Aimee Howarth brings you an interview with The Yorker directors on the final day of the advent articles
Aimee Howarth speaks to YUSU's sabbatical officers about their Christmas Day routine for day 17 of the advent calendar
For the final time this term, Vicky Morris updates you on this weeks film news
50 years after the publication of 'James and the Giant Peach', the works of Roald Dahl continue to celebrate success.
In the final chapter of Jules Verne’s Around the world in 80 days, Verne’s narrative questions the whole point of the enigmatic Phileas Fogg’s circumnavigation, asking: “What had he really gained by all his trouble?”. After 20 minutes interviewing Damour, and listening to her amazingly vibrant, colourful picture of the world, it’s hard to see where Verne is coming from.
A really good sense of humour about the world is essential.
“A really good sense of humour about the world is essential” remarks Damour, as her first piece of advice for Foreign Service wannabes of any nationality. And there is possibly no situation that requires a sense of humour more than a 12 month posting to Baghdad, which Damour undertook in 2004-05.
Her role in Iraq saw her involved in a rich variety of work, from the simple clearing of passports to dealing with kidnappings, and supporting the family and friends of 82 American civilians that were killed during that time. What were her impressions of Baghdad, and life in the Green Zone?
“When people ask me ‘What was Baghdad like?’, I tell them ‘I have no idea!’, because I barely saw the city, I just saw a corner of it! [the International Zone]. It was dangerous outside as they were aiming carbombs at our convoys.”
As we all know, apart from a brief honeymoon period after the 2003 invasion, violence in Iraq has become widespread. 2007 saw Iraq ranked no. 2 in the ‘Failed States Index’, a who’s-who of troubled nations. Does Damour feel that the situation in Iraq has gotten worse?
“During the time I was there, it would go up and down. You’d have times when it was nice and quiet, people were making money, they were able to go to market, then another bomb would go off and cause anxiety again.”
When western leaders talk on Iraq, its difficulties, and how they are overcome, the subject is often democracy. By giving the people the right to vote, you begin to solve the problem. But from her experience, what does Damour see as some of the crucial obstacles to rebuilding Iraq?
“It’s not a culture where anybody trusts anybody, because no police state ever is. You don’t tell your neighbours anything because you don’t know who’s informing on you. It had been that way for so long, it just carried over after the invasion. One of my Iraqi employees saw a car shooting mortars, but wouldn’t call the police as they were worried about who they were affiliated with.”
It seems that the necessary culture change that Damour is suggesting may take several years to sink in. In the meantime, the suicide attacks and violence continues. For instance, just last week a double bombing in a crowded Baghdad market killed 68 people. What is the worst situation that Damour has had to deal with?
“One of the most excruciating acts of my life was to have to call the mother of a 25 year old woman to tell her that her daughter had been caught in a car bomb. The trouble was, we couldn’t tell whether it was her daughter or not because of the effect of the bomb. That’s a really difficult message to pass on; that you’re going to have to wait until your daughter’s body is back in the States to find out from dental records or DNA. Not a fun thing to do.”
Being the bearer of bad news is never easy. And effectively bringing news of deaths to loved ones on a regular basis must be a real test of character. How does Damour handle these issues?
“You are never going to make a situation like that better. But you can try desperately hard not to make it worse… We can ensure that the family don’t have to deal with the paperwork that is involved, and that we are there to facilitate the return of [the individual]. That is one of the most important things we as embassies do overseas, and we take some pride in doing it well.”
It seems that an embassy role, like any other, comes with its share of lows. But Damour talks about plenty of highs too: A 15:1 male to female ratio in Baghdad’s International Zone meant she was “never without a date”; the shopping in Paris, “although I was too broke to afford it!”; and the raucous party culture in Vietnam: “Christmas Eve is the biggest holiday in Vietnam, and they’re all buddhists!”.
Damour’s next posting is sure to bring her more highs and lows: She’ll be stationed in Brazilia from September. A career in the senior level of the Foreign Service beckons, with more emotional experiences sure to follow.
When ending his novel, and completing the journey, Verne declares Phileas Fogg to be "the happiest of men". Marie Damour, however, seems happiest on the journey itself.
Marie Damour spoke to the York Union on Friday 7th March.
