Fault lines
Will Islamism be a feature of post-Saddam Iraq?
May 23, 2003
The Iranian
The conflict in Iraq is a trite, tedious and rather tiresome issue
since the virtual certainty of an American victory was never in
serious doubt. However, watching the zealous religious ceremonies
and bloodletting scenes beamed across on global media does leave
an enquiry if active-Islamism be a feature of post-Saddam Iraq?
The basic concern within international community is that such zeal,
religious enthusiasm and acceptance of pain can be a preamble to
mass breeding grounds of potential new corps of suicide bombers.
I would like to ameliorate the concerns by cross examining the geo-historical
elements that make the stratum of Iraqi society.
Iraq has deep historical ramifications for the Islamic Crescent
and for its future we must look to its past. The actors of the region
have deep stakes in the forthcoming restructuring and realigning
that will inevitably come with the liberation of Iraq.
Naturally of course before a discourse can be launched into the
nuances of Middle Eastern geopolitics, there must be an appreciation
for the pressing concerns of administering and providing for a state,
whose malnourished population teeters precariously on the brink
of expiration shows equal zeal to self flagellate.
Rumi once authored a particularly poignant prose (reproduced from
Bernard Lewis's authoritative text, the "Middle East"):
What is to be done Muslims? I, myself, do not know.
I am neither Christian nor Jew, neither Magian nor Muslim
I am not from East or West, not from land or sea
I am not from the quarries of nature nor from the spheres of heaven
I am not of earth, not of war, not of air, not of fire
...
I am not from India, not from China, not from Bulgar, not from Saqsin.
I am not from the kingdom of the two Iraqs.
I am not from the land of the Khurasan.
...
My place is placeless, my trace is traceless
No body no soul, I am from the soul of souls...
Rumi naturally is trying to imply a state that transcends existence.
However what is of particular interest is his line, "I am not
from the kingdom of the two Iraqs." In the 1400s it was acknowledged
that there existed two Iraqs, Iraqi Arabi and Iraqi Ajami, the former
taken for present day South Iraq and the latter for Khuzestan.
The words of Rumi heed us to remember that geo-historical and socio-economic
factors will ensure the progression of distinct Iraqi region within
distinct cultural sphere, a historical inevitability that will be
hastened by the rise of a loose Iraqi federation.
There is a primary reason in that Iraq does not have a history
of strong Islamist movement
and like other Middle Eastern populaces the Iraqis have strong tribal
& clan connexions that prevent the formation of an Islamic state.
The congregation of the '40th day' is a deep seated Shiite tradition
that dates back to the heart of schism between Sunni and Shiite
Islam. For Wahabis this is heresy for Shiites it is emulation of
the pain Hussein felt. They commemorate the killing of one of the
most revered figures, Imam Hussein.
Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, died rebelling against
the Sunni Muslim authority of the Umayyads, who allegedly usurped
the power from the house of Bani -Hashim in the year 670 AD. The
occasion is observed with same emotions over centuries in Iran and
all the Shiite land. In Iran, the blood-letting is banned and many
fatwas, or religious rulings, have been issued declaring the custom
forbidden.
I was recently queried if the masses of Iraq after the fall of
dictatorship need a new obsession. It is distressing to see people
caught up within trials of history so deficiently, will they ever
shatter this linkage from the past. I am an optimist that they would.
In absence of freedom of expression religious venting may have
been the best occasion to show dissent. May be the whole phenomenon
is based on suppression that Shiites have suffered under a Sunni
dominated regime. Will this tradition break into oblivion soon?
No
however, may be it will transform into more organised human expression
that is the best hope.
Iraqis at any rate are historically a very secular population and
seem alien to the orthodox "desert" Islam that is said
to be practised from Morocco to Pakistan (whereas the lands from
Bangladesh to Indonesia practise the variant known as "Monsoon
Islam" derived significantly from Hindu culture).
As the war taught us, Iraq is pretty much a few scattered cities
in Al-Jazirah (the island between the Tigris and the Euphrates)
and the tribes in the desert as far as the eye can see.
