"People were talking to us from the rooftops"

April 5, 2015. In response to the occupation of Mosul and the Nineveh plain by Daesh, a new frequency appears on the airwaves: Radio Al Salam. Contrary to the communitarian logic of most local media, Radio Al-Salam, where journalists of different nationalities, languages ​​and religions coexist, is an instrument of dialogue and understanding. A unique human adventure, the only independent radio station in Iraqi Kurdistan.

In 2^e opus of his trilogy Life after Daesh, director Xavier de Lauzanne looks at this unique medium. To show how, in northern Iraq, seven young journalists, Muslims, Christians and Yazidis, hold out their microphones to those who want peace. How do they sustain a channel freed from political and religious influences. How, in complete freedom, voices rise on the airwaves and rekindle the bond within a nation.

In April 2022, on the occasion of the seventh anniversary of the radio, the vice-president of La Guilde Hugues Dewavrin and Doctor Frédéric Tissot returned to the origins of the project, at the microphone of the journalist from Radio Al-Salam Shahad Alkhoury.

We are with Doctor Frédéric Tissot and Hugues Dewavrin, present from the start of the history of radio. Can you introduce yourself ?

Frederic Tissot – I am a doctor, I have been working with some Kurds since October 1981. After practicing in different countries, I was the first Consul General of France in Erbil, Kurdistan, between 2008 and 2011.

Hugues Dewavrin – I am a business manager and vice-president of La Guilde, which deals with post-crisis countries. I met Frédéric in Afghanistan in the years 2002-2003, where we had rebuilt a cinema. When Frédéric was appointed Consul General of France in 2008, we organized a major demonstration of French and Kurdish cinema in Erbil. This is how we got to know each other, loved each other and never left each other.

How was the radio created in 2015?

HD- In the summer of 2014 – it was early August, everyone was sunbathing in France – we learned that northern Iraq had been invaded by the Islamic State. We immediately contacted Frédéric, because I needed him to explain the situation to me. He told me it was absolutely appalling, that hundreds of thousands of refugees were coming. Very quickly, we came up with the idea of ​​setting up a radio station to serve the refugees. In the fall, we took the plane together to go to the field and refine this idea. Frédéric was a key element, because he enjoys great local respect through his very important time at the consulate.

FT- It was necessary to give a voice to all these displaced persons or refugees, resulting from the attack of Daesh at the level of Mosul and Sinjar. It was not necessary to leave them totally isolated, but to be able to accompany them in this displacement, even this exile.

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HD- When we understood that it was Daesh's crazy communitarianism that put all these people in misery, hundreds of thousands of people thrown on the road for reasons of absolute intolerance, we said to ourselves that perhaps the most daring would be -to be to create a radio with sensitivities, origins, languages ​​and religions that would be all those of the region. Let us thus show that we can work together, think together, live together. The radio was really the showcase of tolerance, the counter-project to the one we had before us with the violence of Daesh. And we said to ourselves that we were going to broadcast very widely, so that this message of tolerance would be heard in the camps but also beyond. One of our very fond memories is that in Mosul, then under the occupation of the Islamic State, people listened to us and spoke to us from the rooftops. This message of peace and tolerance, we managed to take it very far. My greatest pride is there, to have succeeded in uniting over time people who do not think the same way, but who appreciate and respect each other and move in the same direction. This is the magic of Radio Al-Salam.

The situation in the country has changed a lot since the creation of the radio. What makes Radio Al-Salam different today, compared to other radios?

FT- The idea was to fight intolerance and violence. And that is still maintained, Radio Al-Salam is based on these values. The very essence of what Radio Al-Salam stands for is still current, there is always a need to share together, to respect the word of the other, to listen to the other. And that, always that, is what makes the radio, with this formidable team that continues to bring this concept of peace radio to life.

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The radio celebrated its 7^e anniversary in April 2022. What do you think of its evolution?

HD- We must give good news! The French government, which has been quite sensitive to the radio, has decided to support us much more officially via the support of the French Development Agency, which will establish the sustainability of the radio accompanied by the support of the Île-de- France (not to mention the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region, editor's note). For the material aspect, the radio has many good years ahead of it. Basically, I can only agree with what Frédéric has just said. You have to stay on fundamental choices, nothing is ever acquired. Look: who could have imagined that there was going to be this abominable war in Ukraine barely a month ago? In fact, the world does not change as much as one would like; it remains violent, it remains intolerant, and these watchtowers like the one that Radio Al-Salam constitutes, these kinds of poles of resistance, you have to hold on to them like the apple of your eye. So don't change anything and let's stay here as long as it takes to ensure that this world can be, despite everything, a little better.

What are your wishes for Radio Al-Salam?

FT- I would especially like to thank the personalities, associations and partners thanks to whom we have succeeded, all together, in bringing this radio to a successful conclusion. I am thinking of Guillaume Battin and his association Radio sans frontières, the Œuvre d'Orient, Agnès b., La Guilde, and of course the government and provincial authorities, in particular the governor of the province of Erbil, who helped us launch the radio. Seven years later, thank you again to all those people who mobilized so that this radio can still be there today.

HD- Happy birthday and long life to Radio Al-Salam!