Interview with Hidden Histories on Preserving Iraqi Culture

Preserving a culture as expansive and intricate as Iraqi culture is not an easy feat, especially for Iraqis living in London. 

However, that is a task that the organisation Hidden Histories has dedicated itself to completing. 

Co-founded in 2021 by a Baghdad native Eiman Munro, she focuses on bringing Iraqi experiences and stories into the mainstream, along with working on preserving an archive of recordings, books and papers all originally lost parts of Iraqi history, and creating. Events for the young Iraqis of London looking to reconnect with their culture.

In this interview we spoke with Eiman, along with Hidden Histories Cultural Heritage Youth Leader Safa Atiah, about their recent event – an attempt to bring young people of the diaspora together, celebrating Iraq’s rich cultural history.

This is the first time Hidden Histories hosts a youth-centered event, talk us through this decision and significance?  

Safa: “… This is our first youth-targeted event, but we have done events before this one”, 

Eiman: “Just last year, Hidden Histories hosted a ‘Chai and Chat’ session in collaboration with ‘Becoming Brent’, a  heritage project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Brent Council, designed to explore the history, people, and community of the London Borough of Brent over the last century, solidifying the Iraqi community’s presence in London.”

As part of their heritage programme, Safa leads the ‘Lasting Legacy’ project, which involves the participants creating time capsules, or boxes for the archives that they are helping to look after.

Eiman: “So these ( the items in the box) present individual stories, but also things that show what is heritage for us as Iraqis. So some of them are items, some of them are memos, some of them are stories, science like this astrology book. So this is what we are going to introduce to our young people to share what they think heritage is.  So the first session is about ‘what do our young people want to see in this legacy box that we create’ and they can decide. We don’t know what it is but we can provide some items as inspiration.“

Eiman: “We try to change the narrative in the news, from something negative to something more positive. We have lots to share from our culture and we would like to see that in the news. I would like to see the impact that Iraqis have had. Both modern day and historically. These are just examples of memories and some of them are traumatic but they are memories and they are experiences. They matter. I just wanted to see more of that in the mainstream.” 

What does a typical day at Hidden Histories look like, and what are some of your plans for the future?  

Safa: “The idea is that we try to engage Iraqi young people more in their culture and their heritage. That is via open discussion, working on the legacy box, working on the archives, and all of these different opportunities to get the young people engaged. I think the way I would note success is just to see more discussion about our heritage in a positive way. This appreciation for how much our older generations have been through and all of these amazing things that they’ve done and achieved. We come from that. We stand for that. We have that running in our blood. To have that sort of appreciation and pride for our culture and that heritage. That’s mainly the thing that we want to achieve. We are doing that through this event and future events.”

You mentioned that you would like to train the younger generation for archiving, but you want to find an expert archivist to help you. What are your plans for once you have this expert?

Eiman: “Well, we can properly archive them because at the moment, we don’t know what’s in it. You can ask us a question about the content. And we’re like, well, that’s such a good question because we haven’t got the capacity, we haven’t got the thousands of hours to go through them yet. But we can share with you some of the photos that we’ve got.

And we’d love to do exhibitions. There is a lot going on. And even if young people come in and have the experience, once we are trained, so that we can train them, and then they can help us give them, almost like validating them as well and their importance in this whole journey.

It’s all kind of like a cycle of life. It’s how I see it. That’s something I’d like to know at the moment.

Until we get that certificate, it’s going to take time.“

You previously mentioned having some older volunteers amongst the youth, what is your vision for training them to become suitable for this role?

Eiman: “We were trained using the British Library’s training and essentially capturing oral history through interviews, through transcribing, and what it took to put it together and package it so that we can deposit it into our local archives, which happens to be Brent Libraries Museum Archives.

So because we were trained, myself and some of the team members – , the leaders in the group, we will then use these workshops to train young people. I’m going to be bringing the equipment that we used, so they can learn. We can loan it out to them so that they can capture their parents’ memories or their grandparents. I was encouraging Safa to do that with her grandpa, so all of us captured our grandparents’ memories. It’s interesting because the bond between grandparents and grandchildren is a very different dynamic to a parent and a child.

So when I was interviewing my parents it was very different how they reply when I’m recording them. Because it’s almost like a chore to them. But when it’s their grandchildren, it’s so cute to watch.“ 

Eiman: “One of the areas we can talk about that we have yet to get into is cultural capital. We have science capital and economic capital and it kinda dictates your quality of life. For communities that rarely go into galleries, arts or museums. The culture is rich, but for example making heritage accessible can be hard, which is what I focus on. Making heritage accessible includes disabled people, but also includes communities that are rarely accessed. Because if you look at the Heritage England report, it says that their workforce isn’t represented in society.

So that’s our vision. Or at least my vision.”

Safa: One of the most important things when I’m looking at working with the youth is looking at continuity and longevity. Thinking about some of the youth who don’t really know their identity and also with their future paths and careers. They see no heritage career so this is a path where they can use their identity and their traditions to help other people learn that as well. So it’s just opening some windows for the young people, whilst also introducing them to people that have the same heritage as them and sharing those memories of the past.”

Hidden Histories held their youth heritage event on April 2nd, but are continuing doing work to connect Iraqis to this day. The Iraqi diaspora has affected how the culture has evolved, and while it will continue to do so, it is important to remember the roots and not lose the pieces of history that connect Iraqis to those roots. That is why Hidden Histories works to archive and show their culture, why it is important and encourage the younger generations to keep around the stories of their grandparents before they are lost to time.