A source in Syria describes life in Raqqa, a city transformed under militant control, with sketches by Molly Crabapple.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
Editor’s note: In the year since Islamist factions took over Raqqa, Syria, very little unfiltered news has made it out of the area. In the meantime, ISIS has established its de facto capital in the city. Vanityfair.com received the below text from a Syrian who claims Raqqa as a hometown. To protect this individual’s security in an area where speaking candidly about ISIS is dangerous, we’re not revealing his or her name.
Artist Molly Crabapple has completed sketches based on the scenes presented in the source’s photos. “With the exception of Vice News, ISIS has permitted no foreign journalists to document life under their rule in Raqqa,” Crabapple wrote. “Instead, they rely on their own propaganda. To create these images, I drew from cell-phone photos a Syrian sent me of daily life in the city. Like the Internet, art evades censorship.”
*The below captions are written by the source in Syria, with occasional edits for clarity, who shared some context as well. “In March 2013, Raqqa became the first provincial city to be captured by the Syrian rebels in a four day-long battle,” the source wrote to VF.com. “Since then, focus has been shifted on the city, a turning point in the history of rather a quiet, neglected city.”
“Soon, the mostly Islamist-oriented, jihadi rebel factions (among them al-Qaeda’s wing in Syria—Jabhat Al-Nusra—and ISIS, which had yet-to-be-disowned by al-Qaeda) were the strongest to groups competing for providence,” the source continued. “By a year later, ISIS had kicked all other jihadist groups out, imposed its strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law, and forced people to abide by its rules.”*
The Bakery
In a society in which bread is essential for every meal, providing people with sufficient supply quantities is a challenge for any government—much less a rebel group. In Raqqa, which has been described, along with Hasakeh and Deir Ezzor, as a ‘bread basket’ for all Syria, residents face difficulties in getting a necessary amount of bread.
The Clock Tower
For decades, the Clock Tower—along with the statues placed on the top of it—has been among the few monuments by which Raqqa is known. Two peasants, a man and a woman, hold a torch high, and look at the sky. They represent a natural tendency inside human beings—to be free.
In November 2013, ISIS decided to cut the heads off the statues. A symbolic and threatening message. This was ISIS’s way of hinting that such a practice would later involve humans, in this very place. And that is what has happened.
Models’ Faces Blotted Out
In the effort to make sure everything looks Islamic (meaning to abide by the Sharia law of ISIS’s understanding), ISIS established what it calls Husbah. Husbah is a police-like body tasked with enforcing Sharia in public life. It has listed a number of forbidden misdeeds, including smoking tobacco, improper dressing, and swearing.
The list of forbidden things includes photos of models. According to Sharia law, as interpreted by ISIS, any depiction of human beings or animals on a wall is representative of God’s creation. Therefore, it’s haram, or sinful.
The owner of a men’s clothing store had to stain the faces of the models with red color, so that it will be in accord with the law.
Na’eem Square
Na’eemin Arabic means “paradise,” but ISIS changed this beautiful public place into the complete opposite. The square that was a favorite place for boys and girls to have dates, for little kids to play, and for the elders to relive their youths by taking in the activity of the city, is now the awful place of spikes upon which chopped-off heads are placed. The story of this square sums up the dark story of the whole city.
In the drawing, damage appears on the fence due to the Assad regime’s airstrikes. Assad’s forces targeted it as a symbolic way of retaliating for the many times heads of soldiers from within its force were horrifically placed on the fence.
Kids Searching Through Trash
From the very first day it placed its solid grip on the city, the Islamic State, has been engaged in a propaganda war to show the world how Raqqa prospers silently under Sharia law, in the hope that it can reverse the image of depression and oppression the world sees of life in its capital.
With multiple professionally edited videos and high-resolution photos, ISIS insists life in its caliphate is getting comfortable and secure day by day.
However, life is different away from ISIS’s cameras. In this scene, children search through trash in the hope they can find something of value, something worth selling for some trivial amount of money.
The Library
The Cultural Center was built in the 1960s. It has hosted many cultural activities, art exhibitions, and literary lectures since its opening. However, culture is not something of value in the eyes of Islamists. Ahrar al-Sham, one of the Islamist rebel groups fighting in Syria, deemed its strong building suitable for a headquarters. This prompted the Assad regime’s fighter jets to target it.
On March 4, 2013, the aerial attacks damaged and burned the library. Thousands of books turned to ash, and, according to a lecturer at the local Furat University, an entire heritage vanished in minutes.
This drawing depicts the back garden of the building, an odd place for a Syrian Army's Russian-made military truck (ural) to be parked.
The Traffic Policeman
Immediately after taking over Raqqa, ISIS established several departments to help organize the city’s affairs. Since traffic lights had been out of order for months, one such department concerned itself with regulating traffic. The “Islamic traffic police” officers are usually local recruits who sometimes mask their faces and wear specific uniforms denoting their job, armed with pistols, but no whistles. (ISIS has largely deemed whistles to be non-Islamic.)
Here, we see an Islamic traffic-police officer taking a break to have some tea while sitting on the pavement in front of al-Rasheed Park.
Connecting the Internet
Since A.D.S.L. service and cell-phone networks do not work, the only way for the people in Raqqa to connect to the world is via satellite Internet. People interested in this field of business have found ways to provide alternatives, which are exclusively via satellite dishes. However, to cover more space and extend signals to customers’ homes, these services usually use wireless repeaters, linked to a central network.
Nonetheless, satellite-Internet transmitters are not consistent regarding upload and download speeds, and the signal quality is usually poor. Here, a taxi driver, sitting on a chair in the street, finds a few minutes of free time to surf the Internet on his mobile.
A Wounded ISIS Soldier
Syria is a country where the concept of healthcare is totally uncommon. After more than three years of war, the situation of hospitals and medical-care centers is simply critical. The conditions of the already poorly equipped hospitals in Raqqa are serious—just like the conditions of their patients. Under such circumstances, the state-owned National Hospital is the hospital upon which the whole city depends.
Unlike other shortages, the lack of various kinds of medicine categories is severely fatal. Hospitals in Raqqa witnessed numerous deaths that would have been avoided if the required drugs and specialists were available. And with the ISIS threat to foreign aid-work organizations, the situation is descending from bad to worse. However, the National Hospital provides medical treatment not only for civilians but for ISIS fighters as well. This drawing depicts an injured ISIS fighter walking on crutches in the hospital’s corridor.http://www.vanityfair.com/
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