Syawish Speaks

Mayor Ramy Noori Syawish

Interview with the Chaldean Mayor of Ankawa

By Cal Abbo

Ramy Noori Syawish, the Chaldean Mayor of Ankawa in Erbil, Iraq, visited Detroit’s Chaldean community in April. His goals were twofold: bridge the divide between homeland and diaspora and recruit well-intentioned Chaldeans to invest in their native country of Iraq.

Syawish’s family is well-known in Ankawa. When he was born in 1985, his father was working in Baghdad for his own aluminum company, but his family returned to Ankawa when Syawish was 5 years old. Since then, he grew up in the area that he now governs.

The young mayor is no stranger to the diaspora. He has four siblings, including one brother who lives in Phoenix, two sisters in Sweden, and one in Germany. “I’m the only one who remains in the homeland.” He resides in Ankawa with his wife Natalia and their three children.

It’s this very experience that inspires much of Syawish’s action and policy. He is focused on making Ankawa a burgeoning city and avoiding the fate of so many towns and smaller cities previously occupied by Chaldeans.

Ankawa has a distinct advantage over other traditionally Chaldean areas. It’s located in the outer ring of Erbil, an ancient city that today is home to 1.5 million people and represents the capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government. Whereas other Chaldean towns like Tel Keppe or Qaraqosh that are located near an unstable city like Mosul have been overrun in the past decades, Ankawa is part of one of the safest and most-protected cities in the region and has acted as a safe haven for Chaldeans fleeing persecution.

In 2003, before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, about 10,000 people lived in Ankawa. Before the rise of ISIS, according to Syawish, closer to 50,000 people lived there, showing massive growth. In that fateful summer of 2014 when ISIS attacked and took control of several Chaldean towns, Ankawa received more than 120,000 people as refugees from the Nineveh Plain. “After 2017, when Peshmerga returned the land, people went back there. Unfortunately, many of them moved outside of the country,” Syawish said.

Others sold their property and returned to Ankawa to live in safety and security. As a result of the increased population, Syawish now considers Ankawa a big city; it boasts more than 80,000 residents. This large population would make Ankawa a top-15 city in Michigan, comparable to Farmington Hills or Troy.

Syawish completed his entire education in Ankawa. After graduating high school, he earned a degree in law and political science in 2006. He also got a diploma in 2013 from the Chaldean Church’s Babel College for studying philosophy and theology, he said, in order to understand what the Church does. “I speak Chaldean Kurdish, Arabic, and English,” he said.

On a daily basis, Syawish described his job as solving problems for the people of Ankawa, processing what they want and need, and acting on the government program. Appointed in 2020, he sees himself as a bridge between the KRG and the people of Ankawa. Of the 80,000 residents in his city, 92% are Christians, and the others are Muslim, Yazidi, or Mandaean.

Syawish’s goals for the city involve finding investments, creating job opportunities, and modernizing the city. “We want to take the experience you have here,” he said, pointing to the secure and prosperous lifestyle most Chaldeans in America enjoy, “and duplicate it.” According to Syawish, more than 3,000 refugee families stayed in Ankawa even after their homes were reclaimed, and they need better opportunities if they want to avoid the lure of emigration.

Only one farm remains in Ankawa, and its agricultural lands are shrinking year by year. “About 50 years ago,” Syawish said, “they built an airport, and they took a lot of our lands to build into a big city. This last farm is managed by a Chaldean family and produces the finest grapes in all Kurdistan.”

This last farm has a small winery attached, and the mayor wants to build a large factory to aid the farmer in the production of other items as well. “The Ankawa administration prepares for him an annual festival,” Syawish said. “We help him with marketing. Thousands of people, foreign and local, visit the farm during the festival and buy his products.”

In Ankawa, most of the people are busy with their own businesses, like cafes or restaurants. Others work for the government. Yet more are looking for a good opportunity and trying to find a reason to stay in the area.

A large part of Erbil’s issue is the integration and direction they need to take from Baghdad. While the KRG is the local authority in the region, they have far less power than a country, and it’s technically not a sovereign nation. They need to rely on Baghdad for many things because of Iraq’s centralized government system.

At the time of his visit, Syawish said that Baghdad only paid two months’ salary out of the last six. This kind of instability and inconsistency ruins the government’s credibility and punishes those who take government jobs and want to help their community. “We are under the mercy of Baghdad,” he said.

Syawish’s dealings with the government are not like those in the United States. Here, there is a federated system of government. Most important positions are elected, and each structure, whether it’s city, state, or federal, has the power to levy taxes and create its own budget. It must also act on all its responsibilities with the money it raises. This type of system helps avoid the pitfalls of corruption while sacrificing efficiency and adaptability.

In Iraq, the government is centralized and disperses money as it sees fit, according to its budget. Mayor Syawish does not have any legal power to raise money, but instead, he appeals to the KRG for assistance whenever he has a project. According to him, the KRG approves almost all his projects and treats his city with special consideration because of its unique Chaldean minority status.

Syawish hasn’t thought of going for a higher position within the government. He is dedicated to his job. “I belong to Ankawa,” he said. “I still believe we can’t serve when we don’t have a position. Inside the government, you can affect things and do things for your people.” Even after he moves on or is removed from his position, he believes another Chaldean mayor will take his place.

One specific area Syawish wants to improve in his city is schooling. “We have 21 schools in Ankawa,” he said. “Three of them are international schools that belong to the church or private sector. They are great schools with a great educational program.” Of all the different schools in Ankawa, they teach English, Arabic, Kurdish, and Sureth. One school is taught entirely in Sureth, supported by a KRG program that aids minorities and helps maintain their identity.

In other schools, he said, although the program still has quality, the buildings and services themselves are very poor and unsuitable. This is something he’d like to change soon so that families can feel confident about raising children in Ankawa.

The city also has one university, the Catholic University in Erbil, which belongs to the Chaldean Church. It was founded in 2015 by Archbishop Bashar Warda and offers degrees in many different areas such as international relations, English, information technology, computer science, accounting, architecture, pharmacy, nursing, digital media, business management, and more.

Syawish’s long-term vision for the city’s industry involves factory production. While Erbil has recently become a tourist destination and an international city, and Ankawa has certainly seen some of those benefits, Syawish wants to maintain his city’s independence and economy by producing goods. “I think if we made big factories there, especially food factories, it would be an amazing thing to support each other,” he said. “The people there love food so much.”

Syawish invited anyone who is interested in Ankawa to contact him, the KRG office in Washington, D.C., or the board of investment. “All the channels lead to one point, which is to bring foreign investments to Ankawa,” he said.

Over the last few years, the banking sector has come a long way, and Syawish expects it to continue as such. The KRG decided, for example, that all of its government salaries won’t be handed out but will go straight to a bank account in the employee’s name.

He also addressed any security concerns that someone might have. “We are living in one of the most secure areas of the world,” he said, speaking of Ankawa. “Even in the Middle East, I’m sure you won’t find a more secure area than Kurdistan. I guarantee that you can sleep several nights with an open door, and nothing will happen.”

“Our vision for Ankawa,” Syawish continued, “is a big city while keeping the specialty of our people and our identity. We are talking about having a few universities. Instead of one hospital, we should have three or four. Instead of tired schools, they should be modern and civilized. Instead of unregulated daily life, we should have standards in our business and other economic activities.

“I believe we cannot build all of that by ourselves,” Syawish concluded. “I believe that you, the community in Detroit, can play a big role to support our community.”