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Unraveling Iraq
The Sociopolitical and Ethical Dimensions
of Resistance
Wadood Hamad
Iraq, as one long conversant in its fervent political history
remarked to me, is much like the earth resting underneath
a giant rock laid there for a very long time. The U.S.-led
invasion of 2003 destabilized -- if not moved -- this rock
and unleashed a multitude of organisms that were unknown even
to local residents.
The complexity of Iraq's political, social, and economic
development, or lack thereof, requires a respectable repertoire
of historical knowledge that necessitates a command of the
local society in order to begin to piece together parts of
this intricate jigsaw puzzle. Reliance on secondary sources
would be desperately inadequate: One may begin to tackle this
seemingly elusive country/society only if one experienced
it firsthand and, then, departed to observe, analyze, and
revise -- holding nothing as sacred, but a commitment to rationality
and a universalist belief in human agency and development.
A blurred vision persists, amongst many, regarding the opposition
to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, on the one hand, and the nature
of the insurgency in parts of the occupied country, on the
other. An uncritical stance of support for the current "resistance"
in Iraq has dominated political discourse on the left, which
has shied away from questioning its tactics, goals, backers,
and, indeed, social formation which is necessarily linked
to the vision -- or lack thereof -- it espouses. The notion
that since "occupations are usually ugly. How can then
resistance be pretty?"(1)
must be probed beyond its rhetorical façade. Equating this
insurgency to the heroism of the Vietnamese struggle is naïve
and unjust at best, malicious and demeaning to the history
of struggle, at worst. These temptations must be resisted.
Instead, a careful examination of Iraq's historical evolution
is required, not a selective treatment in support of a specific
hypothesis. Only with a strong dose of rational historical,
sociological, and political readings of troubled third world
regions can the antiwar movement begin to resist imperialism.
Adherents of the resistance-at-whatever-price notion essentially
propound an ethnonationalist view of resistance in Iraq, and
effectively dismiss universal norms. Occupation of land, it
is affirmed, requires armed struggle to drive the occupier
out regardless of the context and scope of this resistance,
in particular its political and social dimensions.
Resistance is necessarily constructed within a sociohistorical
context, and it must evolve to create the most effective conditions
for both driving the occupying forces out and setting the
country on a genuine path to freedom and progress. There is
hence a dialectical relationship that forms the core of the
principle of resistance, whose social ambitions dictate the
format and mechanisms of struggle. For Iraq, emerging from
a debilitating sanctions regime, a suffocating reign of terror,
and three horrendous wars in as many decades, armed struggle
is a perturbed option for people's very existence since it
can only contribute to further shocking an already shaken
social structure. Only a peaceable means to regain (a semblance
of) normalcy through the careful reestablishment of society's
civil institutions and the mending of ethno-socio-political
bridges amongst city and village and within northern, central,
and southern regions of the country can lead to a strong,
countrywide social movement to drive the occupier (and all
its vestiges) out and begin to repair the country's shattered
ethno-socio-political mosaic. Iraq is a tattered country that
needs respite from violence. This forms the crux for a people's
aspiration for freedom and progress. Otherwise, the country
would be bogged down into a morass of retreat and despair,
a situation that will further confound people's suffering
through immoral, tactically-ineffective killings of innocent
civilians. A resistance that belittles human life is not worthy
of the name, and in effect becomes a recipe not for liberation,
but subjugation, regression, and indeed perpetuation of foreign
occupation. This is what imperialist forces prayed for, and
got. Such a resistance has to be condemned wholly and unreservedly.(2)
II
THE MODERN HISTORY of Iraq has conclusively shown the link
between the pursuit of imperialist interests and the necessity
for imperialists to rely on local dictators to achieve them.
No one has fulfilled this role better, or performed a greater
service to the imperialists, than Saddam Hussein for well
over four decades. The capture of Saddam Hussein on December
13, 2003, marked a new episode in the unraveling of Arab-Western
hypocritical rhetoric, and thus constituted a watershed in
the role played by reactionary Arab- Islamic forces. A sizeable
portion of the Arab and Muslim peoples has viewed the manner
of his capture as a "direct insult to Arab and Islamic
norms and ethics." Interestingly, those norms and ethics
were not pricked by the news of uncovering mass graves, nor
were they disturbed when Saddam Hussein's regime forcibly
deported more than 750,000 Iraqis since the 1970s.
