Salam Pax: The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi [Paperback]

Salam Pax (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2003

Salam Pax has attracted a huge worldwide readership for the Internet diary he kept during the buildup, prosecution, and aftermath of the war in Iraq. Bringing his incisive and sharply funny Web postings together in print for the first time, Salam Pax provides one of the most gripping accounts of the Iraq conflict and will be the subject of global media attention. In September 2002, twenty-nine-year-old Iraqi architect calling himself "Salam Pax" began posting daily accounts of everyday life in Baghdad onto the Internet. Salam daily risked retribution from Saddam's regime, as more than 200,000 people went missing under Saddam, many for far lesser crimes than the open criticism of the regime that Salam voiced in his diary. Salam Pax's sharp, candid, and often dryly funny articles soon attracted a worldwide readership. In the months that followed, as a huge American-led force gathered to destroy Saddam's hated regime, Salam's Internet diary became a unique record of the anticipation, anger, resentment, humor, and sheer terror felt by an ordinary man living through the final days of Saddam Hussein's twenty-five-year dictatorship, and the aftermath of its destruction.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Salam Pax, a pseudonym, currently lives in Baghdad and writes a weekly syndicated column for London's The Guardian newspaper.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Sunday, March 09, 2003 ::

A BBC reporter walking thru the Mutanabi Friday book market (again) ends his report with : 'It looks like Iraqis are putting on an air of normality'

Look, what are you supposed to do then? Run around in the streets wailing? War is at the door eeeeeeeeeeeee! Besides, this 'normality' doesn’t go very deep. Almost everything is more expensive than it was a couple of months ago, people are digging wells in their gardens, on the radio yesterday after playing a million songs from the time of the war with Iran (these are like cartoon theme songs for people my age, we know them all by heart) they read out instructions on how to make a trench and prepare for war, that is after president saddam advised Iraqis to make these trenches in their gardens.

Other normal stuff we did this week:

* Finished taping all the windows in the house, actually a very relaxing exercise if you forget why you are doing it in the first place.

* installed a manual pump on the well we have dug because up till now we had an electrical pump on it.

* bought 60 liters of gasoline to run the small electricity generator we have, bought two nifty kerosene cookers and stocked loads of kerosene and dug holes in the garden to bury the stuff so that the house doesn’t turn into a bomb.

* prepared one room for emergency nasty attacks and bought 'particle masks'-that’s what it says on the box-for use if they light those oil trenches, the masks just might stop our lungs from becoming tar pits. They are very hot items since the word on the trenches spread, you can buy one for 250 Dinars and they are selling faster than the hot cakes of bab-al-agha.

* got two rooms in our house ready to welcome our first IDPs-internally displaced persons-my youngest aunt who is a single mom with three kids because she lives farthest away from the rest of us and another aunt from Karbala in the south. Hotel Pax is officially open for the season, no need to make reservations but you might need to bring a mattress if you come too late.

:: salam 6:43 PM [+]

From Dear Raed Archive

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (October 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802140440
• ISBN-13: 978-0802140449
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,288,988 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars SHEER CHUTZPAH AND UNSHACKLED CANDOUR FROM A BEDROOM, November 9, 2003

By 

Shashank Tripathi (Gadabout) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Salam Pax: The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi (Paperback)

Blogging is all well and good, but Mr. Pax had a sure-shot sword dangling over his neck if his cloak-and-dagger reportage of Iraq was discovered. With that in mind, it is a marvel enough that this book is in publication.

Armed with an Internet connection and a blogger account, Pax leaves no stone unturned in the unabashed description of the attitude of his friends and family towards the US, but also to Saddam Hussein's Baathist dictatorship. The dominant theme of his caustic blog is a deep mistrust of American motives, and the text veritably seers with subdued anger, but Pax's skepticism is informed by a tenacious Iraqi nationalism.

Like many people potentially affected by wars, I devour a lot of news sources, including political blogs (some more informative than others) but it is usually difficult to see a clear perspective of the people who are physically on the receiving end of enemy scuds unless you live, breathe and sleep in the context of that news.

Pax has done a pretty fascinating job of organizing his book, it is eye-opening! For instance, one big anomaly in global news coverage from CNN/Fox/etc lies in introducing Iraq as this hapless nation fragmented by a bevy of races and religions. Yet Pax strongly argues that following recent protracted hostilities with Iran and Kuwait, Iraq itself has been boasting a very strong nationalistic fabric. I wonder how this glaring reality can escape international scribes?

If only the decision-makers in London and Washington take the time to consult the voice of the people (such as Pax's) before waging full-scale wars, their understanding about the country they are now scampering to control can perhaps be greatly helped.

I highly commend Mr. Pax on his efforts, and wish the best to his book, blog and other activism endeavours. If this thought-provoking, entertaining, and occasionally even infuriating compilation of his blog entries is anything to go by, I surely will be reading more of him!

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars not a baathist, January 28, 2005

By 

reader "reader" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Salam Pax: The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi (Paperback)

obviously the individual who wrote a previous review on Pax's baathist links is the type of moron who skips over a books introduction... please take the time to read this excerpt:
"...Those who thought his blog was unduly critical of Iraq's `liberators' made dark insinuations about his parents'
Baathist connections. Eventually Salam blew his top, advising
his detractors to `go play Agatha Christie somewhere else.' His
mother, he said, had been a sociologist at the Ministry of
Education, but had given up her job when she was told she could
not make progress in her career without becoming a Party member.
His father had been an eminent economist, but had made a similar
decision when faced with the same choice. `You are being disrespectful to the people who have put the first copy of George
Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four in my hands . . . go fling the rubbish at someone else.'
In fact, the conspiracy theorists' preoccupation with his family's supposed regime connections misses one of the most compelling attributes of Salam's diaries: he directs his vitriol in all directions. In the last days of the war he managed to describe the Fedayeen, the Baathist loyalists mounting a guerilla defence of Baghdad in the space of two paragraphs as `sickos', `chicken s**t' and `creepy f**s'. If he has been less than reverential about Iraq's occupiers,
he has been harder still on their Iraqi critics..."

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Peace, please. And Salam for president!, February 3, 2004

By 

Raisin Mountaineer "raisinmountaineer" (Flagstaff, AZ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Salam Pax: The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi (Paperback)

I've been reading Salam's blog since before the war started, and continue to do so-- he is certainly no "ordinary Iraqi"-- His written English is better than 99% of Americans, his knowledge of Western popular culture is mind-boggling, and his snide digs at posturing of all kinds is world class. His genius brings us the gift of perspective and complexity in a situation reduced by American television to sound bytes and simple images.

Salam shares not only his political views but his opinions on music, pop culture and the absurdities of life in general, with the result that I now have someone in Iraq who I connect with intellectually and emotionally, who I worry about, think of, pray for. Not an American soldier (bless them too), but a citizen of Iraq who wishes for both peace and freedom, and who is deeply ambivalent about what is happening there.

Salam proves the saying that the "pen is mightier than the sword." No "ordinary Iraqi," indeed, but an extraordinary world citizen writing us missives from a surreal position.

Write on, Salam. And be safe.