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Make Art, Not War: Iraqi Artists Demand Peace

Through our partner, the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq, MADRE is supporting Art Action, an Iraqi youth peace project. Through Art Action, a brave group of young Sunni and Shiite artists and poets are coming together to demand peace.

According to the logic of the civil war, these young people from warring communities should be enemies. But they refuse to succumb to sectarian hatred. Instead, they are joining together through art and poetry, calling for an end to the civil war, and working to create a society that promotes human rights—including women's rights and freedom from occupation and religious coercion.

Art Action hosts Freedom Space gatherings—public performance spaces where people come together to share their poetry and music. These gatherings have been banned by the Islamists—religious fundamentalists—whom the US boosted to power in Iraq. In fact, in Iraq today, Islamist militias systematically torture and kill artists and musicians. Several members of Art Action have been attacked. Despite the danger, Iraqis who hunger for peace flock to these gatherings. The Freedom Space events are the only gatherings of their kind in Iraq today, where people can creatively express their rage, their fears, and most importantly, their hopes.

Young people who refuse to be enemies deserve our support. They need a space where they can rise above the brutality that permeates occupied Iraq and use art to create real-life alternatives to war.