Interview with Dr. Hayder Abdul Karim, Director of the Interreligious Council in Iraq

Want to know what is really happening in Iraq? So do we. Dr. Hayder Abdul Karim, who is facilitating the Interreligious Council in Iraq, answered questions posed by our own Caitlin Deschenes-Desmond.

Q. What information about the situation in Iraq do you think religious leaders in Iraq should be telling their congregations?

A. As you know, Iraq is a multi-religious country, it is composed of many religions. But the majority are Muslims. During the changes that happened since the 9th April until now, there are big changes that have happened in the constitution of Iraq, we got a new constitution. One of the changes is that there is now freedom of religions, there is now freedom of speech. What we need now in Iraq in addition to these changes basic changes were needed from a long time before, is to keep support and to keep help and to keep continuing reconstruction of Iraq. There are two kinds of reconstruction. There is social reconstruction and educational reconstruction. Our infrastructure was destroyed because of sanctions for fifteen years. So what they need to tell their members is to keep supporting this country, to keep help up, to change the situation from within and to start to give them and to start to give them the hope to keep change and to work hard and to support anyone. So what we need exactly now is social reconstruction for the infrastructure of Iraq. We need to rebuild the human being, all the knowledge, all the information for the next steps.

Q. Do you think that what you have to do now is more meeting basic needs or helping to change attitudes or encourage inter-religious cooperation among the people in Iraq?

A. According to the history of Iraq, they lived before this time as one country, one population. Nothing happened before with civil war or fighting between the denominations like Lebanon or some of those countries. Because there is a mix between the denominations of different religions in Iraq, between the different nationalities, we have different nationalities like Arab, Kurdish, Turkman, and others. Those people lived together before this time and they mixed with each other and they married each other and before now they are. What we need now is to give them the sense that they should start to think about themselves and the world as not one piece or two pieces or three pieces no all of them as one body in collaboration and to bring them together through social reconstruction and through the kind of collaboration between them that there is multireligious country so they should forgive their differences and respect their specificity for each one. The work of interfaith is important now in Iraq because Iraq is a multireligious country. They can start this construction or this reconstruction through their respective religions and after that they can give hope to the people, the religious leaders, that there is freedom, but there are also responsibilities. These responsibilities are they should work hard for it otherwise nothing will change.

Q. Here in the US, we often hear people ask why Muslim religious leaders are silent about the rise of radical, militant Islamism. What would you say to that?

A. Well, this is actually a problem of many religions, it is not only for Islam. But we should not make a decision that there is a small group of people that are radicals related to a religion so we can judge after that an entire religion. That is not true because those radical leaders, they don't represent the whole religion. There is a kind of people who want to work for themselves, want to destroy, want to kill, want to make the world more terrible than before. But they need an excuse, so they use the excuse of religion, either Islam or other religions. They use the excuse of we have fatwa, or we have jihad, so they use part of the religion for themselves. This is personal things, the outcome of all this radicalism, we will find more destruction, more fear, from the other religions from this religion, we will see more enemies of this religion, we will see more irrespect to them. We think, we say we have Christians and we have Muslims. So we are as Muslims fighting against the Christians. But this is not true. Especially in our country, there are one million Christians, they've been before Muslims in Iraq, so they are a part of the nationality, the identity of this country. So we can't fight them because they are our brothers. If anyone wants to make trouble, they have to have to have excuse, and they use the name of Islam for their excuse.

Q. What do you think that religious bodies in the US should be doing to help spread information about Iraq, or to help counter that idea that Muslims are extremists?

A. Well, there are always two images of religion. There is a negative image and a positive image. The negative image of Islam is expressed through terrorists. They want to fight against the Christians, or against the Jews, or against other religions. This is part of disrespect to other religions. Islam is against this. What they need to do, the US member bodies, is to reflect the positive image of Islam, to reflect the positive image of the unity in Iraq, should reflect that there is a majority of religious people in Iraq or in the Arabic world or the Islamic world, they are against the fighting and against the killing and against the shedding of blood and against the disrespect to human rights and freedom. So this is what they should reflect through their medium, their congregations. They can start this from their countries, from the United States, and they can spread it after that too.

Q. What are the religious or interreligious efforts going on in Iraq to help reconstruct or to help rebuild, what that US bodies could tell their members about?

A. Now in Iraq there is interreligious cooperation that has started since the end of the war. If there is a wedding, they can share this wedding from different denominations, if there is a problem in this part of this city or that city they can share help through them. If there is a program of reconstruction to assist them, they can go and say this is a city of Iraq, and we are all a part of this. So they started this [interreligious cooperation] so if there is trouble happening, there is fighting happening, they can all share in the distribution of humanitarian assistance and treatment of the wounded people. All of them, they started to spread the kind of information that the situation should be calmed down and should be quiet and everyone should wait. Wait for peace, wait for reconstruction, and wait to have a good economy, a good life. So they can tell them that there is a new cooperation between the religious denominations. This has started before now, this is why there is no civil war before now. But there is religious community work together for this kind of communication.

Q. Do you think that there are programs in other countries that might prove helpful, or do you think strategies need to be Iraq-specific?

A. I think the strategy of interreligious councils, the strategy of a start of opening a dialogue between the denominations...they started to calm the situation. The point here is to start the dialogue and after that any organization who started this dialogue if they want they can continue the dialogue. It's like a breaking of the ice. We need someone to break the ice and after that they can or other groups can finish. To work for peace. The goal of everything is to work for peace.

Q. Are there any efforts that are specifically targeted at youth in Iraq?

A. There is a youth union. Now the youth can share in the national council, they can share in the elections, in the voting, they can work for international agencies, they can study according to their wishes. We can say now that they have hope in the future. Now the youth has hope to work, to study, to have freedom.