Mosul Lives: Verbatim Poems

Abstract

Mosul Lives:Verbatim Poems Alana Marie Levinson-LaBrosse (bio) I work for Kashkul, a research and arts collaborative at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS). There, with regional and international scholars and artists, I participate in Mosul Lives, a project that gathers stories of daily life in Mosul. In April 2017, as the last Islamic State (Daesh) fighters dug into Mosul's Right Bank, we traveled to the newly liberated areas, as well as to camps for the recent waves of internally displaced people, mostly lifelong residents of Mosul. The stories we collected depict Mosul before the Islamic State, before the 2003 American presence, when citizens lived "in one hand," when the city was "a mosaic," not "simple tile." We worried that people would be angry we weren't asking about the recent violence; instead, they were delighted. Men laughed as they remembered how they snuck love letters over garden walls to their future wives. Women laughed and argued as they demonstrated the proper way to milk a goat. I complimented a man's tie, something he'd rushed to put on for us when we asked to photograph him, and he beamed. He had gone back to the rubble of his home to find his ties still hanging, perfectly clean, in the closet. Whether they were in their homes or UNHCR tents, people wanted to remember the Mosul they loved and carried in their minds. They wanted the world to remember their Mosul. [End Page 15] Originally, we called the project Mosul Remembered, considering our efforts a eulogy. But on our first day there, we saw: the city isn't dead. Mosul lives. The people you will meet in these verbatim poems—Sheikh Abdul Razak, Haneen, Majid—are only a fraction of the people with whom we conducted interviews. All of them are their city. All are seeking a way forward: a pathway they must often build themselves with what little remains. Dr. Mus'ab, the man who oversees restoration and archaeology in the province, said in October 2017, "We must rebuild even the rebuilding process: for some sites, we have only a kilogram of the ruins left—ruins of ruins. The Islamic State destroyed our places. They forced us to watch. People no longer recognize their city, themselves. But this isn't Mosul. This isn't us." These poems tell us what is. The interviews and the people behind them are reconstructing what reconstruction means. Patience The responsibility is so old I don't remember when it started. We open our home. We are the hotel, the refuge. We never eat alone. We host people upon people. We resolve disputes. We built the mosque that houses the only elementary school we have. In my family, we always said, "Gathering is learning." Sitting with people is a kind of school. You learn from them as from a teacher. Generations of our family, as they have come and gone, keep the message: be generous. Value peace. Be a house of the prophets, history, culture, reason. We encourage patience, courtesy, negotiation. Even when our family doesn't have enough, we host others. Give and give with no thought for how much you have. We are one family. Strangers are [End Page 16] family. My grandfather never ate dinner before ten in his life: he would wait, collecting guests for dinner, until the last train left town. Click for larger view View full resolution Sheikh Abdul Razak and his grandson. Photos courtesy of the author. What do I mean by patience? Well, my grandson got hit by a motorcycle. His head split open. He needed seventeen stitches. We didn't say, "We will hunt your child now." It was an accident. We took our child to the hospital. Another example? A stray bullet hit my nephew. Two men had a fight. It was an accident. We did not [End Page 17] shoot their nephew. We are mostly peaceful people, but fools start fights. Wise men resolve the problem when it is still small. Mosul once held all communities, all minorities. Our city of peace. The Mother of Two Springs. Ninewa. Mosul. So many names. When Daesh held Mosul, the bombings were...