Iraqi poet advocates for peace and focuses on resilience against terrorism
Times of India | 29 November 2025
Kolkata: Iraqi poet and intellectual Ali Al-Shalah visited the Kolkata International Foundation for Arts, Literature and Culture on Thursday and said poetry, culture, art and theatres can help counter the growing hatred and fundamentalism across the world by building new relationships and bridging cultural gaps .
Born in 1965 in Babylon, Al-Shalah experienced the war between Iraq and Iran when he was 18 and his poetry reflects the catastrophe. KIFALC chairperson and poet Prabal Kumar Basu said, "The aim of the platform is to create a space for exchanging ideas and fostering interaction between creative communities."
Talking about the annual Babylon Festival for International Cultures, which he organises, Al-Shalah shared the vision of the festival and its resilience against terrorist attacks. "Despite the country's situation and its subsequent confrontation with Al-Qaeda and ISIS terrorism, the festival managed to establish a distinct presence. Our vision is to bring together all forms of arts and literature which were restricted, especially with the spread of extreme terrorism," said Al-Shalah. He said terrorists attempted to target the festival twice but did not succeed. "A terrorist was arrested while he was trying to reconnoiter the festival's event sites in 2014. The checkpoint near Babylon ancient city was also subjected to a terrorist operation days before the fourth edition of the festival. We postponed the festival for 40 days but did not stop it. Under the slogan ‘We are Babyloanians' we promote human brotherhood and its cultures," he added.
Al-Shalah pointed out that in Arab culture "the poet is beside the prophet".
"This idea is important because there had been big revolutions in Arab history, where the symbol of revolution were the poets and not the politicians," he feels.
In one of his essays, he wrote that Iraqi poetry after 2000 has been an "honest mirror of the transformation, tragedies and new concerns of Iraqi society". "In 1991, when I went to Jordan, I saw fax for the first time. We did not have faxes and we needed police permission to get the right to type," he added.
He also highlighted the unique aspects of women's poetry in the Arab world. "Women are more open and stronger than men. The most important thing in the Arab and Islam history is the woman, not the man. I can't say this in the Arab countries but when you speak of the religion, all of Muhammad's family, is from Fatima. But in the govt and working scenario, since the majority are men, they don't accept it," Al-Shalah shared.