Posted by LG on June 01, 2008 at 18:08:09:
The DJ who sings 'Revolution' to the counter-insurgentsBeatles fan Mohammed Ahmed is a voice of peace amid war. David Smith met him in Baghdad
David Smith The Observer, Sunday June 1 2008 Article history
Outside, the air is punctuated by the echo of gunfire and distant thud of ordnance. US Army lieutenant-colonel Gregory Baine emerges from a bulletproof vehicle in body armour and helmet. He is not expecting to be greeted by an Iraqi wielding a guitar and singing 'Baby You Can Drive My Car'.
Mohammed Ahmed is the Baghdad Beatle. He says he learnt English by listening to Lennon and McCartney rather than his teacher. As a child prodigy in 1970, he performed 'Love Me Do' on Iraqi national TV. He is now station manager and DJ at Peace 106 FM Baghdad and plays the Beatles - and sometimes sings them too.
Ahmed's work also has a profoundly serious side in the world's most dangerous country for journalists. The 42-year-old has received death threats for hosting a talk show that gives Iraqis a platform to debate politics and air their daily concerns.
This evening, from a rudimentary studio that could be a local radio station anywhere, he is presenting 'A Peaceful Iraq' and quizzing the colonel about the latest security situation. But he also raises listeners' complaints about fines for drivers caught not wearing a seatbelt, and a controversial scheme in which motorists with odd or even licence plates must drive on alternate days. The number one talking point, he says, is elechicagomedia.orgicity, with some people still receiving only one hour a day.
The DJ's accent now twangs more American than Scouse, but he says: 'I learnt English thanks to the Beatles, they taught me everything I know. I love all the songs and still perform them occasionally. It is good to keep on listening to this kind of music. It helps you to stay alive and stay focused.
'My elder brothers were all music lovers - Barry White, Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck, Elvis, all that, the golden oldies. They were big in Baghdad in the Seventies. People didn't listen to Iraqi music, they listened to English music all the time'
Today he is most often asked to play the likes of Backstreet Boys, Westlife, Blue, Britney Spears, American Idol's Katharine McPhee and Eminem. Sir Elton John has been a favourite ever since 'Candle in the Wind'.
Ahmed, who began broadcasting in 1993 as a producer on Baghdad FM, describes the fall of Saddam as 'one of the greatest things that ever happened to Iraqis' and there is no doubt where his allegiances lie. He runs his Arabic-language station - a mix of news, talk and music - from a US base and receives American financial support. But he has put in his own time and money over the past four years and risks his life every time he commutes from home.
Two of his colleagues were murdered two years ago, and last year the Baghdad HQ of Radio Dijla, Iraq's first independent all-talk station, was stormed by gunmen who killed a security guard. Next day, the station was destroyed by arsonists.
'I have received a lot of death threats, but here I am,' Ahmed says. 'Phones, text messages, or someone approaches you and tells you: "Blah blah blah said don't do blah blah blah." Some people asked me not talk in a bad way about militia, fearing for my life. "We don't want to lose you, so stay focused with the songs." I just ignored it. Don't let it bother you, stop thinking about it, leave it behind.
'You risk your life, but is it worth it? Yes. Because there are a lot of people having faith in me that I might get them somewhere. Life works in mysterious ways. When it's over, it's over. '
Some 127 journalists have been killed on duty in Iraq since the US invasion, of whom 105 were Iraqi, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. It is especially perilous for Iraqi freelancers to work for Western media organisations as they can be targeted as traitors by insurgents.
Baghdad-born Ahmed, who has obvious concerns for the safety of his wife and children, adds: 'Journalists and people I've worked with in the media have been a target for a long time. A lot of journalists have given their lives for doing what they do, working in newspapers, TV channels, radio stations. There are a lot of sacrifices.'
Despite an overall downturn in violence, movement around Iraq remains hazardous and the threat to press freedom severe. 'It is 60 per cent free,' says Ahmed. 'Are they doing their job really, are they expressing their minds 100 per cent? No. There's a lot of things that you cannot talk about in the media.'
But he believes satellite TV channels, the BBC and a booming Baghdad radio scene keep the public well informed and entertained. Switch on a radio in the Iraqi capital and the FM dial is jammed with anything from Western pop to verses from the Koran to a cast of British voices on the World Service.
Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army has its own station, Ahmed says: 'I was so surprised, because I was changing the radio dial in my car and they were talking about how the Iraqi people freed Iraq from Saddam in 2003. I was so surprised because it never happened. What about the young kids? They're going to grow up with that idea.
'You've got a lot of people who simply can't read or write. The main target of that radio station is focusing on those illiterate people, ignorant people, people who lean on the side of religion, not the side of supporting the government or working with our Iraqi security forces. These kind of radio stations should be stopped.'
Ahmed calls himself a 'God believer' who doesn't believe in sects. He takes up his guitar and starts singing another Beatles hit, 'We Can Work It Out'. It sounds like a DJ's choice for an anthem for Iraq 2008; a little cheesy, perhaps, more McCartney sweet than Lennon sour and not quite right. But maybe it is. He hasn't yet learnt all the words.
· Listen to Mohammed Ahmed sing the Beatles, and hear other Iraqi journalists discuss the dangers of their work at observer.co.uk/audio