This article was downloaded by: [Tel Aviv University] On: 22 January 2014, At: 00:29 Publisher: Routledge

Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcri20

NATIONALISM IN POSTIMPERIAL IRAQ: THE COMPLEXITIES OF COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

Liora Lukitz Published online: 06 Apr 2009. To cite this article: Liora Lukitz (2009) NATIONALISM IN POSTIMPERIAL IRAQ: THE COMPLEXITIES OF COLLECTIVE IDENTITY, Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society, 21:1, 5-20, DOI: 10.1080/08913810902812123 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08913810902812123

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the Content) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly

or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/termsand-conditions

Downloaded by [Tel Aviv University] at 00:29 22 January 2014

Liora Lukitz

NATIONALISM IN POST-IMPERIAL IRAQ: THE COMPLEXITIES OF COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

ShelleyBarry 0891-3811 Original Critical 2009 0 1 21 Shelley.Barry@informa.com 000002009 Review Article (print)/1933-8007 Foundation (online) Taylor 10.1080/08913810902812123 RCRI_A_381382.sgm and Francis

Downloaded by [Tel Aviv University] at 00:29 22 January 2014

Nationalism developed in Iraq before the creation of the modern state. As elsewhere, the basic European idea of modern nationalism took root quickly and widely, but it took the form of Arab/Iraqi nationalism and Kurdish proto-nationalism in the first decade of state formation. Shii, Sunni, and leftist/ liberal variants of nationalism evolved in the decades that followedbut all were forms of Iraqi nationalism, in which the legitimacy of the Iraqi state was taken for granted. Those who assumed that religious differences would be fatal to the viability of the Iraqi state have overlooked the evolution of Iraqis senses of identity, and the power of nationalist identification.
There may be a consensus on the need for modernity: there is only incertitude about the shapes it is taking. Clifford Geertz (1995, 142)

ABSTRACT:

The basic facts about Iraq are readily available and have been widely discussed, so much so that their status as the most important factswhich is, of course, a matter of interpretationhas often been ignored. This has led to a simplified picture of Iraqis as being exclusively defined by their religious differences, and has led to the conclusion that the prospects of successful or unsuccessful statehood can easily be predicted.

Liora Lukitz, c/o Critical Review Foundation, P.O. Box 869, Helotes, TX 78023, is the author, inter alia, of Iraq: The Search for National Identity, 19211960 (Frank Cass, 1995) and A Quest in the Middle East: Gertrude Bell and the Making of Modern Iraq (I.B. Taurus, 2005). Critical Review 21(1): 520 2009 Critical Review Foundation ISSN 0891-3811 print, 1933-8007 online DOI: 10.1080/08913810902812123

Critical Review Vol. 21, No. 1

Among these basic facts: Iraq was carved out of the remains of the Ottoman Empire by Britain, which tended to cooperate with the Sunnis in preference to the Shiis and the non-Arab Kurds. Before ending its mandate over Iraq in 1932, Britain endowed the new country with a monarchy that was approved by plebiscite in 1921, but was overthrown in 1958, when Iraq was proclaimed a republic. The secularist, urban, and mostly Sunni Baath party took power in 1963 and, after having been overthrown, took power again in 1968. The Baathist leader Saddam Hussein became the president of Iraq in 1979 and engaged in a disastrous war with Iran that lasted until 1988. During his reign, he ruthlessly suppressed the Kurds and, in 1990, invaded Kuwait. Saddams forces withdrew from Kuwait due to the intervention of an American-led coalition in the Gulf War, after which rebellions among both the Kurds in the north and the Shiis in the south were put down brutally. Evidence that Iraq had been surprisingly close to gaining nuclear-weapons technology resulted in UNsupervised economic sanctions. After 9/11, the United States invaded Iraq for a second time when the American confrontation with Saddam over WMDs reached another deadlock. The invasion also had other aims: among them, substituting democracy for Saddams dictatorial regime. Many more facts could be adduced, of course, to fill in these bare outlines of Iraqi history. But the outline version alone has proved sufficient for many political commentators to conclude that modern Iraq is an ungovernable, artificial nation-state that was kept together only by the hegemony of three empires (if the United States is counted as the third)and, prior to the toppling of Saddam, by a militaristic police state. This paper does not directly address these still-topical Western political inferences, but it does try to make sense of whether Iraqi nationalism is more artificial than that of any other country, in that it yokes together two religious groups (the Sunni and the Shii) and a third ethnocultural group (the Kurds), that, in the conventional wisdom, have little in common but a history of imperial subjugation. It is true that such differences, and others, led to different identities that were affected unevenly by the process of Iraqi state formation, and that these different identities re-emerged with the end of the Hussein regimes attempts to impose a monolithic vision of Iraqi nationalism. But that was not the only vision of Iraqi nationalism. The simplistic view of irreconcilable group differences overlooks the power of nationalism and its inherent complexity: that is, the endless ways in which the nation can be interpreted culturally. The superficially clear divisions among

