Dr. Saad Salloum, the general coordinator of Masarat Foundation, stated that religious and ethnic diversity is a source of strength and wealth, as well as a factor for unity in Iraq. This was mentioned in a lecture he delivered at the College of Medicine at the University of Baghdad, entitled “Managing Diversity and Challenges of Differences in Iraqi Society.”
Salloum added in his lecture, “The researcher in the components of Iraqi society and its ethnic, linguistic, and religious richness discovers a story in every corner and a history at every turn,” noting that “there are cultures that have no equivalent in other countries.” He views what he calls the “amazing diversity map” as a “source of an alternative economy to the oil rent economy.”
Salloum idea proposed in the lecture, attended by professors and students of the College of Medicine as part of the ongoing education unit’s activities, is to suggest an alternative economy to the oil rent economy based on investing in religious, ethnic, and linguistic diversity.
Salloum emphasized the necessity for doctors and medical professors to be aware of the diversity of society and its various cultures, as well as the traumas these cultures have endured. He noted that their role should not be limited to clinical skills but should also include studying the successive traumas across generations. The historical trauma is a sub-type of traumas that are transmitted across generations, leading to mental and physical health issues due to the suffering experienced by ancestors, which accumulates across generations in what he referred to as “the inheritance of disability for contemporary descendants.”
