Cultural Awareness

Lead: SIPRI

Implementer: University of Duhok

Collaborators: The University of Notre Dame and Indiana University

Inputs:  Initial assessment findings, secondary sources (scholarly articles, gray literature), stories on cultural practices developed by communities, 

Outputs: Social media campaign and meetings with community leaders.

Outcome: Increased awareness of minority communities on the cultural practices of all minority communities

In an effort to eliminate Iraq's rich cultural and religious variety, ISIS launched brutal attacks in northern Iraq between 2014 and 2015 that destroyed cultural objects and places. Churches, mosques, shrines, graves, even libraries and museums were among the historical and religious landmarks that ISIS ruthlessly demolished. Furthermore, they carried out one of the most heinous massacres in contemporary history against the Ezidis, aiming to wipe out the whole community and all traces of its oral traditions. Digitally recording minority cultures is an essential first step to conserving their legacy, restoring intercommunal understanding, and promoting communal healing and stability in the face of minority groups that are becoming more and more dispersed as a result of persecution.

A3. Justification

Ezidis and Kakai community leaders report difficulties in marketing and selling their agricultural products such as livestock, dairy products, and other foodstuffs, ostensibly for religious and hygiene reasons, to Muslim communities. This is perceived to be due to a lack of awareness (understanding) and/or misconceptions about their faiths, and this negatively impacts their livelihoods and ability to continue practicing agriculture. They also report instances of hate speech towards their communities that stem from the lack of awareness about their faith, exemplified in school curricula that mainly focuses on the teachings of Islam. Lack of awareness and hate speech are seen to contribute to economic and social discrimination and undermine intercommunal trust, social cohesion, and coexistence. 

Based on data collected for the initial assessment in Phase 1 of the project, about 37% of the respondents expressed an interest in cultural awareness training, and 4% an interest in gender equity training. With Ezidis, the desire for cultural awareness training is higher (43%) than the overall average, which may be related to the adverse effects Ezidis experienced due to the lack of general knowledge about their religion and culture. Ezidi's respondents pointed out that hate speech directed towards their community stems from a lack of understanding of the Ezidi faith and culture. Kakai community leaders also highlighted that misconceptions about their faith, religious rituals, and cultural practices fuel discrimination against them by Muslim communities.

Cultural awareness will help to address the social and economic discriminations stemming from lack of awareness (understanding), misconceptions and other issues that undermine the sustainability of agricultural practices, livelihood, and social cohesion among minority groups. This activity will reinforce the community-level work to be completed around agricultural production restoration, culturally-sensitive farming and gardening, and the creation of associative structures within communities: for instance, in formulating marketing strategies, communities will be able to work together and share knowledge with their products and the stories around them as vehicles for integration and increased cultural awareness.

A3. Approach

Cultural Awareness is expected to contribute to social cohesion in the context of Northern Iraq. Trust, tolerance and interdependence are key features that the project seeks to promote through tangible and equitable improvements in the material and emotional wellbeing of farmers and villagers across ethno-religious groups. However, inflammatory political rhetoric and hate speech continue to keep tensions high in a fragmented and highly polarized social and political environment in Northern Iraq. Returning families, resettled communities, and division along ethno-sectarian lines are used to sow fear and distrust, which in turn prevents people from moving forward and restoring their livelihoods and cultural practices. Within the social cohesion field, there are at least four alleged reasons that, theoretically, explain its decline, namely, economic changes that undermine it, migration/displacement and growing ethno-cultural diversity, changes in social relationships bolstered by social media, and the politico-economic integration processes of different political communities (Schiefer & Van der Noll, 2016).

The emphasis of this activity in social media seeks to improve intercultural awareness, promote purposeful, positive encounters among members of different communities, and de-escalate odious rhetoric by improving civil discourse based on cultural diversity that, in turn strengthens social relations, helps build consensus on what the common good is, and fosters a sense of belonging across ethno-religious groups. The cultural awareness activities (dialogue meetings and the social media campaign) will serve as an outreach and dissemination vehicle for the project also, to convey information, co-produced knowledge, awareness on cultural practices, and other relevant research findings to the communities. Community leaders, prominent community members, social media influencers, civil society activists, and minority rights advocates are some of the key stakeholders for this activity. 

A3. Brief description of sub-activities (in chronological order)

1. Key Stakeholder Identification: Mapping relevant community leaders (month 1-2)
2. Project Accountability Sessions: Dialogue meetings with community leaders to raise cultural awareness about the community projects around cooperatives and farmers associations, and to identify issues (and misconceptions) undermining the livelihood and sustainability of agricultural practices as well as community cohesion and coexistence (month 3-18)
3. Awareness Session Facilitation: Facilitate cultural awareness of community leaders through information-sharing (during the dialogue meetings) around the impact of discrimination and misconceptions on the livelihoods connected to agricultural practices and their sustainability (month 3-18)
4. Social Media Communications Plan development: Use information gathered through dialogue meetings to develop social media campaign (month 6-8)
5. Social Media Campaign: Launch a social media campaign with social media influencers and prominent community leaders to disseminate key messages to correct misconceptions, highlighting the impact of discrimination on livelihood and sustainability of agricultural practices. An external social media partner that SIPRI has worked with before will be hired to lead the social media campaign (month 9-18)