October 4, 2021 • 28 mins
What does it take to get past the horrors of terrorism? How do you start to restore homes, cities, neighbourhoods, lives, minds? We explore what communities are doing to recover from the devastation caused by groups like Daesh. We ask if the world is doing enough to help them and hear first-hand from those trying to pick up the pieces of their shattered communities.
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Episode Transcript
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Adnan Sarwar (00:00):
Before we begin, this is a podcast about terrorism, which means
we do talk about acts of terror and extreme violence,
sometimes in quite a lot of detail, so you might
find some of the following material upsetting. Hello, I'm Adnan
Sarwar. This is Taking Apart Terror and this is music
to anyone's ears. ( music). That's the Watar Orchestral ensemble performing
(00:35):
at the restored Al Rabea Theater in Mosul, the first
event on its stage, since Daesh was driven from the
city. It was a joyful occasion, but it contained in
it, the constant reminder of what Mosul and its people
had endured before getting to this point and that's what we are
looking at this time. How do people get past the
terrible things that organizations like Daesh inflict upon them? How
(00:59):
do communities rebuild once the regime has gone? What are
the biggest obstacles they face? Or, as we're calling this
episode, is their life after terror? To talk about this
question, I'm joined by our regular panelists, historian Omar Mohammed,
(01:21):
who as the Mosul eye, kept the world informed of
what was really happening in his home city during its
occupation by Daesh, and who is still working for its
recovery. Welcome, Omar.
Omar Mohammed (01:32):
Hi, Adnan.
Adnan Sarwar (01:33):
And Dr. Haroro Ingram, Senior Research Fellow with the Program
on Extremism at George Washington University. Hey, Haroro.
Haroro Ingram (01:41):
Hi, Adnan. Happy to be here.
Adnan Sarwar (01:42):
And we are also welcoming today, Frank Philip, Country Director
for Iraq, for the HALO trust, which works to clear
minds and other ordinance and as it says, to create
safe and secure environments in some of the world's most
vulnerable communities. Frank, just to start off, can you just
tell me a little bit about what that means? What does
(02:03):
the hill or trust do?
Frank Philip (02:04):
Well, the HALO trust is the largest and long time established
humanitarian demining organization. We've been operating since 1988 in Afghanistan.
And since then, we've expanded all over the globe. We
recruit from the communities in which we're operating and we train
them up and where possible, we develop that talent to
(02:27):
become the managers and the, and the leaders of HALO programs.
Adnan Sarwar (02:32):
Thank you. Omar, if I could start with you. You lived
under Daesh. Can you ever remember thinking, how will we
get over this?
Omar Mohammed (02:40):
What Daesh did is not just about destroying building. It's not
just about destroying the infrastructure of the city. Daesh destroyed
completely the trust of the people in themself and their
survival. The long history of violence that we have went
through, it's part of the tradition of Muslim now that you
always keep food for what they call it, the dark days.
(03:06):
The people started with recovering the old market of Mosul. And
once this old market functioned again, the people started coming
back, the families in the neighborhoods, and then with other
kind of projects in order to rebuild their religious life
(03:26):
that was heavily damaged by Daesh, a very slow process,
but very effective.
Adnan Sarwar (03:34):
Haroro, going back to what Omar just said about the
long history of trauma, especially in that country. I mean,
I served in the Iraq War in 2003 and in
Britain, we'd look at the Iraq War and that's a
big thing to us, but actually zooming out, Iraq's been
at war every 10 to 15 years since it was
created in the twenties. How does that affect people?
Haroro Ingram (03:56):
There is a really extraordinary history of trauma that you
are dealing with in the example of Iraq. Let's just
go back a few decades. Let's stop at the eighties
and move forward from there. You have the Iran- Iraq
war, enormous human cost that helped to drive and act
as a catalyst for sectarian tensions, in both countries, which
(04:20):
would be cyclically exploited by violent political actors. You move
forward into the nineties and you have the Gulf War. You
keep moving through the nineties and we are talking about
wars. Let's talk about the crippling sanctions that were placed
upon Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of people who were killed,
children that were killed. And then you get to the
Iraq War. You have just these decades and decades of
(04:43):
trauma upon trauma and hardship. And these were strategically and
brutally exploited by groups like ISIS. We're focusing on ISIS,
but there are actually a lot of different groups that were
operating, violent, extremist groups that were operating. I think it's
so important for us to understand that this history of
trauma is not an anomaly to Iraq. It is replicated
(05:06):
in so many other locations where ISIS have been active.
Adnan Sarwar (05:10):
Frank, you are working in Iraq right now to try and
help rebuild it and I just wanted to talk about
the rebuilding, the recovery from this kind of devastation. How
important is it that there was this city that was
destroyed and that we need to rebuild it?
