Almost exactly 30 years ago, I was on the road between these three cities. A few days earlier, the largest military alliance since World War II led by the Americans, had begun bombing Baghdad. The whole Middle East was in turmoil.
The war marked the introduction of live news broadcasts from the front lines of the battle, principally by the US network CNN. The war has also earned the nickname Video Game War after the daily broadcast of images from cameras onboard U.S. bombers and cruise missiles during Operation Desert Storm.
A magazine was printed on the occasion of an exhibition held in Cairo. The project was initiated and financed by pro helvetia, Cairo, design by Daniel Stähli, printed in Cairo, the publication and exhibition were produced in a matter of only a few weeks. The magazine was given away for free to the visitors of the exhibition.
Journalists, everywhere, there are several power cuts during our dinner. No water in our rooms for two days. Some are making jokes at the table. One talks about the "last supper".
It's on the 19th of January. The allied deadline for the Iraqis is over. I'd like to go out in the streets, or maybe even better, to one of Baghdad’s nightclubs. Maggie is joining me. We see dancing men, numbed by the Arak and Whiskys they had. A Palestinian Band is playing nonstop as if they wanted to drone out the threatening noise of falling bombs. Everything is quiet on my way home.
I'm lying on my bed, sleepless, it's 23 hours. Didn't sleep at all last night. I am nervous, the telephone is ringing. It is my mother, finally, I got the connection. She seems to be worried and I try to calm her down, still, it's quiet here! The camera is standing on the tripod on the window board.
A half-hour later, still lying on my bed, dozing, cool air is coming from the open window. From time to time the barking of stray dogs falls into the quiet night. Suddenly there is the infernal noise of an anti-aircraft gun, only sone 500 meters away from me. I wake up, shivering all over my body, my nervous state is gone at once. I'm crawling to the open window as the shooting starts from other positions too. Light trails are crossing the dark sky over the still brightly lit Baghdad.
Hundreds of times I tried to imagine exactly this situation. Now I'm asking myself: What will happen next?
I am still disturbed and confused. The last 9 hours I spent with a feeling of total powerlessness as I never experienced before. Hopelessness as a perspective. I am wandering around the hallways at our hotel, trying to find my way through the total darkness. I find a bottle of whisky in one of the deserted rooms of a journalist. Something hit a building right behind the Rasheed. Some kilometers south of the hotel a refinery is burning, coloring the sky yellow-red.
Day of departure. It's nine o'clock. Laurent and I are taking a bath in the swimming pool of the hotel, there is no water in the rooms anymore. We are soaping ourselves, washing our hair while a siren is announcing another air raid. We don't mind. I never experienced a situation as absurd as this.
On the road to Ar-Ruwayshed together with Tomo and Steve, direction Iraqi border. The Egyptian and Sudanese refugees are blocked on the Iraqi side. The prepared camps are empty and deserted.
Demo in the Palestinian camp Baka'a. Fundamentalists calling for the Jihad. Some thousand men marching through the muddy streets of the camp. The political position the people are taking up here seems to have a lot to do with their desperation about their situation.
Invitation for dinner with the Swiss ambassador in Amman. It's Steves birthday. Tomo and I are taking him with us. There's also Arnold Hottinger and some Red Cross people at the table. The choice between Fondue, Raclette, and Zürcher Geschnetzeltem seem pretty absurd to me. The Jordanian waiters in traditional Swiss dress even more.
I can’t really find my way through Amman in the beginning. I'm taking on an assignment for a couple of days though I wanted to leave for Cairo as quickly as possible.
Three days later I'm sitting together with Arnold Hottinger in the same plane with destination Cairo. Looking through the small window after landing. Big letters on the sixties styled airport terminal: CAIRO AIRPORT. Everything is like in a film. Our taxi ride to the city center, passing by endless suburbs, the traffic, the chaos is becoming even heavier. That's how I always imagined Cairo. The tensions I felt so intensely in Baghdad and Amman, are blown away. Everything seems to be in constant motion, it's like driving through a film with my taxi. For the first time in one month, I see couples, men and women, holding each other’s hands.
We both take a room in a pension just at the back of the Semiramis Intercontinental. The "Garden City House" seems to have had a better time some decades ago. The interiors in colonial style are quite worn out.
It's six o clock in the morning, the sun is still well below the horizon, the streets already full of life. I stand in front of Naguib Mahfouz' house and wait.