? Can they imagine
not having electricity for more than two hours a day? Or clean water? Or
security blast walls surrounding their homes and checkpoints at every
intersection? Can they imagine this situation lasting five years? And at last,
can they imagine a quarter of the country's population being refugees in
neighboring countries living in a miserable state-less limbo?
SS: Bob Woodwards
conducted over 150 administration interviews (including Pres. Bush), for his
book 'The War Within'. In it he argues that the Troop Surge is not the primary
factor for the reduction in violence. Could you give us your thoughts on this?
FF: Yes,
that is correct. The improvement of security can be attributed to three
factors—surge of troops, the Sunni Awakening Councils and the ceasefire with
Moqtada Sadr's Mahdi army militia. While things have calmed down, these three
factors are not long-term political or military solutions that can stabilize
Iraq; security still remains fragile, as do the deals with the Sunni and
Shiites militia. The Sunnis, former insurgents, are currently on the payroll of
the American army, receiving $300 monthly salary for their cooperation. In
exchange, they haves asked to be incorporated into Iraq's armed forces, which
is controlled by Shiites. So far the Shiites-dominated government has refused
to do this, so a big question mark hangs in the air. What will happen
after the American soldiers leave? After they stop paying the Sunnis? And after
the Shiites don't give Sunnis positions in the armed forces? Will they start
fighting? And if they do, will the Shiites militias fight back? So you can see
that if you take any one component out of the equation, Iraq could unravel
again.
SS:
How do you think the society in Iraq has
changed since the fall of Saddam Hussein?
FF: Society has been battered and torn apart. It has
become significantly more religious and the divisions between the various sects
and ethnic groups—Shiites, Sunnis, Arabs, Kurds—have become much more
pronounced. Each group has retreated into its own cocoon, Baghdad and most
other big cities are now segregated along sectarian lines because people fear
one another. Once trust has been violated at this level, it's very difficult to
restore it.