Frank Philip (05:27):
Probably the best way to illustrate what we're talking about
is what we are doing in Baiji, which is a
significant size town in Salahuddin because it was fought over
and so intensely and for so long. The town was
completely flattened. A lot of the people that we employ
are returnees, some remained during the Daesh occupation and had
(05:50):
to suffer all the hardships, but the majority will have
fled and become displaced people. As we've been working and
becoming accepted as part of the fabric of the community,
we have the benefit because we've been working there for
two years now, to have seen not just what we've
achieved in terms of removing explosive hazards, which continue to
(06:11):
kill and injure sadly, but we've also seen the small
city recover. People have the confidence to return and increasingly, they're
coming back in numbers. They're trying to rebuild the shattered
homes. They're trying to reestablish their livelihoods and attempt to
revive normality. I mean, I just absolutely take my hat
(06:33):
off to the Iraqi people wherever I come across them,
notwithstanding the fact that they have suffered decades of trauma.
But they're extremely resilient people and they quite simply just get
on with it.
Adnan Sarwar (06:45):
Omar, when I was in Mosul in 2018, I met
a family and they were looking over the destruction of
their house and their house had been completely destroyed and
they was showing me like little lines of bricks on
the floor and saying, " This is where our kitchen needs
to be. This is where our bathroom needs to be."
Everything they knew had disappeared. How do you come back
(07:07):
from that?
Omar Mohammed (07:11):
We are not just speaking about this, Adnan. We are speaking also about other scenes where women or
men, I mean, parents who have lost almost every member
of their family, sitting on the top of a completely
destroyed house, not looking to restore the house. They are
(07:32):
just trying to retrieve the corpses and bodies of their
dead people in order to properly buried them. It's not
the war that we are worried about now. How can
we survive the consequences of the war? And I believe
that there is something very important in order to help
the people of Mosul to overcome this trauma is by
(07:55):
understanding all the traumas were built layers after layers. Just
to go deep into the idea of going back to
normality, we do not want to go back to normality
because the normality itself wasn't actually normal. It was itself
a traumatized normality because our problem actually goes long before 2014.
Adnan Sarwar (08:24):
Destruction takes many forms, buildings, human bodies, but terrorists are
often just as focused on eradicating things you can't see,
ideas, knowledge, thought, which is why when Daesh took over
Mosul, they particularly targeted the libraries. The University of Mosul
had one of the largest libraries in the Middle East.
(08:46):
It had more than 1 million books, many of them
rare and ancient. During their time in the city, Daesh completely
destroyed it, the books and the building, in what UNESCO
called one of the most devastating acts of destruction of
library collections in human history. Mahmood Al- Gaddawi is the
(09:06):
founder of The (inaudible) Initiative, which is focusing on
trying to restore books to the city. What does he
remember of that time?
Mahmood Al-Gaddawi (09:15):
You couldn't buy any book. Most of the books, they were
prohibited. People used to buy books secretly during their rule.
In fact, it is a bad feeling when you see
that the libraries, the books are burnt, and many of
these books are very important. They are very old books
(09:36):
and they are scripts. You couldn't find these scripts in
other countries, so it was a very bad feeling for us.
Adnan Sarwar (09:43):
And why does he think they did it?
Mahmood Al-Gaddawi (09:45):
For each terrorist group there, they represent a specific ideology.
So they have their own ideas. For this reason, they
are afraid of the books, which are not suitable for
their ideas and their thoughts. Even the Islamic books, in
other dictatorships, they stopped the widespread of the books, which
(10:07):
are not suitable for their ideas and thoughts. And Daesh
is a dictatorship, just like the other dictatorships.
Adnan Sarwar (10:16):
So Mahmood, together with many of those who'd watched this
attack on the psyche of his city and his people,
decided to do something. He wrote a book called 66
Projects for the Rebirth of Mosul. One of them was
about books.
Mahmood Al-Gaddawi (10:30):
One of these ideas was called the secondhand book market. Through
Facebook, I asked the question, " Since there is a weekly
market for bicycles, motors, and belts, why don't we found
a specific market for the second handbooks?" People, in fact,
(10:51):
they were very positive in dealing with this idea. And
then we changed the idea and we decided we choose
one of the sidewalks of University of Mosul, it was
just like a cultural street, for each Friday afternoon. People
gather together in this area, photographers, writers, owners of bookshops,
(11:14):
artists and (inaudible) and they display their photographs, paintings,
handygraphs and of course, their books. So first of all,
it was a local idea, but then many people from
other countries, many channels, radios, and journals, they come to (inaudible)
(11:36):
` in order to report about this idea. But after
that, some people helped us. IOM helped us and then
USA also helped us in building the area again. But
first of all when we start, we didn't use money.
It was just an activity and handily, we succeeded in this activity.
Adnan Sarwar (12:04):
Haroro, is there an effort to basically bring people back
to their homes?
Haroro Ingram (12:11):
There are efforts both in Iraq and beyond, but it's
been deeply flawed. So much of the problems have their
roots in a misunderstanding of the fundamental problem itself. There
is a tendency to see these populations as fundamentally part
(12:33):
the problem, that they were somehow complicit with ISIS. And
there are segments of the population that were, but for
the vast majority, they are and were victims of ISIS.
