For those who have not yet come across her writing on the internet, Riverbend is a female blogger living in Iraq, perhaps its most prominent and certainly one of its most well respected. The entries she has posted to her blog, Baghdad Burning have won her praise for her intelligence, passion and eloquence. She posts about events in her daily life, politics and the consequences of the US led occupation in a clear and compelling prose that can be startling beautiful, even when its subject is as sorrowful as her grief for the death of a friend. Her blog entries have been collected into the book, Baghdad Burning, Girl Blog from Iraq, and have formed the basis for a theatrical production by the Six Figures Theatre Company in New York.
Riverbend has rarely, if ever, posted daily entries to her blog, often lamenting that the available electrical power in Baghdad made it difficult for her to do so on anything other than an intermittent basis. Still, it has been almost two months since her last post on August 5th, and the more time that passes without word from her, the more I fear for her life. With the ever increasing levels of violence in Baghdad, where thousands die each month at the hands of murderous death squads, car bombs and open gun battles between rival militias and gangs, my fear is that Riverbend may have become another Iraqi victim of George Bush’s misbegotten Freedom Agenda.
We do know this:
That she has been outspoken in her condemnation of religious fanaticism in Iraq in a time when armed thugs roam Baghdad streets enforcing their restrictive vision of what is and is not appropriate regarding proper female behavior and dress. That she is a Sunni in a place where Shi’ite death squads and militias hold sway over large areas of Baghdad. And that her writings are well known and well regarded by her international readers, in large part because she tells the truth our own government tries so hard to keep from us. These are all factors which cause me to worry for her safety. The anonymity of the web is no shield against bullets, bombs or people determined to kill you based on your faith, ethnicity, gender or politics.
Let’s hope we hear from her soon.
Yes — I’d been wondering the same thing. Her posts during the period of the first US assault on Fallujah (April 2004) convinced me that the US had irretrievably lost its gamble in Iraq and the venture would come to no good end.
I don’t know if I mentioned this here when I put it up, but I got a letter from another woman friend in Bagdhad in August that paints a terrifying picture of the struggle for survival we’ve let loose with our occupation.
Thanks for the link to your friend’s letter.
Let’s hope I’m wrong.
i’m very concerned too, it’s been far too long since she has posted. i can’t imagine the hell that is life of an ordinary citizen in Baghdad since we’ve been occupying it.
how many friends have left Baghdad…I pray that she has also left and found a safe haven, even one without Internet access…
Also posted in Orange
I wish her safety, continued strength and peace.
If she is Sunni, her chances of posting again are negligible. At best, she is now engaged in saving her own life.
Her last post was not a good-bye, but I suspect she would never do that anyway.
She has been, simply, the best writer of our current time.
Hope she is well.
Depressing and frightening as hell. Not what I needed to read, but necessary.
I’ve been worried about her for ages. Honesty is a dangerous attribute.
Raed and Salam Pax managed to get out, before Iraq crumbled completely into death squads and neighborhood cleansing, but it is harder for a woman to travel, and she would not leave unless she could get her family members out, too. If she was killed or “detained”, we would never know. The best we can hope for is that the silence means her family is making preparations for escape, and that they have found a haven somewhere.
The only way we’ll know that she is safe, is when she is free to communicate again. :sigh:
Carolly
I had been going through the same wondering with my Iraq friend for almost three years, and there were many months where I did not hear a word from her, feared for the worst and then she would suddenly pop up again. The worst part is not knowing. I am hoping for the best for Riverbend, if the powers of the Universe do so please to allow us to know she is safe and please to keep her safe as well as all the others in that part of the world who live each day with the fear of death.
Me too, you guys. I check her site at least 4-6 times a day to see if she has posted. After the mid of this month came and went, I seriously got worried. I really am fearful….I too hope she and her family got out. I pray for her and her family.
I’ve been reading her blog, and Raed Jarrar’s, since before the invasion. There were extended periods when she did not post because it seemed so useless and daily survival produced such an overload of hard housework and hassle that she did not have the strength to carry on. Then, of course, there are sometimes only minutes of electricity available.
Raed would know if something had happened to her, IMHO.
I check the ‘Bagdad Burning’ site daily. No posts since 5 Aug.
Kinda makes ya wonder.
I too have been very concerned. Everyday I grow a little more frantic that something may have happened to her and her family. I have searched all of her linked blogs for information about her and am happy to find a place where I can post my concern to like minded admirers of Riverbend. My prayers are now and forever with her and her family.