{"id":2602,"date":"2007-10-22T14:44:32","date_gmt":"2007-10-22T19:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=2602"},"modified":"2007-10-22T14:46:44","modified_gmt":"2007-10-22T19:46:44","slug":"bloggers-without-borders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=2602","title":{"rendered":"Bloggers Without Borders…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Riverbend, Baghdad Burning, 22 October 2007<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Syria is a beautiful country- at least I think it is. I say \u201cI think\u201d because while I perceive it to be beautiful, I sometimes wonder if I mistake safety, security and normalcy for \u2018beauty\u2019. In so many ways, Damascus is like Baghdad before the war- bustling streets, occasional traffic jams, markets seemingly always full of shoppers\u2026 And in so many ways it\u2019s different. The buildings are higher, the streets are generally narrower and there\u2019s a mountain, Qasiyoun, that looms in the distance.<\/p>\n

The mountain distracts me, as it does many Iraqis- especially those from Baghdad. Northern Iraq is full of mountains, but the rest of Iraq is quite flat. At night, Qasiyoun blends into the black sky and the only indication of its presence is a multitude of little, glimmering spots of light- houses and restaurants built right up there on the mountain. Every time I take a picture, I try to work Qasiyoun into it- I try to position the person so that Qasiyoun is in the background.<\/p>\n

The first weeks here were something of a cultural shock. It has taken me these last three months to work away certain habits I\u2019d acquired in Iraq after the war. It\u2019s funny how you learn to act a certain way and don\u2019t even know you\u2019re doing strange things- like avoiding people\u2019s eyes in the street or crazily murmuring prayers to yourself when stuck in traffic. It took me at least three weeks to teach myself to walk properly again- with head lifted, not constantly looking behind me.<\/p>\n

[Read the report<\/a>] <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Riverbend, Baghdad Burning, 22 October 2007 Syria is a beautiful country- at least I think it is. I say \u201cI think\u201d because while I perceive it to be beautiful, I sometimes wonder if I mistake safety, security and normalcy for … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-FY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}