View
119
Download
1
Category
Preview:
Citation preview
Mylène Tisserant
A history of a narrative
FFrroomm SSaaddddaamm ttoo MMaalliikkii::
tthhee ppoowweerr ooff sseeccttaarriiaann ppoolliittiiccss
2
Table of Contents
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... 3
1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 4
1.1 Religiosity in post-Saddam Iraq ............................................................................................ 4
1.2 Research questions ................................................................................................................ 6
1.3 Definition and theoretical framework ................................................................................... 7
1.3.1 The reductionist- alarmist debate ................................................................................... 7
1.3.2 Sectarianism as essentialist phenomenon ....................................................................... 8
1.3.3 The constructed nature of sectarian identity ................................................................. 10
1.4. Structure of the thesis ......................................................................................................... 12
2. The legacy of Saddam regime: the seeds of sectarianism .................................................... 14
2.1 Authority through exclusivity ........................................................................................... 14
2.2 A Sunni leaning nationalism ............................................................................................... 17
2.3 A potential for sectarian awareness .................................................................................... 20
3. Inventing Iraq: an old political imagination for a new country ........................................ 23
3.1 America’s War on Iraq: the persistent myth of religious violence ................................... 24
3.2 The imposition of a sectarian order .................................................................................... 26
3.3 From historical grievances to political actions .................................................................... 28
4. The dangers of sectarian deterioration in post-Saddam Iraq ............................................ 31
4.1 A self-fulfilling prophecy: from an imagined political rhetoric to a social practice ........... 32
4.2 The absence of viable non-sectarian alternatives ................................................................ 34
4.3 Towards the downward slide of Lebanonization? .............................................................. 35
5. General findings and conclusion............................................................................................ 37
6. Appendix .................................................................................................................................. 39
7- Selected bibliography ............................................................................................................. 40
3
Abstract
This thesis investigates how post-2003 Iraqi institutions were designed along sectarian
lines and how they are now manufacturing a sectarian culture. To this end, it has examined the
drivers of sectarianism and sought to highlight specific circumstances in which political struggles
take on distinctively sectarian overtones, both symbolically and sociologically. It has strongly
rejected any prejudiced opinion that would overstate the role played by the Americans in 2003 in
turning them into a political tool. It has given light to other potential drivers of sectarianism more
deeply rooted in the history of Iraq. Sectarianism was pushed into the public realm in 2003 by
external power brokers but its political foundations lie in a long-lasted process of ancient
grievances and personal privileges. In a nutshell, politics of sectarianism in Iraq is the
complex result of a mixed combination of both conscious and unconscious historical forces.
4
1. Introduction
1.1 Religiosity in post-Saddam Iraq
Nine years after Saddam Hussein’s fall, Iraq still remains an example of what states
would resemble if they failed catastrophically. Hopes for any political stabilization seem to be
dashed.1 Baghdad today finds itself in the midst of corruption and the ruling of power remains a
fragile equilibrium; elites are obsessed with power and personal privilege while the level of
anger increases daily.
Since the completion of the US military withdrawal at the end of 2011, and despite the
recent wave of al Qaeda-in-Iraq terrorist attacks2, the Iraq that used to dominate news coverage
seems to have slowly swept under the rug of the Arab Spring and fallen into oblivion3. Yet,
attention should be paid to the Iraqi domestic politics as the country is also experiencing its own
version of the Arab spring.
Indeed, disappointed by the ruling elite, a small secular opposition group called
“February Youth Movement” is a reflection of growing discontent slowly gaining the whole Iraqi
society.4 They are calling for the improvement of public services and living standards. They are
protesting against post-2003 political apparatus thought to be much more concerned about their
own narrow partisan interests than about national stability. Protests that started in February 2011
1 H Al-Mousawi, “Sectarianism in Iraq”, Fair Observer, 19 March 2012.
2 Al-Tamimi, “Iraq faces a new cycle of violence after relative lull”, GulfNews, 23 July 2012.
3 S Salloum, “After the Arab Spring: Does Iraq's present day contain seeds of the Middle East's Future?”, Niqash, 25
November 2011. 4 H Najm, “February 25
th is just the beginning”, Niqash, 24 February 2011.
5
““WWhhyy ddiidd tthheessee rreelliiggiioouuss
ddiiffffeerreenncceess ssuuddddeennllyy bbeeccoommee
iimmppoorrttaanntt,, wwhhiillee tthheeyy hhaadd
nneevveerr mmeeaanntt aannyytthhiinngg bbeeffoorree??’’ Abdallah al-Shammani, coordinator of the February
Youth Movement
in H Najm, “February 25th is just the beginning”, Niqash,
24 February 2011.
were rapidly quelled but frustration remains rampant and civil organizations today stress the
necessity for continued demonstrations for democracy.5
Their discontent was fed by the latest political scandal6 in December 2011 when an arrest
warrant was publicly issued for Tariq al-Hashimi, Vice-President, part of the Iraqiya bloc,
accused of fomenting an assassination attempt on Nouri Al-Maliki, Shia Prime Minister and
leader of the State of Law coalition. This was perceived as a new round of sectarian conflict as
al-Hashimi is a Sunni Muslim and the Iraqiya bloc is considered mainly Sunni-supported while
the State of Law coalition is mainly Shiite-supported. It was rapidly seen as part of a plot by
Maliki to marginalize Sunni representation in Iraqi Parliament and more globally within the Iraqi
politics. Once again, it reinforces the idea that
current political situation is mainly apprehended
through a confessional framework. Such a narrative
fills the reservoir of the opposition calling for an
alternative political change to challenge the political
deadlock and the corrupted sectarian system.
*
Iraq is the birthplace of a range of confessional communities starting from Shia (with the
holy cities of Najaf and Karbala) to Sunni Muslim not to mention several other religious sects7
(Christian, Yazidi, Alawite, Druze). Yet, despite this historical mosaic, it seems that religion has
5 “Youth movement calls for demonstration tomorrow”, Aswat al-Iraq, 24 February 2012.
6 K Ramzi, “Iraq in 2011: protests, political problems and farewell to the US”, Niqash, 29 December 2011.
7 When discussing sects in Iraq, my focus will solely be on Iraqi Arab Sunnis and Shi’as. The exclusion of other
confessional groups is a reflection of demographic realities and the politicization of both communities during the
last decade.
6
never been publicly referred to by political actors before 2003. While religion under Saddam was
a taboo and mainly restrained to the private sphere8, it rapidly took a more “assertive”
9 form
after his fall as it began to explicitly dominate Iraqi politics. Not only does sectarian narrative
dominate the political imaginaire of post-2003 rulers, but it also becomes dramatically more
salient in the everyday life. The political vacuum after the US-led invasion in 2003 represented a
tremendous opportunity for Iraqi citizens to publicly express their religiosity and Shias anthems
and symbols started to proliferate in public space few days after the fall of Baghdad. More than a
mere philosophical category, religion became a new form of self-identification ordinary Iraqis
were, until then, unconscious of. 10
People became suddenly aware of their religion and started
identifying themselves as Shia or Sunni. They felt they could easily refer to these identities to
define themselves. It became a new cause to fight for11
and the membership of specific religious
communities appeared as a political question. It was suddenly pushed into the public domain as
an affaire d’Etat. In fact, since its politicization in 2003, the sectarian narrative has never been
that salient and has never triggered that much significant violence and instability and not to
mention, a civil war.
1.2 Research questions
The thesis therefore will try to understand the reasons of the emergence of confessional
identification in post-Saddam politics. Why has religion become such a crucial component of
national political expression in post-2003 Iraq? It will be aimed at explaining why sectarian
narrative became so popular both in politics and in public mobilization in this decisive moment
8 R Zeidel, “Iraq 2009: Some Thoughts about the State of Sectarianism”, Center for Iraq Studies, University of
Haifa, September 2009. 9 ibid.
10 F Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq: Antagonistic Visions of Unity, Hurst & Company, London, 2011.
11 ibid.
7
of Iraqi history. Why and how do confessional identities become the basis of sectarian
politics? Where does al-taifiyya come from?
1.3 Definition and theoretical framework
Throughout the research, I will address the questions raised above by openly criticizing the
ways in which Western analysts, whether academics, media or policy-makers, have approached
Iraqi politics.12
1.3.1 The reductionist- alarmist debate
First, while studying the impact of sectarian narrative in Iraq, it is essential to recall the
existence of two dichotomist perspectives, a “reductionist” and an “alarmist” one.13
While, on
one side of the spectrum, some scholars “reduce the essence of Iraqi society to a struggle based
on ethno-confessional conflict’’,14
others tend to “ignore or even deny its existence”.15
Therefore,
constant efforts have to be made not to fall into none of the extremes above, neither to relying
solely on sectarianism (“alarmist” perspective) nor denying its importance in Iraq
(“reductionist” perspective). The durability of these epistemological flaws are attributed to
Western intellectual laziness that has led to misappropriate shortcomings. It would appear
comfortable from an “alarmist” perspective to short-circuit the complexities of contemporary
Iraqi politics by reducing them to a self-explanatory and yet misleading black and white
dynamic16
. Thus, it is important to underline that Iraq is not all about sectarianism17
. While
12
H Al-Khoei, “Iraqi Sectarianism needs reporting, but not like Associated Press did’’, The Guardian, 10 April
2012. 13
Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq, 2011. 14
E Davis, “Introduction: The question of sectarian identities in Iraq”, International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi
Studies, Vol.4:3, 2010, p. 229. 15
Davis, “Pensée 3: A sectarian Middle East?’’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 40, Issue 04,
2008, p.557. 16
ibid. 17
R Visser, “The Territorial aspect of Sectarianism in Iraq”, International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies,
Vol.4:3, 2010.
