The Iraqi elections of 2010 played out against a backdrop of reduced but continuing violence, unresolved issues of governance, and a U.S. government determined to exit fast. This project assesses the cross currents, on the ground in Iraq.
Iraq: City of Trash
Published March 14, 2010
Print and Image by Dimiter Kenarov, for the Pulitzer Center
Baghdad, Iraq
After the post-election glow, Baghdad is back in the real world. The streets are clogged with vehicles honking and people hawking. Men are walking to work (or, more likely, looking for jobs); women are out shopping (if their husbands are lucky enough to have jobs). The posters of politicians sag, peel off the blast walls, and fall face down, trampled under the shoes of millions.
Nobody is talking about it, but the elections were garbage. Lots and lots of garbage. The political messages are garbage. Democracy is garbage...
He wakes up at five in the morning and washes away his deep-sea dreams, the hot water spilling off his balding crown, running down his goatee and his bulky paunch...
Print and Image by Dimiter Kenarov, for the Pulitzer Center
Baghdad, Iraq
Grantee
Dimiter Kenarov is a freelance journalist based in Sofia, Bulgaria, and a contributing editor at The Virginia Quarterly Review. His work has appeared/is forthcoming in Esquire, Outside,...
