- Jan 10, 2002
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Salam Pax Is Real
How do I know Baghdad's famous blogger exists? He worked for me.
By Peter Maass
Posted Monday, June 2, 2003, at 2:05 PM PT
Baghdad was hectic when two blogging friends e-mailed me to suggest that I track down "Salam Pax." I had no idea who or what they were talking about. I could have handed over the job of sorting out this Salam Pax thing to my interpreter?he was a clever and funny Iraqi who never failed to provide what I needed, whether it was interviews or pizza?but I let it pass. I thought I had better things to do.
"Salam Pax" was the nom de blog of someone, apparently an Iraqi, who was writing from Baghdad before, during, and after the American invasion. His lively and acerbic blog was far better than the stuff pumped out by the army of foreign correspondents in the country. It became so popular that servers hosting it were overwhelmed. The vitality and fearlessness of Salam Pax's writing, as well as the mystery of who he was?Iraqi? CIA? Mukhabarat? Jayson Blair??led to stories by CNN, The New Yorker, and the Village Voice, among others, as well as a virtual felled forest of postings on war blogs and other sites: Instapundit mentioned him on two dozen occasions. Salam Pax was the Anne Frank of the war?I borrow that phrase from Nick Denton?and its Elvis.
While I was in Iraq, I was unaware of this. My slow-speed satellite phone all but precluded Web browsing, which meant the only non-Arabic media I was exposed to, from mid-March until just a few days ago, consisted of snatches of the BBC. The fascination and controversy over Salam Pax?when he stopped posting for a brief period, his Web fans worried he might have been arrested or gone into hiding?completely escaped me.
The day after I returned to New York, reunited with my cable modem, I checked out a friend's blog that linked to an Austrian interview with Salam Pax. I clicked to it. Salam Pax mentioned an NGO he had worked for, CIVIC, and this caught my attention. I knew the woman who was in charge of CIVIC; she stayed at my Baghdad hotel, the Hamra. Salam Pax mentioned that he had done some work for foreign journalists. We traveled in the same circles, apparently. He also mentioned that he had studied in Vienna. This really caught my attention, because I knew an Iraqi who had worked for CIVIC, hung out with foreign journalists, and studied in Vienna. I clicked over to his blog.
His latest post mentioned an afternoon he spent at the Hamra Hotel pool, reading a borrowed copy of The New Yorker. I laughed out loud. He then mentioned an escapade in which he helped deliver 24 pizzas to American soldiers. I howled. Salam Pax, the most famous and most mysterious blogger in the world, was my interpreter. The New Yorker he had been reading?mine. Poolside at the Hamra?with me. The 24 pizzas?we had taken them to a unit of 82nd Airborne soldiers I was writing about.
My inner journalist tells me to draw back at this moment and write about the larger significance of my encounter with Salam Pax. That working alongside?no, employing?a star of the World Wide Web and being blissfully unaware of it is a lesson about the murkiness of today's Iraq, a netherland of obscurity in which you cannot know who was a Baathist and who was not, or whether the man in the middle of the street with a gun is going to shoot you or not, or whether the country is spiraling out of control or just having teething problems before becoming a normal nation. My inner blogger, however, tells me to skip the What This Means stuff and write about my life with Salam Pax.
So let me tell you about my life with Salam Pax.
Click Link for rest of story
How do I know Baghdad's famous blogger exists? He worked for me.
By Peter Maass
Posted Monday, June 2, 2003, at 2:05 PM PT
Baghdad was hectic when two blogging friends e-mailed me to suggest that I track down "Salam Pax." I had no idea who or what they were talking about. I could have handed over the job of sorting out this Salam Pax thing to my interpreter?he was a clever and funny Iraqi who never failed to provide what I needed, whether it was interviews or pizza?but I let it pass. I thought I had better things to do.
"Salam Pax" was the nom de blog of someone, apparently an Iraqi, who was writing from Baghdad before, during, and after the American invasion. His lively and acerbic blog was far better than the stuff pumped out by the army of foreign correspondents in the country. It became so popular that servers hosting it were overwhelmed. The vitality and fearlessness of Salam Pax's writing, as well as the mystery of who he was?Iraqi? CIA? Mukhabarat? Jayson Blair??led to stories by CNN, The New Yorker, and the Village Voice, among others, as well as a virtual felled forest of postings on war blogs and other sites: Instapundit mentioned him on two dozen occasions. Salam Pax was the Anne Frank of the war?I borrow that phrase from Nick Denton?and its Elvis.
While I was in Iraq, I was unaware of this. My slow-speed satellite phone all but precluded Web browsing, which meant the only non-Arabic media I was exposed to, from mid-March until just a few days ago, consisted of snatches of the BBC. The fascination and controversy over Salam Pax?when he stopped posting for a brief period, his Web fans worried he might have been arrested or gone into hiding?completely escaped me.
The day after I returned to New York, reunited with my cable modem, I checked out a friend's blog that linked to an Austrian interview with Salam Pax. I clicked to it. Salam Pax mentioned an NGO he had worked for, CIVIC, and this caught my attention. I knew the woman who was in charge of CIVIC; she stayed at my Baghdad hotel, the Hamra. Salam Pax mentioned that he had done some work for foreign journalists. We traveled in the same circles, apparently. He also mentioned that he had studied in Vienna. This really caught my attention, because I knew an Iraqi who had worked for CIVIC, hung out with foreign journalists, and studied in Vienna. I clicked over to his blog.
His latest post mentioned an afternoon he spent at the Hamra Hotel pool, reading a borrowed copy of The New Yorker. I laughed out loud. He then mentioned an escapade in which he helped deliver 24 pizzas to American soldiers. I howled. Salam Pax, the most famous and most mysterious blogger in the world, was my interpreter. The New Yorker he had been reading?mine. Poolside at the Hamra?with me. The 24 pizzas?we had taken them to a unit of 82nd Airborne soldiers I was writing about.
My inner journalist tells me to draw back at this moment and write about the larger significance of my encounter with Salam Pax. That working alongside?no, employing?a star of the World Wide Web and being blissfully unaware of it is a lesson about the murkiness of today's Iraq, a netherland of obscurity in which you cannot know who was a Baathist and who was not, or whether the man in the middle of the street with a gun is going to shoot you or not, or whether the country is spiraling out of control or just having teething problems before becoming a normal nation. My inner blogger, however, tells me to skip the What This Means stuff and write about my life with Salam Pax.
So let me tell you about my life with Salam Pax.
Click Link for rest of story
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