Woo! After the Israel/Palestine debate we can have an Iraq one, Dan 
Mitch to be quite honest i absolutely demolished you in the israel/palestine debate. I took apart your lies, myths and soundbytes and all in all i found you to be a pretty unremarkable debater and one which was not very challenging to beat. I just fear that often with regard to the middle east the voices that are heard are those who shout loudest rather than those who are most informed about it. You and Suggit who wrote that god-awful article are classic examples of people who merely repeat media propoganda (even when it is a blatant lie such as your howler about the fabricated jenin "massacre") without actually having studied the topic or knowing the complexities of the situation. Its a sad state of affairs .
Oh dear Dan- although it would be tempting to drop to your level and fire off the kind of tit-for-tat drivel that you are notorious for, in the interests of professionalism I won't.
I will however encourage you to read a little wider on the subject (and life in general). What are your sources Daniel? You whinge about media propaganda, but what are your sources? Had a chat with Ehud Olmert lately? Been hobnobbing with Abbas have we? Thought not. In a sea of literature and comment on the issue, it’s too easy for one side to cherry pick their facts and figures, and you fall (no, make that jump) into that trap too easily. You get your information from somewhere. I suggest you use your critical eye, which you often turn on anyone without an Israeli fundamentalist approach, to assess to quality of your sources a little more carefully.
I wrote the article on Hassassian adopting an angle that was as objective and free of bias as possible. It wasn’t perfect, I’ll agree. Writing any Israel-Palestine article with balance is always going to be difficult, let alone maintaining balance when interviewing one side. But I’d argue that the principal reason for your ire is that Hassassian is obviously fighting the Palestinian corner and you don’t like it.
The day a representative of the Israeli side comes to speak at the uni, I will give them equal treatment.
Dan, it is impossible for ANYONE to be completely informed on every aspect of any situation, particularly WRT complex political situations with many years of history and religion behind them.
My opinions were based on what I had read of the situation at the time, albeit not a complete picture (as I doubt yours is) they were based on the writings of people better informed than me (namely, if you're interested, Messrs. Chomsky and Curtis, as well as various UK media - yes I'm aware this makes it very easy for you place me in some typical left-wing student pigeonhole, although I can assure you I'm not).
To be fair, I've at least made some effort to study things before passing comment, rather than most of the voters in this country. Not everyone has the time to read just one source of information on current affairs, never mind read a whole variety in order to form a well-rounded opinion. If under- or misinformation on a subject were to preclude people from having a legitimate opinion on it then we wouldn't be living in a democracy.
No-one "wins" a debate, or rather, everyone wins *from* debate - particularly if they're willing to hear out and possibly learn from the arguments of the other party even if they don't accept them.
At the end of the day, you're a very strongly-convicted person who's read a great deal more on politics and current affairs than I. Perhaps, since this is just a student news site, things should calm the fuck down a bit and not be taken so seriously.
I for one am tired of this shit...
Have a pint. Give the link below a read. Laugh. Release all this pent up debating when you make it to Whitehall, they won't know what hit 'em.
http://xkcd.com/386/
Or this one hehe:
http://xkcd.com/406/
If someone makes a Summer Glau account on here they'd have my infinite respect. Jewel Staite was always more of my type though.
comment deleted by a moderator For what its worth Mitch I apologize for my outburst, because I know that for someone who doesnt study politics and isnt as interested as I am in the topic, it is difficult to get a balanced and accurate view especially considering the way it reported in our media. I hope at the very least our somewhat heated debate has made clear that this topic isnt exactly what the BBC portrays it as.
I've always maintained a healthy distrust of the media 
Except of course, The Yorker.
I shall be steering clear of the usuall Israel/Palestine debate, but I was just responding to Andrew Suggitt regarding speakers from the Israeli side.
You will be delighted to hear that in week X of next term, we will have Shai Feldman coming in to address the university. He is a Jewish-American lecturer at Harvard Uni on Politics and an expert on the Middle-East. He has sat on numerous UN councils tasked with formulating the road-map to peace in the region and is world-renound for his work in that particular area. He fought in the Yom Kippur war as well, giving him first-hand experience of the threats the state of Israel continues to face in the twenty-first century.
I'm sure he would be more than willing to take part in an interview.
Dan Taylor
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