They were coerced and we must never forget that. And
we must implement that understanding in the way that we
approach a whole range of different policy, including the issue
(12:55):
of repatriation. There's his trifecta of stigma, shame and fear
that compounds this sense of trauma, both individual, but also
this collective trauma that emerges. And it really does hang
like a pull over everything. You can feel it and
you can sense it viscerally when you're on the ground,
(13:17):
when you are talking to people, the way that people
will respond to sounds and to smells just instinctively. I
also think it's important, particularly for policy developers, for program
designers and implementers, to recognize that where there is acute
stress, there is a steep cognitive tax that people must
(13:39):
pay and it means that they're susceptible to cognitive biases.
It means that they're susceptible to making decisions that are
seemingly illogical and irrational. Kids will tend to struggle in
school, youth in universities, and jobs. It is a truth
that needs to be taken into account when we are
(13:59):
developing programs to help these communities and to help that
rebuilding process.
Adnan Sarwar (14:05):
Frank, you've talked about donor fatigue, who's paying for you
to be there. Whose responsibility do you think it is
to fix Iraq?
Frank Philip (14:14):
Well, the international donor community has traditionally provided much of
the money. The Iraqis themselves, the Iraqi military, do a
lot of clearance. We get some bilateral funding from a
number of different countries. But the majority of our funding
comes through the UN Mine Action Service, which basically acts
(14:35):
as an agent to manage the funding provided by backing
donors. The concern is the world's got to recover from
COVID going forward and I think there is a danger
of donor fatigue. I hope that doesn't happen. And a
big part of my job is to sell what we
do and to encourage international donors. And in time, I
(14:59):
hope the Iraqis themselves are going to take much more
of a predominant role in funding Mine Action themselves.
Adnan Sarwar (15:06):
Omar, so Frank is talking about how the rest of the
world is doing things like mind clearance. Has there been
enough international interest in helping Mosul?
Omar Mohammed (15:14):
World response was really important and I hear refer specifically
to the work that UNESCO is doing in Mosul, the
reconstruction and recovery of the most symbolic historical sites in
Mosul. You have the EU working tirelessly on the recovery
of the agriculture. There was a beautiful project that brought
(15:37):
back the irrigation system of Salamieh, town in (inaudible) ,
which brought back all the farmers. When you bring them
back their irrigation system, you don't have to give them
too much money. They know how to do things. But
we have to be careful, Adnan, because that's not the
end of the story. We are not dealing with normal
(16:00):
people. We are dealing with traumatized people who might, at
one point, collapse. The most important aspect of this, Adnan,
is we have to give back the narrative to the
people of Mosul themself. The narrative that was taken away from them
by Daesh and that narrative is that Mosul and its
(16:24):
people can recover and they can also restore their trust
in themself, which will help not only Mosul, but the rest of the world.
Adnan Sarwar (16:34):
So Haroro, Omar saying that there is help, that there are
recovery projects happening, but that is also not just about
what we do, but how we do it.
Haroro Ingram (16:43):
It comes down to what we define as recovery, and
this is going to need to be a phased process.
But what's absolutely crucial is ensuring that the local population,
that they have a central role to play in how
these policies are developed. And for far too long, we
(17:05):
pay lip service to getting local perceptions of this. For
far too long, those companies that receive the multimillion dollar
contracts and then get their satellite companies in Iraq and
in the Philippines and other places like that to do
the work, it's more often than not lip service. It's
symbolic. Recovery efforts require being on the ground. It requires
(17:31):
developing precisely the kind of relationships that Frank has spoken
so articulately about.
Adnan Sarwar (17:37):
Frank, how do you, or how do we keep people
motivated? How do we explain to people and show people that
recovery is just going to take a long time?
Frank Philip (17:47):
It's an ongoing process from top to bottom and HALO
and any other humanitarian mine action organization, we invest a
huge amount of time speaking to governments, embassies, and any
other stakeholders, and that includes Iraqi stakeholders. We spend a
(18:07):
great deal of time in liaison with people on the
ground, people in country at government level, at national level
and beyond at the moment. The current strategic plan they're
working on is looking forward to 2028. Iraq will not
be clear of explosive hazards by 2028. It's going to
take another 10 years. It's going to take a huge
(18:31):
effort to keep people interested in continuing to fund because
there are other priorities, global priorities elsewhere, that I mentioned,
the COVID recovery. I mean it remains to be seen.
The pot seems to be getting smaller, but we need
to be smarter about how we use the available funding
so it isn't wasted and it goes to the right
(18:51):
place and it has the correct effect. So yeah, it's
an ongoing process and we have to keep the world
interested in the problem and when we've finished clearing what
Daesh has left behind, it'll be time to return to
the legacy contamination, the mine fields that are all up
the length of the border with Iran. It's a massive
(19:15):
problem. It's the most explosive contaminated country in the world.
Adnan Sarwar (19:18):
Omar, do you want to comment on that?
Omar Mohammed (19:19):
The people of Mosul, as an example, reconciliation is not
part of their vocabularies. The reconciliation works without naming it.
We are speaking about the social cohesion. What is the social
cohesion? The people do not understand these kind of concepts.
It's not part of their linguistic history. What they understand
(19:42):
is that Mosul have lived over the history with neighborhoods
like the Jewish neighborhood, the Christian neighborhood, the Muslim neighborhood.