We have grown accustomed to neoconservative double standards
and hypocrisy: "Sharon is a man of peace," George
W. Bush averred months ago. Bush's apology for the Abu Ghraib
prison scandal was proffered not to the Iraqi people against
whom occupation, humiliation, and prisoner torture and abuse
are carried out, but to Abdullah II, the monarch of Jordan.
Moreover, the United States does not -- beware -- torture
people, however, it attempts to interrogate them by "methods
vetted by U.S. government lawyers." But our critique
of western double standards must not ignore Arab hypocrisy
towards crimes committed on their lands. Doing so will only
contribute to an irrational atmosphere where the spreading
of racist vituperation from the Right becomes more facile.
For so very long, human rights, democratic principles, and
education have shamelessly been disregarded in the Arab world
for the purported "struggle against imperialism and Zionism."
The Machiavellian end-justifies-the-means has proved time
and again its nefarious effects on the development of social
and political consciousness, and continues to perpetuate a
vicious cycle of failure and blame devoid of rational self-critical
assessment, which has made possible U.S. hegemony over the
Middle East and its occupation of Iraq.
No one would disagree -- even amongst the neocon hawks --
that the U.S. expedition in Iraq serves American geopolitical
interests first and foremost. The well-being of the Iraqis
had never been spotted on successive U.S. administrations'
radar screens. Many on the left, too, had only marginally
been concerned with the Middle East and the insufferable injustices
that plagued that world.(3)
The machinations of a brutal dictatorship and imperialism's
need to employ and rely on local despots were apparently eschewed
from analysis by many.
However, the simplistic juxtaposition of the Iraq and Palestinian
questions, and the lumping together of Arab societies as the
same smack not only of ignorance, but condescension. The East,
to many living in the West -- regardless of their origin,
background, or political flavor -- seems to be perceived as
a romantic locale where peoples are perpetual pawns in the
imperialist struggle: Easterners must carry guns to combat
jetfighters, tanks, and daisycutters. Abu Ghraib prison, the
hallmark of Saddam Hussein's ruthless reign of terror for
well over three decades, received little to no mention or
criticism by -- almost -- anyone in spite of the powerful
evidence presented by Iraqi opposition forces of every hew.
Human suffering was rendered secondary to the rhetoric of
a leader seemingly attacking imperialism, but in actual fact
fornicating to the hilt with it.
Too many have been stuck between two inadequate visions:
Apologia for U.S. imperialism and its destructive missions
the world over, on the one hand, or cheering any misguided
"apparent" resistance to imperialism and occupation.
Shouldn't progressive politics be able to avoid both these
dead-ends? Unfortunately, the progressive alternative seems
sorely lacking in analyses of the troubled Middle East.(4)
III
THE COSMOPOLITANISM OF ancient Iraq, fatigued by more than
four centuries of deliberate Ottoman neglect and marginalization,
remained healthy at its roots and was marvelously reflected
especially between 1918-20. The Iraqi nationalist vision was
most evident in the June-October 1920 revolt against British
rule in Iraq. Shiite and Sunni Arabs, from central and southern
regions, joined forces, praying in each other's mosques, while
Iraq's Muslims insisted that Christians and Jews (the largest
single ethnic group in Baghdad at the time) participate in
the raging protest marches and demonstrations since they were
integral to the fabric of existing society. A genuine, viable,
but seemingly tentative, sense of "citizenship"
had been forming, which relied prominently on material facts:
shared, common history and land. The Shiite marj'iya (the
Shiite socioreligious-cum-cultural establishment) of Najaf
(5) played a dynamic and
key role in fomenting this bond. It was a modern bond, based
on neither blood nor tribal relations. Thereafter, this formed
the nucleus for the nascent civil society: the formation of
numerous professional associations -- including highly respected
legal and educational professions, a vibrant press, political
parties, artist ateliers, writers associations, labor unions,
and an extensive, sophisticated coffeehouse culture. All of
this continued throughout the first-half of the twentieth
century, which effectively witnessed the climax of modern
Iraq's cultural and intellectual contributions on a world
scale: the pioneering of modern Arabic poetry, the free verse
movement, and the establishment of the modern visual arts,
whose contribution has been amongst some of the most richly
nuanced and exquisitely aesthetic human endeavors.
