One alum’s unusual career path

Enders got on a plane and went to Baghdad.

Last Friday, Enders delivered a lecture on his book “Baghdad Bulletin,” which is about his experiences living in the Iraqi capital and starting a weekly newspaper there.

This year, the LSA Honors Program is requiring every incoming freshman in the program to read it.

As an undergraduate, Enders spent several months in the Middle East, designing his own study abroad program, because the University’s options in the region were limited. His mother’s family hails from the region, which inspirEd him to take an interest in the area. He studied through several different foreign universities, working on his degree while learning Arabic.

After he left the University, he paired his experience as an associate news editor at The Michigan Daily with his knowledge of the region to launch the English language newspaper in May 2003.

Amid the danger of war and with little funding, the staff of less than 20 published the Bulletin every week.

Enders designed the paper to not only benefit English-speaking Iraqis, but to provide an alternative perspective for an international audience separate from coverage delivered by the mainstream media. Enders said the paper circulated more than 10,000 copies and had at least as many hits on the website.

Friday’s event was part of the LSA Honors Program’s parent weekend. Many students’ mothers and fathers attended the event, some anxious to learn what their son or daughter could do with an English degree.

After listening to Enders speak, Sue Vasquez, mother of Residential College junior Meghann Rotary, said the opportunities young people have to make a difference in the world encouraged her.

“You are the ones that have the drive and the zest to go out there and do something,” she said.

Enders said he got his first taste of social action in an undergraduate English class taught by Prof. William “Buzz” Alexander.

Alexander’s Prison Creative Arts Project sends students into the real world, Enders said.

They work in prisons and underprivileged Detroit high schools. Enders said that while talking about social issues in a classroom is constructive, it’s a whole different experience to go out and do something about them.

By spending an extended period of time in Baghdad and surrounding countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, and Beirut, Enders gained first-hand knowledge of many social issues of the Middle East. He showed pictures of his time abroad: 10,000 men praying in the street, concrete rubble following air strikes in Beirut, the crater remaining after a car bomb exploded.

Enders spoke about the current state of Middle Eastern nations and U.S. involvement, using his personal knowledge of the war.

“It confirmed my worst fears of what was going on,” said Steve Leibert, whose daughter Jamie is a freshman in the Honors College. “People don’t want to know. People want to live in a cocoon.”

Three months into Iraq, Enders was convinced to buy a gun, despite saying he never would. A young British journalist had just been killed, and the Bulletin’s staff threatened to leave if Enders did not agree to be less flippant with his safety.

To blend in with the surroundings, Enders changed his hairstyle and grew a mustache. By knowing conversational Arabic and wearing local clothing, he was able to pass as a native.

Enders also had a contact he could call if there was a problem passing a security checkpoint. His last departure from Iraq was partly fueled by fear that his contact would turn on him, but his safety precautions weren’t always enough.

In 2004, someone put a loaded gun to his head, accusing of being an Israeli spy. In 2005, he was nearly kidnapped for interviewing people on the streets after a bombing. Enders called the ensuing car chase “movie-worthy.”

“The driver did a very good job,” he said. “We were lucky to get away.”

He said there would be no point in returning because of the escalating violence.

Enders said distrust of journalists in the Middle East has reached such a level that no one has any desire to speak with American reporters. Even the U.S. military is suspicious of them, he said. But the distrust is mutual. Enders said there is an unspoken “no-one-believes-Iraqis rule” which causes important news to be lost. Reporters need to report on what the natives are saying as well, he said.

“Half of what is told to you about what is happening in Iraq is told by Cheney or Rumsfeld, etcetera,” he said. “Why aren’t we questioning this?”

This government approach needs to change, Enders said, if the U.S. is to salvage its reputation.

He said he supports engagement with the Iraqi people in an effort to shift their misconstrued perceptions of Americans. The military options have failed, he said, and now we need to engage culturally to make an impact.

Enders advises that one way to do this is through efforts like those of History Prof. Juan Cole’s Americana Translation Project. Cole’s nonprofit group translates classic American works into Arabic to aide cultural understanding.

Project leaders hope to one day translate works of the Founding Fathers as well as put several Arabic works into English. As of now, most Middle Easterners only see a negative representation of the United States.

“We have made people like us so much less,” Enders said. “We have convinced a whole generation of people that they don’t want to have a lot to do with the U.S.”

Donna Wessel Walker, assistant director of the LSA Honors Program and chair of the freshman book selection committee, admired Enders’ knack for stirring controversy when she helped choose the text this year.

“The book itself is personally compelling, but politically controversial,” she said.

Bio Box – David Enders
Hometown: Grand Rapids, Mich.
Graduated: 2003
Major: English
Minor: Political Science

Book: “Baghdad Bulletin,” available from the University of Michigan Press

Major Project: Ran a English language newsweekly, the Baghdad Bulletin, in Iraq

Current Job: Teaching high school journalism in Brooklyn, tying up loose ends on various projects in the Middle East