Resentment festers in Mosul: just ask Saddam Hussein
If you want to hear the resentment people of Mosul feel now that Iraqi forces have driven Islamic State out of most of the city, you should talk to Saddam Hussein... not the dictator, but the Mosul schoolteacher, who proudly shows off an identity card bearing the name which his parents gave him in the […]Ulf Laessing writes for Reuters:
If you want to hear the resentment people of Mosul feel now that Iraqi forces have driven Islamic State out of most of the city, you should talk to Saddam Hussein... not the dictator, but the Mosul schoolteacher, who proudly shows off an identity card bearing the name which his parents gave him in the ruler's honor 45 years ago, and which he passed on to his sons.
The original Saddam, a Sunni Muslim who was toppled in a U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and hanged three years later on an Iraqi army base for crimes against humanity, is a hate figure to the Shi'ites who make up the majority of Iraqis, violently repressed under his rule.
But here in Mosul, where most people are Sunnis who feel disrespected by the authorities in Baghdad, he is still beloved, just one example of the many ways in which the local narrative veers sharply from that of most of the rest of the country.