8
manifestations of sectarianism within the political and public realms are hardly deniable as they
consistently gained more significance this past decade, sectarianism should not be presented as
the one and only slant to explain Iraqi politics. It remains, along with tribalism and ethnic
loyalties, one aspect of a much more complex multi-faceted reality.
1.3.2 Sectarianism as essentialist phenomenon
When explaining the roots of sectarianism in Iraq, two alternative explanations could be
provided: “a primordial versus a constructivist’’ perspectives.18
Primordialist scholars identify
the sectarian nature of Middle Eastern politics as essentially linked to the nature of Islam.
Regardless of conflicting evidence, it remains nowadays very popular among academics. It refers
to a broader tendency within Western academia that tends to emphasize the “predominant role
attributed to religion”19
and systematically applies “Islam” (…) (to explain) “every aspect of
Arab culture and society’’.20
In this respect, from the “hot-tempered” inhabitants of
Montesquieu’s Egypt21
, to Gellner’s “Muslim Society”22
, from the “Islamic world” of Bernard
Lewis23
to Salvatore’s “ingrained religious traditions of Muslim world”24
, a series of scholars
believe in an innate disposition justifying sectarian violence in Arab countries, taking it as a
given since these regions are located on one of the Huntington’s “fault lines”.25
This literature
18
Davis, “Introduction: The question of sectarian identities in Iraq”, p.230. 19
S Zubaida, Beyond Islam: a New Understanding of the Middle East, London: I.B Tauris, 2011, p.1. 20
ibid. 21
Montesquieu, Spirit of Law, originally published anonymously. 1748. Eds. Anne M. Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller,
and Harold Samuel Stone. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1989. 22
E Gellner, Muslim Society, Cambridge University Press, 1983. 23
B Lewis, “The Roots of Muslim Rage”, The Atlantic, 1990. 24
A Salvatore, The Public Sphere, Palgrave, New York, 2007, p.10. 25
S Huntington, “The Clash of Civilization”, Foreign Policy, 73 (3), 1993, p.29.
9
derives from an Orientalist trap26
that asserts
that Arabs have a natural propensity toward
sectarian conflict because they are less
developed and come from a different
civilization. Sectarian politics, from this
viewpoint, would be seen as innate,
unchangeable and locked in long-lasting
rivalries.27
Many argue that the only way to overcome these essential forces and help these
countries to access modernity would be to impose a sovereign entity, a “Leviathan”28
that
enshrines sectarianism in law. It would, in that sense, equally reflect confessional differences and
preserve an artificial order as humans are believed to be oriented by nature towards war and
chaos.29
*
The shortcomings and incongruities of such a theory are demonstrated when further
unfolding the idea to its logical conclusion. Assuming that sectarian divides are innate and
unchangeable, why has conflict not taken place all over the region, at all times? How to explain
the relative period of peace or moments of “symbiotic communities”30
, during which sectarian
dynamics were absent? The 1920 unrest against British colonizers in Iraq managed to put aside
supposedly innate religious differences. Historical examples of cross-confessional cooperation
show that primordialism is not an adequate theory as it remains unable to explain why a
26
E Said, Orientalism, Vintage Books, Random House, New York, 1977. 27
Davis, Memories of State: Politics, History and Collective Identity in Modern Iraq, Berkeley, California:
University of California Press, 2005. 28
T Hobbes, Leviathan, Ed Richard T., Cambridge University Press, 2006, 9th
Edition. 29
ibid. 30
G Corm, Liban : les guerres de l’Europe et de l’Orient 1840-1992, Paris : Editions Gallimard, 1992, p. 55.
““NNeeiitthheerr IIssllaamm nnoorr aannyy ootthheerr
pprriimmoorrddiiaall ffaaccttoorr mmeeaannss tthhaatt tthhee
sseeccttaarriiaanniissmm ooff tthhee rreeggiioonn iiss iinneevviittaabbllee
oorr nnaattuurraall bbuutt rraatthheerr tthhaatt eexxtteerrnnaall
ffaaccttoorrss hhaavvee iinnfflluueenncceedd tthhee rreeggiioonn,,
ccrreeaattiinngg tthhee ppoolliittiiccss wwee aarree sseeeekkiinngg ttoo
eexxppllaaiinn”” Y Bassam, “The political of economy of sectarianism in Iraq”,
International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies, Vol.4:3,
2010.
10
particular conflict, at times, mobilizes along sectarian lines while others do not.31
The presence
of sectarian logics is therefore neither as natural nor as constant as the mainstream literature may
suggest.
1.3.3 The constructed nature of sectarian identity
For these reasons, I shall approach the topic of sectarianism by rejecting primordialist
explanations and adopt a more dynamic perspective. I will suggest focusing on the post-
structuralist counter-argument. I will argue that the concept and the realities of sectarianism in
Iraq, far from being explained by essentialist theory, are not the causes but rather the products of
a political construction led by complex power actors. The concept of sectarianism should
therefore be defined as a top-down rather than a bottom-up phenomenon.32
The presence of
sectarian sensibilities in the society is, in any case, natural. They do not inhere in any Arab
psyche. If they happened to get salient in the political realm, it is mainly because elites decided
to manipulate them for their own political interests.
As such, the slightly overlapping notions of religion and sectarianism now neatly appear
distinct from each others. While religious identification may not be political in its wider
sense, sectarianism is implicitly a political term of analysis that suggests a political
manipulation aimed at enhancing religious identification to construct “imagined
communities”.33
31
P Stuglett, “The British, The Sunnis and the Shiís: Social hierarchies of identity under the British mandate”,
International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies, Vol.4:3, 2010. 32
Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq, p.9. 33
B Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, Verso, 1984, p.6.
11
Furthermore, whereas communal communities have existed in Iraqi society for ages, the
manipulation of religious diversity for political reasons_ that we will call sectarianism_ is a
modern phenomenon34
. It fractures the horizontal class-based alliances, traditionally structuring
the Middle East to generate an “imagined community”35
defined as a new “horizontal
comradeship”36
that cross-cuts old social divisions. When power used to be based on economy37
and Iraqi politicians used to be afraid of a communist-led mobilization,38
power now seems to lie
in sectarianism and Iraqi politicians are rather more afraid of a religion-based mobilization.
States are now able to reshape the traditional self-definition of each community along religious
lines and re-create, ex-nihilo, new associations in a form that suit them better.39
In other words,
sectarianism is a political artifact, an “imagined sociological concept” for the state and “an
imagined social formation” that shapes society.40
Therefore, it shall be interesting to touch on instrumentalist approach to seek deeper
explanations of political strategies deployed by Iraqi elites seeking to ignite religious divisions to
gain power. How are “sectarian entrepreneurs”41
playing upon religious overtones and
sharpening societal sensibilities for their own political win?42
What benefits do they draw from
it? In others words, sectarian origins should be found in the manipulation of social diversity
rather than in actual cleavages. As a consequence, better focus should be given to the
34
U Makdisi, ‘’Reconstructing the Nation State: the Modernity of Sectarianism in Lebanon”, Middle East Report,
Vol. 26, Issue 03, 1996. 35
Anderson, Imagined Communities, p.6. 36
Anderson, Imagined Communities, p.7. 37
K Marx, Capital: The Process of Capitalist Production, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1981. 38
H Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: A study of Iraq’s Old Landed and
Commercial Classes and of its Communists, Ba’thists and Free Officers, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New
Jersey, 1978. 39
N Ayubi, Overstating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East, London: IB Tauris, 1995. 40
J Suad, “Pensée 2 : Sectarianism as Imagined Sociological Concept and Imagined Social Formation’’,
International Journal of Middle East Studies, 40, Issue 04 (2008), p.554. 41
ibid. 42
B Salloukh, “Democracy in Lebanon: The Primacy of the Sectarian System.” In The Struggle over Democracy in
the Middle East, edited by Nathan Brown, and Emad El-Din Shahin, London: Routledge Press, 2009.
12
instrumentalisation of sectarianism rather than to sectarianism itself. And yet, such a theory
needs to be handled with precious care, as it could be assumed that sectarianism is nothing else
that a mere artificial manifestation and that elites are creating a social order, somehow unnatural
and illegitimate.
