A Unique perspective on Iraq, before and after the US invasion.

A desert filled with looting mobs, wailing women, and violent religious fanatics. Thanks to popular television images, this is what many people envision when they think of Iraq. What is everyday life really like in this complex country whose rich culture and history belie its current strife?
Hadani Ditmars is one of Canada's leading journalistic authorities on Iraq. Her stories and photos from the troubled nation have been published in The New York Times, the London Independent, the Globe and Mail, and Newsweek and broadcast on CBC and BBC. She has been reporting from the Middle East since 1992 and has been on assignment to Iraq for a variety of international media outlets six times since 1997. With her extensive experience in the region, her cultural awareness and her ability to 'pass' as either a foreigner or a local, Ditmars offers angles often overlooked by other journalists.
One of the few Canadian journalists who reported from Saddam era Iraq, Ditmars returned to the country in September 2003 to find the people she had met over the years and see what had become of them since the U.S. "liberation." Dancing In The No-Fly Zone is the story of that trip, interwoven with tales from her earlier visits and of the people she met along the way: actors and artists, mercenaries and businessmen, street kids and Sufis, even the 'king in waiting' - Sharif Ali Bin Hussein. It includes a visit to Abu Ghraib prison, in which Ditmars is given a tour of the Saddam-era execution chamber by the U.S. general who was later dismissed after the abuse scandal broke; as well as meetings with members of the Iraqi National Orchestra, who now practice under armed guard with bullets ricocheting outside their rehearsal hall.
For all the suffering they have endured after years of war and sanctions, Ditmars reminds us that the Iraqis are still a dignified, warm and welcoming people, "I would marvel again and again at the Iraqis' stoicism and ability to survive", she writes, 'Yet there was so much more to the former "cradle of civilization" than stories of misery and suffering.' In the midst of despair I found art, beauty, architecture, music'. As the situation worsens and the violence intensifies, Ditmars spends an evening with a group of Iraqis who sing and dance along with a lively performance of makam (traditional love songs). A people who have suffered so much yet maintain such resilience deserve to have the full depth of their humanity portrayed. Hadani Ditmars captures this spirit in Dancing in the No-Fly Zone.


Dancing in the No-Fly Zone; A Woman's Journey Through Iraq
1-55191-735-7
Raincoast Books
Release Date: May 02, 2005
Paperback 256pp, 6X9