Front Burner - Life after ISIS in Raqqa

Episode Date: April 6, 2021

Scarred by years of ISIS rule and fierce bombing campaigns by the U.S.-led coalition forces, CBC’s Margaret Evans gives a snapshot of life in Raqqa now, ten years into the Syrian civil war.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. The northern Syrian city of Raqqa has seen a decade of civil war. It suffered under more than three years of ISIS rule and fierce bombing campaigns by the U.S.-led coalition forces aimed at rooting ISIS out. My colleague Margaret Evans recently traveled to Raqqa to report on the city that has endured so much. Today, a snapshot of who she met, what they told her about life under ISIS, and life after. Hi Margaret, thank you for making the time.

Thanks for having me, Jamie. Hi, Margaret. Thank you for making the time. Thanks for having me, Jamie. Margaret, I wonder, could you start by telling me about what you saw as you drove into Raqqa? Can you describe the city to me? Yeah, I mean, the first thing that you see is a really devastating amount of destruction, which can be sort of disorienting because it looks like this giant moonscape of gray rubble everywhere. And then there are these little flashes of color, these pockets of life that seem, you know, even more out of place because they're in this vast theater of

destruction. And, you know, in one neighborhood, I remember seeing a whole block of apartments just crushed by, you know, presumably airstrikes. The only thing still standing was a stairwell, you know, going up several flights, but then you'd see people sitting on a chair outside a shop having tea, a kid on a bike, a horse and a buggy, you know, that kind of stuff. So it's I think that juxtaposition of destruction and normality, finding a way to coexist. There's not that much reconstruction going on from what I was able to see, but little bits of it here and there.

I mean, they've cleared the rubble off the streets and things, but there are kind of concrete ceilings hanging down over alleyways here, there, and things. But, you know, there are kind of concrete ceilings, you know, hanging down over alleyways here, there and everywhere, it still feels quite fraught. And you also know that it's, it, you know, it still hasn't been cleaned of all the of the mines and the booby traps that ISIS would have left behind. So you had to step very carefully. Wow. Wow. For those who aren't familiar with Raqqa's recent past, what was the significance of the city to ISIS? Well, Raqqa actually began the war. So back in 2011, loyal to the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. At least the tribal leaders in the city were loyal to him and they pledged allegiance. But by 2013, it had been taken over by opposition forces fighting

against al-Assad. So we met somebody who was the director of what used to be the museum, and he told us that it was in that year, in 2013, that he lost a lot of the artifacts in the museum because these opposition forces were there. And there was a sense of lawlessness because they were kind of fighting between themselves as well. And so ISIS saw that and saw this sort ofqa the capital of what they were calling their caliphate, to be followed by three or four years of just atrocious barbarism. They can be seen parading in the town centre in US armored vehicles captured from the Iraqi army. Tanks, personnel carriers, pickups. Those who don't go to prayers have their shops shut for a month and they're

sent to prison. They're whipped. Every two to three days, they kill somebody and put the body on display. And briefly, how did the city come to be freed from ISIS control? Not easily. It was eventually taken on the ground by Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. They are the militia, the army, if you want to call it that, in charge in the northeastern part of Syria, which is now an autonomous area. They call it the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. The acronym keeps changing, but it's basically the Syrian Kurds that, of course, were partnered in the fight against ISIS with, you know, international coalition forces, including the United States. And they're the ones who went in,

but with airstrikes from the United States, some U.S. special forces on the ground. Amnesty International now says several of those coalition strikes violated international law that not nearly enough care was taken to protect civilians. They fired 30,000 artillery. That's tantamount to indiscriminate strikes. And that's why the city is so utterly destroyed is that, you know, the civilians endured a terribly long period of intense bombing campaigns to try to get ISIS out. And speaking of that atrocious barbarism that you were talking about, that the people were subjected to under ISIS, I know that you went to a place in the city called Paradise Square. And what would the square have been like, even just a few years ago, back when ISIS was still in power?

Well, I've obviously only seen pictures of it, but people talk about it a lot because it came to be such a terrible place. ISIS, of course, turned it into this place of public execution, and people tell stories about being forced to come out and watch. They would use loudspeakers calling on people to come to the square. And there's kind of a circle of metal posts around the middle of it. And people say that sometimes if people had been beheaded, they would, you know, put their heads on these posts. I mean, really terrible, gruesome stuff. So, you know, obviously, it on these posts. I mean, really terrible, gruesome stuff. So, you know, obviously it was clearly a part of their reign of terror,

you know, leaving, inflicting terrible memories and psychological scars on the people who had to witness this. I can imagine that now that ISIS is gone, there are attempts to reclaim spaces like this that have such terrible memories associated with them. And so what does Paradise Square look like now? You're right. I mean, they've given it a facelift. It was one of the first things we were told that the municipal authorities who kind of came in to try to restore a bit of order tried to do. So they've put up some, you know, some white arches in the middle of the square. There's a new fountain, and then there are also some shops around the edges of it, you know, kebab shops.

