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Salam Pax interview

30 comments on Salam Pax interview

Salam Pax interview
: There’s an interview with Salam Pax, the Baghdad blogger, coming out in Austria tomorrow and I’ll give you an excerpt below.

But first…

I haven’t had anything to say on David Warren’s efforts to paint Salam Pax as a Baathist fellow traveler because it’s just so damned speculative and, thus, so potentially defamatory. Because we don’t know his name we don’t know (a) whether he really exists, but we all seem to accept that now, (b) whether he is really in Baghdad, though that seems to be accepted wisdom as well now, and (c) where he stood and stands in the pantheon of Iraqi politics — and no matter what the answer to (c) is, we also don’t know (d) the circumstances, extenuating or not, that put him there. If, as Warren speculates, he’s the son of someone powerful, that doesn’t negate what he has been reporting; it’s a circumstance. His actions, however, could have an impact on how we see him — but we don’t know a thing about what he has or has not done. We just don’t know enough.

It’s so utterly predictable these days: First, you become famous. Then they tear you down.

This is the Jarvis corallary to the Warhol rule:

The day will come when everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.

And 15 minutes later, you will be infamous.

I’ve been rereading this and I want to be clear: I’m not saying whether Warren was right or whether Warren was wrong, I’m only saying that we don’t know enough of the facts or the circumstances yet to judge.

Now, to the interview. In his blog, Salam Pax mentioned a former roommate in Austria who’s now a journalist and who interviewed him. That interview, written by Stefan Kaltenbrunner and Klaus Stimeder, is appearing in the Austrian newsmagazine Format. This comes to me via bloggers IT&W and Scott Hanson; blogger Jacqueline Godany put up an excerpt of the printed interview in German on her blog. My German is bad (though every time I do this and mess something up, my friend Thomas Nephew is nice enough to correct me) but here are a few points from Godony’s excerpt:

: Format: When your website suddenly became inaccessible, many feared for the life of “Salam Pax.” Now that the war is over, how’s it going for you?

: Salam Pax: It goes well. Recently, I’ve been working for an NGO called the Campaign for Innocent Civilian Victims (CICV). Sometimes my friend Raed and I translate for journalists. But mostly I don’t do much. I often simply wander through town, open my eyes, and watch the unbelievable things that happen in Baghdad today…

: Format: Are you in danger?

: Salam Pax: I believe at the moment that I’m not in direct danger for my life. But I can’t be a hundred percent certain. Therefore, I do not want my last name written or my photo printed.

: Format: How many people knew the identity of Salam Pax during the war?

: Salam Pax: In Iraq, only my brother and my friend Raed, who returned to Baghdad shortly before the war. Out of the country, only a couple of friends in Austria, where I’d studied, and in the USA…

: Format: In the West, you’re considered a star. There are already Salam Pax t-shirts and coffee mugs with your logo. Have you already gotten invitations for American talk shows?

: Salam Pax: T-shirts? What? How? Coffee mugs? Are you kidding? I have no idea what they’re talking about. Honestly, I know nothing about all that. I know second and third hand that my diary attracted a certain hype. But I haven’t received invitations to talk shows; up to now, fortunately, almost no one knows who I really am and where I live

: Format: Are you going abroad?

: Salam Pax: No. I want to stay here in any case. After everything we went through, we find ourselves at a turning point in Iraq and I want to be part of in that. It’s a cliffhanger time; there are no laws; everyone does what they want. Everyone expected a civil war, but now that’s not happening. Actually, the situation is much better than we imagined before the war… People who before the war sold tomatoes now suddenly offer satellite phones on the open street… One thing is sure: No one is relying on the Americans. No one expects

that they will do anything for us.

: Format: Will you continue your diary?

: Salam Pax: No matter what, I’ll continue with the diary. Perhaps I’ll change the tone. Since I started working for CIVIS, I’ve seen many terrible things… The worst is always the situation in the hospitals [check me: in den Spit

30 responses to “Salam Pax interview”

  1. MommaBear Avatar
    MommaBear

    Hopefully after publication, there will be an English translation available somewhere!