Downloaded by [Tel Aviv University] at 00:29 22 January 2014

Lukitz Nationalism in Post-Imperial Iraq

Iraqis do not necessarily supersede the emotive and psychological appeal of nationalist ideology. And, indeed, the differences in Iraq have been primarily expressed by different versions of what Iraqi identity means.

Nationalism and Modernity

There is a classical view of nationalism according to which Saddams project should, in principle, have worked. According to this view, a countrys road to modernity implies a natural merging of old, communal loyalties into a new, nationally focused identity, represented by the state. This approach also implies a steady substitution by the state for the traditional function formerly provided by the communitybe it a tribal, religious, or ethnic-linguistic community: the function of providing physical, social, and economic security. The rationale is that the states institutions, which are indispensable to forging a modern society, enable its citizens to dispense with the old identities and adopt the modern state as the locus of their new identity. The problem is not so much that the classical view is wrong but that it is too simplistic. Given the complexities of Iraqs nationalism (Batatu 1978), we need both an understanding of the variants of modern nationalism and of the patterns and intensities of these variants when they interact at different times over the course of the nation-building process. Such an understanding, however, is at odds with the more recent view that post-2003 developments have shown that Iraq is ineluctably divided, given the strategic jockeying among supposedly incompatible identities: Shii, Sunni and Kurdish. These three identities are, it is widely thought, contradictory end points of the development of the self-images and interests of Iraqis. To complexify this view, one need only consider the popular enthusiasm that greeted the victory of the Iraqi soccer team in the Asian Cup tournament in the summer of 2007. Iraqis poured into the streets, somehow overcoming their differences to celebrate their victory against the other. The psychological research on nationalism (e.g., Tajfel 1981; see Tyrrell 1996) suggests that this type of unity is at work whether the other is a mere sports team, another state, or an international power. At this writing (January, 2009), sectarian conflicts seem have passed their most violent stages, and cross-sectarian coalitions are being formed that center on political issues such as future relations with such others