And then they created a space where they meet, which
is the old market of Mosul. And that's why I
mentioned it from the very beginning that the first thing the
(20:02):
people of Mosul did, they put lots of money and
they started reconstructing the shops because they all know without
going through this catchy terminology of the international organizations, that
the only way for them to come back to their,
at least normality, is the market because they all meet
(20:25):
there. They are not ignorant, but they know how to
restore their life. They have been trying to tell the international
organizations that, " The way you are doing things is wrong.
Just try to listen to us once."
Haroro Ingram (20:38):
Could I jump in on something there? Here we are
in 2021 talking about where the funding has gone. The
purse strings are being pulled tight. Not a handful of
years ago, the trough was full and the companies were
feeding. This is another one of the great tragedies is
(20:59):
that you go to these conflict zones. When it is
front and center in the media, there is an extraordinary
amount of money available for companies. Having traveled to communities
devastated by this group, motivation amongst the civilian population is
very rarely an issue. These are people that want to rebuild
(21:21):
their lives. The problem is insufficient support, support that has
our either flooded its foundations from a policy or a strategic or
a programmatic mistake. It's flawed in its implementation or it's
flawed in its resourcing. The motivation to survive and to
continue is always there.
Adnan Sarwar (21:43):
And the people that Haroro is talking about are people
like Mahmood and what started as an initiative in a
Mosul side street became part of a worldwide campaign that
resulted in thousands and thousands of books being sent from
across the globe to restock Mosulian University's library and others in
the city. Why are books, their loss and their restoration
(22:05):
so important to Mahmood?
Mahmood Al-Gaddawi (22:08):
Books have a symbolic feeling or representation. Many people nowadays,
they don't read the paper books, but the book itself,
it is a symbol. It represents knowledge, science, art and
culture. So even for those people who are not reading
books, they feel sad when they see that the book
(22:31):
market in Mosul is destroyed. The book represents culture. We
didn't just lost the books. We lost a large number
of mosques, church, schools and many buildings which have historical,
religious and cultural importance. We can't buy books nowadays, but
(22:53):
it is difficult to restore these historical buildings. We feel
happy when we see these books come back to Mosul.
It has a symbolic meaning. You feel very happy.
Adnan Sarwar (23:12):
Omar, could I ask you, do you think you'll ever
return to Mosul?
Omar Mohammed (23:20):
No.
Adnan Sarwar (23:22):
You don't think you'll ever go back home?
Omar Mohammed (23:28):
No. It's a very tough question, Adnan. It's psychologically a
very heavy question that I always try to avoid. But
the city that I knew once is unfortunately gone. The city
(23:58):
of Mosul, where I built my memories, where I built
the images of my knowledge and my character, my identity,
my connection to the architecture, my connection to the river,
(24:18):
my connection to even the sky of the city, this city
no more exists. What exists now, and what I am
trying to do now, is to help the next generation
to find a space to live on and to build
(24:38):
their own memories.
Adnan Sarwar (24:43):
Last question I want to ask to all of you,
and you can be honest, are you hopeful about the
recovery? Haroro?
Haroro Ingram (24:52):
Yes, I am hopeful of the recovery because I've spent
time with so many of these communities. I actually think
that there is an opportunity with the reduced funding that
will force a more streamlined and efficient approach, a more
methodical and evidence based approach, a more transparent and accountable
approach. We absolutely must be hopeful. We must continue being
(25:17):
methodical evidence based because if we are not, then we
absolutely cede to this horrible group.
Adnan Sarwar (25:24):
Frank?
Frank Philip (25:26):
I'm optimistic as well. And with improved coordination and more
strategic vision and less siloing of activity and funding, I
think then we will ultimately have the optimum effect, one
hopes. It's going to take a long time. Despite that,
the Iraqi people, they will, despite to the ongoing problems
(25:49):
of explosive hazards and everything else that is wrong with
the country, they will help themselves to make it better
with greater stakeholder engagement and coordination, in particular, will get there.
Adnan Sarwar (26:04):
Omar, final word?
Omar Mohammed (26:06):
When I look at those young people who clean the
theater that is partially damaged and destroyed, when you look
inside the theater, the roof is destroyed, the walls are
destroyed, yet they clean it using their hands and just
simple materials. And they decided that an orchestra and a
(26:30):
concert should be held in Mosul. When I look at
those young people and their resilience, being a historian and
part of being a historian, you should be always pessimistic. I
am changing this reality now and I say, I am
more than optimistic about the future of Mosul and its
(26:51):
people, because I believe in the resilience and power of
those young people who, despite all the struggle and the horrors
they lived, yet they are creating a beautiful space that
I myself never imagined I will ever see in Mosul. ( music)
Adnan Sarwar (27:22):
I'd like to thank Haroro Ingram, Omar Mohammed, Frank Philip,
and Mahmood Al- Gaddawi for giving us some insight into
what getting over terrorism might look like. That's it for
this edition of Taking Apart Terror. Search for us wherever
you get your podcasts. And if you're enjoying the series,
please do leave us a star rating and a review.
