Read A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal for Free Online
Authors: Åsne Seierstad, Ingrid Christophersen
are as noncommittal as the introduction. I wonder what he is really saying. What it implies. Does it mean war, does it mean peace, or does it merely mean a postponement of war?
- Last question, Blix says, surveying the sea of raised hands. - But it has to be in Swedish.
There are no Swedes present. The hall is silent. Surely I am able to affect something in Blix’s mother tongue. But I can think of nothing, my head is empty, so empty. - So there are no Swedes around, Blix concludes. Chairs scrape the floor, the party breaks up.
- Honourable Mr Blix, a question from Dagens Nyheter in Stockholm. What did you really mean by all that?
That’s what I should have asked. At least that’s what I wanted an answer to.
- You have so much energy, Takhlef complains. I don’t understand why you need to talk to so many people.
Aha, I’m winning, I think. He can’t keep up.
We are at Baghdad’s Stock Exchange. Takhlef thought a ten-minute interview with the boss would suffice, but I want to talk to the employees. I might have to interview ten brokers before I find one who has anything interesting to say. The ones who are prepared to share their thoughts with me are few and far between. I must go on, go on, until I have assembled a picture.
- But this is so interesting, I exaggerate excitedly. - It is important to report that quotations are hitting the ceiling, while the rest of the world thinks the country is going to the dogs.
- The last three months stocks and shares have risen by nearly fifty percent. Iraqi investors have nothing but contempt for the threat of war, the Stock Exchange chairman says. They are buying factories, banks, hotels.
I assume the appearance of a naïve and friendly journalist, energetic and enthusiastic.
- The majority speak English here, Takhlef volunteers suddenly. You’ll manage on your own.
- Yippee, I think, while my minder goes and sits on a chair at the end of the room. He appears to be lost in thought, and is looking up at the boards on the wall.
The Stock Exchange is the size of a gymnasium, divided in two by a solid barrier. On one side, where the boards are, the brokers work; behind the barrier are the buyers and sellers. The closed Iraqi market operates according to its own rules. Only Iraqis can trade and only with Iraqi dinars.
Experts call the country’s economy chaotic. The chaos consists of some liberalisation at the micro level and immoveable bureaucracy and planned economy at the macro level. The economy is heavily scarred by sanctions and hyper-inflation. Twenty years ago one dinar was worth three dollars; today two thousand dinars buy only one dollar. There are plenty of loopholes in Saddam’s socialism. Smuggling, corruption and money laundering is widespread.
I stop next to a well-dressed man with a moustache. He speaks fluent English.
- Rising, says Telal Brahim contentedly. - Five percent in one week. They didn’t get us after all!
Telal hasn’t bought into any old company. He has invested in one of Iraq’s chemical factories, which recently had the dubious honour of receiving an unannounced UN weapons inspection.
- Provocative, but quite fun really. I own shares in the firm so I should know whether it produces anything illegal or not. We make plastics - boxes, bags and bottles. PVC products - run of the mill plastic. A factory producing chemical weapons wouldn’t be quoted on the stock market, Telal fumes, while all the time keeping an eye on the figures on the board. The quotations are altered with a felt pen and a sponge. The brokers run to and fro between the clients and the board. The swiftest is the most successful. Electronics have yet to reach the Baghdad Stock Exchange.
- A bull market. Quite unexpected! Muhammed Ali exclaims. - Most people thought shares would fall as a result of the threat of war, but the opposite is happening.
The Iraqis quite clearly want to
- Last question, Blix says, surveying the sea of raised hands. - But it has to be in Swedish.
There are no Swedes present. The hall is silent. Surely I am able to affect something in Blix’s mother tongue. But I can think of nothing, my head is empty, so empty. - So there are no Swedes around, Blix concludes. Chairs scrape the floor, the party breaks up.
- Honourable Mr Blix, a question from Dagens Nyheter in Stockholm. What did you really mean by all that?
That’s what I should have asked. At least that’s what I wanted an answer to.
- You have so much energy, Takhlef complains. I don’t understand why you need to talk to so many people.
Aha, I’m winning, I think. He can’t keep up.
We are at Baghdad’s Stock Exchange. Takhlef thought a ten-minute interview with the boss would suffice, but I want to talk to the employees. I might have to interview ten brokers before I find one who has anything interesting to say. The ones who are prepared to share their thoughts with me are few and far between. I must go on, go on, until I have assembled a picture.
- But this is so interesting, I exaggerate excitedly. - It is important to report that quotations are hitting the ceiling, while the rest of the world thinks the country is going to the dogs.
- The last three months stocks and shares have risen by nearly fifty percent. Iraqi investors have nothing but contempt for the threat of war, the Stock Exchange chairman says. They are buying factories, banks, hotels.
I assume the appearance of a naïve and friendly journalist, energetic and enthusiastic.
- The majority speak English here, Takhlef volunteers suddenly. You’ll manage on your own.
- Yippee, I think, while my minder goes and sits on a chair at the end of the room. He appears to be lost in thought, and is looking up at the boards on the wall.
The Stock Exchange is the size of a gymnasium, divided in two by a solid barrier. On one side, where the boards are, the brokers work; behind the barrier are the buyers and sellers. The closed Iraqi market operates according to its own rules. Only Iraqis can trade and only with Iraqi dinars.
Experts call the country’s economy chaotic. The chaos consists of some liberalisation at the micro level and immoveable bureaucracy and planned economy at the macro level. The economy is heavily scarred by sanctions and hyper-inflation. Twenty years ago one dinar was worth three dollars; today two thousand dinars buy only one dollar. There are plenty of loopholes in Saddam’s socialism. Smuggling, corruption and money laundering is widespread.
I stop next to a well-dressed man with a moustache. He speaks fluent English.
- Rising, says Telal Brahim contentedly. - Five percent in one week. They didn’t get us after all!
Telal hasn’t bought into any old company. He has invested in one of Iraq’s chemical factories, which recently had the dubious honour of receiving an unannounced UN weapons inspection.
- Provocative, but quite fun really. I own shares in the firm so I should know whether it produces anything illegal or not. We make plastics - boxes, bags and bottles. PVC products - run of the mill plastic. A factory producing chemical weapons wouldn’t be quoted on the stock market, Telal fumes, while all the time keeping an eye on the figures on the board. The quotations are altered with a felt pen and a sponge. The brokers run to and fro between the clients and the board. The swiftest is the most successful. Electronics have yet to reach the Baghdad Stock Exchange.
- A bull market. Quite unexpected! Muhammed Ali exclaims. - Most people thought shares would fall as a result of the threat of war, but the opposite is happening.
The Iraqis quite clearly want to
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