Riverbend (blogger)

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This article is about a blog writer. For the music festival in Chattanooga, Tennessee, see Riverbend Festival.

Riverbend is the pseudonymous author of the blog Baghdad Burning, launched August 17, 2003. Riverbend's identity is carefully hidden, but the weblog entries suggest that Riverbend is a young, unmarried Iraqi woman, from a mixed Shia and Sunni family, living with her parents and brother in Baghdad. Before the United States occupation of Iraq she was a computer programmer. She writes in an idiomatic English which appears to reflect a Western education. The blog combines political statements with a large dose of Iraqi cultural information, such as the celebration of Ramadhan and examples of Iraqi cuisine. In March 2006, her website received the Bloggie award for Best Middle East and Africa blog.

Her weblog entries were first collected and published as Baghdad Burning, ISBN 978-1-55861-489-5 (with a foreword by investigative journalist James Ridgeway)^[1], and Baghdad Burning II, ISBN 978-1-55861-529-8, (also with an introduction by James Ridgeway and Jean Casella)^[2]. They have since been translated and published in numerous countries and languages. In 2005, the book, Baghdad Burning, won third place for the Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage and in 2006 it was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize.^[3]

Baghdad Burning has also been made into several dramatic plays, mostly produced in New York City. BBC Radio 4 broadcasted a five-episode dramatisation of her blog, "Baghdad Burning", on the "Woman's Hour" Serial, on each day from the 18th of December, 2006 until the 22nd of December, 2006.

[edit] Quotes

"Riverbend is a thoughtful writer whose articulate, even poetic, prose packs an emotional punch while exhibiting a journalist's eye for detail." - Jason Zineman, New York Times.

"It's amazing how as things get worse, you begin to require less and less. We have a saying for that in Iraq, 'Ili yishoof il mawt, yirdha bil iskhooneh.' Which means, 'If you see death, you settle for a fever.' We've given up on democracy, security and even electricity. Just bring back the water." -Riverbend

"The weapons never existed. It's like having a loved one sentenced to death for a crime they didn't commit- having your country burned and bombed beyond recognition, almost. Then, after two years of grieving for the lost people, and mourning the lost sovereignty, we're told we were innocent of harboring those weapons. We were never a threat to America...

"Congratulations Bush- we are a threat now." -Riverbend

"Why don't the Americans just go home? They've done enough damage and we hear talk of how things will fall apart in Iraq if they 'cut and run', but the fact is that they aren't doing anything right now. How much worse can it get? People are being killed in the streets and in their own homes- what's being done about it? Nothing. It's convenient for them- Iraqis can kill each other and they can sit by and watch the bloodshed- unless they want to join in with murder and rape." -Riverbend

" Nearly four years ago, I cringed every time I heard about the death of an American soldier. They were occupiers, but they were humans also and the knowledge that they were being killed in my country gave me sleepless nights. Never mind they crossed oceans to attack the country, I actually felt for them. Had I not chronicled those feelings of agitation in this very blog, I wouldn't believe them now. Today, they simply represent numbers. 3000 Americans dead over nearly four years? Really? That's the number of dead Iraqis in less than a month. The Americans had families? Too bad. So do we. So do the corpses in the streets and the ones waiting for identification in the morgue. Is the American soldier that died today in Anbar more important than a cousin I have who was shot last month on the night of his engagement to a woman he's wanted to marry for the last six years? I don't think so. " -Riverbend , December 29, 2006.