It makes a huge difference to how many people find
(27:45):
us and of course, follow or subscribe, so you don't
miss an episode like the next one, where we ask
is extremist violence unforgivable? Three people who have had direct
experience of terrorist acts tell us how they got through
them and learned about the meaning of forgiveness. I'm Adnan.
Until the next time, good bye.
Before we begin, this is a podcast about terrorism, which means
we do talk about acts of terror and extreme violence,
sometimes in quite a lot of detail, so you might
find some of the following material upsetting. Hello, I'm Adnan
Sarwar. This is Taking Apart Terror and this is music
to anyone's ears. ( music). That's the Watar Orchestral ensemble performing
(00:35):
at the restored Al Rabea Theater in Mosul, the first
event on its stage, since Daesh was driven from the
city. It was a joyful occasion, but it contained in
it, the constant reminder of what Mosul and its people
had endured before getting to this point and that's what we are
looking at this time. How do people get past the
terrible things that organizations like Daesh inflict upon them? How
(00:59):
do communities rebuild once the regime has gone? What are
the biggest obstacles they face? Or, as we're calling this
episode, is their life after terror? To talk about this
question, I'm joined by our regular panelists, historian Omar Mohammed,
(01:21):
who as the Mosul eye, kept the world informed of
what was really happening in his home city during its
occupation by Daesh, and who is still working for its
recovery. Welcome, Omar.
Omar Mohammed (01:32):
Hi, Adnan.
Adnan Sarwar (01:33):
And Dr. Haroro Ingram, Senior Research Fellow with the Program
on Extremism at George Washington University. Hey, Haroro.
Haroro Ingram (01:41):
Hi, Adnan. Happy to be here.
Adnan Sarwar (01:42):
And we are also welcoming today, Frank Philip, Country Director
for Iraq, for the HALO trust, which works to clear
minds and other ordinance and as it says, to create
safe and secure environments in some of the world's most
vulnerable communities. Frank, just to start off, can you just
tell me a little bit about what that means? What does
(02:03):
the hill or trust do?
Frank Philip (02:04):
Well, the HALO trust is the largest and long time established
humanitarian demining organization. We've been operating since 1988 in Afghanistan.
And since then, we've expanded all over the globe. We
recruit from the communities in which we're operating and we train
them up and where possible, we develop that talent to
(02:27):
become the managers and the, and the leaders of HALO programs.
Adnan Sarwar (02:32):
Thank you. Omar, if I could start with you. You lived
under Daesh. Can you ever remember thinking, how will we
get over this?
Omar Mohammed (02:40):
What Daesh did is not just about destroying building. It's not
just about destroying the infrastructure of the city. Daesh destroyed
completely the trust of the people in themself and their
survival. The long history of violence that we have went
through, it's part of the tradition of Muslim now that you
always keep food for what they call it, the dark days.
(03:06):
The people started with recovering the old market of Mosul. And
once this old market functioned again, the people started coming
back, the families in the neighborhoods, and then with other
kind of projects in order to rebuild their religious life
(03:26):
that was heavily damaged by Daesh, a very slow process,
but very effective.
Adnan Sarwar (03:34):
Haroro, going back to what Omar just said about the
long history of trauma, especially in that country. I mean,
I served in the Iraq War in 2003 and in
Britain, we'd look at the Iraq War and that's a
big thing to us, but actually zooming out, Iraq's been
at war every 10 to 15 years since it was
created in the twenties. How does that affect people?
Haroro Ingram (03:56):
There is a really extraordinary history of trauma that you
are dealing with in the example of Iraq. Let's just
go back a few decades. Let's stop at the eighties
and move forward from there. You have the Iran- Iraq
war, enormous human cost that helped to drive and act
as a catalyst for sectarian tensions, in both countries, which
(04:20):
would be cyclically exploited by violent political actors. You move
forward into the nineties and you have the Gulf War. You
keep moving through the nineties and we are talking about
wars. Let's talk about the crippling sanctions that were placed
upon Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of people who were killed,
children that were killed. And then you get to the
Iraq War. You have just these decades and decades of
(04:43):
trauma upon trauma and hardship. And these were strategically and
brutally exploited by groups like ISIS. We're focusing on ISIS,
but there are actually a lot of different groups that were
operating, violent, extremist groups that were operating. I think it's
so important for us to understand that this history of
trauma is not an anomaly to Iraq. It is replicated
(05:06):
in so many other locations where ISIS have been active.
Adnan Sarwar (05:10):
Frank, you are working in Iraq right now to try and
help rebuild it and I just wanted to talk about
the rebuilding, the recovery from this kind of devastation. How
important is it that there was this city that was
destroyed and that we need to rebuild it?
Frank Philip (05:27):
Probably the best way to illustrate what we're talking about
is what we are doing in Baiji, which is a
significant size town in Salahuddin because it was fought over
and so intensely and for so long. The town was
completely flattened. A lot of the people that we employ
are returnees, some remained during the Daesh occupation and had
(05:50):
to suffer all the hardships, but the majority will have
fled and become displaced people. As we've been working and
becoming accepted as part of the fabric of the community,
we have the benefit because we've been working there for
two years now, to have seen not just what we've
achieved in terms of removing explosive hazards, which continue to
(06:11):
kill and injure sadly, but we've also seen the small
city recover. People have the confidence to return and increasingly, they're
coming back in numbers. They're trying to rebuild the shattered
homes. They're trying to reestablish their livelihoods and attempt to
revive normality. I mean, I just absolutely take my hat
(06:33):
off to the Iraqi people wherever I come across them,
notwithstanding the fact that they have suffered decades of trauma.