This has to be contrasted with the tactics of the current
insurgents. They have assiduously targeted any remaining semblance
of modernity, and waged assassination and murder campaigns
against any individual deemed "unworthy," which
principally included seculars from all walks of life and from
whatever religious or ethnic group. Iraq's Christians, Shia,
and Kurds have also been punished by those insurgents for
their unfortunate religious and ethnic affiliation. Thus,
spinning the country into an endless, senseless spiral of
violence and social disintegration. Religious or nationalist
sloganeering of justice and liberation are just as hypocritical
as that of Bush and the neocons. And just as one shouldn't
fall for the claim that Bush seeks democracy for Iraq and
the Middle East, so we shouldn't believe that the Islamist-cum-Saddamist
insurgents are fighting off an occupying force in order to
liberate Iraq.
Identification in Iraq has almost always been along political
lines. Sectarian or religious strife had scarcely taken place
on any tangible scale, as any astute and objective student
of history and sociology would attest to. Almost every city
in Iraq comprises a mixture of Muslims -- Shiite and Sunni
-- Christians, and (until the late sixties, and mostly in
Baghdad) Jews. Baghdad and Basrah, in particular, were the
arch multicultural, multiethnic cosmopolitan cities on a par
with many a current Western metropolis. Those Iraqis have
coexisted happily, socialized together, intermarried, lived
within the same neighborhoods, studied at the same schools
and universities and worked in the same offices. Schisms,
when they existed, were along political and ideological lines:
Any one family could have atheists and devout believers in
deity, and all in between. This peacefully coexisting and
richly successful multi-cultural, multiethnic, and multireligious
mosaic was peculiar to Iraq amidst most of the Middle East.
There have, however, been ardent attempts at falsifying Iraq's
-- and the region's -- history. Rightist writers and thinkers
have championed a theoretical framework that embodies cultural
"incompatibility" and other sanitized and fragmentary
visions of what may be presented as "identity politics"
or "communitarianism." It is painfully sad to witness
respected and erudite leftist writers falling into this trap,
willingly or otherwise. Tariq Ali writes in Bush in Babylon,
hailed -- by the publisher -- as the "best selling history
of resistance in Iraq that vitalized the antiwar movement":
"After Baghdad had fallen in 1258 a conversation took
place in the Palace between the Mongol leader Hulegu Khan
and al-Mustasim, the Commander of the Faithful and the last
of the Abbasid Caliphs. The major historian of the time explained
the defeat of the Caliph in terms of a lack of preparation
and bitter factional struggles between Shia and Sunni notables.
Some allege that the Governor of Mosul and the Wazir al-Alqami
(senior minister of the court), a Shia, literally sold out
to the Mongols and betrayed their ruler. The historian al-Athir
charges the Wazir with having advised the Caliph to reduce
the size of the army so that only 10,000 soldiers were left
to defend against a Mongol cavalry of 200,000 men. Others
still point the finger at the Kurds who had backed a previous
Mongol expedition."6
The insinuation that Kurdish and Shiite treachery had been
the reason for the fall of Baghdad to the barbaric Mongols
smacks of an unscrupulous attempt at perpetuating the ethno-sectarian
chauvinisms that have characterized reactionary politics in
Iraq and the region throughout the twentieth century. I have
checked al-Athir in various references, as well as other original
sources (in Arabic) on the period, and found no such direct
reference to the Shia and the Kurds selling out in the strife
of 1258. Several of these primary references -- for the interested
reader fluent in Arabic -- are available in major university
libraries in the West.
Social harmony was never translated into harmonious representation
at the political level. Ever since the formation of the Iraqi
state, ethnosectarian chauvinism has been instituted in governance
and the state structure. The British, aware of the nature
of Iraqi society, played the card remarkably well when forced
following the 1920 uprising to form a mandated Iraqi government.
The deal struck between Sir Percy Cox and Abdul-Rahman an-Naqeeb
(a wealthy landowner and Sunni notable whose lineage was purportedly
traced to Muhammed, Islam's prophet) had formed the foundation
for the nascent polity. The inhabitants of the north, the
Kurds, and the south were excluded from the political map
of Iraq. Proportional representation as indicated by elected
officials from every corner of the country was never instituted.
Until 1947, no Shiite ever reached the post of prime minister,
and most definitely no Kurd ever reached this position in
Iraq's entire history.