In the years of infrastructure and redevelopment, the possibility
of the population turning to extremist Islam seems rather far-fetched
for relatively active and burgeoning
economies tend to have politically apathetic populations.
Critically the fault lines of Iraq are quite unstable, due to the
imposition of artificial bounders, however it can be discerned with
relative ease. The topographicaland ethnic nature of the country
gives rise to fundamental divisions, the mountainous north, part
of
the Iranian world, whereas the populous south is a Mesopotamian
based culture straddling four nations and the sparsely populated
westerly Sunni provinces part of a tribal Arab culture.
It is only within cosmopolitan Baghdad that these distinct cultures
are able to interact within a framework and that gives hope to an
autonomous federation, which will be able
to satiate the political aspirations of the Iraqi peoples for the
next few decades until the regions begin to diverge.
Iraq historically has been at the periphery of the Iranian world
and has been deeply influenced by Persian culture. Iraq's premier
city, Baghdad, was the centre of the flowering Persian culture and
thought. One can discern the underlying trends of the Iraqi shift
towards Persia with the rise and fall of its capitols.
Babylon, the heart of the ancient world, was by the banks of the
Euphrates River and representative of an indigenous Mesopotamian
civilisation. In 275 AD its inhabitants were removed to the banks
of the Tigris to Seleucia, the capital of the Hellenic Diadochi,
and this was later superseded by the Persian capital of Ctesphion
on the west bank of the Tigris.
Finally after the onslaught of the Islamic hordes, a new city
was built on the eastern banks of the Tigris and literally constructed
from the ruins of Ctesphion. Named "Madinat al Islam",
city of peace, it soon took the name of the outlying Persian village,
Baghdad. Thus Iraq's history has been that of the intermediary influence
between Iranian civilisation and the Arab world.
Iraq is not Iranian, despite significant and at times overwhelming
Persian influence, because Iranian civilisation has traditionally
existed on high plateaus and mountainous ranges as opposed to the
Mesopotamian and Indus cultures, primarily based on
alluvial plains and river valleys.
The ultimate boundary between Iran & Iraq is the Zagros mountain
range for it implies the shift from the Arabic-Mesopotamian river
valley culture to Iranian civilisation, which endures in high plateaus.
The flat plains of South Iraq blend into the Arabic-speaking Khuzestan
province of South East Iran whence from there begins the Zagros
Range.
The Iran-Iraq political border is divided by the Shatt-al-Arab,
which is the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates. This is an
unsatisfactory boundary, highlighted over a century ago by the prescient
Lord Curzon on his lectures on "Frontiers", that a river
should not serve as a boundary since it is traversable and cultural
affinities tends to extend to both sides of the river (unlike a
mountain range where isolated populations can exist in fertile pockets).
Iraqi Shi'ism does not allow for a strong religious presence in
the government, the Ayatollahs may be running the show in Basra
but they are theologically prohibited from wielding power in the
style of Khomeini. It isn't in the culture of south Iraq (or of
any other Islamic nation) to embrace a theocratic form of government
as in Iran.
Iraqi Kurds are notoriously secular (though their Turkish counterparts
vehemently practise Islam to flaunt Islamic values to secular Turkey)
and at any rate I believe they practise a variant of Sunni Islam
that is quite heterodox.
The Sunni Arabs of Mesopt (middle and Western Iraq, Baghdad etc)
were the
bulwarks of Arab nationalism and are least prone to adopting Islam.
Liberalism in Iraq will have to be an organic outgrowth of that
nation's culture; it will be the final test whether Islamic cultures
can allow for liberal democracies in the Western mould.
I would hazard that the institutions, which will arise in Iraq
will be a direct consequence of that nation's heritage (much as
in Japan where the democratic structure has been adapted to the
indigenous Japanese cultures and Keiretsu survives despite the destruction
of the 4
Zaibatsus).
Saddam and Ba'athism was a perversion of traditional Iraqi culture
and impeded the evolution of a nation state. What will be the result
of the invasion is the reversion to the indigenous trends and geopolitical
fault lines in Iraq.
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