1.4. Structure of the thesis
Instead of picturing sectarianism as an inevitable reality, it is essential to look back to the
history of Iraq to elaborate a cumulative argument looking at the roots of sectarianism.
Sectarianism is not a self-evident phenomenon, nor has it been a political construction imposed
by the United States after the fall of Saddam Hussein. I will rather argue that sectarianism was
the complex result of a mixed combination of both conscious and unconscious historical
forces. It is a “social formation in history”43
and its unforeseen origins are deeply rooted in the
last 23 years of the Baathist rule. “Sectarianism in its current form is new to Iraq but the
practices of the current regime built on those of its predecessor in ways that need to be explored
further”.44
This research will thus examine the history of Iraq starting from the Baathist coup of
1968 to trace the origins of the political imagination and emotions that potentially contributed to
the strengthening of sectarian identities in the post-invasion context.
*
43
Suad, ‘’Pensée 2 : Sectarianism as Imagined Sociological Concept and Imagined Social Formation’’, p. 554. 44
D Rizk Khoury, “The Security state and the practice and rhetoric of sectarianism in Iraq”, International Journal of
Contemporary Iraqi Studies, Vol.4:3, 2010, p. 336.
13
This thesis is divided into four chapters:
- The first one has been so far a broad introduction, offering a survey of literature about the
problem of sectarianism in post-2003 Iraq. It provides an adequate departure point for the
following discussion on the roots of sectarianism.
- The next chapter will provide a beginning of an answer and will be dedicated to events
prior 2003 that help to understand how sectarianism was pushed into the public realm after the
fall of Saddam Hussein. In other words, how did Saddam’s organization of power become an
avenue to unleash religious identifications within politics and public domain after 2003?
- The third chapter will deal with sectarianism as a political tool institutionalized after
2003 and will argue that politics of sectarianism are being shaped by historical grievances,
distorted perceptions and rational choice.
- The final one will summarize the argument45
and offer a broader scope to examine the
process of sectarianism as a whole, trying to understand why such a political discourse has
found resonance in social practices.46
Creating divisions within society where none of these
really existed before have generated process of its own. What was strictly a political tool has
now potentially reached popular sense, out of Iraqi elites’ control.
To sum up, it is not the phenomenon of sectarianism itself that demands analysis but how it
has been constructed as a state discourse, and how, once created, this political narrative was
transplanted, with various degrees of self- consciousness, to the social terrain.47
45
Cf. Appendix 46
Zubaida, Beyond Islam, p.1. 47
Anderson, Imagined Communities, p. 8.
14
2. The legacy of Saddam regime: the seeds of sectarianism
Initial part of the dissertation will be dedicated to events post-2003 that help
understanding how sectarianism was pushed into the public domain in the 2003 aftermath. These
events were not intrinsically and purposely sectarian but had, implicitly, sectarian outcomes. In
other words, Saddam’s regime was not founded on a sectarian basis but throughout its
authoritarian form of power, it has accelerated the formation of sectarian grievances. What
effects did this ordering of power have on perceptions of sectarian privilege and persecution?
2.1 Authority through exclusivity
In order to understand the emergence of sectarianism as an outcome of Saddam regime,
one has to understand the concept of “shadow state’’48
to apprehend its interactions with the
society. Instead of using state-centered approaches that consider power to be located in state
institutions49
, we will argue to a concept of power that is embedded in series of networks of
power.50
Power is neither located in the elite class that detains the material means of production51
nor in the public institutions of the state. It is located elsewhere, mediated within the networks
that stand behind, within and through the public institutions.52
48
C Tripp, “After Saddam”, Survival, The International Institute for Strategic Studies, Vol. 44, no.4, Winter 2002-
03, p. 25 49
M Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1905. Translated by Stephen Kalberg (2002),
Roxbury Publishing Company, pp.19-35. 50
T Mitchell, “The Limits of the State Beyond Statist Approaches and Their Critics”, The American Political
Science Review, Vol.85, No.1, 1991. 51
K Marx, Capital: The Process of Capitalist Production, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1981. 52
Tripp, “After Saddam”, p.25.
15
From this perspective, the network theory of power is offering a much more adequate
analytical tool to examine the nature of the dual state in Iraq of Saddam. We need to determine
the nature of networks that sustain the regime, although they are, most of the time, not openly
asserted. If we fall short of doing so, we will focus only on “the visible coastline of politics and
miss the continent that lies beyond”.53
As a result, a different image of Iraq emerges beyond public rationale. Behind the façade
of public institutions, the actual ruling of power under Saddam appears to be captured by those
who seized power in 1968. “It is here that real power resides”.54
These political circles were
drawn from the north-east of Iraq and Saddam appointed a number of his clan members at the
top of the military and bureaucratic ranks. Circle of power was so restricted that the Ba’athist
party quickly became a “family party”55
. Saddam took care of surrounding himself of people of
trust _ahl-al thiqa_56
to secure his personal ambitions and maintain his power from internal and
external rivalries. It was a clientelist state based on a fragile equilibrium in which individuals,
close to the elite realm, were “manipulated by the regime”.57
As soon as they were considered as
potential threat to the regime, they were likely to be eliminated. “Saddam knew exactly who to
trust, whom he should favor and when”58
. This exclusivist enterprise was taking to an extreme in
1991 when Saddam ordered purges within his party to execute Baathist officials he mistrusted
(including members of his own family in 1996) and replaced them by reliable personalities. The
regime also appeared very vulnerable from the very beginning since it faced a growing tension
between its ideological position and its pragmatic need to consolidate its power. Unable to rely
53
JC Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden transcripts, New Haven, Yale, 1990, p.199. 54
C Tripp, “What lurks in the shadows”, Times Higher Education, 18 October 2002. 55
Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq, 2011. 56
C Tripp, A History of Iraq, Third Edition, Cambridge University Press, 2007. 57
A Baram, “Qawmiyya and Wataniyya in Ba’thi Iraq: the search for a New Balance”, Middle Eastern Studies,
vol.19, No.2, April 1983, pp. 188-200. 58
C Tripp, “What lurks in the shadows”, Times Higher Education, 18 October 2002.
16
on a large enough popular support, Iraqi state had to rely on these networks to strengthen state
legitimacy.
*
While certain strata of society derived considerable benefits from the exclusivist state, a
peripheral social field was excluded from regime patronage. Marginalized individuals started to
gather in similar structure of informal associations to protect their own interests and cope with
the authoritarian regime. The exclusionist nature of the state’s distribution of benefits creates a
parallel organization of “vanguards networks of associations”59
promoting its own political
project. In other words, the regime created its own resistance.60
Therefore, system theorists
should not focus on the shadow state but rather on the shadow structures present in the
network of trust at the heart of power as well of resistance61
as individuals outside the elite
networks also position themselves in shadow structures. Asef Bayat62
, taking the example of the
disenfranchised people in Iran, demonstrated that individuals would not have constituted these
informal networks as competitive circle of power if given the choice. In other words, such a
parallel culture was not essential, it was constructed. They were forced to do so to resist network
of power elites and further their interests63
. These networks became “a sphere of security, a
safety net”64
and a plausible alternative when state failed to address people needs. It directly
compensated each others: the more the state welfare benefits became weakened, the more the
need for alternative shadow networks grew.65
This is why shadow organizations were very vivid
59
S Zubaida, Islam, the People and the State, Third edition, Routledge, London and New York, 200966) 60
M Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prison, Random House Vintage Books, New York, 1995. 61
D Singerman, Avenues of Participation: Family, Politics, and Networks in Urban Quarters of Cairo, Princeton,
NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1995. 62
A Bayat, Street Politics: Poor People’s Movements in Iran, Columbia University Press, 1997, p.6. 63
Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, 1990. 64
Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq, p.105 65
S Zubaida, Democracy, Iraq and the Middle East. Open Democracy, 18 November 2005.
17
among the lower and more vulnerable social classes in the 90s in Iraq as a response to the
economic deprivation. 66
*
The appearance of the shadow structures of resistance within society under Saddam took
the form of the resurgence of traditional solidarities,67
mainly in the Shia communities, as they
felt more and more marginalized by the regime. Indeed, a communal logic started to be
perceived within the manipulation of power. Circle of power was progressively given a sectarian
light: when Saddam recruited most of his security apparatus from his community, it was
assumingly believed that, as they were all coming from a similar background, they were sharing
similar confessional identity. More than a family-based minority rule, it was assumingly
perceived as a religious-based minority in which circle of power was mainly drawn from Sunni
cities which left Shia excluded from politics.
2.2 A Sunni leaning nationalism
Although tribes close to power comprised both Sunni and Shia, the Saddam shadow state
had a clear potential for religious interpretation. Haddad argues that public rationale as defined
by the ruling elites, by referring to Arab nationalism, was likely to “overlap”68
with the Sunni
identification at the expense of the Shia one.
*
66
Davis, “Introduction: The question of sectarian identities in Iraq”, p.233. 67
Ayubi, Overstating the Arab State, p.167. 68
Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq, p.17.