Moreover, their share of ministerial portfolios has, at best,
been minuscule. More critically, local and provincial offices
have also been occupied, not by residents of the particular
region privy to its many details, but by outsiders shipped
from various regions around Baghdad. The institution of ethnosectarian,
chauvinistic, exclusionary politics was central to allowing
Britain -- the imperial force of the time -- to exercise effective
control over, and ensuring compliance of, the minority in
office: the Sunni Arabs, especially the landed class and former
Ottoman officers.
The mold was fractured following the 1958 revolution that
saw the overthrow of the monarchy. In the brief respite between
July 14, 1958 and February 8, 1963 some serious measures were
instigated to do away with old practices and turn the government's
attention to seriously addressing the needs of the people:
proper housing, health care, nationalization of industries,
and agrarian reform. However, such measures were abruptly
terminated or improperly implemented owing to the lack of
systematic scientific planning and the non-democratic manner
in which policies were designed and applied. The glimmer of
hope towards establishing an independent, modern, and progressive
Iraq was painfully shattered. The 1960s coups d'etat and governments
that followed had one primary interest in mind: how to gain
control over the central government as forcefully as possible,
and simultaneously subjugate or coax Iraq's inhabitants --
especially in the more restive regions of the south and north.
Since then the rhetoric of Pan-Arab unity has been employed
ad infinitum over any serious attention to social, economic,
cultural, and political issues. Crucially, the ethno-sectarian
divide had begun to slowly, but ferociously, grow. Deliberate
negligence of municipal, social, and educational programs
for the north and the south had become the norm. Basrah, once
perhaps the world's richest city, had become its most dilapidated.
This is not solely because of devastating wars, but pointedly
owing to the appropriation of funds to security and military
programs with the unabated objective of pauperizing the populace
in order to ensure (1) compliance, and (2) their inability
to rise to meaningful positions of government. General Abdul-Salam
Aref, 7 president from 1963
until his death in an air accident in 1966, was undeniably
the arch proponent of such tactics, a staunch sectarian and
chauvinist who had cruelly erected some of the most nefarious
projects to marginalize and repress the Shia and Kurds.
IV
AL-THAWRA NEWSPAPER, then the Ba'ath's main propaganda organ,
published a series of seven editorials (8)
in April, 1991 to put forward their version of the causes
of the U.S.-led onslaught on Iraq during the second Gulf war,
and the ensuing uprising of March, 1991. Six of the seven
editorials chastised the people of Iraq for all that went
askew: the Al-Thawra editorialist turned social scientist,
quite probably Tariq Aziz, (9)
denounced the people for being "ignorant, backward"
and "solely living for the purpose of eating and having
intercourse;" whilst the "party" was blameworthy
for being unsuccessful in presenting an "unparalleled
ideological model." Needless to say, the "talented
leader" had recognized all the ills in society, and "endeavored
to rectify people's behavior;" however, we were not made
privy as to why "he" seemingly did not succeed.
Furthermore, the uprising -- referred to in official propaganda
as "Ghawgha'iyah," meaning, chaotic commotion --
in the words of the same editorialist involved a voluminous
record of collusion with foreign enemies of the nation; the
uprising was, in short, tantamount to a "page of treachery
and betrayal."
Conspiratorial and metaphysical reasoning is all that is
proffered in the lone document of official explanation of
the events of 1991: The root of the "conspiracy of March,
1991," according to the editorialist was laid at the
hands of "a certain sect [i.e. the Shi'a] who has historically
been under the influence of the Persians. . .
They have been taught to hate the Arab nation."(10)
As for the Iraqis in Nasiriya, Semmawa, and Ammara, known
for their secularism, they are merely dismissed as "the
marsh Arabs so accustomed to breeding water buffaloes to the
extent that they have become indistinguishable from them."
The ‘erudite editorialist' went on to state that: When they
migrated to big cities like Baghdad, they made their living
through begging, prostitution, and robbery, not out of need
but owing to their intrinsic degraded nature. Moreover, "these
are not Arabs; they were brought with their water buffaloes
from India by Mohammad al-Qassem [the Abbassid leader who
conquered India in the ninth century]."
The March 1991 uprising was to become a watershed in Iraq's
history. It revived the historical memory of the Iraqi nationalist
movement, which reinstated itself into the political discourse.