But they're extremely resilient people and they quite simply just get
on with it.
Adnan Sarwar (06:45):
Omar, when I was in Mosul in 2018, I met
a family and they were looking over the destruction of
their house and their house had been completely destroyed and
they was showing me like little lines of bricks on
the floor and saying, " This is where our kitchen needs
to be. This is where our bathroom needs to be."
Everything they knew had disappeared. How do you come back
(07:07):
from that?
Omar Mohammed (07:11):
We are not just speaking about this, Adnan. We are speaking also about other scenes where women or
men, I mean, parents who have lost almost every member
of their family, sitting on the top of a completely
destroyed house, not looking to restore the house. They are
(07:32):
just trying to retrieve the corpses and bodies of their
dead people in order to properly buried them. It's not
the war that we are worried about now. How can
we survive the consequences of the war? And I believe
that there is something very important in order to help
the people of Mosul to overcome this trauma is by
(07:55):
understanding all the traumas were built layers after layers. Just
to go deep into the idea of going back to
normality, we do not want to go back to normality
because the normality itself wasn't actually normal. It was itself
a traumatized normality because our problem actually goes long before 2014.
Adnan Sarwar (08:24):
Destruction takes many forms, buildings, human bodies, but terrorists are
often just as focused on eradicating things you can't see,
ideas, knowledge, thought, which is why when Daesh took over
Mosul, they particularly targeted the libraries. The University of Mosul
had one of the largest libraries in the Middle East.
(08:46):
It had more than 1 million books, many of them
rare and ancient. During their time in the city, Daesh completely
destroyed it, the books and the building, in what UNESCO
called one of the most devastating acts of destruction of
library collections in human history. Mahmood Al- Gaddawi is the
(09:06):
founder of The (inaudible) Initiative, which is focusing on
trying to restore books to the city. What does he
remember of that time?
Mahmood Al-Gaddawi (09:15):
You couldn't buy any book. Most of the books, they were
prohibited. People used to buy books secretly during their rule.
In fact, it is a bad feeling when you see
that the libraries, the books are burnt, and many of
these books are very important. They are very old books
(09:36):
and they are scripts. You couldn't find these scripts in
other countries, so it was a very bad feeling for us.
Adnan Sarwar (09:43):
And why does he think they did it?
Mahmood Al-Gaddawi (09:45):
For each terrorist group there, they represent a specific ideology.
So they have their own ideas. For this reason, they
are afraid of the books, which are not suitable for
their ideas and their thoughts. Even the Islamic books, in
other dictatorships, they stopped the widespread of the books, which
(10:07):
are not suitable for their ideas and thoughts. And Daesh
is a dictatorship, just like the other dictatorships.
Adnan Sarwar (10:16):
So Mahmood, together with many of those who'd watched this
attack on the psyche of his city and his people,
decided to do something. He wrote a book called 66
Projects for the Rebirth of Mosul. One of them was
about books.
Mahmood Al-Gaddawi (10:30):
One of these ideas was called the secondhand book market. Through
Facebook, I asked the question, " Since there is a weekly
market for bicycles, motors, and belts, why don't we found
a specific market for the second handbooks?" People, in fact,
(10:51):
they were very positive in dealing with this idea. And
then we changed the idea and we decided we choose
one of the sidewalks of University of Mosul, it was
just like a cultural street, for each Friday afternoon. People
gather together in this area, photographers, writers, owners of bookshops,
(11:14):
artists and (inaudible) and they display their photographs, paintings,
handygraphs and of course, their books. So first of all,
it was a local idea, but then many people from
other countries, many channels, radios, and journals, they come to (inaudible)
(11:36):
` in order to report about this idea. But after
that, some people helped us. IOM helped us and then
USA also helped us in building the area again. But
first of all when we start, we didn't use money.
It was just an activity and handily, we succeeded in this activity.
Adnan Sarwar (12:04):
Haroro, is there an effort to basically bring people back
to their homes?
Haroro Ingram (12:11):
There are efforts both in Iraq and beyond, but it's
been deeply flawed. So much of the problems have their
roots in a misunderstanding of the fundamental problem itself. There
is a tendency to see these populations as fundamentally part
(12:33):
the problem, that they were somehow complicit with ISIS. And
there are segments of the population that were, but for
the vast majority, they are and were victims of ISIS.
They were coerced and we must never forget that. And
we must implement that understanding in the way that we
approach a whole range of different policy, including the issue
(12:55):
of repatriation. There's his trifecta of stigma, shame and fear
that compounds this sense of trauma, both individual, but also
this collective trauma that emerges. And it really does hang
like a pull over everything. You can feel it and
you can sense it viscerally when you're on the ground,
(13:17):
when you are talking to people, the way that people
will respond to sounds and to smells just instinctively. I
also think it's important, particularly for policy developers, for program
designers and implementers, to recognize that where there is acute
stress, there is a steep cognitive tax that people must
(13:39):
pay and it means that they're susceptible to cognitive biases.
