Iraqi National Symphony conductor Karim Wasfi fights ISIS with music
A bustling market is in moments a mass grave.
To the inhabitants of east Baghdad, Iraq, this decor of charred vehicles and fallen structures after a bomb blast is an all-too-common sight.
It's a constant reminder by ISIS that death is imminent.
But then, a burst of an impassioned music wakes the residents from their dreary routine. Passersby who faced a bomb attack hours before turn their heads in confusion to see what is disrupting this mournful time.
Then at once, they're mystified by the sight of famed Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra conductor Karim Wasfi perched on scorched debris, trembling his mop of jet-black hair with Beethoven-like earnest as he drives his bow across his cello.
"These streets would still have the wreckage of the previous incident and maybe some horrific scenes, and even ... the smell of death," Wasfi says, describing his morbid stage.
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Changing lives
Wasfi said he witnessed the impact of the music when he played it for 53 children, who were making their home in a Baghdad mosque after ISIS displaced them from Ramadi and Falluja.
"The kids knew nothing but tanks" and Islamic battle cries, said Wasfi.
He played Bach's "Suite No. 1 in G major" as the children sat, huddled around him. They asked who's Bach and wanted to touch the horse hair on his bow.
By Wasfi's third visit, it was a different story.
The children, who were first shoving one another to grab at his cello, were instead engaged in discussions about the reason stars shine, the similarities in the Abrahamic religions and how the acceptance of others is a choice.
Music to his ears.
In the town of Karrada, there is another war scar -- one slow to heal after a bomb killed more than 50 people and injured 100 others.
Wasfi went there recently to play.
The ruins look nearly as they did seven years ago. The rubble has not yet been cleared.
Armed with a bow and cello, Wasfi faces his latest challenge.
Playing his crescendo louder, he hopes to conquer despair once again.
Ah Bach ...
Excellent. I applaud him.
Outstanding, a man of courage, his only weapons, his heart, bow and cello.
Incredible courage.
Remarkable display of a man bringing solace to a world in chaos.