For the first time in modern Iraqi history, Iraqis openly
discussed political ethnoreligious sectarianism and the politics
of exclusion. It had become open season for critiquing every
aspect of Iraqi society and historical development, or lack
thereof. The exodus of hundreds of thousands of professionals,
fleeing sanctions and repression, has driven people to seriously
question such concepts as citizenship, nation-state and civil
society. As expected, such act of sociopolitical catharsis
would encompass varied manifestations ranging from the rational
to the metaphysical, but nonetheless it would be a necessary
exercise if Iraqis were to seriously think about planning
a peaceful and happy future for their children. This exercise
is far from over, and in light of the social ills bequeathed
by Saddam Hussein's rule, economic sanctions, and the current
military occupation, the direction it could take is by no
means determined. Democratization in Iraq necessarily requires
the reestablishment of civil institutions and society.
Iraq's entire educational, cultural, political, and social
structures need be reconstituted. This is neither an exaggeration,
nor a defeatist stance. It is reality.
No part of Iraqi society was immune to the erosion of the
rational culture of politics.
The effects had become palpable as early as the 1991 uprising
when, for instance, the participants -- many key individuals
had actually come from within the ruling establishment --
tended to view the cause they were fighting for in terms of
norms dictated by the regime itself: the mentality of a rigidly
pyramidal structure of (political) command and (military)
order ipso facto intermingled with tribal and sectarian notions.
Muqtada al-Sadr, the twenty-something self-proclaimed religious-
cum-political figure, thus emerged. His power base comprised
former security and military personnel and the (forgotten)
unemployed. Notwithstanding his meager support within the
Shia at large, his burgeoning political and militia power
was swelling thanks to Iranian backing.
The Iraqi vacuum had -- expectedly -- become an operating
ground for the intelligence services of regional countries
-- Iran, Syria, Jordan, Saudi, Turkey, and Israel -- and for
intra-governmental factional struggles within some of them.
The long tradition of the Shiite marji'ya of Najaf being,
in principle, attune to the separation between the religious
and the political -- however often serving a consultative
role to the political -- has slowly eroded due to a multitude
of factors, the principal one being the current Shiite fear
that they may once again be sidelined from Iraq's future political
map.
The ruptured social fabric -- namely, tribalism -- and the
eruption of primitive ethnosectarian claims to power in Iraq
are an outcome of an imbalanced power structure that characterized
the Iraqi polity even prior to independence in 1921. It is
not an epiphenomenon of imperialism per se. More precisely
imperialist forces have used and manipulated these contradictions
that have originated and been perpetuated internally through
constant reshaping, which effectively resulted in the decline
of the concept of citizenry and the erosion of civil society
-- without which the former finds no real avenue for effective,
meaningful expression, and is thus rendered vacuous.
V
THE REMARKABLE CHARACTERISTIC that allowed Saddam Hussein
to remain in power for so long did not merely stem from his
Western support, but necessarily from his dynamic approach,
within Iraq itself, to renewing tactics and strategies for
maintaining power and control. During the 1970s, while serving
as vice president to Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, but effectively
number one in government and party, he pacified left-leaning
elements within the Ba'ath while annihilating Iraqi communists,
and briefly pacified the latter while hitting the burgeoning
Shia Islamists. And throughout, he began a vicious campaign
of deportations starting with the Faili Kurds and ending with
the Shia Arabs during the 1980s. He relied principally on
his domestic base, which was selectively formed using the
long-tried principles of mercenaries. Central to his approach
was adroitly playing the Shiite-Sunni and Arab- Kurd cards,
and the reshuffling of populations to perpetually create ethnic
and sectarian frictions, and, thus, distrust at the very core.11
The regions west and northwest of Baghdad all the way to
the Syrian and Jordanian borders have traditionally been poor
areas that contained small farmlands typically inadequate
to support the local population; they were mostly inhabited
by Bedouins. Towns like Ramadi and Fallujah 12
have normally relied on small-scale trading and smuggling
-- the main trading routes linking Iraq to Syria and Jordan
pass through these towns. They would thus become a logical
constituent for Saddam Hussein's machinery: provide them with
positions to secure (relative) wealth -- whether business
contracts, or posts in the army, security apparatuses, and
medium- to high-level governmental positions. Since the 1980s,
the Dulaimis, Kubaisis, and Jumailis, the principal tribes
of Ramadi and Fallujah, have grown omnipresent in government
and in wealth. They are essentially hardy tribesmen who hold
rigid religious and ethnic convictions. While they have indeed
been in trouble with Saddam Hussein's mafia regime -- that,
as I pointed out above, circulates blame and rotates repression
to ensure, at any one moment in time, a pliant and complaisant
populace -- they have grown to guard dearly their newly found
wealth and power. Thus, they regard these winnings as rightfully
theirs, and theirs for perpetuity.