It means that they're susceptible to making decisions that are
seemingly illogical and irrational. Kids will tend to struggle in
school, youth in universities, and jobs. It is a truth
that needs to be taken into account when we are
(13:59):
developing programs to help these communities and to help that
rebuilding process.
Adnan Sarwar (14:05):
Frank, you've talked about donor fatigue, who's paying for you
to be there. Whose responsibility do you think it is
to fix Iraq?
Frank Philip (14:14):
Well, the international donor community has traditionally provided much of
the money. The Iraqis themselves, the Iraqi military, do a
lot of clearance. We get some bilateral funding from a
number of different countries. But the majority of our funding
comes through the UN Mine Action Service, which basically acts
(14:35):
as an agent to manage the funding provided by backing
donors. The concern is the world's got to recover from
COVID going forward and I think there is a danger
of donor fatigue. I hope that doesn't happen. And a
big part of my job is to sell what we
do and to encourage international donors. And in time, I
(14:59):
hope the Iraqis themselves are going to take much more
of a predominant role in funding Mine Action themselves.
Adnan Sarwar (15:06):
Omar, so Frank is talking about how the rest of the
world is doing things like mind clearance. Has there been
enough international interest in helping Mosul?
Omar Mohammed (15:14):
World response was really important and I hear refer specifically
to the work that UNESCO is doing in Mosul, the
reconstruction and recovery of the most symbolic historical sites in
Mosul. You have the EU working tirelessly on the recovery
of the agriculture. There was a beautiful project that brought
(15:37):
back the irrigation system of Salamieh, town in (inaudible) ,
which brought back all the farmers. When you bring them
back their irrigation system, you don't have to give them
too much money. They know how to do things. But
we have to be careful, Adnan, because that's not the
end of the story. We are not dealing with normal
(16:00):
people. We are dealing with traumatized people who might, at
one point, collapse. The most important aspect of this, Adnan,
is we have to give back the narrative to the
people of Mosul themself. The narrative that was taken away from them
by Daesh and that narrative is that Mosul and its
(16:24):
people can recover and they can also restore their trust
in themself, which will help not only Mosul, but the rest of the world.
Adnan Sarwar (16:34):
So Haroro, Omar saying that there is help, that there are
recovery projects happening, but that is also not just about
what we do, but how we do it.
Haroro Ingram (16:43):
It comes down to what we define as recovery, and
this is going to need to be a phased process.
But what's absolutely crucial is ensuring that the local population,
that they have a central role to play in how
these policies are developed. And for far too long, we
(17:05):
pay lip service to getting local perceptions of this. For
far too long, those companies that receive the multimillion dollar
contracts and then get their satellite companies in Iraq and
in the Philippines and other places like that to do
the work, it's more often than not lip service. It's
symbolic. Recovery efforts require being on the ground. It requires
(17:31):
developing precisely the kind of relationships that Frank has spoken
so articulately about.
Adnan Sarwar (17:37):
Frank, how do you, or how do we keep people
motivated? How do we explain to people and show people that
recovery is just going to take a long time?
Frank Philip (17:47):
It's an ongoing process from top to bottom and HALO
and any other humanitarian mine action organization, we invest a
huge amount of time speaking to governments, embassies, and any
other stakeholders, and that includes Iraqi stakeholders. We spend a
(18:07):
great deal of time in liaison with people on the
ground, people in country at government level, at national level
and beyond at the moment. The current strategic plan they're
working on is looking forward to 2028. Iraq will not
be clear of explosive hazards by 2028. It's going to
take another 10 years. It's going to take a huge
(18:31):
effort to keep people interested in continuing to fund because
there are other priorities, global priorities elsewhere, that I mentioned,
the COVID recovery. I mean it remains to be seen.
The pot seems to be getting smaller, but we need
to be smarter about how we use the available funding
so it isn't wasted and it goes to the right
(18:51):
place and it has the correct effect. So yeah, it's
an ongoing process and we have to keep the world
interested in the problem and when we've finished clearing what
Daesh has left behind, it'll be time to return to
the legacy contamination, the mine fields that are all up
the length of the border with Iran. It's a massive
(19:15):
problem. It's the most explosive contaminated country in the world.
Adnan Sarwar (19:18):
Omar, do you want to comment on that?
Omar Mohammed (19:19):
The people of Mosul, as an example, reconciliation is not
part of their vocabularies. The reconciliation works without naming it.
We are speaking about the social cohesion. What is the social
cohesion? The people do not understand these kind of concepts.
It's not part of their linguistic history. What they understand
(19:42):
is that Mosul have lived over the history with neighborhoods
like the Jewish neighborhood, the Christian neighborhood, the Muslim neighborhood.
And then they created a space where they meet, which
is the old market of Mosul. And that's why I
mentioned it from the very beginning that the first thing the
(20:02):
people of Mosul did, they put lots of money and
they started reconstructing the shops because they all know without
going through this catchy terminology of the international organizations, that
the only way for them to come back to their,
at least normality, is the market because they all meet
(20:25):
there. They are not ignorant, but they know how to
restore their life. They have been trying to tell the international
organizations that, " The way you are doing things is wrong.