18
Ironically, the Baathist party was to create a united nation for a modern state. It was
believed to move against tribal, regional and religious identities that divided Iraq to create a
sense of being Iraqi. Saddam was willing to downplay religious differences in the political
sphere to build a cohesive Iraqi nationhood.69
Religion was considered as an obstacle for the
transformation of Iraq into a modern and secular state.70
Nevertheless, despite a clear attempt to
escape any sectarian-based power dynamics, the nationalist narrative, as it was constructed and
perceived by official circles, only exacerbated discrimination against Shia community and ended
up fostering a sense of sectarian victimization among Shia, long before 2003.
*
The myth of Iraqi identity goes back to the Arab nationalism as it was defined by the
Ottoman Empire that coined the notion of arabité in strong opposition to the Persian identity. It
was based upon the resistance against European interference in the region and in opposition to
external rivalry against a united Arab nation.71
Back in those times, only Arabs were believed to
be true Muslims. Not only was Arab nationalism deeply rooted in Islam, it particularly did in
Sunni Islam72
: Shia subjects living in the Ottoman Empire were not considered to be part of the
Arab project as strictly defined, because of their religious ties with the Persian enemy. Ottoman
Shia laymen and clergy were closely tied to the Iranians marjas and these transnational
confessional affinities were undeniably about to last. This constantly represented a cause of
anxiety for the Ottoman Empire as they suspected Shia of being a Trojan horse of their enemy
69
A Dawisha, “Identity and Political Survival in Saddam’s Iraq”, The Middle East Journal, Vol.53, No.4, Autumn
1999. 70
A Baram, “Neo-Tribalism in Iraq: Saddam Hussein’s Tribal Policies, 1991-1996”, International Journal of Middle
East Studies, vol.29, no.1, 1997, p.1. 71
S Al-Khalil, Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989, p. 74-
75. 72
ibid.
19
interests. In 1921, the first Iraqi constitution institutionalized this discrimination and Shia were
relegated to second-class citizens73
. The establishment of an Arab nationalist discourse in which
they were openly persecuted led to their progressive political marginalization.
*
Saddam Hussein had a profound admiration toward this Ottoman legacy and was willing
to revive the Arab myth. State propaganda under Saddam, from its early beginning, offered the
same internal contradiction as the one inherent to the Ottoman project and led to a similar
misleading amalgam between religion and ethnicity. 74
Indeed, in its efforts to downplay sectarian divisions, Saddam played heavily on these
historical ethnic differences between Arabs and Persians. And yet ironically, as the Ottoman
discourse did, the public rationale was progressively appreciated through a religious
perspective.75
In other words, being Iraqi under Saddam means being a descendant of the
Ottomans, hence, being Sunni. Because Iraqi state nationalism referred to the Ottoman definition
of arabité, it was likely to capture a larger Sunni constituency76
and exclude Shia identity,
because of their allegedly Persian legacy. “State nationalism disproportionally overlapped with
the definition of the Sunni identity” 77
and those who were not Arab_Sunni_ were excluded from
circle of power.
The Islamic Revolution and the establishment of a Shia Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979
had landmark impact in the definition of state nationalism of Iraq. It fuelled an already active
73
Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq, 2011. 74
ibid. 75
W.R. Polk, Understanding Iraq: the Whole Sweep of Iraqi History, from Genghis Khan’s Mongols to the Ottoman
Turks to the British Mandate to the American Occupation, HarperCollin, 2005, p. 93. 76
Cf. Appendix. 77
Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq, 2011.
20
nationalism in the country and sharpened a long-dated discrimination against Shia, although not
officially recognized as such. Once again, it reactivated the endless myth of Shia association with
Iran. Saddam suspected Tehran to help Iraqi Shia to foment a revolution. The anti-Iranian
narrative was reduced to an anti-Shia narrative and the security concern argument was quickly
interpretated into religious terms. Nevertheless, the fact that some Shias in the Gulf states had
maintained theological ties with Iran did not necessarily mean that there was a systematic Iranian
influence over the Shia population. Although it was true that some Shia families in Iraq were
Iranian, they were not intrinsically subservient to Iranian foreign power. And yet, misperceptions
over Iranian influence led Saddam to institutionalize series of misleading discriminatory
constraints against Shia communities to pre-empt the rise of any Iranian fifth column.
Manipulation of power under Saddam and the way in which state interacted with its
society, although not sectarian in intent, took a sectarian light. Although it may not have been a
conscious design of part of the policy makers78
, Iraqi nationalism was, from its early beginning,
an exclusivist discourse unequally restricted to Sunni citizens. During the Iran-Iraq war,
domestic policies were not legitimized by sectarian logic but rather driven by realist security
concerns. And yet, it led to undeniable consequences in terms of sectarian identification in Iraq.
2.3 A potential for sectarian awareness
Sunni communities did not perceive any imbalance in the State-sect relations as “Sunni
identity found its place within the State’s narrative of nation”.79
Their identity intertwined with
the Iraqi nationalism.80
Yet, the regime, through its nationalist project, generated a strong sense
78
Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq, p.36. 79
ibid, p.55. 80
Appendix
21
of frustration among the outsiders who could not identify with it.81
Shia community started to
realize they were denied an access to power because they were coming from the wrong religious
community. Although it may not have been officially asserted, they felt they were marginalized
because of their religious belongings. Since then, they started to portray Saddam regime as
sectarian, willing to maintain a religious minority on the top of power. Shadow state was framed
in sectarian terms.
Shia militancy groups operating from within or from abroad were not historically
initiated in religious terms.82
They were not all created, sui generis, to defend their religion.83
They were a response to the secular project of the Ba’athist party. Al Da’awa, initially founded
in 1958, was a traditional Shia opposition group initially proposing an alternative to state
nationalism as defined by Saddam. They rejected Islamist politics and moved against secularism,
atheism and modernity. Eventually, as they begun to misinterpret the religious lines of the State
project, confession turned into a priority cause to defend. The salience of communal sensibilities
in opposition group was a response to the perceived religious group-discrimination84
. More,
embracing a sectarian narrative became the only way for the opposition to potentially survive the
worsening repression as logic of trust and survival were deeply grounded in traditional
solidarities.
Sectarianism became a raison d’être for Shia parties. The opposition group Supreme Council
for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), founded in 1982 in Teheran by Mohammed Baqir al-
Hakim, became an umbrella opposition groups for Iraqi Shia in exile. Deeply influenced by Iran,
81
“Iraq’s Shiites under Occupation”, International Crisis Group, Middle East Briefing, 9 September 2003. 82
F Jabar, The Shiíte Movement in Iraq, Saqi, London, 2003, p.73. 83
ibid, p. 75. 84
Ibid, p.441.
22
it was, in its organization, ideology as well as recruitment, explicitly sectarian.85
Its identity was
grounded on the biased memory of repression in a Sunni-Arab regime86
and engaged, by any
means, against the Saddam regime. It even fought alongside Iranian forces in the war with Iraq to
put an end to the oppressing regime. Traumatized by what they regarded as sectarian
discrimination, perceptions of Shia living in exile were narrowed to a monolithic religious
narrative. “Whether in exile or underground, the pre-2003 oppositionists had a sect-centric
identity that was doubtless fostered by pre-2003 sectarian victimhood both real and
perceived”.87
Unfortunately, these were to compose the political backbone of the new Iraq
following the ouster of Saddam.
85
Tripp, A History of Iraq, 2007. 86
Davis, Memories of State, 2005. 87
Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq, p.149.
23
3. Inventing Iraq: an old political imagination for a new country
To understand the salience of sectarian identities in post-2003 Iraq, most of the
constructivist scholars are looking for answers in the political arrangement made by the US
occupation and Iraqi policymakers after Saddam’s fall. It is undeniable that his removal opened
up a window of opportunity for outsider actors such as American and the Iraqi Shia elites that
fled the Saddam regime to impose their own views and gain power in their home country.
Nevertheless, it would have been too reductionist to focus on this period as the salience of
sectarianism in post-2003 Iraq has to be understood by excavating Iraqi history since the
Ottomans. One should not underestimate the importance of pre-2003events. They are primordial
component_ not in essentialist terms_ but in terms of continuity of forms of historical memory
that reflect the persistent forms of discriminations and repression. They form a suitable avenue
for the liberation of sectarian identities within politics and public sphere following the fall of the
regime. In fact, American decisions, influenced by
the exiled community, could not have been fully
understood without paying attention to them. Much
of the sectarianism that emerges after 2003 plays
upon ancient grievances to divide population and
bolster their standings.88
Post-2003 factors have to
88
Davis, “Introduction: The question of sectarian identities in Iraq, 2010.
“If the current outbreak of sectarianism does no flow directly from the sectarian
politics of the previous regime, it arguably follows from that
regime’s very nature” “The next Iraqi war? Sectarianism and civil conflict”,
International Crisis Group, 52, 27 February 2006, p.7.
24
be seen therefore as additional events that cumulatively help to sharpen the process of
sectarianism into a political tool. 2003 did not dishevel any of the sectarian process, it rather
accelerated it.
