Interview with Lamis Aljasem G’16

AUP: So what exactly is See My Raqqa?

Lamis Aljasem: See My Raqqa is an online project to reintroduce the city of Raqqa to the world. Through culture, food, traditions, hidden spots and interviews of locals, See My Raqqa aims to create a positive content of Raqqa on the Internet and create an image for this place like any another. I post pictures and stories from my life and from other locals on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Of course, there is a website as well. At this stage, I am just trying to introduce Raqqa as a more positive place through sharing photos from before it was destroyed. I am also now using current stories and talk alot about the hopes of the locals from Raqqa as they look to rebuild. I am hoping that this will turn into a platform to promote cultural initiatives and events in Raqqa in the future. Ultimately, I guess whatever form this project takes will depend much on the recovery of Raqqa and the future of its residents.

When did you first begin the process of creating See My Raqqa?

I started See My Raqqa three days after ISIS was defeated, on the 21st of October, 2017, but my process to create it took much longer. I left Raqqa in 2012 and ever since ISIS took over in 2013, it was impossible to tell someone where I was from. All anyone knew about Raqqa was ISIS. If I told them I was from Raqqa they would look at me and say: Oh. So you mean ISIS.” I didn’t really have a way to tell them what life was like before ISIS and how this evil terrorist group wasn’t always there, so I would avoid telling people I was from Raqqa entirely. The idea for See My Raqqa stemmed from my inability to tell people where I was from while at the same time I was watching my hometown be completely destroyed, both the actual city and the narrative of the Raqqa I knew and grew up with.

Once ISIS was finally defeated, I thought it was time to share what my Raqqa really was. It worked very well since after ISIS left, Raqqa has been getting such little media attention.

What was the process like to create See My Raqqa? What were your first ideas or maybe your first brainstorms?

The idea was there for a long time, even before ISIS and the civil war. People in Syria didn’t even really know Raqqa. They knew about us a little bit and had some stereotypes about the people from Raqqa, but they didn’t really know what life was like there. It’s not a place people really traveled to. So, really, a lot of ideas sort of culminated into this project, even before the war.

However, there was a specific moment when See My Raqqa was most clearly formed that was of course during the war. I have an aunt who is still living in Raqqa and while ISIS was in charge, she gave birth to a little baby girl. So she was born under ISIS and I thought: “If ISIS stays here, she’ll never really know the true Raqqa.” And this idea struck me. What if someday I have kids and their understanding of my hometown is poisoned by what’s happened there in the last few years? What if they google Raqqa and all they find is ISIS-related pictures? I was worried about my cousins, about the children of Raqqa, about them possibly growing up under ISIS and never understanding anything about Raqqa’s history or what it used to be like.

Of course, while Raqqa was under ISIS, it was really impossible to talk about it in any sort of positive light, even those of us who were from there. As I saw these buildings and these places that I’ve known my entire life being devastated, I knew that there must be a way to preserve some small piece of this history and culture that was, block by block, stone by stone, bomb by bomb, being utterly destroyed.

What motivated you to start a project like See My Raqqa?

My motivation for starting this project was really in two parts: I wanted to preserve the past, not only for myself and the people from Raqqa, but also for the second part of this project, for the future. In this way, people in the future will know that Raqqa wasn’t just a place of war, but it was a place where people had real lives with real dreams and real love.

I have been careful to make it too personal. Of course, in many ways this project is linked to me on a profoundly personal level. My home doesn’t exist anymore, you know? So, it is an exercise of preserving my identity; however, it’s also larger than just me and is linked to this idea of preserving a culture and a people and something positive from this place.

I have a similar feeling for other cities we see the media portray in a largely negative light because of the fighting happening there, such as Mosul, Iraq and Kabul, Afghanistan. We only know these cities from afar, from what we see on the news and read on the Internet, and it is all death and destruction. But there is life in these places, too. Children, like my aunt’s child, are still being born. These places are so much bigger and more complex than what is covered in the media. Sadly, if you try to search for these cities, it is difficult to discover them as any place other than a place of war.

Everything people know about Raqqa is war and destruction and ISIS. I want to change that.

So what is your Raqqa? Can you tell us some of your fondest memories of your hometown?

When I think of Raqqa today, I think of a place of culture and cultural events. The person I am now has a lot to do with Raqqa, with the place itself, and how I was brought up there. Since I was maybe six years-old, my father used to take me to the cultural center and we would listen to poetry. There were writers that would come from all over the world to Raqqa. We would even go to these villages just outside of the city and even these small villages had these really active cultural centers.

Raqqa had this real mix of rural and urban communities, people from all these different tribes and traditions lived in the city but had the sort of life where everyone around Raqqa knew each other and if something happened on the street or something, everyone would know and help out.

