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| Iraq |
| After ISIS, Mosul rebuilds mosques, monuments -- and society |
| 2017-07-27 |
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Faisal Jeber juggedDrop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! and interrogated suspected ISIS Death Eaters during the battle for djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... . Now he is taking up a new fight that could be just as crucial to the city’s future. The 47-year-old geologist is trying to restore historical sites damaged during the krazed killer group’s brutal three-year rule over the northern Iraqi city. By piecing back together buildings which he says gave Mosul its soul and identity before the war, Jeber hopes also to help rebuild its social fabric. But the city’s renaissance could take a generation, if it happens at all, he says, and it is uncertain how Mosul and other Iraqi towns and cities recaptured by government forces will look afterwards. How Mosul’s identity is reconstituted will help determine whether Iraqi leaders can pacify a country dogged by Death Eaters and sectarian bloodshed for the past decade. "ISIS tried hard to destroy Mosul’s identity by demolishing everything and making it monochrome," Faisal told Rooters in Mosul. "I am using this to unite my city and then maybe the whole country." Before the war, Mosul was Iraq’s second-largest city, known for its diversity, religious conservatism and nationalism. After the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, it became a base for al Qaeda and insurgency. Since ISIS seized Mosul in 2014 in the face of the Iraqi army’s collapse, the Death Eaters have blown up monuments, evicted communities that had lived together for centuries and turned neighbors against each other. Following the group’s defeat in Mosul this month in a US-backed offensive, billboards have gone up on a main road hailing the city as the cradle of civilization and showing landmarks dating back to the days of Mesopotamia. It is, Jeber says, a unique moment to rebuild Mosul’s multicultural identity and combat radicalism. "It’s an opportunity and it’s just the right time to do it because if you talked to any Mosulawi about that before (ISIS), nobody would accept it. But now people came out of a radical Moslem experience, they are in shock," he said. "Either we do it this year and we use this opportunity or else we lose it forever. We have a very narrow window." |
| Posted by:Fred |