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 The militants who seized the city in 2014 had targeted artists
like himself so when neighbors said they were hunting for him,
he left home, called his wife to say he was likely to die and
took to sleeping in a different place each night.
The next thing he did was recover his beloved violin and his oud,
similar to a lute, from where he had hidden them in the frame of
his bed.
He said he hugged and kissed them "like they were my own
children," and played amid the ruins "a song ... for Mosul."
On Saturday, Badri and other musicians and activists attended
the first orchestral concert in the northern Iraqi city since
the militants were defeated more than a year ago by Iraqi and
Kurdish forces and a coalition led by the United States.
Thousands died in that battle or fled the city, large parts of
which was reduced to rubble.
The musicians played in a park where the militants once trained
child soldiers and the music, a mixture of Western and Iraqi
classical, wafted along the banks of the Tigris River.
"Music is my life. It's amazing to hear it in Mosul again," he
said. The concert was conceived by Karim Wasfi, former director
of the Baghdad Orchestra, whose visiting Peace Through Arts
Farabi Orchestra played alongside local musicians.
Mosul was long celebrated as a center of Iraqi culture but that
life was suppressed even before Islamic State declared its
caliphate in 2014. Al Qaeda targeted musicians in the wake of a
U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and no one could remember when they
last heard live music in Mosul.
Islamic State continued that crackdown, blowing up statues and
monuments, said Ali al-Baroodi, a Mosul University professor and
photographer.
"We continued to consume culture in secret: we would listen to
music, trade books, films, music. That never stopped even though
it was dangerous," he said.
Baroodi and Badri belong to a community of artists and activists
who have defied fears of fresh attacks to hold weekly book
markets and photography exhibitions. In a bold move, that
community has also painted murals around the city in a bid to
reclaim public spaces.
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RICH HISTORY
Last year, he helped launch an international book drive to replenish
the million books that Islamic State torched at the university
library, one of the most important in the region.
"Mosul lost its identity, lost its features, lost thousands of its
people with many more still under the rubble," he said. "These
efforts aren't going to fix everything overnight but it gives us
hope."
One new cultural center is the vibrant Qantara cultural cafe. It
opened in east Mosul in March, welcomes men and women, boasts a
well-stocked bookshop and hosts readings and workshops. In addition,
musicians including Badri have performed there.
Its walls show paintings and photographs of Mosul's rich history and
its recent devastation. One wall depicts the crimes of IS,
displaying a yellow jumpsuit worn by detainees as well as handcuffs.
Not every cultural institution in Mosul is seeing rebirth.
The central public library, a research center that housed rare
manuscripts including government records dating back to the Ottoman
era, was the only one to survive Islamic State intact, even though
it was used as a base.
Librarians hid the most precious texts but 20,000 books were dumped
in the basement. After East Mosul was liberated, librarians salvaged
what they could and stacked books on makeshift shelves.
But with no windows and holes in its ceiling, the library remains
closed. Its halls, once filled with student researchers, are now
caked in dust.
Library head Jamal Ahmed said funds had been set aside to repair the
library, but government repair efforts had stalled.
"This library is an important cultural home," said a library
employee. "We can't just rebuild bridges and roads, we have to
rebuild minds."
(Additional reporting by Salih Elias; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)
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