There's a sweet shop where they were serving up kenefa, which is this really yummy dessert with syrup and cheese and pistachios. There are strawberry sellers out on the street and at night. You know, people with their carts selling sometimes nuts and lighting up with little torches. And then there's this big, rather startlingly bright I Love Raqqa sign that they've put up there. And it's very incongruous.

It blocks out some of the destruction behind, but not very well. And if ever there was a city that needed some love, this is it. But still, it looks strange to see it there. Yeah. And speaking of this, I love Raka sign. I know that you met a young woman posing for a picture beside it. And can you tell me about her? Can you tell me about Amal? Yeah, I mean, Amal means hope in Arabic, and she was a very hopeful young woman. She was there with her family. She was originally from Raqqa, but she's not living there anymore.

She's 18 now. So she would have been quite young when when ISIS took over. She was originally from Raqqa, but she's not living there anymore. She's 18 now, so she would have been quite young when ISIS took over. She was about 15 when the city was liberated. I asked her what life was like under ISIS, and she delivered this huge understatement of an answer, which was... It was not beautiful. It was not beautiful. Yeah. When the Kurds took the control of the city,

I mean, I could feel the beautiful taste of the life again in Raqqa. She was wearing jeans, you know, a short jacket, very modern looking, a headscarf. She said that she had to cover up fully, and not surprisingly, under the Islamic state. For the woman, they would force like the niqab, the black uniform. And also like even the men didn't have a free will. Like if you wear a pant, they would say like, why you are wearing a pant? But she was also, she did seem like a hopeful person, you know, she was there not just with her own child and her husband, but with the child of her brother who was killed, she told me.

You know, at first she said he died in the war, and I said, well, how exactly? He stepped on one of these mines that were left behind oh that's so tragic Margaret I was hoping you could tell me about another person you met who is also trying to restore some sense of normalcy, a bookseller named Ahmed. Yes, Ahmed Al-Khoboor Mohammed, an 80-year-old, also a person I would describe as of hope in a way. He's got 11 children, some are living in Germany. And he said he opened that bookstore, which is where we met him. He opened it at the age of 16. And he ran it until the day ISIS came knocking on his door.

And they came in and they looked at his books, they didn't like the covers on some of them. They questioned his religious credentials because of it. And he basically said, you know, he knew what was coming. And he said to them, look, I'm going to go to the mosque, you do what you need to do while I'm away. And off he went. And when he came back, they'd burned all of his books, except for the Quran. That must have been devastating for him, this bookstore that he had been running since he was 16 years old. Yeah, but, you know, he was also very philosophical. He said, you know, I thought to myself, they are destroying Syria from Qamishli in the north to Deir ez-Zor in the south.

And I just told myself, I'm not going to cry over some books that ISIS wants to burn. And in a way, I think it's almost like an act of defiance to just say, go ahead. You know, I'll leave you to do it. But that's not what I'll be crying over. What does Ahmed's bookshop look like now? Well, it's pretty neat and tidy, but he doesn't have loads of books on the shelves because he says it's difficult to get books in Raqqa, and it's also people don't have a lot of money to buy books. They're kind of considered a luxury in sort of days of hardship, obviously.

But he's very proud of what he does have on his shelves. He's got titles from abroad. He was very proud to pull out, you know, Dostoevsky for us so that we could see that. And he sells writing books or scribblers, you know, for school kids notebooks, I guess is what I'm looking for. or scribblers, you know, for school kids notebooks, I guess is what I'm looking for. He has a, you know, collection of friends sitting outside in the sunshine outside his bookstore. They come around every day, older gentlemen, they drink tea. He insisted that we have tea and sweets. He was very, very generous and very proud of his bookstore. But he, you know, a reminder of how deeply all of this has hit him is that he said to us, wait here, wait here. And he went off around the corner. I think he lived right around the

corner. And he came back and he was carrying the sign from his shop that was full of bullet holes from the ISIS years. And he wasn't letting go of that. He wanted us to see it. from the ISIS years. And he wasn't letting go of that. He wanted us to see it. Right. And so I can only imagine that, you know, despite a makeover, and an I love Raka sign in Paradise Square, despite Ahmed being able to stock his shells with books, once again, the trauma of what happened there must run so deep, it must be everywhere, right? Yeah, but you know, lots of people didn't want to talk about it. You would say, how are you? How is life in Raqqa? And there was a spirit or stoicism that would come out. Yeah, it's okay. We're getting by. Some people talked about it. I mean, the

museum director that I told you about, who is 70, talked about ISIS succeeding in destroying people's spirit. They didn't try. They did it, actually. Yeah, when you see people, like, were hanged out or tortured in the Oklok Square, and they, like, I mean, they are beheaded there. So, I mean, that's, like, the most ugly picture that anybody, like, could see. It was so horrible to have to witness what they witnessed, that they succeeded on some levels in destroying the spirit of the city that people are proud of. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here.