Downloaded by [Tel Aviv University] at 00:29 22 January 2014

Critical Review Vol. 21, No. 1

as the United States, various countries in the Middle East, and, most of all, Iran. There are also the questions of Iraqs reintegration into the predominantly Sunni Arab world; the recruitment of the Sunni tribal Sons of Iraq to the Iraqi Security Forces; and whether Kirkuk should be included among the areas administrated by the Kurdish Regional Government. The debate between federalists and centrists (i.e., centralists) infuses all of these issues. The centrists believe in the importance of a centralized state structure in preserving Iraqs territorial integrity and an historically anchored Iraqi identity. The federalists claim that Iraqi identity would not suffer if the provinces were allowed a certain measure of administrative freedom, mainly concerning the cultural and religious prerogatives of the various segments of Iraqs population and a greater say in the management of natural resources (i.e., oil) in the regions. This devolution of authority to the provinces would, in some views, also prevent the winning party in the struggle over Baghdad from imposing its version of Iraqi identity on the rest of the country. The ongoing debate over federalism did not prevent the adoption of a new legislative package in February, 2008, after months of contentious deliberations. This act represented an important step forward, freeing the political process from narrowly sectarian agendas. Although the process leading to this outcome was, in part, an exercise in inter-communal negotiations and ad-hoc tradeoffs, it was a landmark in the establishment of a common Iraqi interest as a central goal of Iraqi politics. Together with other crucial measuressuch as a provision regulating the relationship between Baghdad and provincial administrations, and the proportional allocation of oil revenues to the populations of the different areasthe most controversial measure in the package, the Provincial Powers Law, reversed the pattern of a highly centralized government by enforcing article 122 of the constitution, rather than the more centralist articles 114 and 115.1 The devolution of power to the provinces remains mitigated, however, by articles 110, 111, and 112, which underscore the central governments supremacy in all questions related to national security, foreign policy, hydrocarbons, and customs. In these and subsequent developments, we are witnessing a new stage in a long debate over the political implications of a process in which the essence of Iraq-ness has widened, such that the cross-sectarian political alliances and coalitions indicate a merging of different visions of Iraqs futurenot just the parties immediate or material interests. Moreover, all sides take for granted the reality of an Iraqi national identity, and,

Downloaded by [Tel Aviv University] at 00:29 22 January 2014

Lukitz Nationalism in Post-Imperial Iraq

Downloaded by [Tel Aviv University] at 00:29 22 January 2014

therefore, the desirability of an integrated Iraqi state, notwithstanding possible administrative arrangements. The recourse by all parties to successful parliamentary negotiations surprised analysts who believed in the predominance of strategic interestssuch as the Sunnis possible desire for greater autonomy in predominantly Sunni areas. It did not surprise historians, however, who were more attuned to the Sunnis historically focused vision of a united, centralist, and Sunni-controlled Iraq. Similarly, within the Shii camp, the Sadrists opposition to the Provincial Powers Law stemmed from their own vision of a united Iraq (under Muqtada al-Sadr, they hoped). The tactical alliance between Sunni and Shii centrist groups did not erase their different perceptions of Iraqs identity as, respectively, either predominantly Sunni or significantly Shii. But it did mean that both groups now saw themselves as partners in the preservation of Iraqs territorial integrity and in creating a unifying vision of Iraq-ness, in spite of the still-underlying tensions regarding its content and their respective roles in determining it. In Iraq, as in other countries, such debates do not undermine the universally shared assumption among the disputants that they are Iraqis (or Americans or Chinese); this assumption of a common national identity makes such debates possible. In Iraq, or course, the debate is more sensitive, because it takes place after decades of repression, in which state building equaled centralism and homogeneity. Now, various repressed ideas of Iraqi nationhood are acting at the same time, and ideas about what unites them are also re-emerging.

Iraqi Nationalism under the Ottomans and the British

The geographical notion of al-Iraq has its origins in the name of the Sumerian city Uruk (the Biblical Erech), and is also found in the Persian name Erak Arabi, which refers to the areas in southeastern Iraq that had been conquered by the Sassanid Empire. Despite these age-old antecedents, however, Iraq was not always considered a contiguous administrative unit, especially after the penetration of Western powers into the region that began with Napoleons invasion of Egypt in 1798. Among the reactions of the Ottoman Empire to this first encounter with modernity were attempts at constitutional and administrative reforms, and these often shifted the vague borders between the provinces. There was also the question of the provinces relationships with each other and with

