Eco-Terrorism- notes on Iraq’s Marshlands and a visit to Basra University

Saddam Hussein used eco terrorism against the Marshland Arabs and the people of Basra after the Gulf War, punishing them for helping coalition forces.He stopped the water flow to the marshes turning the land into a desert. The Marshland Arabs were subsistence dwellers. After their way of life was destroyed many moved to the cities: others languish in a state of poverty in destitute villages on what had been fertile ground. Basra’s average temperature has risen and crime has flourished.

The Marshland is in the process of being restored, though not in a scientific manner. Shortly after Saddam's fall, many of the dams were broken restoring water to the area. Wildlife returned and the landscape has begun getting green again. Whether the area can ever be fully restored or even maintain the status quo is in question. There is a constant battle for water rights. Dams in Iran are now blocking the flow of what came naturally to the Marshland.
Early in January, CMOC (Civil Military Operation Center) sponsored a Marshland Conference in Basra. In attendance were businesses leaders and scientists who have a stake in the Marsh. The keynote speaker,Dr. Mohammad Mossa Omran pointed out, “Birds don’t carry passports,” The loss of the Marshland is not only Iraq’s loss but also one for the global community.

CMOC is aiding some of the village in hope of influencing the population by giving out blankets and heaters and building a community center and school in Rota Village. The Marshland is on the border of Iraq and Iran and the Marshland Arabs have traditionally been smugglers. CMOC is trying stop the flow of weapons and insurgents from Iran by giving the citizens new possibilities and a stake in their community.

At the conference I met Kassem Hawal, an Iraqi filmmaker who has what might be the only film footage of what the Marshland was like before Saddam destroyed it. He also has footage of the bulldozers filling the waterways. Kassem’s work was destroyed by Saddam's regime, except one reel he recovered and restored. His camera work is stupendous: long steady shots of the marsh and its inhabitants including a wedding procession on the water. Kassem can be reached at www.kassemhawal.com

Also at the conference was director of Basra’s Natural History Museum, Prof. Dr. Khalat-Al- Rabaae, and Professor Sadek A. Hussein, an ichthyologist at Basra University and Dr. Mohammed Al-assadi, Dean of the Science College. The Natural History museum was bombed to the ground. One remaining specimen remains at the university. The director is hoping the coalition will help him build a new museum. The University has a small collection of natural history specimens left.

To visit the University took creative maneuvering. Military are not allowed on campus. A Sheik’s son, his translator and a bodyguard (nicknamed Pringles) escorted us. They joined in on a tour of the College of Agriculture, the home of the natural history collection. There is a room of fish with about twenty specimens, a room of instects and a room with a herborarium collection comprised of specimens collected by the schools dean. I met and inteviewed students and faculty. Some are studying invasive species, others, botany and molecular biology. They all do field work and shared images of the sites they have collected species in.

I plan to make it a trip to the Marshlands in the coming weeks and document the eco system and villages myself.

Images are all from Basra University's School of Agriculture

Based in New Orleans for the summer of 2008

I have returned to New Orleans to spend the summer, arriving on the 4th of July in time to catch the fireworks over the Mississippi River. I’m staying in an apartment over a bakery in the Faubourg Treme. An area that wasn’t hit too badly by the storm. I will photograph how things have changed since Katrina, and document the 3rd anniversary of the storm on Aug 29th at the end of the summer, while carrying on with my project at Tulane’s Natural History Museum.

On my way here I stopped in Washington DC and was able to go behind the scenes in the Smithsonian.

 

Ann Juneau, a librarian at the Natural History Museum escorted me through the back rooms and introduced me to some of the staff. That museum has the biggest collection in the world. There are row after row of storage cases; it is mind-boggling. James Dean, in the bird department pulled out a couple of Auks forme to shoot.  The bird hall in the public museum area is in the process of being replaced by an ocean hall, so not many birds are left on display. I will return in September on my way back to NYC, and start a series on deep-sea coral specimens.
I also went to the Vietnam memorial to shoot, adding that site to my project on Dark Tourism. It is very moving to watch people who locate the names of those they lost on the wall. People do rubbings of the names of the deceased to take away as mementoes. 

It is one of the most successful memorials I have visited. Nothing kitsch or over sentimental about it. The memorial has a great sense of dignity and evokes a tragic sense of loss through its’ endless sea of names.

David Borden met me there and modeled for me despite the sun shining in his eyes. He runs an advocacy group fighting for social justice by way of trying to change the drug laws – called, Stop the Drug Wars Now.

My next stop was Montgomery, Alabama (driving a long stretch of road to get there– a good 13.5 hour drive from DC) to visit my friend Sue Jensen, who is a superb ceramic artist as well as a professor.

 

Before I headed out of town, we went to the Civil Rights Memorial so I could shoot another one of Maya Lin’s works.

 Unfortunately the fountain 

(an integral part of the memorial) wasn’t on. The guard told us people keep throwing coins in the fountain that lead to it breaking down. Even without the fountain running, the memorial had

 great resonance. 

It is located in Montgomery’s historic downtown, where a lot of old buildings are still standing; the place hasn’t been turned into a generic shopping 

mall quite yet.
The quote used in the memorial is one of the most poetic of Martin Luther King Jr's:. “….. Until justice rolls down like waters and the righteousness like a mighty stream”.

 The absence of the sound of running water served as an ironic reminder that justice is something that sometimes needs maintenance too.

My first full day in New Orleans, I wasn’t too ambitious, but I did stop my car to shoot a spot I shot over a year ago since the light fell on the sign much nicer this time around. The same couch, the same open door- the same closed car wash remain on the corner of Freret and Soniat Street.