94 minutes that each of us should set aside to learn the story of Nadia Murad, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and her struggle for her people, the Yazidis. On Her Shoulders is in cinemas from 6 to 12 December.
It is moving to see Nadia Murad when she is relaxed and at ease, and she is so above all among her own people. For now she can meet other Yazidis mainly in refugee camps in Europe and the Middle East where many of them live after fleeing the genocidal ferocity of the Islamic State (or Isis), which began with the invasion of Sinjar on 3 August 2014, because northern Iraq, their home, lies in ruins. Yet Murad, the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, would like to go back and live there. But the future is uncertain because she is no longer a simple peasant girl — she has become the spokesperson for the Yazidis, and the responsibility of telling their story rests entirely on her shoulders.
Read also: Who is Nadia Murad, the woman who defeated violence with her story
Sulle sue spalle (On Her Shoulders) is the title of the documentary by Alexandria Bombach that shows the behind-the-scenes of Murad's international campaign to obtain justice for the crimes committed against the Yazidis and against herself — imprisoned and sexually enslaved, like thousands of other women and girls. A touching portrayal that shows her transformation from victim and refugee to activist, an intimate access that allows us to know her closely: her tenderness, the thoughtful way she runs her fingers through her long hair, and the deep friendship with Murad Ismael, executive director of Yazda, a Yazidi rights organisation and her greatest supporter. But the 94 minutes spent in Murad's world also show us the abyss between her and us — us, who can only be struck by the strength with which she bears the weight of responsibility, yet will never be able to fully comprehend her suffering, so immense as to be unbearable even just watching it on screen.
We attended the preview screening of the film on 4 December in Milan (the second preview was held the following day in Bologna), presented as part of the Sala Biografilm programme, an extension of the Biografilm Festival held in the Emilian capital. To coincide with the award of the Nobel Prize to Murad on 10 December, the film is screening in over forty cinemas across Italy from 6 to 12 December, distributed by I Wonder Pictures and Unipol Biografilm Collection as a special I Wonder Stories event made possible thanks to Gruppo Unipol.
The film was introduced by Danilo de Biasio, director of the Festival dei diritti umani in Milan, and Marina Calloni, full professor of Political and Social Philosophy at the Università degli studi di Milano-Bicocca and coordinator of Edv Italy project, the first university centre in Italy dedicated to combating domestic violence. We spoke with Professor Calloni about the initiatives in support of the Yazidi community in our country, and about what it has meant for her to get to know Murad and her story up close.
The documentary tells the story of "a woman willing to sacrifice herself to play the media game that has become international support," in Bombach's words. What role can the media play in combating violence and injustice?
When I met Nadia Murad at the Festival dei diritti umani and later invited her to the Università di Milano-Bicocca in May 2016, I asked myself whether it was right to expose a woman who had experienced sexual slavery, whether it was right to make her relive the trauma. Our concern was driven by the need to inform and mobilise public opinion in support of a people — an ethno-religious minority such as the Yazidis, who practise an ancient religion but have throughout their history been persecuted — regarded as "infidels" — by both Christians and Muslims. There are just over 500,000 of them settled in northern Iraq, but by now a large proportion live in the diaspora, having left their destroyed villages behind. Nadia was not speaking only on behalf of her people, the 3,500 women still in captivity, abducted and sexually brutalised, or of the relatives killed, or for the recognition of the genocide. She was speaking on behalf of all of wounded humanity, calling for help and understanding for all oppressed peoples, in the very name of a humanity that could not tolerate those crimes.
What support have Murad and the Yazidis received in Italy?
We helped Nadia through various initiatives. By welcoming, thanks to the rector of the Università di Milano-Bicocca, Professor Cristina Messa, ten Yazidi students. We currently have five who are studying mathematics, chemistry, physics, biochemistry and law with great success. They want to return to their country as soon as they have finished their studies. For this reason they preferred not to apply as asylum seekers, but instead to be recognised as students so that they could return soon to their families, who still live in refugee camps in northern Iraq. With my working group at the Edv Italy project centre, we had managed to organise a number of meetings in the Senate, which succeeded in generating the interest of members of parliament — so much so that on 18 May 2016 Parliament jointly and unanimously passed a motion for the recognition of the genocide of the Yazidi people.
Together with Yazda, Murad wants to bring Isis before the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. Do you think this goal will be achieved?
I truly hope so, even though the problem is extremely complex. The Genocide Convention was signed in December 1948, in the wake of the Shoah, just one day before the proclamation of the Declaration of Human Rights at the United Nations, and it is premised on the existence of recognised nation states. Daesh (the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) was not one: it was a self-styled state that had proclaimed itself as such but was not recognised by the international system. It had occupied other people's territories, was founded on repressive acts internally and practised terrorism in other countries. The blue helmets — that is, the United Nations international peacekeeping forces — had not at that point intervened in that occupied zone.
But the expert commission appointed for the task recognised the "systematic genocide" carried out by Isis criminals (not members of any regular army, but fighters or mercenaries from various countries) against the Yazidis, on the precise basis of Article 2 of the 1948 Convention, which was also signed by two of the states involved, namely Syria and Iraq. I therefore very much hope that the case can be brought before the International Criminal Court, even if probably through different means from the trial brought against Milosevic in The Hague for crimes committed in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the Balkan wars, or from the International Criminal Tribunal in Arusha, where the Hutus who had committed crimes against the Tutsis in Rwanda were tried. Both brutal genocides committed in the early 1990s. How will it be possible to identify the Isis fighters who have since gone to ground? What matters is to support the demand that at this point belongs not only to the Yazidis, but to a humanity calling for justice.
Why is it significant that both of this year's Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege, were chosen for their "efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war"?
Nadia has become a leader precisely because she is no longer a victim — she also wants to distance herself from that role, objectifying her experience and separating it from herself, even though there are inevitably moments of despair, a need for breaks, a need for therapy, as the film also shows. The horror must be drawn out, spoken about, distanced from oneself so as not to remain trapped in the process of victimisation that the theatre of pain forces upon you. Nadia did not want to remain imprisoned in her suffering; she wanted to speak on behalf of her people and, through that, on behalf of a humanity that has not forgotten what it means to be human. In armed conflicts women are still the spoils of war, the most violated. But they are also resistant and resilient. This is a warning reminding us that such horrors must never happen again, a recognition of those who wish to give dignity to the memory of the dead, but also to the survivors who have the right to begin living again a life worthy of being lived.
You had the honour of meeting Nadia Murad: what did she convey to you?
Shyness, suffering and an immense strength. I believed her immediately, because the most important thing is to believe the accounts of victims, above all those who no longer speak only on their own behalf. And I am very glad to have seen our five Yazidi students smiling, finally revitalised after the time spent in refugee camps in Iraq and once again with a sense of a future for themselves, for their families and for a people that does not want to abandon its lands and its centuries-old culture. Young people want to contribute to rebuilding their country, raising it from the material and moral rubble to which it has been reduced. The international community must help them, so that justice is done: forgiveness can only be granted if there is justice.