10

Critical Review Vol. 21, No. 1

Istanbul. (More often than not, Ottoman walis in Baghdad governed Basra and Mosul as sub-units.)2 A second impulse to modernization was felt after the arrival in Baghdad of the entrepreneurial administrator Midhat Pasha in 1869. He established a land-registration system and other measures aiming at the settlement of tribes, and pushed for laws defining the nature of the states authority over the lives of the inhabitants. He also introduced such innovative steps as schemes for popular participation in the administration of the provinces through a system of councils formed by local notables. Modernization also came to mean the creation of a network of schools, hospitals, orphanages, military factories, and newspapers. As modernization occurred, new relationships developed among the three main provinces (Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul); their boundaries became better defined (Tripp 2000, 15), and the importance and diversity of Mosul and Basra were preserved (Longrigg 1953, 1920; Longrigg 1925, 8, 25355, 28889, 31224). These developments were the precursors of the formative period of Iraqi modern nationalism, which occurred after the accession to power of the Young Turks in 1908 led to a widening gap between Turkish and Arab nationalisms. While a Sunni-led, nationalist resistance to Turkish domination developed in the Arab areas of the Ottoman empire, the Shiis reacted to the Young Turks in two different ways. In the urban centers they gradually adopted more modern, secular approaches to government and selfidentity; but the Shiis in the southern provinces of Iraq, more influenced by the religious leaders, opposed the Young Turks even more stridently than they had opposed the Sultan (as a temporal ruler) because of the new leaders secularist and Turkish-centric nationalist policies (Longrigg 1953, 4151). To these Shiistribesmen at different stages of settlement progress meant greater freedom of expression for their religion and their way of life. The first modern versions of an Iraqi nationalism developed among members of al-Ahd al-Iraqi (the Iraqi Covenant), formed by Iraqi officers serving in the Ottoman army. The different paths taken by al-Ahds most prominent members in the following years would prove to be immensely important. For some, such as Nuri al-Said, full independence could be achieved only through collaboration with Britain. Others, such as Rashid Ali, linked full independence to a rejection of Britains presence and of the treaties signed with Britain. Variations also emerged regarding the form, shape, and essence of independence. To the dream

Downloaded by [Tel Aviv University] at 00:29 22 January 2014

Lukitz Nationalism in Post-Imperial Iraq

11

of an independent Arab state that would at first join Iraq and Syria (encompassing Lebanon and Palestine), different local elements were added, depending on the dominant political trends at specific historical junctures. Thus, Iraqi nationalists claimed historical continuity with the Mesopotamian and Babylonian civilizations to reinforce feelings of local pride, yet they did not relinquish the idea of becoming the nucleus of the united Arab state that would, they hoped, expand to the neighboring Arab countries. Although it failed to materialize, this vision was revived decades later as the ideological basis of Pan-Arabism (Farouk-Sluglett and Sluglett 1987, 1622). For the nationalists of al-Ahd, the first step would be to place Iraq and Syria under a single mandatory power and prepare them for independence and unity. When this plan proved unachievable, Iraqi nationalism evolved in two directions. One still focused on the wider region while the second turned inward, fostering an Iraq-based nationalism proper. These two interpretations of Iraqi nationalism (originally referred to as qawmiya and wataniya) clashed ideologically and politically over time, but Iraqi nationalism in a broader sense was now seen as a political necessity, and had to be mentioned by all political movements as a main component in any political agenda. (ibid., Sluglett [1976] 2007; Lukitz 2006, 10873). The British, too, were divided over the best way to control Iraq and prepare it for independence. (Having conquered the Ottoman provinces of Baghdad, Mosul, and Basra during World War I, they would not cede total control until 1932.) Col. A. T. Wilson, the Acting Civil Commissioner (19181920), conceived a system of administrative divisions that contradicted the nationalists claims for a territorial unity based on Baghdads exclusive role as political and administrative center. Inspired by the model of colonial administration in India, Wilson held that a relatively decentralized system could take account of the different needs and realities of the urban and tribal parts of Iraq and in the predominantly Sunni, Shii, and Kurdish areas. Wilsons scheme was never implemented, however. The enormously high cost of keeping British troops in Iraq in sufficient quantities to maintain order required the British to find ways to collaborate with the Ahd members, who considered a centralist administration as part and parcel of statehood. Gertrude Bell, the Residences Oriental Secretary, was convinced by the nationalists arguments and successfully pulled many strings to prevent Wilsons scheme from materializing (Lukitz 2006, 12538).

