It was a quiet day in Baghdad’s eastern neighbourhood of Al Mashtal in 2006.
Hussain Qamar was about five years old, playing with his siblings on the roof of their house when he saw a car pulling over. A man in his 30s got out and walked towards the locked gate of a house.
Mr Qamar heard his mother whisper to his grandmother that their Christian neighbour had arrived.
The man tried to open the metal lock, but in vain. Frustrated, he then tried to climb over the gate, but militants who had occupied his house showered him with bullets, sending him staggering before falling to the ground.
“They were harrowing moments,” said Mr Qamar, 21, a resident of Al Mashtal neighbourhood which was a flashpoint for killings during Iraq's sectarian strife that peaked between 2006 and 2007.
At the time, his young mind struggled to make sense of the violence unfolding before him, but it would shape his personality for years to come.
“Since that incident, I started to see Iraq as a jungle,” he said.
Amid the conflict and political instability that have loomed over Iraq since the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime, a generation of Iraqi youth has risen with scars, resilience and hope.
As the nation marked the 20th anniversary of the invasion this month, young Iraqis say the experience of war is not a distant memory or a historical event, but a daily reality that shapes their lives and future.
Many of them have witnessed horrific incidents, participated in protests, and remain steadfast in their pursuit of change. They are the voices of a generation that refuses to be silenced.
“We have grown up in a country marred by sectarian conflict, killings, uncontrolled weapons and corruption,” Mr Qamar told The National.
Disappointed and disillusioned with the state of his nation, he joined thousands of young Iraqis in October 2019 in the biggest protests since 2003.
young entrepreneur
They demanded not only jobs, better public services and an end to endemic corruption, but also the removal of the political elite seen as corrupt and incompetent.
“We felt strangers in our own country and we went out in 2019 to get our nation back,” he said.
Although the protest movement, known as Tishreen, forced the government to resign and the parliament to approve a new election law and to hold early elections, it failed to unite and win a significant number of seats in parliament.
As an activist, Mr Qamar said the protests changed his perspective; now he is planning to study political science in college as preparation for entering politics in the future.
Like many of his peers, he blames the religious authorities for exacerbating the post-2003 chaos.
They have been overly involved in politics, using their influence to promote sectarianism and further their own interests, he said.
He recognises the significance of religion in Iraq’s culture and history, but believes it should not be involved in politics and governance.
“We are not resentful of religion but some of those sheikhs have turned our environment into breeding ground for extremism, one that has led to sectarian strife and has weakened the state,” he said.
Today, over half of Iraq's 42 million people are under the age of 25 and grew up in the wake of the US invasion.
Thousands of desperate young Iraqis have fled the chaos and conflict in their homeland and sought a new life in Europe, US or other countries.
Others, like Omar Sinan, prefer to stay.
“I believe that one of my responsibilities as a young Iraqi is to improve the situation,” said Mr Sinan, 23, an entrepreneur from the northern city of Mosul that had been transformed by the invasion.
In the early years of the invasion, Mosul was one of the main hotspots as Al Qaeda in Iraq gained a foothold.
Tall concrete walls surrounded government buildings and military checkpoints were a common sight in the streets where clashes and bombings were part of the daily routine of its residents, he said.
Then came the ISIS onslaught in 2014. The militants overran at least one-third of Iraq for about three years, making Mosul the crown jewel of their so-called caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria.
“The past 20 years have been uneasy and uncomfortable, with a sense of danger lurking around every corner, and not knowing whom to trust as everyone seemed to be fighting against each other,” Mr Sinan said.
Emerging from the years of conflict and instability, he views the next 20 years with optimism, as full of opportunity despite the challenges.
“We have all that we need to make the next 20 years better, and we can make them better. But the political infighting, if it continues, could derail any development,” he said.