You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples,

I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. You mentioned before that people don't have the money to buy books. And, you know, I understand that on top of all of this trauma, there are also economic problems, right? And can you tell me about the economic situation many people in Raqqa find themselves in now? Yeah, I mean, they find themselves in the same boat as all the other Syrians, that huge, unprecedented people would say currency crisis, economic crisis taking place. It's partly connected to what's been happening in neighboring Lebanon with the currency crisis there, but it's also a decade of war and we're hearing more and

more reports of serious hunger in the country. In any other life, Riyam might be top of the class, sifting through the rubbish for scraps. A piece of rotten food is to be shared, health warnings ignored. And the head of the International Committee for the Red Cross visited Syria last week and basically was saying that 80% of Syrians are now living in poverty. And, you know, people go around with these huge bags of money because inflation is out of control. So you have to kind of have a

big stash, a big pile just to buy some bread. And this is what people really wanted to talk about. They didn't, you know, there wasn't, they didn't want to say, let's talk about ISIS or there's no rebuilding. They, you know, they were like, we people can't afford to feed their families now. It's a huge problem. And, and the, you know, you go through the market. Lots of, you know, beautiful looking vegetables, date sellers and stuff like that, but nobody buying because they can't afford it. And then I guess on top of all of this, this is a country that is still at war.

Bashar al-Assad is still in power. And I wonder if people did speak to you at all about what they expect or what they hope for the political future of the country. Or are they just so caught up in what's immediately in front of them, understandably? I think it's a little bit of both. I mean, I asked people quite often whether or not they thought that the war in Syria was over, because some people say, you know, al-Assad has got it all wrapped up. I mean, he he doesn't and he would be in a different position if he didn't have support from iran and russia and has had that support since 2015 but people

didn't like being asked that question you know they looked at you like are you daft of course it's not over and um you know i asked it of ahmed the bookseller. And he said, look, he was careful to say he wants one Syria. That was kind of code for saying he doesn't want to be under control, the control of the Syrian Kurds forever. They're the ones who now are in control of Raqqa and other parts of the Northeast, something like they would say 30% of the country. And he said, it's not because I don't like the Syrian Kurds. I just believe in this dream of one Syria that, you know, can accommodate all of the different nationalities. And I said, is that possible under the current leadership?

And he said, no, no, no. That's impossible. Unless, like, I mean, the whole system, the whole process is being changed, yeah, it will be fine. The people who are controlling there, like, they have dictatorship. But people are worried about the immediate, and they are also worried, you know, in Raqqa in particular, that things might not be over,

that there's still a lot of lack of security there. They'd say the Syrian Kurds are better than what they had before, obviously. But you still don't see, for instance, people would say Raqqa used to be a party town before the war. You know, people said, oh, they think that people are hedging their bets, that some people leave and worry ISIS might be able to come back. There are sleeper cells in the country. We've heard reports that, you know, they're still extorting people for money. There have been kidnappings. So it's still very uncertain.

People are very unsettled about what happens next, and they don't know in 10 years' time who's going to be running Raqqa or the country. I just want to give our listeners some numbers here. This is a war that has killed more than 400,000 Syrians, according to the most recent statistics from the United Nations. As you just mentioned, 80% of people living in poverty, 6.6 million people have fled the country. Another 6.7 are internally displaced inside Syria. And I wonder if you could tell me about one of those 6.7 million internally displaced Syrians that you met. Yeah, I mean, it was a man who was at Paradise Square, you know, just beside

the I love Raqqa sign. And I was went up to him to chat with my translator. and I just assumed that he was from Raqqa and it was the wrong assumption. You're from Idlib. When did you come here? One year. Because Idlib is pretty bad. Very bad. Which was sort of startling because I had just hadn't thought about I mean know about all the displays,

but you don't think that somebody might necessarily run from Idlib to Raqqa. His name was Hassan, and he really sticks with me because he's 30 years old. He had this little coffee truck where he makes extremely strong coffee. And he said that this was the perfect job for him because he could carry it on his back. He could go anywhere. So he's still expecting that he might have to move again. But he was also an example of all of the people, so many people whose lives are still on hold and their futures are just plucked away from them in a heartbeat.

You know, he was studying law in Aleppo. He'd completed three years of a four-year degree. But by the time the fourth year came around, it was too dangerous for him to travel to Aleppo. And that was the end of that dream. And there are just hundreds of thousands of stories like that. But again, he was full of regret, you could see it, but he wasn't voicing it. He wasn't feeling sorry for himself, which is always amazing because,

you know, people are really, like I said, they've just had their futures taken away from them. Mm-hmm. Margaret, thank you so much for this conversation and for this really important reporting along with our colleagues, Stephanie and Jean-Francois. Thank you very much for bringing us these stories. We're really, really appreciative. Well, thanks very much for having me. Okay, so before we go today, amid nearly 6,000 new cases of COVID in two days in Ontario, the medical officers of health from Toronto, Ottawa, and Peel region have joined forces to call on the province to implement further restrictions, including a full stay-at-home order. The doctors raised concerns about the rapid spread of variants of concern which are hospitalizing younger people and threatening the health care system's ability to deal with regular ICU admissions. Peel Region, which includes Brampton, Caledon, and Mississauga, also ordered schools to close for the next two weeks.

That's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner. We'll talk to you tomorrow.