Downloaded by [Tel Aviv University] at 00:29 22 January 2014

12

Critical Review Vol. 21, No. 1

Britains designation as Iraqs mandatory power in 1920 popularized nationalistic feelings, and waves of protest reinforced a general desire to see Iraq as a totally independent state. Dissatisfaction with the possibility of a prolonged British presence led to the convergence of different groups that were nationalistic in essence, but still differed in their interpretation of how to implement Iraqi nationalism. Thus, as tensions increased, a local incident sparked a tribal rebellion that came to represent the tribes unwillingness to accept the British version of progress (according to which the tribes had to pay tribute and money to a state under foreign control). The tribal rebellion of 1920 is considered a pivotal historical event, a symbol of Iraqs national struggleand the ultimate indication of a commonality of goals: proof that Sunni and Shii could collaborate against a foreign power (Marr 1985, 3133). For the tribes, meanwhile, it meant not only the rejection of the other, but opposition to a type of Western modernity that infringed on their customary way of life. Despite the resistance of tribal and urban nationalists alike to the British presence, the British continued to influence the new government of King Feisal I on such crucial issues as the election of a constitutional assembly, the introduction of standardized education, and the creation of a national army. Under the monarchy, areas with mixed populations expanded in and around urban centers; an embryonic middle class of bureaucrats, civil servants, shopkeepers, and middlemen gained political power gradually over the next decades (Marr 1985). But the conflicts that erupted are not adequately captured by sharp distinctions between the Sunni cities and a Shii countryside. The urban versus tribal dichotomy does not entirely reflect the array of social, ethnic, and religious differences at work in the cities and areas whose mixed populations had to cope with new ways of life. Nor are these differences captured by treating Sunni and Shii (and Kurd) as fundamentally antagonistic. The nature of their confrontations, and attempts to circumvent them, evolved with time.

Downloaded by [Tel Aviv University] at 00:29 22 January 2014

Sunni, Shii, and Kurd

Confrontations between Arabs and Kurds had punctuated the first decades of modern statehood. In fact, Kurdish nationalists had attempted to place the Kurdish areas under direct British mandate even before Iraqs independence, to avoid legitimizing the principle of Arabs ruling the

Lukitz Nationalism in Post-Imperial Iraq

13

Kurds. But local and regional rivalries, and problems with the Kurds political agenda, contributed to the failure of the Kurds to achieve their interim goal. The British took the side of the more powerful Arab movement, collaborating with the nascent Iraqi army in its efforts to nip the Kurdish movement in the bud. The Kurds, however, who had already opposed the appointment of Feisal I as ruler of Iraqs Kurdish areas in 1921, renewed their protests in the years to come. Their aim was to safeguard their rights to live as Kurds rather than as Arabized citizens of the new state. One of the concerns shared by the British and by the Sunnis was that autonomy for the Kurds might lead to demands for similar privileges by the Shiis in the Euphrates area (Longrigg 1953, 196). The worry here was that while the Shiis in urban areas were at the forefront of the nationalist movement, those in the countryside clung to a traditional vision of social relations shaped, mainly, by obedience to tribal and religious authority. These traditions, however, did not actually preclude identification with Iraq as a state, or awareness that they needed to collaborate with the Sunnis to achieve independence (Luizard 1991). In fact, religious gatherings portraying a commonality of purpose had already become symbols of national unity (ibid.; Nakash 1994) in spite of Sunni-Shii theological differences, and despite the influence of Iran, the home of Shiism. Thus, there were failed attempts at secession in the Basra area in the early and late 1920s (Visser 2007). But while Irans influence continued to accord a pan-Shii character to the Shii religious centers (Najaf, Karbala, Kufa, and Kazimain), which retained varying degrees of autonomy, Iraqs Shiis had underlying ties to Iraqs Sunnis, and they clung to their common Arab tribal and cultural values. Thus, an emergent Iraqi Shii identity differed from the Iranian variant not in doctrinal matters, but in the way Shii doctrine interacted with politics and economics in Iraq as opposed to Iran (Nakash 1994, xvii, 67, 26970). The conflicts of Iraqi Shiis with Iraqi Sunnis were motivated secondarily by rivalry for better positions in government and greater access to power; and primarily by the Sunnis rejection of the Shiis right to maintain the Shii facet of their identity and to imprint it on the common Iraqi national identity. Hence the importance of festivities and rituals such as the ashura.3 The symbolism of the ashura as a struggle against injustice, oppression, and tyranny came to have a directly political meaning that was a standing threat to overbearing Sunni rulers. Conversely, however, Iraqi Shiis had enough of an Iraqi identity that they have continuously resisted Iranian efforts to manipulate them.

