Woodward Hall was filled with 100 voices and faces of Iraqis on Saturday.
Independent journalist Zelie Pollon and photojournalist Laurent Guerin brought a glimpse into Baghdad's vibrant and dangerous life with their multimedia presentation, "The Baghdad Project."
Both journalists live in New Mexico.
"As journalists, we were incredibly frustrated with what we did not see in mainstream media," she said. "Nine-eleven, post-9-11 in Afghanistan, and finally in Iraq, we felt really fed up. What we need to hear are what Iraqis are thinking and saying, what they feel about the war, what they feel about Americans."
Pollon and Guerin spent two months in Iraq last fall and interviewed 130 Iraqis. They asked each Iraqi the same five questions: How do you feel about the Americans coming in? What is your dream for the future of Iraq? What is your dream for yourself and your family? What is your most important or meaningful memory of the past 10 years, good or bad? What does it mean to be an Iraqi today?
Pollon said she was surprised by the diversity and nuance of their answers, but a few concerns recurred.
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"These are the same responses we would get today, we would get last month and we'd probably get in another year," she said. "They were concerned about security. They want electricity and they want jobs."
As photographs of interviewees were projected onto a screen, a project member read the Iraqis' answers aloud to the sparse audience in Woodward.
"We still can't believe the Americans are here," said Saad al-Hajeed, a former captain of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard who now drives a taxicab in Tikrit. "It's like a nightmare. It's not real. I live in a nearby village where there is violence and fear every night. The Americans come and break down your door and steal everything. They're a modern country and have good intelligence, so if you arrest people you should have evidence and not just a rumor. But they don't have this."
Others expressed gratitude for the invasion.
"My opinion is that the country is in chaos because of ignorant people who do not know," said Nagam Abed Al-Hussein, a 38-year-old Shiite woman who now cooks for the U.S. Army in Baghdad. "They complain the Americans are taking oil. I say, 'We never benefited from the oil anyway, so what are you talking about?'"
When asked if she was concerned about threats to her safety from militant Iraqis and U.S. soldiers, Pollon said she was more afraid of U.S. forces after they reportedly attacked reporters working for the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera news company.
"When (U.S. forces) bombed the Palestine Hotel, it was so incredibly outrageous," she said. "They knew what this hotel was. Was it intentional? I don't know. But I keep my distance more from (U.S.) soldiers than I do from Iraqis."
UNM's political science department sponsored the presentation, the last on a tour that visited Utah, San Diego and Washington, D.C.