Saddam Hussein had sought to employ God and flag to strengthen
his grip over Iraq's populace, and shuffled and reshuffled
the players as often as required to consolidate his power.
Throughout the 1990s, during what was officially referred
to as al-Hamla al-‘Imaniya (the Pious Mission), he had embarked
on a countrywide, monumental-scale building of mosques and
the closure of bars, etc. In the same vein, and in order to
create a threatening force to the Shia, especially in the
aftermath of their uprising in 1991, he encouraged the spread
of Wahabism in Iraq -- a cult that never had a base in the
country prior to the mid 1980s. Taking advantage of economic
difficulties as a result of the sanctions, willing Saudi financiers
supported the process, as they have throughout the 1980s in
every corner of the world they could reach.
Saudi money literally bribed its way to such fertile areas
as Fallujah, Ramadi, and the desert hamlets to the west of
Iraq, which had become focal areas for the spread of Wahabism
-- a cult that was founded in the Arabian desert some 200
years ago, and relies for its interpretation of Islam on Ibn
Taymiya, a reactionary theologian from medieval times. Its
puritanical interpretations are in essence political rather
than based in Islamic theology or jurisprudence. Its doctrine
is defeatist and steeped in simplistic and naïve interpretations,
typical of unsophisticated Bedouin surroundings. While it
primarily preaches abstinence from culture, pleasure, and
life itself, Wahabism holds strict views on other Muslim sects
and other religions: It basically regards as apostates 13
all the adherents of the Shiite Islamic sect, and infidels
all non-Muslims; and, therefore, their killing is regarded
as a duty of the faithful.14
It should, therefore, become clear as to why Ramadi, Fallujah,
and environs have constituted the primary locus of insurgency
since Saddam Hussein's overthrow. Portions of the local population
have provided the logistical support for all the Islamic fundamentalist
terrorists (al-Qaeda supporters and other foreign extremist
elements) who have been infiltrating through Iraq's unguarded
borders. Religious extremism and sectarian chauvinism, on
the one hand, intertwined with fear of losing wealth and power
have become potent and real reasons to hold uncanny alliances.
Patrick Graham, a Canadian journalist, wrote recently in Harper's
one of the more accurate exposés on the nature of the "resistance"
in Iraq:
The resistance was like a root fire, burning invisibly underground,
waiting to explode. Village-based partisans were only one
species of fighter; others included foreign jihadis, supporters
of Saddam Hussein, unemployed army and secret-service personnel,
and the specially trained suicide fighters of the Saddam Fedayeen,
who had done most of the fighting during the war. As time
went on, these underground elements linked up, their tangle
of motives united under the banner: "The enemy of my
enemy is my friend."15
VI
IN THE MIDST of this came the U.S.-led invasion, an illegal,
illegitimate, and unjust act that was bound to cause turmoil
in the country as it abruptly imploded. I had opposed the
war, and would do again now -- as I opposed the sanctions
regime and the current insurgency -- for one fundamental reason:
it had been a collective means of punishing the entire population
of Iraq, when alternate solutions to ease suffering and overthrow
the despotic regime/occupation could have been sought. Only
a fool would not recognize that the United States is a modern,
unopposed imperial power that is making the world less safe
by the minute owing to its pursuing ideologically-driven policies.
We should reject both the Bush policy -- the rogue, imperial
power that knows no limit -- and the more typical U.S. imperialism
that adheres feverishly to a policy of containment, support
of the ugly status quo in the Middle East, and strangulation
of its peoples. But in refusing both these choices, we should
not be acquiescent of third-world dictators -- neither those
that exist nor the ones to be. Nor should it be an excuse
for third-world leftists to ignore terminal ills in their
own societies that gave rise in the first place to such contradictions.
Sentiments of support for peoples' struggle for liberation
and progress, Iraqis included, may lead one to cheer for the
"resistance." But this would be a serious mistake.
One's support will sorely be misplaced in tribal and ethnosectarian
elements that can never form the locus of a national liberation
movement. Personal not national interests are at stake, and
are of concern, here. Many mosques that embraced the extremist
Wahabi doctrine are being shunned by the people at large.