Downloaded by [Tel Aviv University] at 00:29 22 January 2014

14

Critical Review Vol. 21, No. 1

Downloaded by [Tel Aviv University] at 00:29 22 January 2014

The real problem for Iraqi nationalism, both with regard to the Shiis and the Kurds, has been the Sunnis attempt to define Iraqi identity as entailing Arab Sunni cultural and political supremacy. The Sunni rulers attempts to diminish the power of the Shii religious leaders could not fail to generate a counter-reaction. Thus, for example, Sati al-Husri, the Sunni founder of Iraqs secular educational system, envisaged a redemption of Arab geopolitical unitywhich had been arbitrarily sundered by the Ottomans and the Westbased on unity of language and territory. Accordingly, Arab peoples rights were defined in terms of modern, i.e., Western, theories of nationalism (Farouk-Sluglett and Sluglett 1987; Cleveland 1971), which were not always compatible with the realities in the Arab countries, and Iraq in particular.

Nationalism after Empire: Socialism, Liberalism, and Religion

Although secularism shaped nationalism all over the Middle East, it affected Iraq in a special way, where the idea of the nation permeated two or three distinct religious and social systems. While Sunnis and Shiis in urban centers and mixed areas were more attuned to the idea of a modern secular nation-state, the Shiis in the southern heartlands found the secular version of modernity doubtful and, in some cases, unacceptable. Other early centralizing measures taken by Iraqs Sunni rulers, among them military conscriptionwhich would diminish the tribal sheikhs power and their control over their own defense corps (Tripp 2000, 3065)were seen by the Shiis and Kurds as steps toward an alien form of modernity. They entailed interference with traditional ways and age-old rights; imposition of new behavioral codes; and, no less important, control of communal funds by the central government. None of these interpretations of modernity was compatible with the needs and aspirations of the inhabitants in the provinces: religious in the case of the Shiis; linguistic and political in the case of the Kurds. Leftist ideology was taken for granted among the nationalist elites of the postwar era, and attempts to link Iraqi nationalism to social causes were well-nigh universal in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Socialism dominated the platform not only of the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP), but also of less-structured parties and factions. Leftist doctrines were routinely imbued with nationalist slogans, and vice versa. In practice, all

Lukitz Nationalism in Post-Imperial Iraq

15

the rising forces on Iraqs political scene during the late 1950s and 1960s, including the Baath Party, had to borrow from the leftist conceptual world if they were to advance their own nationalist agendas (Farouk-Sluglett and Sluglett 1987). The seeds of this development were sown in the 1940s with the formation of liberal parties, among them the National Democratic Party (NDP), an outgrowth of the Ahali group. The NDP incorporated messages of social and economic justice in its modernizing nationalist agenda. Rather than ishtirakiya (socialism), less radical terms such as shabiya (populism) were used to refer to social reform, economic welfare, freedom, and equal opportunityboth of the individual and the ethnic, cultural, and religious varieties. Another version of nationalism that developed during the 1940s drew on National Socialist and Fascist models that represented ideological opposition to Britains more direct influence during the war. Similarly, the ICPs influence in the late 1940s and 1950s was connected with its ability to capitalize not only on Soviet ideological support, but on its own combination of nationalism with a message of social and economic equality; and on the anti-British implications of both (Farouk-Sluglett and Sluglett 1987, 2223). The monarchy was overthrown in 1958 by the Free Officers, who came to be opposed by the Baath party. Among the Fee Officers, Col Abd al-Salam Aref and Col. Abd al-Karim Qasim, respectively, favored and opposed Egyptian president Gamal Abd al-Nasers active Pan-Arabism and his establishment, in 1958, of the United Arab Republic (UAR). However, opposition to the UAR led Qasim to search for support from the leftist parties under the rubric of an Iraq first agenda, where redressing economic and social inequalities took priority over regional Arab nationalism (Lukitz 1995, 14244) The Baath combined this socialist tendency with a new version of PanArabism. These were movements that primarily appealed to the educated middle classes. But starting in the 1950s and the 1960s in the southern Shii areas, socialist ideology was challenged by the Shii religious leaders, the mujtahids, who called for a return to the religious sources of Shii identity. The main exponent of this intellectual current was a young alim, Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, a brilliant thinker whose two books, Falsafatuna (Our Philosophy) in 1959 and Iqtisaduna (Our Economy) in 1961, tried to adapt the precepts of the Shii faith and traditional jurisprudence to the needs of modern Islamic societies (Mottahedeh 2003,

