Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam

This is an incredible story that I could not put down. Zainab's story is inspiring, educational but I also found the book to be entertaining. Her story puts a very human side of a drama that we have seen authored in countless documentaries and news stories, yet with a very different perspective and fascinated me. To read of her middle class upbringing in Baghdad to becoming essentially a refugee in the United States is a compelling and inspiring tale. The book was devoid of any political tones for the most part. She sensibly gave her opinion on the overthrow of Saddam Huessein and the war with Iraq and her opinion on the future of Iraqi citizens without injecting any politics in to it, just her own heart and matter-of-fact opinions. I can't imagine what it must be like in her shoes - seeing the death and destruction of her country on the news daily but still feeling the relief over Saddam Huessein being removed as President, and inversely, shock of seeing this man who was for better or worse, a huge part of her childhood and family social life being fished out of a foxhole on international television. I recommend this book to anyone, she is a truly amazing woman and this is a great story.

Between Two Worlds is an autobiography. In part, it is also Salbi's tribute to her mother, a beautiful bird in an invisible cage. If the book teaches you anything, it's this: you can't leave the torments of your past behind. They follow you around like a shadow and only real freedom and true love can vanquish them. Freedom is the best ointment for decades spent under tyranny. Freedom is very comfortable, but it is not magical. Healing takes time. Emancipated people often need help along the road to independence. It's not easy for long-term prisoners to be fully functional outside the cell block. In that regard, Salbi has succeeded magnificently. I bought her book largely because of that success. She is the founder of Women for Women International, an organization which I support. This book was a lot more revealing than I expected. Salbi's past includes both psychological and physical abuse (including a bad first marriage). Look at the photo on the book's cover. Salbi's creamy complexion was first nourished by the lemon trees of Baghdad and then washed by a copious amount of tears as unfortunate events piled up in her adult life.The subtitle, Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam, is a bit inaccurate. Saddam was more than a shadow in her life. He was literally the house guest on her living room sofa, the hand on her shoulder, the audience at her informal piano recital, and her attentive guide to a pavilion on one of his palace lakes. Salbi's father was Saddam's personal pilot. Her knowledge of Saddam is direct or second hand from primary sources. Her descriptions of him and his methods read like a playbook for narcissistic psychopathic dictators: Take whatever you want, murder those who displease you, rape whomever you like (including vulnerable women who plead for your assistance), sow fear and distrust everywhere, use force regularly, create a personality cult, brook no refusal, keep a collection of "friends" who must respond like lap dogs to your every wish whether explicit or implied, bring war upon the earth, name infrastructure projects after yourself, forego the rule of law, employ tribal bodyguards whose loyalty is certain and reward them with sex and power, build lavish palaces, kill opposition leaders, be vainly selective with your wardrobe, violently oppress or deport any group not cut from the same cloth as you, engage in domestic spying and encourage snitching even among family members and school children, punish independent attitudes or actions no matter how small, obey no one, always follow your own inclinations, maintain a veil of dignity and respectability whenever possible, and treat your entire country as essentially your own private feeding ground.

In this poignant and perceptive memoir, an Iraqi activist recounts growing up under Saddam Hussein's regime. When her father becomes Saddam's personal pilot, they begin to spend regular time with the President and his inner circle. I had to admit that I was primed to expect some pretty gory scenes. Instead the gatherings come across as any dysfunctional family get together which naturally a teenager would rather do anything than have to attend. The violence, what there is of it, happens at the edges of the action. The intimidation comes more from what could happen than what actually does. None of it happens to Salbi, although the strain of being Saddam's "friends" causes rifts in her parents' relationship.The violence comes when she unwillingly agrees to an arranged marriage in America. Pushed into it by her mother, who up until that point advocated independence for women, she finds herself trapped in a violent marriage, with which she frees herself with difficulty. After that, she becomes an activist, forming an organization to help rape victims of war torn countries. Through hearing other women's stories and traveling back home to hear her parents' accounts of what had happened to them (much of which they concealed from her as a youth), she begins to heal.Being a Westerner, there was one little thing I wondered. Salbi apparently was the one person in all of Iraq who Saddam didn't humiliate or abuse, regardless of what she said or did to him. How is this possible? This is a man who had his own family members jailed, tortured and killed, who crushed the spirit of everyone he came into contact with. Why was she the only one who was immune from his and his family's constant cruelty, when her father, mother and siblings weren't? (At least until the very end.) I also wondered why, in all the time she spent with Saddam, he never boasted about his less than humane exploits to her, and she had to find out through secondhand sources, most of them many years later, just how bad things had been. Why would Saddam censor himself around her for years on end, when he took such pride in being ruthless? For a sociopath, he must have had a lot of self-restraint.

Książka ta to dowód wspaniałej inteligencji autorki oraz inspirującego życia i wspaniałej duszy.

A definite must-read!

Great book. A must read for anyone who is interested in an inward look at the man Saddam was and the consequences of his actions on the lives and psychologies of the people he ruled

Maravilhoso livro! Recomendo a todas as pessoas envolvidas de alguma forma com trabalho humanitário. A autora é fundadora de uma das mais importantes ONG's voltadas a ajudar mulheres vítimas de violência sexual. Recomendo demais este livro.

I don't think you can make any clearer the cost war and tyranny has for the individual. Not only for the writer herself, but we get vivid portrayals of other people as well, and you can glimpse from the author's perspective how it impacts them.One of it's strongest points is how the author thinks of what she has gone through. It is deeply human that she lacks perspective of self. She asks in the book why the victims are not more open to talk about what has happened to them, why their culture holds them back. All the while answering the question herself, throughout the whole book she explains how she herself holds back from telling for various reasons what has happened to her, reasons which have nothing to do with culture at all. So at times she can explain clearly why and how there really isn't a cultural difference in reactions to certain events, but at other times it escapes her because some things we just don't want to see. In that, it really gives an insight into the psychology of war.Not that this was what I was expecting to gain from the book as she was from a privileged family. Don't read it if you're the type of person who gets upset by reading of the realities of war. Had I known she would detail such things before buying it I would probably not have bought it. Not that I'm trying to dissuade the sensitive reader.A very impactful book.