3.1 America’s War on Iraq: the persistent myth of religious violence
An overview of the American misperceptions can today explain most of the mistakes
undertaken by the Coalition Provisional Authority of Paul Bremer. The policies of the US-British
occupation have embodied a series of primordial and alarmist misbeliefs that have been
dominating Western views of Iraq since the colonial times89
.
Following the events of September 11, the sudden concern about the potential
vulnerability of the United States led the Bush neoconservative administration to suspect any
threat that might hit the American territory in the same way again. The Middle East region was
catapulted to the top of the political agenda. Jihadist movements sprouting up all over the region
were regarded as the new adversaries the US would have to eradicate in the forthcoming decade.
As the declared global war against on terrorism was aimed at justifying any American foreign
policy, officials started to emphasize the role of Islam in politics in the region. An overtly
religious imaginary90
gained resonance to explain any political mobilization in Arab countries.
From that perspective, Iraq quickly appeared as a potential symbol of defiance. Saddam
regime was viewed as an amalgam of religions that respectively fit into political groups.91
The
Sunni Arabs were assumingly believed to be the Ba’athist supporters while the Shia communities
89
P Cockburn, The occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq, Verso, 2006. 90
T Dodge, Iraq at crossroads: State and Society in the Shadow of Regime Change, London, Routledge, Oxford
University Press, 2003, p 12. 91
“The next Iraqi war? Sectarianism and civil conflict”, International Crisis Group, 52, 27 February 2006, p.8.
25
“President Bush has reportedly expressed
surprise and interest when told that there
were two sorts of Muslim in Iraq, Sunni and
Shia” Cockburn, The occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq, p.33
were excluded from the political circle. It offered a very naïve image of the complexities of the
networks of power under Saddam. It presented Saddam’s regime as a sectarian enterprise that
purposely kept power in the hands of a Sunni minority over a Shia majority. President Bush and
Prime Minister Blair truly believed that part of their mission was to liberate the oppressed
religious community and restore a democratic regime in Iraq. They assumed Shia would
welcome the invading forces. In reality, they did not pay much attention to what Iraqi people
could potentially think and Iraqi citizens were expected to play a “spectator”92
role.
In defence of the officials that took these crucial decisions,93
the Americans were not
alone in distorting reality. Their misunderstandings about sectarianism in Iraq can partially be
explained by the close ties they maintained with long-exiled opposition figures. Ironically,
although their authority within Iraq was totally valueless, they constituted the sole intermediaries
in Washington.94
Because their organization and ideology were, explicitly sectarian, they
comforted the American visions about Iraq.
*
Sadly, this was pure fallacy.95
It demonstrated the lack of knowledge the Bush
administration had about regime and about Iraqi society. Few American officials knew about the
history of the Middle East. More, presumably none of them felt it could have been relevant for
their enterprise. Whether they were short of Arabic speakers or lacking of political experts, they
were not able to establish any meaningful contact with insiders. They instead find complacency
with the political forces in exile
92
Cockburn, The occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq, p.32. 93
ibid, p .13. 94
Tripp, A History of Iraq, p. 279. 95
Cockburn, The occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq, p.4.
26
because they were sharing a familiar narrative. Although their political imagination of exiled
Iraqis may have been distorted by historical grievances and desires of revenge, the US
administration took it for granted.96
They made no effort to further understand the nature of the
country they were about to invade.97
In a very orientalist imagination, they used their western set
of standards to frame Iraq and did pay little attention to its history and its legacy.98
All in all, Americans repeated similar mistakes made by their British predecessors a
century ago.99
While trying to make sense of a society they barely know, they fell into the
dangers of primordialisation. They theorized a world divided into cultural blocs, divided by one
specific marker: religion.100
Religious divisions were believed to be rooted in old-age rivalries
that were exacerbated by Saddam’s privileging of sectarian loyalties.101
Supported by the
opposition groups, they created a new imaginary102
that was to be imposed as the mainstream
way of thinking Iraq.103
Yet, these atavistic miscalculations quickly unabled them to accomplish
what they initially planned to do: build a modern, democratic and secular state.
3.2 The imposition of a sectarian order
The overtly religious narrative strongly shaped the American visions about an Iraqi
future. They were convinced that Sunni was responsible for the previous regime and a sectarian
reasoning underlay any of the CPA policies.
96
T Dodge, Inventing Iraq: the Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied, New York: Columbia University
Press, 2003, p.43. 97
Cockburn, The occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq, p.12. 98
Said, Orientalism, 1977. 99
Dodge, p.158. 100
Jabar, The Shiíte Movement in Iraq, p.18. 101
Dodge, p.159. 102
Ibid. 103
Dodge, “US Intervention and Possible Iraqi Futures”, Survival, The International Institute for Strategic Studies,
Vol.45, no.3, Autumn 2003, p.114.
27
In charge of the construction of the new Iraq, the CPA, with no former Middle Eastern
experience104
was desperately lacking a political model. The only way for them to put an end to
the political chaos was to establish a sovereign state, a Leviathan105
, that would enshrine
essential religious divisions in law.106
They found a convenient compromise in the Lebanese
consociational political formula in which political representation is structured along specific
quota lines. Such a system appeared as a remedy to the risk of a permanent exclusion of religious
communities from power. It was the guarantee for stability and pluralism.107
They believe that if
sectarianism was not taken into account by politics, it would generate a durable chaos within
society.108
In other words, political institutionalization of sectarianism was the panacea to
address societal sectarianism.
*
The Interim Governing Council was the first step to the politics of sectarianism as its
composition was based on ethno-sectarian quotas. As the IGC was given the responsibility to
draft the Interim constitution, it was agreed that it would proportionally represent each
confessional group so they would all have a say in the making of future Iraq. It was established
that 13 out of the 25 members of the IGC were Shiite Arab109
, 5 Sunni Arab, 5 Kurd and 1
Turkoman and 1 Christian. Furthermore, politics of sectarianism was sharpened with the
adoption of the 2005 Constitution. It formalized the idea of an equal representation of every
community in the executive institutions, in the bureaucracy, the army and police. Today, an
informal power sharing agreement seems to have emerged among religious and ethnic lines. It is
104
Tripp, A History of Iraq, p. 280. 105
Hobbes, Leviathan. 106
Tripp, A History of Iraq, p. 280 107
Makdisi, The Culture of Sectarianism, 2000. 108
Hobbes, Leviathan. 109
“Iraq’s Shiites under Occupation”, International Crisis Group, Middle East Briefing, 9 September 2003, p.2
28
now accepted that the ownership of the state Presidency is allocated to the Kurd community, and
that Sunni and Shia Muslims have a guaranteed presence in the cabinet and in the Parliament.
This would not have been without consequence: a monolithic approach to the previous
regime only initiated what it was seeking to avoid.110
It pushed religious diversity into the public
scene and paved the way to the institutionalization of sectarian politics. This certainly provided
an advantage to sectarian leaders willing to exploit these interpretations.
3.3 From historical grievances to political actions
The fall of Saddam on April 9 allowed the return of exiled Iraqis, mainly the Da’awa and
SCIRI followers.111
As they hurried back to “step in”112
, they eagerly sought to make it to the top
to play a role in the post-Ba’athist politics.113
Despite hostilities, they believed they had the
legitimacy to do so because they represented the disenfranchised Shia majority outcasted by
Saddam. In fact, in the aftermath of 2003, Shia opposition groups were the only remaining
political force that could fill the political vacuum as the Ba’athist party was dissolved and the
Communist party of Hamid Majid Mousa slowly falling into decay.
When the US and British handed sovereignty back to Iraq in June 2004, former exiles Iraqis
integrated the political institutions freshly designed by the Americans. Ayad Allawi, who had
enjoyed a long popularity along the American intelligences services, was appointed Prime
Minister. Ayatollah Hakim’s brother, Abd Aziz Al-Hakim, chairman of SCIRI returned to
Baghdad after two decades in Iran to become member of the Government Council. Similarly,
Bayan Kaber Solagh, SCIRI’s representative in Damascus, was named Interior Minister. Finally,
110
“Unmaking Iraq: A Constitutional Process Gone Awry”, International Crisis Group Middle East Briefing, 26
September 2005. 111
Tripp, A History of Iraq, p.297. 112
“Iraq’s Shiites under Occupation”, p.2. 113
Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq, p.209.
29
Ibrahim al-Ja’afari, official spokesman of the Islamic Da’awa Party, returned to Iraq from
London to become Governing Council’s first chairman.