Nonetheless, intimidation, assassination, and pillage are
guaranteed to silence many a voice. Simultaneously, U.S. belligerence
will ensure more unnecessary civilian deaths and destruction.
Iraq's torn social fabric is undergoing the very last vestiges
of avoiding an internecine civil war. The absent voice of
secular Iraqis has been deafening and surprising to everyone.
It is not a question of a political void being filled by Islamists,
Shia, or Sunni. It is more pressingly the dilution of rational
voices that seek to build unity around hope and progress.
Iraqis are paying the heavy price of four decades of authoritarian
reign of terror, strangulating sanctions, three wars, and
a heinous occupation. Fissures in the social structure are,
as a result, growing deeper and scarier.
We must demand a timely schedule for the withdrawal of occupying
forces from Iraq over a fixed, limited period. But, measures
to address existing (and ensuing) chaos must receive important
consideration, as well. No simple answers are available to
the serious examiner, and the realities created by occupation
have undermined the precarious social dynamics. A disgusting
game of Russian roulette is being played with innocent Iraqi
lives: The insurgents are prolonging the presence of occupying
forces, and the latter are in turn lending "apparent"
legitimacy to the Islamist and Saddamist claims. However,
one thing seems certain, to me at least. Support for the Islamist-cum-Saddamist
insurgents is tantamount to expecting the Michigan militia
-- and their ilk -- to combat U.S. imperialist expansion:
It is foolhardy, and dangerous.
Notes
1. Tariq Ali, "The bloody price of occupation,"
The Guardian, February 14, 2004. This is slightly rephrased
in the paperback edition of his Bush in Babylon: The Recolonisation
of Iraq (Verso, 2004) as "When you have an ugly occupation
you can't have a beautiful resistance." return
2. Comparatively, Iraq has a rich history
of constructive resistance to foreign occupiers and indigenous
despots, one that held a genuine vision for freedom, liberty,
progress, and democracy. Harb al-Ansar, the armed struggle
led by the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) throughout the 1980s
from Kurdistan against the central government, and the armed
struggle waged from the southern marshes during the late 1960s
by (the more revolutionary elements of) the ICP represent
chapters of the annals of articulate and humane resistance,
armed or otherwise. So, too, has been the complex -- in cases
paradoxical -- Kurdish struggle for recognition against all
central governments ever since the establishment of the Iraqi
state in 1921. In addition, one ought not to forget the massive
popular uprisings of 1918-1920 and 1991, which are discussed
later on. return
3. It is neither my intention to engage in
an exercise of retrospective blame, nor to consider the left
as a monolith. However, a critical appraisal of political
stances is important to understand the evolution and genuineness
of one's thoughts and commitments. Amongst veteran political
activists, Noam Chomsky stands as a remarkable example of
steadfast decency and unstinting support for peoples' right
to freedom: He, for instance, supported the Palestinians when
it was unfashionable, and the Kurds when they hardly mattered.
return
4. Pan-Arab nationalism, not unlike other
nationalisms, e.g. Zionism, is an ethnocentered political
ideology having its roots in German romanticism. Inasmuch
as one should objectively criticize the role Zionism played
in retarding peace and progress for all inhabitants of the
Middle East, one must, too, be questioning what Pan-Arabist
rhetoric and "theory" have presented to the cause
of peace and progress. Furthermore, one should rationally
and resolutely probe if religious fundamentalism -- seemingly
anti-imperialist in rhetoric -- can present a genuine, lasting
force for liberation and human progress. A careful sociological
treatment is necessary at least to combat unceasing racist
attacks by the Right. (In order not to digress from the main
issue, Iraq, the question of Arab nationalism will be given
an in-depth treatment in a separate article. For a handling
of the religious question see my "Deconstructing Arab-Islamic
History: A Discussion of Its Evolutionary Dynamics,"
In Islam and the West, Michael J. Thompson (ed.), pp. 107-121,
Rowman & Littlefield (2003).) return
5. Najaf has played a prominent role in advancing
discourse for political events in Iraq. It is one of the oldest
cities in the country, and has been home to the founding of
universities that began as schools of divinity and jurisprudence
in the tradition of Oxford and Cambridge in England, but older.
