{"id":5994,"date":"2015-04-16T09:57:56","date_gmt":"2015-04-16T07:57:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/?p=5994"},"modified":"2015-04-16T09:57:56","modified_gmt":"2015-04-16T07:57:56","slug":"young-iraqis-bridging-the-sectarian-divide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/2015\/04\/young-iraqis-bridging-the-sectarian-divide\/","title":{"rendered":"Young Iraqis bridging the sectarian divide"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: IRIN<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"iraqiyouth\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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BAGHDAD \/ DUBAI, 15 April 2015 (IRIN) – Islamic State militants play on sectarian division as they tear Iraq apart, but a group of young Iraqi \u201ccitizen ambassadors\u201d is trying to mend the damage by promoting a message of tolerance and peace.<\/p>\n

Rasha al-Samarai is one of nearly 2.8 million Iraqis to have fled their homes in the last 16 months as IS has swallowed up a quarter of the country and large swathes of neighbouring Syria.<\/p>\n

The 30-year-old left the city of Tikrit with her family when IS took it over last June, slaughtering more than 1,500 Iraqi Air Force cadets in the process.<\/p>\n

Sectarian atrocities by the Sunni Muslim militants have spawned brutal reprisals by Shia militia, and across Iraq, relations between different communities and religious minorities are increasingly tense.<\/p>\n

Despite \u2013 or perhaps because of – being without her possessions and not knowing when she will return home, al-Samarai is determined to tackle the sectarianism that is wrecking her country.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe in treating people as humans no matter what religion or nationality\u201d<\/div>\n

\u201cI believe in treating people as humans no matter what religion or nationality,\u201d she told IRIN, speaking from her cousin\u2019s home in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.<\/p>\n

\u201cYouth can play a major role in eliminating sectarianism and racism by supporting each other. Hand in hand, it is our responsibility to educate people to live peacefully.\u201d<\/p>\n

Citizenship<\/strong><\/p>\n

Al-Samarai is part of\u00a0Kullina Muwatinin<\/span>\u00a0(\u201cWe are all Citizens\u201d), a youth project sponsored by Dutch NGO PAX that has developed a network of 25 \u201ccitizenship ambassadors\u201d representing Iraq\u2019s diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds.<\/p>\n

The group, with members from all of Iraq\u2019s 18 provinces, arranges workshops and community awareness events, with members visiting each other\u2019s places of worship to try to mend fences and build bonds between them.<\/p>\n

They also campaign to improve rights for minority groups, most recently submitting comments to a draft law on minority rights being debated by parliamentarians in Kurdistan, and run radio shows and other media events.<\/p>\n

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Photo:\u00a0PAX<\/a><\/div>\n
A Kullina Muwatatinin flash mob taking place in a shopping mall in Erbil in May 2014 – with the aim of raising awareness about minority rights.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

PAX\u2019s Thirsa de Vries explained that while the project had been going since 2012, it was \u201cneeded now more than ever because of rising sectarian tensions and violence because of IS and the enormous pressure on young Iraqis to join militias.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the Shia Muslim Hashd al-Shaabi militia (People\u2019s Front), groups of Sunnis, Christians and ethnic minorities such as Yazidis and Turkomen have taken up arms to defend their territory from the majority Sunni IS, whose extreme violence has been compared to\u00a0genocide<\/a>. In other cases these groups have turned on each other.<\/p>\n

While often well-supported in their own communities, these local militia movements are controversial because they are seen to act outside the law without any real accountability.<\/p>\n

Hashd al-Shaabi, which has significant backing from neigbouring Iran and fights alongside the army of Iraq\u2019s Shia-led government, has been\u00a0accused<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0rights abuses<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Suspicion and mistrust<\/strong><\/p>\n

Christine van den Toorn, director of the Institute for Regional and International Studies at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani, (AUIS), agreed that sectarianism, while long present in Iraq, had intensified since IS’ advance.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything is being discussed in sectarian and ethnic terms\u201d<\/div>\n

\u201cUntil June last year you knew there was sectarianism, but it had not really sunk in or trickled down into the wider population on a social level, it was mostly between politicians,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there has been a big change since June, and the mistrust and the suspicion that is based on or associated with sectarian identity has got a lot worse at the popular level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van den Toorn, an expert on Iraq\u2019s minority groups, added: \u201cI see it in my students, people are at the end of their rope; everything is being discussed in sectarian and ethnic terms and there is such strong rhetoric, among Yazidis, between Sunni and Shia, between Arabs and Kurds.\u201d<\/p>\n