Nevertheless, none of these Shia influential elites had to be regarded as figureheads
appointed by the Americans. Apart from their common goal of removing Saddam regime, they
had little in common with the Bush administration. Attention should be therefore paid to their
individual agency as they had their own political agenda. They were “sectarian
entrepreneurs”.114
Coming back to Iraq was part of a rational decision.115
They had an invested
benefit to do so116
. By presenting themselves as the oppressed religious majority, they cleverly
played upon the American mistakes117
and comforted their preconceptions.118
Their strategy was
also sharpened by personal feelings of revenge_ many lost members of their communities under
Saddam_. They exploited the constructed memory of Shia martyrdom under Saddam to increase
sectarian grievance and mobilize followers. Moqtada Al Sadr, although not an exiled opponent,
could be regarded as an entrepreneur as well. He revived the dormant Sadrist Shia organization
initially founded in 1991 and saw it as an opportunity to fill the political vacuum created by the
dismantling of the former regime. While providing social services among Shia poorest
communities, he manipulated the sectarian vocabulary to gain support and impose himself as a
major Shia actor within the political landscape of the new Iraq.119
*
114
Davis, “Introduction: The question of sectarian identities in Iraq”, p.231. 115
Tripp, A History of Iraq, p.281. 116
M Olson, The Logic of Collective Action, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971. 117
Davis, “Introduction: The question of sectarian identities in Iraq”, p. 224. 118
Cockburn, The occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq, p.55. 119
Iraq’s Civil War, the Sadrists and the Surge”, International Crisis Group, 72, 7 February 2008, p.1.
30
Finally, sectarian entrepeneurs were not only to be found in the backbone of the new Iraqi
circle of power, but could also refer to regional power brokers such as Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Ironically, the Shia-Muslim who ruled Iranian government and the Sunni-Muslim who ruled
Saudi government were both finding willing complacency with the US policies. While
systematically vilifying each others, they indeed frequently resort to this Sunni-Shia sectarian
narrative to justify their security policy and distract attention from genuine domestic political
reforms.
31
4. The dangers of sectarian deterioration in post-Saddam Iraq
A combination of factors relating to both pre- and post-2003 Iraq have served to galvanise
sectarian identity120
, heighten its salience and turn it into a political tool. Iraqi politicians,
whether it be Baathist officials or the US- led administration in the post -2003 context, have
sought to exploit sectarian identification, actively or unintentionally, to promote their political
ambitions. The concept of sectarianism as a political tool is largely a result of national and
international power plays, at the crossroads of historical grievances and rational choice.
*
This research would not have been complete without some considerations on the
consequences of the institutionalization of sectarianism, without examining the reasons of the
salience of sectarianism not only within the
narrow confined circle of political elites, but
also within society: once created, this political
artifact invaded any societal discourse.121
It is
ultimately shaped and shapes a specific reality
in return.122
In this respect, sectarianism needs
120
Fanar, Sectarianism in Iraq, p.143. 121
U Makdisi, The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman
Lebanon, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2000, p.6. 122
U Makdisi, ‘’Reconstructing the Nation State: the Modernity of Sectarianism in Lebanon”, Middle East Report,
Vol. 26, Issue 03, 1996.
“For a sectarian politics to cohere, for it to become hegemonic in a
Gramscian sense, it would have to become an expression of everyday life; it would have to stamp itself
indelibly on geography and history”
Makdisi, U., The Culture of Sectarianism, p. 78.
32
to be apprehended in its vertical dimension, in a Gramscian definition of hegemony.123
More
than a political strategy, it should be portrayed as a social process emanating from the ruling
realm that becomes slowly “embedded”124
in social and cultural institutions.125
Once created,
sectarianism started to reinvent the state-society relations as it was integrated by the society that
started to act along sectarian lines. 126
4.1 A self-fulfilling prophecy: from an imagined political rhetoric to a social
practice
State elites, through institutions, organize and generate power to mold citizens and shape
them along their preferences without using coercion or violence.127
The power of sectarian
politics imposes its set of narratives and enforces a specific regime of truth128
that hinders
citizen’s freedom. It appears as a form of oppression that impedes members of a society to act as
they wish. They have no other choice than to accept sectarianism as part of their culture.129
Power is therefore “diffuse”130
as it is distributed through a variety of everyday practices.
Sectarianism as a political construction is now being internalized by citizens and sectarian
political discourse is creating new behaviors within society 131
where none of these really existed
before. More Iraqis tend now to think about their homeland as divided along sectarian lines.
They end up accepting such a political imagination, and strongly believe that these new forms of
123
A Gramsci, The Gramsci reader: selected writing 1916-1935,Ed. David Forgacs, New York University Press,
New York, 2000. 124
Makdisi, The Culture of Sectarianism, p.78 125
Zubaida , Beyond Islam, p.1. 126
Gramsci, The Gramsci reader, 2000. 127
M Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, Ed. Colin Gordon, Random
House, New York, 1980, p.83. 128
ibid. 129
M Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prison, New York, Random House Vintage Books,1995, p.27. 130
ibid. 131
Anderson, Imagined Communities, p.6.
33
identifications are their own independent choice.132
Sectarianism is not imposed anymore, it is
unconsciously assimilated by the society as it now appears inherently present in everyday
discourse. Let there be no mistake: it does not mean that sectarianism is now primordial. It is still
constructed, although its construction is no longer in the hands of conscious entrepreneurs, it is
now a much more diffuse phenomenon, innervating the whole society.
This could have quite dangerous consequences as Iraqis now found themselves
imprisoned in an everyday life sectarian culture. Politics of sectarianism dictates how people
vote. The political system, imposed by sectarian entrepreneurs, has forced citizens to identify
themselves with their religion identity as they redirect individual allegiances to sectarian
communities.133
It has fractured the organization of the civil society along religious lines and
Sunni, that had always remained unaware of their religious belongings under Saddam, were
forced to think about their political loyalties on a confessional basis. This accelerates the
formation of new political solidarities and contributes to Sunni identity awakening. Iraqis are no
longer voting for political ideas, freely choosing those representing their ideological interests.
Hence the two elections of 2005 brought to power political parties based on ethnic and
confessional identities. Majority of the votes favored the United Iraqi Alliance, a Shia coalition
supported by the Shia demographic majority. Everyone votes for those they believe will best
defend their confessional interests, which inexorably tend to hinder democratic participation at
the expense of sectarian identities.
Furthermore, sectarianism seems to have a dynamic on its own and can no longer be
stopped: it has now become an irreversible force, set in motion and gaining momentum. It did
not need to be combined with any instrumental faction to operate in its most brutal way in 2006
132
Foucault, Power/Knowledge, 1980. 133
“The next Iraqi war? Sectarianism and civil conflict”, International Crisis Group, 52, 27 February 2006.
34
during the civil war. The irreversible spiral has precipitated people into committing sectarian
cleansings: having the wrong name134
or simply being a Shia or a Sunni, indistinctively of any
social, ideological background was a good enough reason to kill or to be killed. Still today,
sectarianism seems to dictate Iraqi behavior. It has penetrated the public space in Baghdad
City135
and become a spatial marker136
that designates where Shia and Sunni can safely live,
move and work.137
4.2 The absence of viable non-sectarian alternatives
Will Iraqis be, one day, able to question their belongings to sectarian communities? How
far will the sectarian narrative be accepted? This is for another chapter. All we can say for now is
that any change seems illusionary.138
Great hope was put in the Iraqi List of former Shi’a Prime
Minister Iyad Allawi in the elections of 2005, as he sought to propose an alternative project for
the future Iraq that would escape from the framework of sectarianism to promote a national
secular unity. It failed dramatically and only won 25 seats at the Iraqi Parliament in December
2005, against 40 in January of the same year. The 2009 provincial elections saw the victory of
Maliki’s State of Law coalition, running under secular and all-Iraqi banners. Yet, this was
another post-sectarian illusion.139
Maliki tried to recast himself as a secular leader but he was not
able to draw enough support from Sunni personalities to give its coalition a truly secular
character. In fact, none of the existing leaders are likely to be charismatic enough to defy the
134
“What’s in a name? Iraqis at risk for having ‘dangerous’ first names”, Niqash, 23 May 2012. 135
C Pieri, “Between Art and Alienation, the Painted T-Walls in Segmented 2012 Baghdad”, SOAS, London Middle
East Institute, 28 February 2012. 136
M Damluji, ‘’Securing Democracy in Iraq: Sectarian Politics and Segregation in Baghdad’’, TDSR, Volume XXI,
Number 11, 2010. 137
S Tavernise, “Sectarian hatred pulls apart Iraq’s mixed towns”, The New Yorker, 20 November 2005. 138
Zeidel, “Iraq 2009: Some Thoughts about the State of Sectarianism”, September 2009. 139
ibid.
35
sectarian process, now accepted and deeply penetrating in everyone’s “habitus”.140
Sectarianism
has become a culture, where religious affiliation is the defining norm for both political and social
behaviors141
.
4.3 Towards the downward slide of Lebanonization?142
Finally, I would argue that because the post-2003 Iraq was created to maintain the status quo,
it will remain this way. Iraqi state is now too weak to even distance itself from a sectarian
narrative and to be thought through a non-sectarian framework. In fact, ruling “entrepreneurs”143
in Iraq may not even be willing to break away from this status quo as they continue to exploit
sectarianism for their own interest. Indeed, since they reached power, they have kept exploiting
sectarian narrative for their personal
interest. Prime Minister Al Maliki finds in
this narrative an appropriate vocabulary to
sideline opposition associated with the
Sunni-dominated Iraqiya bloc. It reached a
crescendo last December when he called for
a no-confidence vote again Deputy Prime
Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq and issued an arrest warrant for the Vice–President Tariq al-Hashimi.
