THE PAST AT THE SERVICE OF THE FUTURE: THE RAQQA MUSEUM
Marine de Tilly
88
―
Fi v e Years o f A LI PH
Article published in 2020
Marine de Tilly is an independent reporter. She has collaborated with Le Point, Le Figaro Magazine, ELLE and GEO for fifteen years. Since 2012, she has been reporting from the Middle East (Iraq, Syria, Turkey). She is the author of two books: L’homme debout (The Man Standing), the story of the first French Consul in Iraqi Kurdistan (Stock, 2016), and La femme, la vie, la liberté (Women, life, freedom), a portrait of Leïla Mustapha, the current co-mayor of Raqqa (Stock, 2020), which was released just before the COVID-19 pandemic spread through the world.
At the top of the Raqqa Museum’s brand-new staircase, two agitated swallows flap about and crash into a Roman tomb dating back to 2000 BCE. “Whenever birds make an entrance, it’s always a good sign,” declares Leila Mustapha. This is the first time the current co-mayor of the city has returned to the Museum since its rehabilitation was completed. The smell of paint and fresh cement lingers, the plans are still posted out front, and in the garden, a parked piece of heavy machinery seems proud to have served. Inside, display cases and objects are not yet installed, but outside, like an immaculate totem in the midst of the grayness of the ruined city, the Museum stands triumphantly as a harbinger of reconstruction. “Before the war,” Mustapha recalls, “the Museum was a haven of calm and peace. I came here a lot, since I was studying at the university, just next door. I really liked stopping in here, looking out onto the neighborhood frenzy from the window, the antiques souks where merchants from all over the country made a racket selling and haggling over their wares. It was a space for exchange and culture – it was Raqqa.”