Just try to listen to us once."
Haroro Ingram (20:38):
Could I jump in on something there? Here we are
in 2021 talking about where the funding has gone. The
purse strings are being pulled tight. Not a handful of
years ago, the trough was full and the companies were
feeding. This is another one of the great tragedies is
(20:59):
that you go to these conflict zones. When it is
front and center in the media, there is an extraordinary
amount of money available for companies. Having traveled to communities
devastated by this group, motivation amongst the civilian population is
very rarely an issue. These are people that want to rebuild
(21:21):
their lives. The problem is insufficient support, support that has
our either flooded its foundations from a policy or a strategic or
a programmatic mistake. It's flawed in its implementation or it's
flawed in its resourcing. The motivation to survive and to
continue is always there.
Adnan Sarwar (21:43):
And the people that Haroro is talking about are people
like Mahmood and what started as an initiative in a
Mosul side street became part of a worldwide campaign that
resulted in thousands and thousands of books being sent from
across the globe to restock Mosulian University's library and others in
the city. Why are books, their loss and their restoration
(22:05):
so important to Mahmood?
Mahmood Al-Gaddawi (22:08):
Books have a symbolic feeling or representation. Many people nowadays,
they don't read the paper books, but the book itself,
it is a symbol. It represents knowledge, science, art and
culture. So even for those people who are not reading
books, they feel sad when they see that the book
(22:31):
market in Mosul is destroyed. The book represents culture. We
didn't just lost the books. We lost a large number
of mosques, church, schools and many buildings which have historical,
religious and cultural importance. We can't buy books nowadays, but
(22:53):
it is difficult to restore these historical buildings. We feel
happy when we see these books come back to Mosul.
It has a symbolic meaning. You feel very happy.
Adnan Sarwar (23:12):
Omar, could I ask you, do you think you'll ever
return to Mosul?
Omar Mohammed (23:20):
No.
Adnan Sarwar (23:22):
You don't think you'll ever go back home?
Omar Mohammed (23:28):
No. It's a very tough question, Adnan. It's psychologically a
very heavy question that I always try to avoid. But
the city that I knew once is unfortunately gone. The city
(23:58):
of Mosul, where I built my memories, where I built
the images of my knowledge and my character, my identity,
my connection to the architecture, my connection to the river,
(24:18):
my connection to even the sky of the city, this city
no more exists. What exists now, and what I am
trying to do now, is to help the next generation
to find a space to live on and to build
(24:38):
their own memories.
Adnan Sarwar (24:43):
Last question I want to ask to all of you,
and you can be honest, are you hopeful about the
recovery? Haroro?
Haroro Ingram (24:52):
Yes, I am hopeful of the recovery because I've spent
time with so many of these communities. I actually think
that there is an opportunity with the reduced funding that
will force a more streamlined and efficient approach, a more
methodical and evidence based approach, a more transparent and accountable
approach. We absolutely must be hopeful. We must continue being
(25:17):
methodical evidence based because if we are not, then we
absolutely cede to this horrible group.
Adnan Sarwar (25:24):
Frank?
Frank Philip (25:26):
I'm optimistic as well. And with improved coordination and more
strategic vision and less siloing of activity and funding, I
think then we will ultimately have the optimum effect, one
hopes. It's going to take a long time. Despite that,
the Iraqi people, they will, despite to the ongoing problems
(25:49):
of explosive hazards and everything else that is wrong with
the country, they will help themselves to make it better
with greater stakeholder engagement and coordination, in particular, will get there.
Adnan Sarwar (26:04):
Omar, final word?
Omar Mohammed (26:06):
When I look at those young people who clean the
theater that is partially damaged and destroyed, when you look
inside the theater, the roof is destroyed, the walls are
destroyed, yet they clean it using their hands and just
simple materials. And they decided that an orchestra and a
(26:30):
concert should be held in Mosul. When I look at
those young people and their resilience, being a historian and
part of being a historian, you should be always pessimistic. I
am changing this reality now and I say, I am
more than optimistic about the future of Mosul and its
(26:51):
people, because I believe in the resilience and power of
those young people who, despite all the struggle and the horrors
they lived, yet they are creating a beautiful space that
I myself never imagined I will ever see in Mosul. ( music)
Adnan Sarwar (27:22):
I'd like to thank Haroro Ingram, Omar Mohammed, Frank Philip,
and Mahmood Al- Gaddawi for giving us some insight into
what getting over terrorism might look like. That's it for
this edition of Taking Apart Terror. Search for us wherever
you get your podcasts. And if you're enjoying the series,
please do leave us a star rating and a review.
It makes a huge difference to how many people find
(27:45):
us and of course, follow or subscribe, so you don't
miss an episode like the next one, where we ask
is extremist violence unforgivable? Three people who have had direct
experience of terrorist acts tell us how they got through
them and learned about the meaning of forgiveness. I'm Adnan.
Until the next time, good bye.
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