These sectarian moves raise the fear of a growing authoritarian tendency from Maliki as he is
clearly seeking to concentrate power in his own hands. The prevailing use of sectarian rhetoric is
140
P Bourdieu, Choses dites, Paris: Éditions de minuit, 1987. 141
Makdisi, The Culture of Sectarianism, p.174. 142
Ibid. 143
Davis, “Introduction: The question of sectarian identities in Iraq”, 2010.
“The exiled Iraqis are the exact replica
of those who currently govern us, with
the sole difference that the latter are
already satiated since they have been
robbing us for the past thirty years.
Those who accompany the American
troops will be ravenous”
Cockburn, The Occupation, p. 58.
36
a convenient scapegoat to exclude any highest ranking Sunni from his circle of power.
Nevertheless, in doing so, he is about to reproduce the very exclusivist structures of power set up
by Saddam to guarantee his grip on power.
*
Therefore, until the actual political imagination of those ruling Iraq change, sectarianism is
likely to remain. Abolishing such a system goes hand in hand with addressing clientelism and
corruption in the political sphere. Through this institutionalization of sectarianism, political elites
hinder any potential reform for the future. There is now a reasonable probability that Iraq,
imprisoned in this sectarian culture for too long, will follow the path of Lebanon, a failed country
where society systemically embraces sectarian identities rather than any trans-national Lebanese
identity at the expense of national unity.144
Time has now come for Iraqi society to reject
oppressing political structures narrowing Iraqi way of thinking and to liberate itself before it is
too late. Time has come for Iraqi society to come up against sectarian political machinations
before they turn into societal disintegrations.
144
Salloukh, “Democracy in Lebanon: The Primacy of the Sectarian System.”, 2009.
37
5. General findings and conclusion
This thesis investigates how post-2003 Iraqi institutions were manufacturing a sectarian
culture and how it has strengthened Iraqi citizens’ allegiance to sectarian entrepreneurs. To this
end, this dissertation has mainly examined the drivers of sectarianism and sought to highlight
specific circumstances in which political struggles take on distinctively sectarian overtones, both
symbolically and sociologically. It has strongly rejected the overstated role played by the
Americans in 2003 in turning them into a political tool and has sought to shed light on other
potential drivers of sectarianism more deeply rooted in the history of Iraq. Sectarianism may
have been pushed into the public realm in 2003 by external powerbrokers but its political
foundations lie in a long-lasted process of ancient grievances and rational choice. The unforeseen
consequences of Saddam’s shadow state were reinforced by the nature of opposition groups and
by sectarian entrepreneurs as well as American contributors. In that sense, as I try to diagram
my general findings,145
sectarian construction is not only in the hands of few conscious elites but
a much more diffuse power. Major part of the dissertation was to find the right balance while
neither dismissing its outsider incidence nor underestimating its domestic dynamics.
Analyzing the roots of this specific issue in Iraq was elementary to approach the
complexity of the sectarian phenomenon in post-2003. It helps to detect early origins of the
sectarian process to delineate what still can be done to halt Iraq’s downward slide towards
irreversible consequences. Since much of the final part remains speculative, conclusion can only
be hedged and conditional. Iraqis are now facing a choice: they can either accept the political
145
Cf. Appendix
38
system at it was imposed to them or resist it. Power of sectarian politics dramatically hinders the
creation of a democratic society in Iraq. It squanders any democratic illusion. Without falling
into the trap of fatalism, politics of sectarianism, coupled with the political inaptitude to
empower secular change, is to gain more resonance within the Iraqi society, slowly distracting
attention from genuine social and economic reforms.
39
6. Appendix
The drivers of sectarianism
USA
historical grievances revenge?
Constitution
Elections 2005
Interim Governing Council
from July 2003
INVASION & WAR & OVERTHROW OF THE REGIME
2012
2006-2007 Civil War
PASSIVE FORM
sectarian sensibilities
quasi-absent from
politics and public
sphere
IRAQ OF SADDAM: THE BA’ATHIST IDEOLOGY
MIS
LE
AD
IN
G A
ND
D
IS
TO
RT
ED
R
EA
LIT
IE
S
Iraqi State Nationalism
Sunni Iraqi
Nationalism
Shi’a Iraqi
Nationalism
1979 Saddam
Hussein President
1968 Coup
FR
OM
A P
OL
ITIC
AL
TO
OL
TO
A S
OC
IAL
PR
AC
TIS
E
2003
AGGRESSIVE FORM
worst visible form:
denigrating the others
symbolically and
physically
INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF ETHNO-CONFESSIONAL STATE
PERCEPTION OF MARGINALIZATION BY
THE OUT GROUP
BACKBONE OF THE POST-2003 POLITICAL ELITE
sectarian entrepreneurs
ASSERTIVE FORM
unrestrained assertion
of religious identity into
the public domain
REINSTATE RELIGION AS A NEW FORM OF SELF-IDENTIFICATION
Da’awa
SCIRI
Al Sadr Movement
A PROCESS OF ITS OWN: TOWARDS LEBANONIZATION?
Barometer of the salience of sectarian sensibility within the political and public space
STRENGHTENED
COMMUNAUTARIAN TIES
VIA SHIA RELIGIOUS
ACTIVISM
SUNNI AWAKENING
40
7- Selected bibliography
Books
Al-Khalil, S., Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq, Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1989.
Allawi, Ali A., The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Loosing the Peace, Yale University
Press, 2007.
Anderson, B., Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism,
Verso, 1984.
Ayubi, N., Overstating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East, London: IB
Tauris, 1995.
Batatu, H., The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: A study of Iraq’s
Old Landed and Commercial Classes and of its Communists, Ba’thists and Free Officers,
Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1978.
Bayat, A., Street Politics: Poor People’s Movements in Iran, Columbia University Press, 1997.
Beverley Milton, E. and P. Hinchcliff, Conflicts in the Middle East since 1945: The Making of
the Contemporary World, Routledge, 2008.
Bideleux, R. and I. Jeffries, The Balkans: a post-communist theory, 2007.
Bourdieu, P., Choses dites, Paris: Éditions de minuit, 1987.
Cockburn, P. The occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq, Verso, 2006.
Cordesman, A.H, Iraq’s insurgency and the Road to Civil conflict, Praeger Security
International, 2008.
Corm, G., Liban : les guerres de l’Europe et de l’Orient 1840-1992, Paris : Editions Gallimard,
1992.
Davis, E., Memories of State: Politics, History and Collective Identity in Modern Iraq, Berkeley,
California: University of California Press, 2005.
Dodge, T., S. Simon, Iraq at crossroads: State and Society in the Shadow of Regime Change,
London, Routledge, Oxford University Press, 2003.
Dodge, T., Inventing Iraq: the Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied, New York:
Columbia University Press, 2003.
41
Dodge, T., Iraq’s Future: the aftermath of regime change, The International Institute for
Strategic Studies, 2005.
Foucault, M., Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, Ed. Colin
Gordon, Random House, New York, 1980.
Foucault, M., Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prison, Random House Vintage Books, New
York, 1995.
Gellner, E., Muslim Society, Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Gramsci, A, The Gramsci reader: selected writing 1916-1935,Ed. David Forgacs, New York
University Press, New York, 2000.
Haddad, F., Sectarianism in Iraq: Antagonistic Visions of Unity, Hurst & Company, London,
2011.
Hobbes, T., Leviathan, Ed Richard T., Cambridge University Press, 2006, 9th
Edition.
Jabar, Faleh A., The Shiíte Movement in Iraq, Saqi, London, 2003.
Luizard, J-P., La Question Irakienne, Fayard, 2004.
Makdisi, U., The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History and Violence in Nineteenth-
Century Ottoman Lebanon, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2000.
Marx, K., Capital: The Process of Capitalist Production, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1981.
Migdal, J. S., State in Society; how state and societies transform and constitute one another,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001.
Montesquieu, Spirit of Law, originally published anonymously. 1748. Eds. Anne M. Cohler,
Basia Carolyn Miller, and Harold Samuel Stone. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political
Thought, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989.
Nakash, Y., The Shi’is of Iraq, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 2003.
Olson, M., The Logic of Collective Action, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971.
Polk, W.R., Understanding Iraq: the Whole Sweep of Iraqi History, from Genghis Khan’s
Mongols to the Ottoman Turks to the British Mandate to the American Occupation,
HarperCollin, 2005.
Said, E., Orientalism, Vintage Books, Random House, New York, 1977.
Salloukh, B. “Democracy in Lebanon: The Primacy of the Sectarian System.” In The Struggle
over Democracy in the Middle East, edited by Nathan Brown, and Emad El-Din Shahin,
London: Routledge Press, 2009.
