The memory of ordinary, everyday intercultural or interreligious relationships, in brief 

Ahmed Saadoun, Karim Mohsen and Ghaleb Al-Kaabi recall the strong relationships across a wide range of communities in Al-Diwaniyah, Muslim, Jewish, Sabian, recalling friendships which continued by letter even after the local Jewish families were deprived of their citizenship and had to flee to Palestine. 

The context in which these relationships made a difference at the time

The economy of Al-Diwaniyah developed across the early twentieth century, building on very social and cooperative relationships across the religious communities of the town and its vicinity. Al-Diwaniyah is a hive of biodiversity, and its economy grew with agriculture and food industries, as well as a wider range of traditional trades. The city’s religious and cultural minorities were all a part of this social and economic web. In the neighbourhood of the city lie further minority settlements – Mandeans, and Kawali Roma, for instance, and Faili Shia Kurds, with distinctive histories and identities – suggestive of the scope for the ecological and agricultural diversity of the region to provide a home for very distinctive social minorities occupying very different economic and ecological niches. Ahmed Saadoun recalls Muslims being regular visitors to the synagogue, and the citizens of different backgrounds, education and wealth creating social and economic synergies together with a deliberation that the three now-elderly residents recall withstanding the political activism of successive Iraqi governments against the Jews in particular. The article containing their testimony focuses on the contribution of economically-successful Jewish citizens, employers and craftsmen, to the city’s political, cultural, economic and social life. 

What has happened since, which makes the memory valuable 

The Jewish community of Iraq fled in large numbers in 1951, when the government deprived them of their citizenship. Al-Diwaniyah has been devastated by war and by oppression, and the nostalgia of its older citizens for better times may be seen to reflect the hard times they have lived through since that time.

How might the memory be used in bringing people together in practice now?

A number of Al-Diwaniyah’s minorities have survived the challenges of the last decades, though the Jewish minority left for Palestine/the State of Israel, and there has been no public discussion of a return. The Memory Bank team hopes that the exchange of more personal memories may strengthen wider public understanding of the impact of social and cultural diversity in the city and its region, including in the widest diaspora of residents of Al-Diwaniyah, and in particular through the connections between social, economic and ecological inclusion touched upon in these testimonies. The connection between the cultural heritage of minorities and the future of the wider societies in which they live is of interest to a wide range of Iraqi initiatives – and in Al-Diwaniyah in particular there is a specialist unit from the University of Qadisiyah’s archeology department which is conducting related work as part of the Nahrein Network. We hope contributors will share their own thoughts about whether and how the social dynamics and cooperative habits of the city and its region offer models for the present. 

Additional context/Some additional reading

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Diwaniyah

‘Memories of Uncle Sasson and the effects of the Jews.. and letters from Palestine to Diwaniyah’ (in Arabic), 2015, at https://almadapaper.net/view.php?cat=135759.