Over the past two weeks, we continued to explore and study life narratives about wars and conflict. In the chapter ‘Introduction: World Made Flesh’ in her book Soft Weapons: Autobiography in Transit, Gillian Whitlock discusses life narratives in the context of globalization. She holds the view that they travel across cultures via technology to encourage ‘world-wide connection’ (7) and ‘cross-cultural exchange’ (8). The advancement of technology has allowed life narratives to become more accessible by everyone around the world, and has consequently promoted the connection of different culture. I wanted to delve into this specific concept and relate this to the life narratives that we studied in class.
One of the blogs that we studied is Baghdad Burning, which is written by an Iraqi woman under the pseudonym ‘Riverbend’. This blog is a narrative of her personal experience and emotions living in Iraq during the US invasion in 2003. We assumed that the main audiences of this blog are western readers, who are interested in learning about what is happening in Iraq from a local perspective.
This is shown in the entry ‘Evening Tea and Turkish Troops…‘ written in October 18, 2003. Riverbend introduces the idea that Iraqi families would gather together every evening for ‘evening tea’, no matter how busy they are. She describes the complicated process of making tea, and says that the teas in Iraq are special because ‘they are flavored with cardamom and served in “istikans”’, which are small glasses with intricate design on them. Although this is just a short and perhaps insignificant part of this blog, I still feel that this is important in proving that life narratives help connect eastern and western worlds. Riverbend provides detailed description of a tradition for her foreign audience to grasp and gain an insight into the unique and rich Iraqi culture, which helps shape and widen their perspective in viewing the political events. I agree to Whitlock’s view that life narratives are ‘soft weapons’: they are powerful, and easy to misread the true meanings. In understanding different culture, beliefs and opinions, we, as readers, can read life narratives more carefully and critically.
Work cited:
Whitlock, Gillian. “Introduction: World Made Flesh.” Soft Weapons: Autobiography in Transit. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2007. 1-23.
Riverbend. “Evening Tea and Turkish Troops…” Web log post. Baghdad Burning. N.p., 18 Oct. 2003. Web. 6 Oct. 2014. <http://riverbendblog.blogspot.ca/search?q=evening+tea>.
Hey Natalie,
Your post made me think about how it’s incredibly unfortunate how the beauty—or even the normality—of cultures and countries have been overshadowed by the terrors they’ve been subjected to. Examining places like Iraq in Iran in class through Pax and Riverbend’s blogs and Satrapi’s Persepolis has opened my eyes to how our perspective of them has been severely limited through the way they are often portrayed in popular media in the West. Your observation of Riverbend’s post about teatime traditions provides a valuable glimpse into the more genuine aspects of Iraqi culture, and serves as a reminder that the country and its people are much more than the war that has forced its way into their lives.