Salvatore, A., The Public Sphere, Palgrave, New York, 2007.
42
Scott, J.C., Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden transcripts, New Haven, Yale, 1990.
Singerman, D., Avenues of Participation: Family, Politics, and Networks in Urban Quarters of
Cairo, Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1995.
Tripp, C., A History of Iraq, Third Edition, Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Weber, M., The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1905. Translated by Stephen
Kalberg (2002), Roxbury Publishing Company, pp.19-35.
Zubaida, S., Islam, the People and the State, Third edition, Routledge, London and New York,
2009.
Zubaida , S., Beyond Islam: a New Understanding of the Middle East, London: I.B Tauris, 2011.
Journal Articles
Baram, A., “Qawmiyya and Wataniyya in Ba’thi Iraq: the search for a New Balance”, Middle
Eastern Studies, vol.19, No.2, April 1983, pp. 188-200.
Baram, A., “Neo-Tribalism in Iraq: Saddam Hussein’s Tribal Policies, 1991-1996”, International
Journal of Middle East Studies, vol.29, no.1, 1997, pp. 1-31.
Bassam, Y., “The political of economy of sectarianism in Iraq”, International Journal of
Contemporary Iraqi Studies, Vol.4:3, 2010.
Damluji, M., ‘’Securing Democracy in Iraq: Sectarian Politics and Segregation in Baghdad’’,
TDSR, Volume XXI, Number 11, 2010.
Davis, E., “Reflections and Politics in Post-Ba’athist Iraq”, Newsletter of the American Academic
Research Institute in Iraq, No. 3-1, Spring 2008, pp.13-15.
Davis, E., “Pensée 3: A sectarian Middle East?’’, International Journal of Middle East Studies,
Vol. 40, Issue 04, 2008, pp. 555-558.
Davis, E., “Introduction: The question of sectarian identities in Iraq”, International Journal of
Contemporary Iraqi Studies, Vol.4:3, 2010, pp. 229-224.
Dawisha, A. “Identity and Political Survival in Saddam’s Iraq”, The Middle East Journal,
Vol.53, No.4, Autumn 1999.
Dawisha, A., “National identity and sub-state sectarian loyalties in Iraq”, International Journal
of Contemporary Iraqi Studies, Vol.4:3, 2010, pp. 243-256.
Dodge, T., “US Intervention and Possible Iraqi Futures”, Survival, The International Institute for
Strategic Studies, Vol.45, no.3, Autumn 2003, pp.103-122.
Huntington, S., “The Clash of Civilization”, Foreign Policy, 73 (3), 1993, pp. 22-49.
43
Ismael, T. Y. and Max Fuller, “The disintegration of Iraq: the manufacturing and politicization of
sectarianism”, International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies, Vol. 2:3, 2010, pp. 443-473.
Khadim, A., “Efforts at cross-ethnic cooperation: the 1920 Revolution and sectarianism identities
in Iraq’’, International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies, Vol.4:3, 2010, pp.275-294.
Lewis, B., “The Roots of Muslim Rage”, The Atlantic, 1990.
Lewis, B., “Islam and Liberal Democracy’’, Atlantic Monthly, Vol.271:2, February 1993, pp. 89-
98.
Luizard, P.-J., “The Iraqi Question from the Inside”, Middle East Report, No.193, 1995, pp.18-
22.
Makdisi, U., ‘’Reconstructing the Nation State: the Modernity of Sectarianism in Lebanon”,
Middle East Report, Vol. 26, Issue 03, 1996.
Mitchell, T. “The Limits of the State Beyond Statist Approaches and Their Critics”, The
American Political Science Review, Vol.85, No.1, 1991.
Rizk Khoury, D., “The Security state and the practice and rhetoric of sectarianism in Iraq”,
International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies, Vol.4:3, 2010.
Stuglett, M. and Peter Sluglett, “The Historiography of Modern Iraq”, The American Historical
Review, 96:5, pp. 1408-1421.
Stuglett, P., “The British, The Sunnis and the Shiís: Social hierarchies of identity under the
British mandate”, International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies, Vol.4:3, 2010.
Suad, J. “Pensée 2 : Sectarianism as Imagined Sociological Concept and Imagined Social
Formation’’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 40, Issue 04, 2008, pp.553-554.
Tripp, C., “After Saddam”, Survival, The International Institute for Strategic Studies, Vol. 44,
no.4, Winter 2002-03, pp.23-27.
Visser, R., “The Territorial aspect of Sectarianism in Iraq”, International Journal of
Contemporary Iraqi Studies, Vol.4:3, 2010.
Zeidel, R., “Iraq 2009: Some Thoughts about the State of Sectarianism”, Center for Iraq Studies,
University of Haifa, September 2009, <http://iraq.haifa.ac.il/index.php/articles/20-iraq-2009-
some-thoughts-about-the-state-of-sectarianism.html>
Zubaida, S., “Iraq: History, Memory, Culture”, International Journal of Middle East Studies,
Vol. 44, 2012, pp.333-345.
“Iraq’s Shiites under Occupation”, International Crisis Group, Middle East Briefing, 9
September 2003. <http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/middle-east-north-africa/iraq-iran-
gulf/iraq/B008-iraqs-shiites-under-occupation.aspx>
44
“Unmaking Iraq: A Constitutional Process Gone Awry”, International Crisis Group Middle East
Briefing, 26 September 2005. <http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/middle-east-north-
africa/iraq-iran-gulf/iraq/B019-unmaking-iraq-a-constitutional-process-gone-awry.aspx>
“The next Iraqi war? Sectarianism and civil conflict”, International Crisis Group, 52, 27
February 2006. < http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/middle-east-north-africa/iraq-iran-
gulf/iraq/052-the-next-iraqi-war-sectarianism-and-civil-conflict.aspx>
“Iraq’s Civil War, the Sadrists and the Surge”, International Crisis Group, 72, 7 February
2008. <http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/middle-east-north-africa/iraq-iran-gulf/iraq/072-
iraqs-civil-war-the-sadrists-and-the-surge.aspx>.
Newspaper Articles
Abdul-Ahad, G., “Corruption in Iraq: ‘Your son is being tortured. He will die if you don’t stay”,
The Guardian, 16 January 2012.
Al-Khoei, H., “Iraqi Sectarianism needs reporting, but not like Associated Press did’’, The
Guardian, 10 April 2012, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/10/iraqi-
sectarianism-shia-sunni-muslims>
Al-Mousawi, H., “Sectarianism in Iraq”, Fair Observer, 19 March 2012, <
http://www.fairobserver.com/article/sectarianism-iraq>
Al-Tamimi, “Iraq faces a new cycle of violence after relative lull’’, GulfNews, 23 July 2012.
Burns J.F., “Iraqi shiite win, but Margin is less than projection’’, The New York Times, 14
February 2005. <http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/14/international/middleeast/14iraq.html>
Cave, D., “In Baghdad, sectarian lines too deadly to cross”, The New York Times, 4 March 2007.
< http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/world/middleeast/04baghdad.html?pagewanted=all>
Makiya, K. “Present at the Disintegration’’, The New York Times, 11 December 2005.
Mukhlis, H., “Voting “yes” to Chaos”, The New York Times, 18 October 2005.
Najm, H. , “February 25th is just the beginning”, Niqash, 24 February 2011. <
http://www.niqash.org/articles/?id=2787>
Salloum,S. “After the Arab Spring: Does Iraq's present day contain seeds of the Middle East's
Future?”, Niqash, 25 November 2011. <http://www.niqash.org/articles/?id=2928
Ramzi, K., “Iraq in 2011: protests, political problems and farewell to the US”, Niqash, 29
December 2011. < http://www.niqash.org/articles/?id=2963>
Tavernise, S. “Sectarian hatred pulls apart Iraq’s mixed towns”, The New Yorker, 20 November
2005.
45
Tripp, C. “What lurks in the shadows”, Times Higher Education, 18 October 2002.
Zubaida, S. “Democracy, Iraq and the Middle East”, Open Democracy, 18 November 2005,
<http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-opening/iraq_3042.jsp>
“Youth movement calls for demonstration tomorrow”, Aswat al-Iraq, 24 February 2012.
“What’s in a name? Iraqis at risk for having ‘dangerous’ first names”, Niqash, 23 May 2012.
< http://www.niqash.org/articles/?id=3056>
Websites
http://www.cpa-iraq.org/regulation
Iraqi Constitution. http://www.uniraq.org/documents/iraqi_constitution.pdf
Films
Iraq in fragments, documentary, James Langley, 2006 2007 Drakes Avenue Pictures Limited
Lectures
Pieri, C., “Between Art and Alienation, the Painted T-Walls in Segmented 2012 Baghdad”,
SOAS, London Middle East Institute, 28 February 2012.
Haddad, F., “Sunni identity and sectarian relations in post-civil war Iraq”, Kuwait Programme on
Development, Governance and Globalisation in the Gulf States, LSE, 25 April 2012.
Recommended