  2. button Avatar
    button

    Ditto!

  3. miguel Avatar
    miguel

    I’m also disinclined to believe the Salam-as-Baathist argument. I mean, it could be true. But that might not mean much. He was clearly from an upper class family, so perhaps they were Baathists in the way most member of the Soviet upper class were “party members”. But his opposition to Hussein seemed very genuine and not the kind of thing that would’ve been tolerated in pre-war Iraq. Lastly, it seems that the Salam-as-Baathist-propagandist argument relies primarily on the assumption that anyone who opposed Hussein would have necessarily welcomed a war. I don’t think that argument holds. While I supported the war, I can easily see how someone might be aprehensive – especially if they lived in Baghdad and expected a “shock and awe” campaing.

  4. mog Avatar
    mog

    Salam specifically stated in his blog that he wanted Saddam out but didn’t want a war. Considering where he likely lived, the bomb blasts were a block away on 4/11, he probably feared for his life. No one likes getting bombed. I’m not convinced he isn’t genuine. Maybe it was cause of his upper class family that he was allowed his blogging without inteference. He’s probably no more a Baathist than any of the celebrities in the U.S. that opposed the war but he had good reason not to want to be bombed.

  5. Matt McIrvin Avatar
    Matt McIrvin

    I used to call this the “backlash cycle.” You’d have your flash-in-the-pan story, then a backlash against it (and the first round of “are the media paying too much attention?” stories), then a backlash against the backlash, then your faint third-order backlash, and so on in dampening oscillations until the whole thing merged into historical memory or vanished entirely due to phase decoherence.
    The “Nancy Kerrigan: Victim, America’s Sweetheart, or Snotty Ingrate?” story was a particularly pure example.

  6. Stephen Avatar
    Stephen

    My first take on Salam Pax was that he was a brigth English kid having some fun. Still think so.

  7. Blogger's nightmare Avatar
    Blogger’s nightmare

    Huh? How does this post/interview indicate Warren’s wrong? Warren writes his opinion–with some better facts than I’ve seen elsewhere– on someone who has made himself (Pax) accessible and now David’s the culprit? The bad guy? Personally, I think he nailed Pax perfectly, the coyness, the access to Ba’athist privileges…and now an interview in pubbed in Vienna…please, this isn’t some ordinary guy, as he liked to paint himself in the beginning, before the grandeur of the world’s attention puffed his ego and he began to leak more info on his ‘real’ world. Anyone who twists Huntington’s words (check ’em) out of context to damn Western ideas ( oh, sorry, yeah, you’ve got some good ideas over there in Iraq, Salam. Or, should I say, in Germany? Vienna?)
    Now CIVIC…cloning Marc Herold. Oh, the horrors he’s seen. From where? Not from a soldier’s perspective. Not from a patriot’s either. He seemed to survive quite nicely. One of his horrors isn’t a body bag, like some coalition soldiers who fought to free his ass so he could run around and collect stories from people who did suffer. Hypocrite.

  8. Swopa Avatar
    Swopa

    Warren’s article is a hatchet job with provably false statements. For details, see here.
    Anyone who believes Warren’s garbage can’t have read Salam Pax’s weblog very closely. Salam obviously is not starving, but is not pro-Baathist, describes “going into rage-mode” whenever a taxi driver says things were less bad under Saddam, and criticizes fedayeen at length as “stupid f–cks.”

  9. Eric M Avatar
    Eric M

    I can’t believe you guys can judge a guy for being in a family. What would you do in his situation? Anything you could to survive and prosper. Deny it and be a liar to yourself.
    Who are any of you to judge? Really who are you.