Downloaded by [Tel Aviv University] at 00:29 22 January 2014

16

Critical Review Vol. 21, No. 1

Downloaded by [Tel Aviv University] at 00:29 22 January 2014

133; Baram 1994, 53188; Bengio 1985, 410). As a founder of alDawa al-Islamiya (The Islamic Call), Baqir al-Sadr offered his followers new approaches to modernity that were based on their own traditions. The return to religion corresponded to the anti-secular reaction that occurred across the Middle East in the postwar decades and that grew stronger during the mid-1970s, reaching its height after the Islamic Revolution in Iran (1979). In reaction, Saddam Hussein initially tried to win over the Shiis by refurbishing the main shrines and mosques, by nationalizing Shii religious rituals and commemorations, even while infusing Iraqi nationalism with Mesopotamian, pre-Islamic content (Baram 1991). Eventually, however, when this did not work, Saddam met the Shii religious radicalization with a campaign of persecution during which their allegiance to the state was put in question, particularly during the long Iran-Iraq war. Thus, after Saddams military defeat in the Gulf War, a Shii rebellion spread from Basra to Najaf, but it, along with the Kurdish rebellion in the north, was cruelly crushed. Under the subsequent sanctions regime, however, the gradual crumbling of the Baath ideological edifice revived the identities Saddam had tried to suppress, often with new meanings attached to them. It was not so much the doctrinal differences between Sunnis and Shiis that were at the basis of this development, but, as before, the attempt of the Shii ulama to underscore Islam as part of a Shii identity that was no less Iraqi than the official one. Only later did Saddam begin to understand the underlying opposition to modernization and try to pose as a champion of Islam. By then it was too late.

Iraqi Nationalism, Theory, and History

Previous studies of the nature, evolution and historical role of nationalism in the Middle East have tended to recapitulate the classic debate over whether nationalism is a matter of peoples subjective ideasan ideological style of politics, as emphasized by Elie Kedourie and John Breuillyor whether it is primordially rooted in real, non-cultural sources (Kedourie 1993; Breuilly 1994; Smith 1986; Gershoni and Jankowski 1997). What seems to have happened in Iraq, however, is the infusion of Iraqi nationalism with all sorts of shifting identitiesreligious, ethnic, social, economic, and tribalbased on how participants in nationalist politics identified themselves over time.

