Exchanging words at Baghdad book mart

By Greg Barrett
Gannett News Service

Shoppers examine old books and periodicals in a crowded open-air market in the Iraqi capital. Iraqis on the street offered only politeness to an American reporter. Gannett News Service

I have blondish hair and blue eyes, and I'm especially pale during the winter months. When I passed under the street lights to cross the road, the turning traffic slowed to let me pass.

I browsed alone among thousands of Iraqis at a book fair. A weekly event on Al-Mutanabi Street, it could have been a bazaar on any of the avenues in lower Manhattan or downtown Cairo.

In the clutch of shoppers and sellers, I couldn't avoid brushing up against people my country is ready to invade. I'd bump into them and nod my apologies. They'd nod back, often smiling.

I sat in a tea room on the far edge of the book fair. Its thinly-cushioned benches were so choked with customers that just to sit I had to wedge between two Iraqi men larger than me. Our friendly conversation was like grinding gears. Their English was broken and my Arabic nonexistent.

As I navigated the enemy's terrain, only one Iraqi man laid a hand on me. The incident occurred on Al-Mutanabi Street as I squeezed my way through the Arab masses to leave. He was middle-aged and wore a tweed jacket and neatly trimmed beard. I jerked reflexively when I felt his hand on my shoulder.

"The zipper, the zipper," he said in English, without smiling.

I looked confused.

"The zipper of your bag," he said.

My satchel had come halfway unzipped. Any deft pickpocket could have snatched my stash of Iraqi dinars, which have lost much of their value since the U.S.-led sanctions against Iran began 12 years ago.

Meanwhile, the United Nations oil-for-food program that White House officials hail as the humanitarian fix to the consequences of the economic embargo provides less than $200 annually for each Iraqi in food, medicine, infrastructure and such. Although Iraq can sell all the oil it desires, the money is doled out by the United Nations from an account with the Bank of Paris in New York — recalling parents rewarding children with an allowance.

Saddam's many palaces are built on oil sold on the black market. The Iraqis on Al-Mutanabi selling everything from Agatha Christie novels to "Saddam Hussein on Current Events in Iraq" to outdated copies of Esquire and Vogue don't see that money.

The average income here is roughly $3 a month, and Iraq's middle class is impoverished. Many civil servants and teachers work two and three jobs. Fathers have been seen selling — literally — the kitchen sink.

Since arriving in Iraq last week, I have been served hot tea numerous times by a reed of a man who once was a professional ballet dancer. And I was ferried from Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad by a civil engineer who can earn more in an SUV than he can in an office.

But none of that is why I hesitated when an Iraqi man selling outdated English-language textbooks asked the question I dread when traveling in the Middle East.

"What nationality?" he asked.

I nodded and said nothing, hoping he would think I didn't understand his thick accent.

"What nationality?" he asked twice more, polite but insistent.

I wanted to say Canadian, or fake an Irish accent. I put a hand over my heart, a gesture of friendship and apology, and gave the abbreviated truth.

"U.S."

"U.S.?" he asked, puzzled. "U.S.?"

"America," I blurted. "I'm from America."

It's the nation deploying more than 100,000 troops near your borders and boasting that once it begins bombing, there will be no place in Baghdad to hide. The nation that dropped 80,000 tons of bombs on you in 1991. The nation that promises to drop many more this time. The nation that obliterated your electrical plants and crippled your water-treatment capability even after it predicted the ensuing epidemic of death and disease.

Of course, I volunteered none of this. The man seemed to detect my anxiety. He smiled broadly.

"Very good," he said kindly, an Iraqi trying to ease my discomfort.

GNS correspondent Greg Barrett, a former Advertiser reporter, is traveling in Iraq with peace activists.