De Vries said: \u201cWe try to give the young people different tools so as to be active in society and play a positive role as citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about learning how to advocate for change in a non-violent way in a cultural context where violence is presented as the answer for everything, as well as introducing them to people from minority and religious groups they would not normally come into contact with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Group member Ali Adel Abdulkareem, a computer sciences graduate from Baghdad, told IRIN he had grown up almost exclusively with Shias. Since joining the project, he now counts Yazidis, Shabaks and Christians among his friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have learnt that they are all human and just like us, they have their rights,\u201d the 35-year-old said. \u201cIt\u2019s time we finished with sectarianism and racism and stopped the discrimination against minorities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fighting for minority rights<\/strong><\/p>\n

Advocating for more rights for minority groups is another important aim ofKullina Muwatinin<\/span>.<\/p>\n

In Baghdad, the group is campaigning for permission for the first Yazidi cultural centre outside of northern Iraq, as well as calling for an end to discrimination against\u00a0gypsies<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0black Iraqis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
Photo:\u00a0Louise Redvers\/IRIN<\/a><\/div>\n
This Shabbak family fled their home in Bashiqa, near the city of Mosul in August 2014, after Islamic State militants raided the area, carrying out brutal attacks against non-Sunni Muslims.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Zuhair Lazgeen, a Yazidi, who was until recently a citizenship ambassador for Kullina Muwatinin for Dohuk province in Kurdistan, said he believed past failures to tackle discrimination against Iraq\u2019s minorities paved the way for IS.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Yazidis, we have faced a lot of discrimination and in recent years it had been getting worse,\u201d the architecture graduate explained. \u201cFor me, I see that as the early symptoms of the current situation because if you don\u2019t stop discrimination, it grows into something bigger and can become violent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old, from a village south of the city of Dohuk, is currently working as a project co-ordinator for an NGO supporting displaced Yazidis and Syrian refugees in Kurdistan.<\/p>\n

He blames what he calls \u201cignorant Iraqis\u201d for feeding IS information about Yazidis being infidels and devil worshippers.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Many] of IS people are foreigners, they didn\u2019t even know what Yazidis were, the problem came from within Iraq and this is how we must tackle it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need programmes like this to change minds on the ground and to create mechanisms to counter the violence and discrimination that occur in our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Changing minds<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kullina Muwatinin is not the only project trying to promote dialogue and counter sectarianism in Iraq.<\/p>\n

The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) through its Network of Iraqi Facilitators (NIF) has been involved in civic engagement activities in Iraq since 2003, and is currently preparing a number of new community dialogue activities, including for areas recently liberated from IS.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to rebuild a new generation with information and a sense of meaning about responsibility for a common good\u201d<\/div>\n

Pascale Warda, a former Iraqi Minister of Migration and Displacement and now president of Hammurabi Human Rights Organisation, told IRIN that the only solution to Iraq\u2019s deep divisions was education.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to rebuild a new generation with information and a sense of meaning about responsibility for a common good,\u201d said Warda, a Chaldean Assyrian Christian.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are working very hard to change primary and secondary school programmes, to include definitions about minorities on the national Iraqi curriculums,\u201d she added, regretting that many Iraqis knew more about the history of Palestine than their own country.<\/p>\n

The role of government<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mark Lattimer, director of the UK-based Minority Rights Group International, whose February\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0paints a bleak picture of the plight of Iraq\u2019s minorities, welcomed all dialogue initiatives, but stressed that more needed to be done at a government level.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think any kind of civil society bridge-building a good thing, but the difficulty is that they are taking place at a time when government policy is effectively defeating the process of bringing communities together,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we are moving to is an increasingly sectarian Iraq and the policies of the Iraqi government, as well of as course groups like IS, are making the situation worse and we are moving back towards a renewal of the 2006-2007 sectarian war.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe young people we work with… really want things in Iraq to change. They want to make something of this country\u201d<\/div>\n

The Shia-led government of Iraq, which replaced Saddam Hussein\u2019s Sunni-dominated regime, has been accused of fuelling religious divisions by supporting militias and failing to address the concerns of minorities.<\/p>\n

But the citizen ambassadors hope that by going against the grain and forging new relationships, they can begin to redress the balance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe young people we work with\u00a0 – my young people – really want things in Iraq to change. They want to make something of this country, not to stay stuck in this situation with the old divisions between Shia and Sunni,\u201d Ibtesam Lateef, Baghdad-based co-ordinator for Kullina Muwatinin, told IRIN.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsing dialogue we are going try to put an end to sectarianism. It will not easy but it is not impossible, we have to keep having hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

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