To Roxana Saberi, Iranian with an American passport
If I kept quiet until now, it was for her sake. If today I speak, it is for her sake.
She is my friend, my fiancée, and my companion. An intelligent and talented young woman, whom I have always admired.
It was the 31st of January. The day of my birthday. That morning, she called to say she would pick me up so we would go out together. She never came. I called on her mobile, but it was off, and for two-three days I had no idea what had happened to her. I went to her apartment, and since we had each other’s keys, I went in, but she wasn’t there. Two days later, she called and said: “Forgive me my dear, I had to go to Zahedan.” I got angry: why hadn’t she said anything to me? I told her I didn’t believe her, and again she said: “Forgive me my dear, I had to go.” And the line was cut. I waited for her to call back. But she didn’t call back. She didn’t call back.
“On Tuesday a prominent Iranian filmmaker, Bahman Ghobadi, published an open letter calling for the release of the Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, who was convicted last week of espionage by a court in Iran, and revealed that they are engaged to be married.” [Via the NYT Lede blog].
Filed under: Media , Bahman Ghobadi, Iran, jailed journalist, Roxana Saberi
A recent story of mine that ran on the newly launched Wunderkammer Magazine in New York.
They lived well in Baghdad; their eldest daughter had two cars. Six years later, the Iraqi couple moves their mattresses out of the bedroom each night to sleep on the living room floor. The only bedroom is left for their daughters while they live in this concrete refugee suburb of Damascus.
It was Friday and quiet on the balcony above the street. The fried fish lunch was over and the mother was reading fortunes in the bottom of coffee cups. The father skulked past the couch and flashed his pack of cigarettes. He didn’t smoke before the war. He was a chain-smoker by the time he arrived in Damascus. He shrugged when his wife explained his new habit—“he’s always with a cigarette, always, but he never smoked before.” She brought her index and middle finger to her mouth and mimed puff after puff.
Read the rest here.
Filed under: Iraq, Syria, Writing , chess, Damascus, Iraqi refugees, Wunderkammer
I recently clocked 2000 kilometers around Syria, in a counterclockwise loop to Deir az-Zur and south to the Seleucid and Sumerian ruins, respectively, of Dura Europos and Mari on Euphrates hugging the border with Iraq; to the Kurdish north of the town of al-Hassakeh where we pushed our way into a Palm Sunday service at the local Syriac Orthodox church; west to Rasafa, an ancient desert city where they once worshipped St. Sergius, and the north of that Lake Assad, made from a massive dam on the Euphrates; to the so-called Dead Cities (abandoned Byzantine towns, sunbleached well-preserved rural architecture) that spread south and west of Aleppo; to an accidental visit to the shrine of Job on a nearby mountain near Serjilla and al-Bara; through the fertile Ghab valley, where we bought olive oil and were invited by the local Imam to stay for the night; to Apamea, a metropolis of antiquity that is today lots of columns in a green field; to the unturning waterwheels and stagnant water in Hama; and finally Crac de Chevaliers, lionized by TE Lawrence, which we remembered more for the brusk man at the cafe nearby whose greeting — “what do you want?” — told us we were nearing Damascus.
More stories to come, expanded, and pictures too.
Filed under: Syria, Writing , 2000 kilometers, road trip
That Syrian nuclear plant bombed by Israel last year was probably built with American money. Seymour Hersh quoted emails from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for the New Yorker. It was a strange news week. On the latter, much of Hersh’s piece was full of the usual quotes from connected sources, though there wasn’t a huge amount of revelation. The best part, in my mind, combined substance with discrete Syrian charms:
Farouk al-Shara, the Vice-President of Syria, was, as Foreign Minister, his nation’s chief negotiator at Shepherdstown. When he was asked whether Syria’s relationship with Iran would change if the Golan Heights issue was resolved, he said, “Do you think a man only goes to bed with a woman he deeply loves?” Shara laughed, and added, “That’s my answer to your question about Iran.”
Filed under: America, Media, Syria , e-mail, New Yorker, nuclear program, Seymour Hersh, Wall Street Journal
