{"id":589,"date":"2012-02-17T23:23:38","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T23:23:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/?p=589"},"modified":"2012-02-18T21:42:24","modified_gmt":"2012-02-18T21:42:24","slug":"anthony-shadid-death-of-an-honest-witness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/?p=589","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Shadid: Death of an honest witness"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Anthony Shadid, at work in Cairo. Photo by Ed Ou. Used with permission.<\/p><\/div>\n

Rare is the day when the death of a journalist merits a national period of mourning.\u00a0\u00a0But that\u2019s how the passing of\u00a0New York Times<\/em> correspondent Anthony Shadid feels from here.<\/p>\n

Shadid, who won two Pulitzer Prizes while with the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>, was well known for his courage, having survived a shooting in the West Bank (most likely by an Israeli sniper), a kidnapping in Libya, harassment and intimidation by Mubarak cronies in Egypt, and, as an unembedded\u00a0Post <\/em>correspondent, the American invasion of Iraq. \u201cAfter anthony shadid’s unauthorized trip into Syria, the Gov put him on television and called him a spy,\u201d tweeted Shadid\u2019s\u00a0Times<\/em> colleague, David Kirkpatrick. \u201cHe went back again.\u201d<\/p>\n

But courage alone doesn\u2019t explain the unique contribution Anthony Shadid made to American journalism and culture.\u00a0\u00a0As a bilingual, bicultural, Christian Arab American of Lebanese descent, he was predisposed to bring an unprecedented level of understanding to events roiling the Arab world.\u00a0\u00a0The key to his profound contribution, however, goes beyond religion and national origin.\u00a0\u00a0He found his inspiration in the alleys, roadsides and warrens of everyday Arab life.\u00a0\u00a0The insight Shadid transmitted to his readers was gleaned not by simply talking to the powerful in their respective capitals, but from his conversations with barbers, tailors, fruit vendors and the unemployed.<\/p>\n

At the brink of the U.S. war with Iraq in 2003, Shadid wrote that Arab disenchantment \u201cflows not from a clash of civilizations or resentment over Western values and lifestyles, but from frustration over U.S., Israeli and official Arab policies.\u201d This conclusion came in large part from listening to the words of Palestinian refugees in the camps in Jordan. “We want just a little justice from America, that’s it,” said Lutfi Khalil, a customer in a \u201csparse grocery store\u201d with \u201crows of honey jars alternating with empty shelves.\u201d<\/p>\n

From a war-ravaged Baghdad in 2006, Shadid wrote of \u201cthe final, frenzied maturity of once-inchoate forces unleashed more than three years ago by the invasion\u201d of Iraq.\u00a0\u00a0This perception came not from chats with commanders and diplomats in the Green Zone, but from life-risking conversations with people like Karima Salman, the \u201cstout Shiite Muslim matriarch” living beside a \u201cdented, rusted steel gate perched along a sagging brick sidewalk,\u201d whose daughter Fatima told Shadid: \u201cOne-third of us are dying, one-third of us are fleeing and one-third of us will be widows.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Shadid\u2019s assessment of a band of Libyan rebels in the spring of 2011 was reported alongside the formerly faceless protagonists he came to name.\u00a0\u201cFear is half of courage,\u201d a 39-year-old rebel named Khalifa al-Awkali told Shadid,\u00a0as he stood\u00a0\u201catop a hill, waving an opposition flag and carrying binoculars.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0The rebel added,\u00a0\u00a0\u201cBut we\u2019re not scared, and we\u2019re not going to surrender in the face of this tyrant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four days later, Shadid and three of his\u00a0Times<\/em> colleagues were kidnapped by pro-Qaddafi\u00a0militias.<\/p>\n

Shadid\u2019s brilliance lay in relying on his own eyes, ears, and voice – not on status quo conclusions about WMD or the\u00a0realpolitik<\/em> of Washington-Arab World relations.\u00a0\u00a0He risked his life not out of bravado, but because he was determined to get on the ground, talk to everyone, and tell a true story.\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s how he earned his readers\u2019 trust.\u00a0\u00a0And so it will continue, after his death:\u00a0\u00a0In his lovely forthcoming memoir,\u00a0House of Stone,<\/em> Shadid turns his keen gaze inward, as he describes literally rebuilding his past in the land of his Lebanese ancestors.<\/p>\n

Anthony Shadid was a journalistic giant in the tradition of George Orwell; a chronicler of the voices of ordinary people, in the spirit of Studs Terkel.\u00a0\u00a0As a fellow journalist who\u2019s spent 17 years covering Israel and Palestine, I always sought out Shadid\u2019s writings to help put the broader region\u2019s turmoil into context.\u00a0\u00a0And as someone hoping to transmit journalistic values to the next generation of reporters \u2013 first at Berkeley, now at USC \u2013 I have treasured his journalism of the heart; his legacy of staying on the ground; his insistence in being an honest witness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rare is the day when the death of a journalist merits a national period of mourning.\u00a0\u00a0But that\u2019s how the passing of\u00a0New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid feels from here. Shadid, who won two Pulitzer Prizes while with the\u00a0Washington Post, was well known for his courage, having survived a shooting in the West Bank (most likely more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=589"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":593,"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589\/revisions\/593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramallahcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}