The Iraqi state is trying hard to get rid of the memory of a few years ago, when the terrorist organization Isis controlled almost half of the northern part of the country. Isis, i.e. the Islamic State, shocked the whole world with its horrific violence.
Senior expert on the Church’s foreign aid Marko Juntunen have done research (you switch to another service) about how Iraq is recovering from the time of ISIS. According to him, many good projects are underway in Iraq in order to consolidate the state.
At the same time, Juntunen is concerned about television programs shown in Iraq and Syria, which strengthen ethnic, religious and regional dividing lines. The programs even loosely stigmatize the people who were connected to ISIS, as well as their entire families, so that they are forcibly separated from the rest of society.
On television, the intention is good, but the end result is harmful
Marko Juntunen shows programs that were shown on Iraqi and Syrian televisions and are now available online. Their content is to present persons who belonged to ISIS serving their prison sentences.
The programs tell what kind of atrocities the person has committed. Often, the convicted person is taken to the scene of his terrorist acts, he is forced to sit on the ground, and the relatives of his victims come to tell about the pain caused by the blood acts of the convicted person.
– They are made to tell their life story and their joining Isis with their faces bare. They have to tell their full name, their parents’ names, their parents’ professions and their residential areas, says Juntunen.
Programs are shown weekly in prime time. Their purpose is to convey the message to the viewers that terrorism is not a good idea. It may also be important for the victims’ relatives to be able to express their feelings to the perpetrator.
It is still difficult to say the effect of the programs over a longer period of time, but according to Juntunen, the harmful side of the programs can already be seen.
– Those family members who are not imprisoned but in massive camps like al-Holi, for example – women and children – who have been involved in the organized activities of ISIS, are unable to return to their home communities.
Their entire family circle has been stigmatized in some cases because of the actions of just one person.
According to Juntunen, there are mainly men in their twenties, but also teenagers who have been in the ranks of ISIS in their youth. As a result of the programs, their family, neighborhood or people with the same last name, for example, have been branded as terrorists.
– I am afraid that this will have a long-term effect in that it underlines and makes the tensions between population groups even more critical, Juntunen states.
The chaos of Iraq in the background of ISIS
In his research, Juntunen also tried to find out which factors were behind the creation of the organization that produced terrible terror. According to him, the roots of the political violence in contemporary Iraq go back to the 1960s.
In the early 2000s, many leaders of the Isis organization suffered long prison terms because they had participated in activities opposed to the United States.
The 2005 elections had a big impact, when the Sunni administration changed to a Shia administration. After this, the Shia leadership tried to suppress the Sunnis, who were a minority in Iraq. The result was widespread Sunni demonstrations, which were very violently suppressed by the Shiites.
According to Juntunen, especially when entering the 2010s, the Sunni population saw no other options than armed resistance. At that time, Sunni soldiers who had great difficulty finding other jobs to support their families were dismissed from the Iraqi army.
Juntunen reminds that extremist Islamism had reached Iraq already in the 1990s. The plight of the Sunnis quickly grew an extremist and violent part of the population.
There were different missions in Isis
Juntunen considers it important to remember that although many members of Isis committed shocking crimes, not all did them. The organization had a wide variety of tasks.
– Isis was not only a terrorist organization, but it was a state project. It had 19 ministries, civil service machinery, gas stations, the entire economic structure, there was smuggling. They had a huge economy built around oil and taxation. There was everything you can imagine in the state.
The members of ISIS therefore had many different roles, not only terrorists and people walking around with weapons, Juntunen says.
Juntunen has studied especially how ordinary Iraqis end up in the organization’s circle. According to him, it was common for people to start with very modest jobs, such as pumpmen at gas stations.
From this, the tasks gradually changed, and the person seemed to slide into more demanding jobs, such as kidnapping hostages and murders.
People who joined the organization had often seen blatant violence by the country’s administration or paramilitary organizations. Their relatives had been tortured or kidnapped, and people had been forced to move from their homes. The issue is not made easier by Iraq’s lousy school system and the domestic violence that often rages in homes.
All these factors traumatize people, which lowers their threshold to engage in brutal violence themselves, Juntunen reflects.
Reconciliation is being attempted, but only half-heartedly
According to Juntunen, there is a desire in Iraq to get over the fragmentation of the ISIS period and repair the damage. A huge reconstruction project is underway in cities and villages.
At the same time, numerous reconciliation committees have been established in the country, where many population groups are represented.
– But then there is the other side. The central administration of Iraq hardly tries to control the paramilitary groups that fought against ISIS, and does not do much work to create some sort of atmosphere of reconciliation, Juntunen describes.
In his opinion, the administration should not stigmatize one population group by bringing them in front of the cameras and blaming them.
Even if there are real terrorists in the crowd, stigmatizing a large population creates new resentments, the same kind that once gave birth to ISIS.
Juntunen is very worried about the future of Iraq.
– There is a constant basis for an extremist message to catch on with a certain part of the population. The frustrations are still there. Unfortunately, all the factors that led to the rise of ISIS still exist.