- Paperback: 384 pages
- Publisher: The Armchair Traveller at the bookHaus (16 Nov 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1844370631
- ISBN-13: 978-1844370634
- Product Dimensions: 22.4 x 14.8 x 1.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,268,526 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
When Hadani Ditmars first went to Iraq in 1997 for the New York Times, she was shocked at what she saw. Six years of the worst sanctions ever inflicted on a modern nation had brought the people to their knees. Yet there was so much more to the "cradle of civilization" than misery and suffering. In the midst of despair she found art, beauty, architecture, music. She discovered orchestras who played impassioned symphonies on wrecked instruments, playwrights who pushed the limits of censorship, artists who spent their last dinars on paint and canvas, families who still celebrated weddings by dancing to makam--traditional love songs. Ditmars travelled to Iraq again and again, reporting on every aspect of life. In September 2003, she returned to Baghdad to find the people she had met over the years and see what had become of them since the U.S. "liberation." Dancing In The No-Fly Zone is the story of that trip, interwoven with tales from her earlier visits and of the people she met along the way: actors and artists, mercenaries and businessmen, street kids and sufis, even the "king in waiting." It includes a visit to Abu Ghraib prison, in which Ditmars is given a tour of the Saddam-era execution chamber by the U.S.general who was later dismissed after the abuse scandal broke. As the situation worsens and the violence intensifies, Ditmars spends a miraculous evening with a group of Iraqis who sing and dance along to a performance of makam. A people who have suffered so much yet maintain such resilience deserve to have the full depth of their humanity portrayed. Hadani Ditmars captures this spirit in Dancing in the No-Fly Zone. As Iraq continues to weather violent occupation, theocratic thuggism and civil strife, Ditmarsí book serves as an eerily prescient tribute to a culture and a people at the breaking point. Hadani Ditmars is an international journalist based in Canada whose work has been published in The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Independent, The Globe and Mail, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, and broadcast on the BBC and CBC radio and television. Her Ms. Magazine essay on Iraqi women has been adopted for many university courses. She has been reporting from the Middle East since 1992 and has been on assignment to Iraq six times since 1997. Ditmars, an independent reporter whose mixed European and Middle Eastern ancestry often allowed her to pass as an Iraqi, dared to traverse the distance that separates most Western journalists from their subjects, traveling between two cultural worlds in sometimes dangerous and revealing ways. Unlike her male colleagues, her gender also allowed her a connection with Iraqi women, whose struggle she continues to voice.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Different views on this side of the pond,
By
This review is from: Dancing in the No-Fly Zone: A Woman's Journey Through Iraq (Paperback)
It's interesting to note that Michael Rubin the so-called "customer reviewer" is actually part of Daniel Pipes neo con think tank and is employed by the Lincoln Group - the PR firm hired by the Bush administration to create "good news stories" about Iraq.
While Boyd Tonkin, literary editor of the Independent said that Dancing in the No Fly Zone "touches places in the nation's soul the horror headlines never reach" http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/reviews/article344364.ece and Paul William Roberts calls the book "remarkable" and "written with elegance, wisdom and compassionate humour" http://www.paulwmroberts.com/FOOTLOOSE.htm- Rubin seems to have merely scanned the book looking for phrases he could twist to fit his own right wing agenda. The scare mongering tactic of labelling anyone who writes about the terrible reality of everyday life for Iraqis as an evil "Saddamist" is not a new one - it was used by the right during the Saddam era whenever anyone spoke out against the civilian suffering caused by the blunt instrument of sanctions - rather counter intuitively since the sanctions and the power of the state issued ration card dramatically reduced dissent and in fact entrenched Saddam's power. The situation now in Iraq is way beyond simplistic with us or against us mentalities, and the beauty of this book is that it sees through the rhetoric on both sides to show the soul of a nation under siege. If you care about Iraq and its long suffering people, read this book.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dancing in the No Fly Zone a Triumph,
By
This review is from: Dancing in the No-Fly Zone: A Woman's Journey Through Iraq (Paperback)
The critically acclaimed Dancing in the No Fly Zone is a rare and wonderful book that allows readers unfamiliar with the country an intimate view of the society, culture and humanity of Iraq. For readers familiar with the long suffering nation it is a paen to the former cradle of civilization, now engulfed by barbarism, occupation and chaos.
While Boyd Tonkin, literary editor of the London Independent said that Dancing in the No Fly Zone "touches places in the nation's soul the horror headlines never reach" Harper's contributor Paul William Roberts calls the book "remarkable" and "written with elegance, wisdom and compassionate humour" In the book we learn that Ditmars herself had been blacklisted by Saddam's regime for writing stories critical of that regime, was expelled at one point by Saddam's Ministry of Information for the same reason, and that the book includes interviews with a broad range of Iraqis, many of whom hated Saddam and his regime, but many of whom also decry the terrible state of things post invasion. (as do others, for example, like the UN!) The situation now in Iraq is way beyond simplistic with us or against us mentalities, and the beauty of this book is that it sees through the rhetoric on both sides to show the soul of a nation under siege. If you care about Iraq and its long suffering people, read this book.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A book about the real people of Iraq,
By
This review is from: Dancing in the No-Fly Zone: A Woman's Journey Through Iraq (Paperback)
This is a fine book. Ditmars took me on a tour of her experiences as a Canadian journalist, culling on 7 years of assignments in Iraq. With the exception of the front page of today's Oregonian, "Life and Death in Baghdad", I have seen nothing else in my reading of the news, and my favorite magazines, that comes close to showing how the everyday life of Iraqis is affected by the occupation, and previous sanctions. Everywhere else I see journalists dealing in abstractions, without a shred of cultural understanding and true compassion. With courage and aplomb,the author is able to use a variety of connections and disguises to connect with artists, musicians, intellectuals, laborers, prison keepers, health care givers, a suspected undercover agent, and even a "king in waiting". She is sensitive also to the women and children of Iraq, in these very trying times. We need more good books and reports about life on the ground in that distressed country.
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