Mosul: A story of hope – A book based on writers’ own experiences and interviews of people who lived through the siege and have then seen the rise of new civil society in Iraq

Note! “You are not just reading a book, you are taking a tour in the corridor of a great prison, where every page is a cell and every story is a window bidding to find the way to the outside world . Welcome inside! beyond the walls of the media and the razor-wire of stereotypes”

This project focuses on storytelling of the diverse categories of social elements: Ordinary people, journalists and artists, and the feminist movements engulfed the city of Mosul after liberation from ISIS. Series of people's testimonies would concede what the situation is and was really like on the ground. The author who resides in Finland and originally comes from Mosul is projecting his own experience before departing from the city in relation to his new homeland and the journey.. How does it feel seeing one’s mother town being gutted by the flames, starting from pre and post ISIS; the earthquake that led to a more stable society benefited from prior mistakes, a society washed out by the shower of hard experience. Stories of survivors, bold initiatives and a soar beyond the social heliosphere, resisting the gravitational power of religions and some of the local heritage perching on the chest of freedom. Getting rid of the shackles of the past and extending a hand to the world are an essential step that comes from the flare of experience-no matter how hard it was-but transacted the fusion of concepts and reshaping of values. Trusting the outside world hasn’t been easy in Mosul. It seemed that the shells of the battles had demolished the thick walls, permitted the caravans of the world to infiltrate into the razed heart of the city in the form of civil organisations and so on… to resurrect the city. The city and its residents that were abandoned, conquered, liberated and finally forgotten after the flames of war and tears of international tragedy left their streets. They need to be heard once again as inspiration for man's desire for common good and ordinary equality.

Amidst the current turmoil that is blazing and endangering civil peace, the neighbourness of identical situations worldwide becomes inevitable to discuss as an attempt to understand the overall image within its local frame. The imminent danger that stands behind our doors makes us feel that on the deck of this vessel we are ought to act as one human entity treading towards a mutual fate.
“Mosul story of hope” could happen anywhere and at any time, it is a ready experience of people who had to survive a series of deadly events that didn’t grant them a time to adapt to the new world; the world that its wrapped in the fumes and inlaid with flares of the warplanes. Going through the details of everyday life is what the book tried to bring to the readers. However, people who were shaped by the situation, found the instrumental tool to go forward via seeking new ways of innovation and creativity as a bid to convoying the rapid change that engulfed the city of Mosul in particular.
“When people stand before the tough options of life, they instinctively learn how to prioritise, life in such circumstances does not tolerate when opting for the wrong choice.
Wars and natural disasters could play an instrumental role to rearranging human priorities sequentially in the rosary of life”

The book is an attempt to descend to the mundane level of everyday’s life in the city of Mosul which its downfall in 2014 led to empowerment of terrorism in the region that eventually concluded in the biggest wave of immgriants influx from the Middle East.
It is an attempt to reminisce about the past and summon significant events from the writer’s life spanning the Second Gulf War and the International embargo imposed on Iraq in the 90s and the deadly events that followed the US Invasion.
By going through the alleyways of the story, the image is going to be completed: what kind of childhood and life we have experienced in our countries of origin.
The story of hope is still ongoing, which submerged the rubble of old town that had once erected on the right bank of Tigris, the ruthless war on terror, dug the city to ground and truned it to a heap of memories.
However, after liberation, the civil society returned as never before “for every action, there is an opposite reaction” and radical course practised by ISIS on the locals materialising in freedom’s restriction to the lowest level, has contributed in raising the awareness among people of Mosul that the civil state is the only solution, not the Islamic State that undermined the pillars of normal life, turing the city of Mosul become as though a prison in a castle from the mediaeval.
After liberation, women commenced to take part in life-making in the form of civil activists and labourers. The calls of coexistence among the various components of Iraqi society became rife.