THE ARAB WEEKLY
“Let us read and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.” The quote by French philosopher Voltaire is the motto of an Iraqi activist who is on a quest to revive Mosul’s Central Library, which Daesh destroyed for harboring books it viewed as blasphemous.
“The best answer to terrorism is to rebuild libraries and fill them back with books,” said the activist, who identifies himself as “Mosul Eye” and spoke on the condition of anonymity because he fears reprisals. “This will also help reconnect Mosul, through culture and sciences, with the world around it.”
Daesh targeted Mosul’s libraries with a clear message, Mosul Eye said: “Any type of knowledge and sciences and the idea of diversity of cultures are forbidden.” To battle this toxic ideology, he launched an online book donation campaign in April 2017 called “Let it be a Book, Rising from the Ashes.”
Before Daesh destroyed them, Mosul’s libraries housed a treasure trove of UNESCO-registered rare books and precious manuscripts. In 2015, eight months after invading the city, Daesh ransacked the Central Library and burned more than 8,000 print copies and rare historical manuscripts on charges of blasphemy.
Mosul Eye aims to collect more than 200,000 books and all types of printed material — magazines, periodicals, newspapers, references, archives, and the like — in all disciplines and various languages.
“The idea is to have writers donate one of their books to Mosul. It will be so beautiful to have works of authors from around the world sitting in Mosul, which resisted deadly terrorism,” the activist said.
“We want to open wide the doors of our city to the outside world and help Mosul return to the international fold through culture and science. … Our message to all is that we are not the inventors of terrorism, but terrorism was incidental and hung over our necks without mercy.”
The destruction of Mosul’s knowledge and culture was devastating for the whole country, because many valuable manuscripts may never be recovered, Mosul Eye said, adding: “I believe that Daesh was aware of the value of the documents and stole the most precious from the Central Library before the building was burned down.”
Among the documents that Daesh was believed to have stolen was Mussolini’s paper “Comments of the Year 1924 on ‘The Prince’ of Machiavelli.” Others, including archives of Iraqi newspapers dating to the early 20th century and books printed under Ottoman rule, have been destroyed.
But Mosul Eye is adamant: “The best way to react to this carnage is by bringing back Shakespeare, Voltaire, Flaubert, Aristo, Plato, Descartes, Jane Austen and other writers and philosophers to Mosul.”
The book donation campaign received an enthusiastic response from the international community. About 200 books have been donated, and a French association in Marseille has pledged to send 20 tons of books to Iraq. The books are being collected in Irbil, Iraq, where they are sorted, labeled and prepared for a more peaceful time when the libraries can be rebuilt.
“International participation in restoring libraries is a unique opportunity to arouse the world’s interest in rebuilding Mosul,” Mosul Eye said. “But the most important thing is for residents to be aware that there is a book from every corner of the world inside their city, making Mosul an example of the very cultural pluralism Daesh sought to destroy.”