When Ewa Wasilewska was in Iraq four summers ago, things were different.
“People forget one thing about Iraq. Saddam Hussein couldn’t care less if he ruled over Sunnis, Shiites or anybody else. His state wasn’t about religion, his state was about power,” Wasilewska said.
Wasilewska, a U professor of anthropology and a self-trained photojournalist, spoke to a crowd of more than 40 people in the Marriott Library’s Gould Auditorium on May 16 about her experiences traveling through the country.
“We are not going to talk about Saddam and the atrocities he committed or whether this war was just or not. I just want to show you what life in Iraq under Saddam was like,” Wasilewska said. Although Wasilewska wasn’t allowed to take pictures of military installations and was chaperoned at all times by two guides from Hussein’s entourage, she was still able to capture a slice of life under the Iraqi president’s regime.
“Hussein actually wanted to be the next Stalin and Iraq had all the signs of a Communist state. When people don’t know what democracy is all about, it’s important to explain to them what it is,” she said.
Among the sites Wasilewska depicted was a children’s hospital in the city of Basra, which she called “undescribable.”
“The condition of the Basra Children’s Hospital is beyond any description I could give you…the doctors had to decide which patients they’d keep alive for a few more minutes and which ones would simply die,” she said.
According to Wasilewska, Iraqi officials allowed Baghdad to receive electricity six hours per day, while the city of Mosul was given only four hours a day. In a country where temperatures exceed 120 degrees, that sanction took its toll on the people of Iraq, Wasilewska said.
“At the time I was there, the most expensive item in Iraq was ice. In a country with nothing, the only thing they had was oil and gas,” she said.
Among the footage Wasilewska presented to the crowd was the aftermath of a bombing run conducted by American forces in the city of Najaf in June of 1999.
“As far as I know, this is the only footage in the world that is completely uncensored and shows the damage these bombs really do,” she said.
Wasilewska also spent time in the marshlands of southern Iraq days before Hussein drained them, sending scores of native Shiite Muslims out of the country or to their deaths.
“Today, a lot of people have turned Saddam’s old ships into houses because they have nowhere else to live,” she said.