Owing to its rich intellectual atmosphere, it was central
to the debate in philosophy, literature, and politics and
remained so throughout Iraq's modern history. These were not
at all, it should clearly be understood, madrasas in the fundamentalist
style spreading over southwest Asia and elsewhere. They had
been classic universities in the true sense as they offered
courses in philosophy, literature (mostly Arabic with limited
translated works), and Islamic jurisprudence. It had a large
and healthy student body that came from all over Iraq, and
Arab and Islamic countries; many of its graduates had become
prominent communists, existentialists, Arab-nationalists,
etc., in addition to the usual production of Muslim scholars.
This practice has been characteristically Iraqi, and no Shiite
or Sunni sect anywhere else in the Muslim world had offered
anything similar. While the history of Shiism, being one of
constant opposition to central authority -- as represented
by the Caliphate in olden times, and by the "nationalist"
state in the 20th century -- equipped these universities with
a genuine sense of discovery, scholarship, and intellectual
vigor. Iraq's richly multicultural and heterogeneous heritage
has been the prime factor behind the flourishing of these
institutions of learning. The city, its inhabitants, and universities
have been a constant annoyance to the central governments
of Iraq, and it was Saddam Hussein who delivered the severest
blow to them by closing many of the universities, harassing
students, and imprisoning and killing instructors and religious
leaders. return
6. P. 28. It should be noted that Ali refers
to no book or article, primary or otherwise, for his allegations.
return
7. Aref was a Nasserite who participated in
the February 1963 coup with the Ba'athists, only to lead another
against them 8 months later. He was close to Nasser and received
significant material support from Nasser's United Arab Republic
during his reign. Aref originated from the town of Fallujah.
return
8. The seven editorials entitled, "What
happened during late 1990 and the early months of 1991 . .
. Why did what happened take place?" have been compiled
in a booklet published by the Centre for Iraq Studies, London,
34 pp. [in Arabic]. return
9. A long-serving Ba'athist who had occupied
key positions since the early 1970s as Minister of Culture
and Information, Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister,
all under Saddam Hussein's tutelage. He is now in U.S. custody.
return
10. History is often a victim of ideology,
and the history of Shiism in Iraq has routinely been maligned.
There has been little, if any, convergence in the historical
development of Iraqi and Iranian Shiisms. Iran has been until
roughly 400 years ago predominantly Sunni; it had converted
during the time of the Safavvids into Shiism and remained.
To grasp the essence of the role successive Iranian establishments
-- religious and otherwise -- have played throughout its country's
modern formation, we need to examine the ethno-nationalist
interests and primary political goals that have been the driving
motive for their actions. Al-Ahwaz, south west of Iran, was
-- for instance -- sliced out of Iraq and attached to Iran
by the British in the aftermath of WWI. Its inhabitants, related
to those in the neighboring province of Ammara in Iraq, have
been at the receiving end of deliberate ethnic discrimination
and political and cultural marginalization -- in spite of
their being Shiite, the majority sect. What need be understood
is that Iran's policy -- in Lebanon or now in Iraq -- is grounded
in the desire to enhance its geopolitical sphere of influence
and power base: Political national interests constitute the
core of their policy, not some intangible sectarian warmth
towards co-religionists. return
11. Thus one of the most complex issues:
Kirkuk. The character of this city has been changed drastically
owing to constant demographic reshuffling since the 1970s,
so that it is now impossible to avoid a civil strife amongst
its various communities vying for some national or sectarian
claim to it. return
12. One should note that the March 1991 uprising
swept 14 out of 18 provinces in Iraq. The silent 4 were: Anbar
(whose main towns are Fallujah and Ramadi), Sallahu- Din (whose
main towns are Tikrit and Samara), Mosul and Baghdad -- except
for its al-Thawra district (aka Saddam city, now Sadr city),
which was cordoned off to quell its uprising. return
13. They use the term al-Rawafeth, or deniers
of the Muslim faith as Wahabism perceives it. return
14. This is the official sect of the Saudi
Kingdom and some Gulf states, and is widespread in Syria,
Jordan, north Africa, and southwest Asian countries like Afghanistan
and Pakistan. return
15. Patrick Graham, "Beyond Fallujah
-- A year with the Iraqi resistance," Harper's, June
2004, pp. 37-48. return
Contents of No. 38
New Politics home page
http://www.wpunj.edu/newpol/issue38/hamad38.htm
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