  10. Scott Harris Avatar
    Scott Harris

    How many decades was a sole, totalitarian party in charge over there? I’d say the probability of anyone with a decent job and anything like a life in Iraq having Ba’athist connections is fairly high.
    I’ve been reading ‘Salam Pax’ for a long time. Long before the world discovered him (and it wasn’t the other way around). I’ve got an opinion about this current ‘Salam Pax’ thing, it ain’t pretty, and it has nothing to do with the author of ‘Salam Pax.’

  11. Jeff Jarvis Avatar
    Jeff Jarvis

    Eric:
    Precisely my point. I am not judging him. I don’t know him and don’t stand in a position to do so. That’s my problem with Warren’s piece.
    -jeff

  12. serenity Avatar
    serenity

    I agree, we don’t know who this person is and I’m still struggling with the notion that this really is someone living in Iraq. I’m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt in that instance but have pulled him off my blog roll. Is this judging? I guess you could find a way to make it sound like I am but I choose to err on the side of caution and know that if this person is legit, innocent of the accusations, he would understand. Secondly, he doesn’t know who I am so I doubt it will make much of an impact in his life. I hope that we all find out who this person is one day and I hope we all find out Warren is wrong.

  13. Swopa Avatar
    Swopa

    serenity, if only you were as skeptical of the accusations as you’ve apparently become of Salam Pax.
    I’d be interested in seeing if anyone can find quotes from Salam Pax’s weblog to support any — literally, any — of the claims in Warren’s article.
    Aside from one direct quote that is accurate (about Salam disliking Chalabi, not including Warren’s assertion as to the reason why), I’ve found very little that is supported by anything except Warren’s imagination. And as I’ve posted above, other claims are simply false.
    It’s that ugly of a smear campaign, and that dishonest. If anyone thinks I’m wrong, as I said, I invite them to post the proof here.

  14. Jeremy Avatar
    Jeremy

    To those who think Mr. Pax is being villified – why don’t you read all those reports about mass graves. It’s thanks to people like him supporting Saddam that those graves exist.
    Ugly a smear campaign? Not nearly as ugly as what’s in those graves.
    If he weren’t a Baathist, he wouldn’t have had the internet access. Period.

  15. Jeff V Avatar
    Jeff V

    I said it first and I still stand by it….the whole thing is a fake…I dont know why it keeps getting attention…the real war is the copyright war but nobody discusses that..just more about somebody playing a big hoax… and Jeff…you are taking the bait like a good liberal. Why dont you start a thread on what is happening in the world of copyright? Salem Pax is so old news…

  16. Swopa Avatar
    Swopa

    What’s the old Elvis Costello line? “Spend all your money getting so convinced, you never even bother to look”? The above two comments are perfect examples of that.
    Here’s what Salam posted on October 22, 2002, when Saddam Hussein emptied Iraq’s jails:
    the amnesty states that all political prisoners can go. so where is H. they said that this amnesty should leave no one in prison within 48 hours, so where is he. I want him to be at home safe. I can’t keep calling his brother only to hear that there is still no news.
    Which may be related to this post a month and a half later:
    You don

  17. Dave Avatar
    Dave

    I dunno what the fuss is about. Blogs are for the most part editorial. For me it’s like writing a letter to the editor that I know will get published. It’s not usualy intended to be an unbiased presentation of facts, but my opinion. SP didn’t solicit funds for any cause, isn’t asking for gigs on the talk show ciricuit, isn’t working towards a licensing deal on those coffee mugs (yet). The assertion that if his life wasn’t miserable his must have had political connections seems pretty narrow minded to me, maybee I’m too gullable. On the other hand, from some of his posts, it sounds like he had plenty of missery anyway. I wish him the best, and if he is some English schoolboy having a swell time, it hasn’t hurt me any. But my opinion is that he is genuine.

  18. jerry Avatar
    jerry

    Anyone that says *anything* against Chalabi is a f*ckin baathist, and that includes our state department, the CIA, Josh Marshall, Me and Spartacus.