The cultural life, with me being so young and being exposed to all this, I think that affected me and made me define, early on, what kind of person I wanted to be and what “success” really meant. I was going to these events with these writers and all the people from Raqqa, rich and poor, women and men and even families like own would come with their children. For me, success is become about writing or doing something meaningful. My goals were built around this. I wanted to be one of those writers sharing my thoughts and ideas.

Long philosophical discussions and an appreciation for literature. Writers, poetry, theater, and a really rich cultural life that was incredibly open and understanding. That’s what we had. That’s not usually something what people think of when they think of Raqqa.

What sort of feedback are you getting from people from Raqqa and the rest of Syria?

In the beginning, the project addressed an international audience. It was more the goal to communicate this idea to people outside of Syria. I was really surprised when I first posted and people from Syria, who didn’t know I was behind this or had never been to Raqqa, wrote and said things like: “We never realized how beautiful Raqqa was!” Because of this feedback, now See My Raqqa is in both Arabic and English.

For all Syrians, this project has been something that remembers this place before it was destroyed and somehow it has given them hope. Sometimes people contact me from Aleppo or Damascus and regret that they never visited Raqqa, but they are surprised and happy to see someone is preserving a memory of this place.

Other refugees from Raqqa contact me and say things like: “Finally, there is a place where we can show people the Raqqa I know, the Raqqa I grew up with.” In fact, the other day there was a man who is maybe 50 or 60 who wrote me to thank me for bringing back our history and identity.

I shared a story once about a popular square where there was a very popular ice cream shop. Every kid in Raqqa knew about this ice cream shop. It was the best ice cream in the city and when your mom or dad told you that you were going to the square to get ice cream, you were excited. It was a real treat. I feel like ice cream is this sort of holy and precious thing in our memories. Everyone loves ice cream and has a positive connotation with it as they think about it when they were younger. So, when I shared the story of the ice cream seller and the square where this shop was located, everyone – whether they were from Raqqa or somewhere else – had that feeling inside them, that same excitement we all have as a child going to a favorite place to get an ice cream.

As people from Raqqa, we should remember this square as the place where we, as children, used to get our favorite ice cream, not just as the place where ISIS did its beheadings.

When you were developing and implementing See My Raqqa, what sort of theories, concepts or practical tools did you use that you learned while at AUP to create such an incredible project?

I was inspired while I was at AUP because we were always talking about the media and how we can use and develop it, particularly in Politics & Economics of Global Media.

My time at AUP was critical in creating See My Raqqa, even if I didn’t have the exact concept yet, because AUP was where I realized I was learning skills and concepts that I could use for a project of my own. Even now, as I’m working on See My Raqqa, I’m going back and consulting my old textbooks and even asking professors for their new syllabi for courses that look interesting, thinking I might learn something new. Even the courses I didn’t take, like the Place Branding course, helped me because I had friends that took the course and we would talk about it.

One of the unexpected courses to heavily influence me was The Museum as Medium course. This class takes you into museums around Paris and the question I was always asking myself was: “How can a city have such a beautiful image in the mind of everyone?” For me, this would be the ideal outcome of See My Raqqa. How do we talk about places, about branding, about symbols? When you think of Paris, right away you have an image and a feeling. Other places don’t have this or, like Raqqa, have this for the wrong reason. So this was a huge part of my inspiration as I was learning how museums use branding in terms of what content they are creating, curating or providing and for what outlets. I use these same principles when I produce content for See My Raqqa. Whenever I post something, there must be a component, whether its cultural or historic or something else, that is designed for a specific audience.

What do you feel is the project’s importance today? What sort of goals do you have in mind for See My Raqqa going forward?

The importance now is that it’s giving hope. I’m in contact with locals and those people returning and finding no real help on the ground, so it helps them that I’m outside and communicating something positive about our home. They feel that these stories will remind the world that they exist and that they are dying to rebuild their city. It lends an importance to this place and makes the people from Raqqa feel like someone is really taking notice of them and where they’re from. They take hope from this. Just drawing positive attention to Raqqa after it was destroyed is a good first step. This has been the reintroduction of Raqqa to the world.

The second step now is to introduce the people. Right now, I’m interviewing people from Raqqa about where they’re from and the war and how they see the future of Raqqa, as well as who they are and who they have become. I’m hoping that eventually this will be a project that can support cultural initiatives. I talk to many young people looking for support and who are hoping See My Raqqa can be their channel to tell the world what they are going to do.

During a television interview on France24 regarding See My Raqqa, you mentioned that you are looking forward to moving back to Syria. Is this still in your plans? Would you move back to Raqqa?

I’m definitely going back. Studying Global Communications in Strategic Development at AUP made me want to continue this path and go more in-depth in this field. Because of AUP, I’m now working on finishing my second Master’s at Sciences-Po in International Human Rights and Humanitarian Action. Once I finish this, I’ll go back to Syria. In combining communication with understanding how projects work, I believe I’ll really be able to have a better holistic understanding of not only what work needs to be done and can be done, but how to communicate that understanding as well.