  19. Thomas Nephew Avatar
    Thomas Nephew

    Jeff, great translation. Re “Spitaeler” my dictionary recommends “infirmary”. Which is a hospital or other place where infirm or sick people are lodged (had to look that up, too, wasn’t sure what the distinction was); maybe some of the wretched Iraqi veterans’ homes I’ve read about qualify.
    Given the Warren thing, possibly disingenuous, etc, I’ll raise one other detail: in the Godany transcription, he didn’t quite say “wide eyed”. I’d hyperliterally translate “Oft wandere ich einfach durch die Stadt, mache die Augen auf und sehe bei den unglaublichen Dingen zu, die heute in Bagdad passieren…. “ as:
    “I often simply wander through town, open my eyes, and watch the unbelievable things that happen in Baghdad today.”
    It’s in a conversational tone, so “keep my eyes open” would be OK too. That’s not much different, but sounds a little less, well, wide-eyed.

  20. button Avatar
    button

    I’m dying to read the translation of Stefan’s “interview” with him. So, Thomas, perhaps with your expertise, you will translate it for us?

  21. Eric M Avatar
    Eric M

    I don’t really see where Swopa, where you are going. If he is the son of a Baathist, is he a bad guy? Everybody in the middle class was a Baathist.
    Did you know the deBaathification effort took place, it is over, and it was a big success? Anybody who wanted to remain in the middle class had to sign a paper renouncing loyalty to the Baath party. Now back to work.
    This is the way these population reprogramming efforts happen, guys. Whitewash — but what else is there to do? This is what happened in Germany, Italy, the USSR. Sorry to rewrite the history of the 20th century for you.
    Oh also Warren is mad that he supported the Iraqi commies. Did it ever occur to Warren that the Iraqi commies were the only opposition to Saddam from the beginning? (Did it ever occur to Warren that the European commies and Asian commies were the only organized resistance to the Nazis and Imperial Japan?)
    I’d like to see moral goodness when I read righteous denunciations of Baathists following the regime. Except these denunciations come from people who conveniently find the US government, the media, and the biggest guys on their street 100% in agreement on the recent war. Somehow it’s hard to believe that the rah-rah temperment so natural to pro-war Americans wouldn’t find an equivalent place if the denouncers were all born Iraqis.

  22. vasili Avatar
    vasili

    thomas,
    as far as i know, spitaeler is the usual austrian word for “hospitals”. so i guess “infirmary” doesn’t fit.

  23. Swopa Avatar
    Swopa

    I’m in full agreement with you, Eric (and with your comment on my site) — I think Salam is the furthest thing from a “bad guy.” Perhaps you meant to address that comment to someone else?

  24. Novecento Avatar
    Novecento

    Salam Pax is according to date a student- architect with sporadic experience living in the western society and it’s democratic values.He has been working hard to his own career, he is still without a paying job, but helping his fellow men come to grib with the new situation and the dismanteld country’s regime and it’s dishounouring defeat. This easy us victory has been long cooked and planned for, regardless it’s outcome.
    Why is it that usa blog community is looking for tratory and disinformation from ABROAD while you are ALL belied and screwed by your own people EVERY DAY ??
    Let Salam be.., in peace.

  25. Novecento Avatar
    Novecento

    Oeps , wrong url.

  26. MommaBear Avatar
    MommaBear

    Does anyone have the URL for the full article in “Format”, now that Friday is almost past? That way, someone can go to work translating it for the rest of us who don’t read German. That would go a long way to filling in a few blanks.

  27. Jeff Jarvis Avatar
    Jeff Jarvis

    It doesn’t appear that the magazine is putting up the text; I’ve looked; if they do, I’ll translate it.

  28. MommaBear Avatar
    MommaBear

    Danke!

  29. mike Avatar
    mike

    where is the interview? it would be great if somebody will print it

  30. button Avatar
    button

    Stefan sent the piece to Paul Boutin who has posted it. Use the permalink before you click your Google-Translate This. Paul will get a better translation, he said, and post it later.