Lukitz Nationalism in Post-Imperial Iraq

17

Participation in national politics was, of course, quite restricted prior to 2003. But I hope to have shown how the divisions that, after the American invasion, first took the form of religious conflict were already being expressed by the competing nationalisms of post-imperial and Baathist Iraq. The major break between the Baathist and the postSaddam era is that democratic politics has thrown these competing visions of Iraqi nationalism into the political arena, in which they are becoming more encompassing: so much so that even Kurdish nationalists are, to a great extent, participating in the definition of an Iraq in which all of those within the borders of the state hived off from the Ottoman empire can live. Attempting to understand Iraqi nationalism in the context of a complex, pluralist society naturally calls to mind the theorist Miroslav Hroch (1996, 7897), for whom the nation is not eternal, but rather is the product of a long and complex process of historical development. In Hrochs view, a nation can be defined as a large social group integrated not by one but by a combination of several kinds of objective relationships (economic, political, linguistic, cultural, religious, geographical, historical) and their subjective reflection in collective consciousness. For this to happen, three main conditions are essential, according to Hroch (1996): (a) there must be a memory of a common past, which Hroch refers to as a groups destiny; (b) there must be linguistic or cultural ties that enable a higher degree of social communication within the group than beyond it; and (c) there must be a conception of equality between members of the group, organized as a civil society. In the context of Iraq, item (a) is the constantly reiterated idea that a common pastincluding, but not restricted to, the conflicts with the Ottoman, British, Iranian, and American otherslinks all Iraqis. Item (b) suggests the tight linguistic and cultural bonds between Iraqs Arabs, both Sunni and Shii, as a basis for social communication and political collaboration. The events of the last few years may be interpreted as Iraqis working on item (c). In another work, Hroch (2000) posits a three-stage process of nationalist mobilization: (1) heightened cultural awareness of national distinctiveness, especially among the intelligentsia; (2) formation of a nationalist political program; and (3) mass mobilization on behalf of this program. All of these were common features in Iraq during the first decades of state formation; they remain all-too-conspicuous in Iraqs Kurdish areas at present. There, the question is whether Iraqs Kurds, now enjoying

Downloaded by [Tel Aviv University] at 00:29 22 January 2014

18

Critical Review Vol. 21, No. 1

unprecedented autonomy, will continue in the path on which democratic politics has set them since the American invasion: pushing for an Iraqi federalism that would ultimately require them to think of themselves first and foremost as Iraqi Kurds. The role of the Kurdish educated classes is overwhelmingly important in leading the Kurds at this stage, as is the role of the educated classes among the Sunnis and the Shiis. In the case of the latter, religious leaders are now fulfilling an important role as the politically focused intelligentsia imbued with an educational mission. The disagreements over Iraqi identity may be said chiefly to concern its elements, content, and implementation rather than its legitimacy. Theoretically, this can be accounted for by the fact that, as in Hrochs view, the identity of individuals and groups is a matter of selfperception, which may change over time, and may thereby contradict easy assumptions about the inherent fixity and supremacy of religious identity, for example. The recent intersectarian alliances, and the role of the tribes in fighting off the Islamist insurgency, underscore how simplistic such interpretations are. At the same time that these developments put paid to the assumption that Iraq must fly apart without an imperialist or tyrannical force to keep it together, they bode well for the evolution of a unifying idea of Iraq-ness that is more acceptable to all factions. The complexities revealed by an historical approach to Iraqi nationalism suggest that where many observers saw merely coexisting identities, there was actually evolution based on gradually changing self-perceptionschanging interpretations of the overarching idea of Iraq. In this respect, nationalism is more than just an accident spawned by European thinkers; it is also inherent in conditions of time and place (Gellner 1983, 125). I do not pretend that my observations predict that a sufficiently encompassing Iraqi identity will soon emerge; to do so, I would have to know what self-perceptions future conditions of time and place might prompt. The role of the historian is more modestly backward looking. As Clifford Geertz (1995, 142) put it, What we can construct are hindsight accounts of the connectedness of things that we see to have happened: pieced together . . . after the fact.
NOTES 1. Article 114 regulates electric energy, water distribution and environmental policies as well as education.

Downloaded by [Tel Aviv University] at 00:29 22 January 2014

Lukitz Nationalism in Post-Imperial Iraq

2.

19

3.

Basra became a sanjaq of Baghdad until its reconstruction as a separate wilaya (province) in 1875. Mosul became a separate wilaya again in 1879, with dependent sanjaqs (administrative units) of Kirkuk and Sulaymaniya, and with Baghdad holding primacy over the two other important cities, Mosul and Basra. Baghdads wali was also the senior of the three governors. Ashura refers to the mourning on the tenth day of Muharram, in which Shiis celebrate the martyrdom of Husayn bin Ali, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, at the battle of Karbala against armies of the Sunni caliph Muwawiya (680 A.D.).

Downloaded by [Tel Aviv University] at 00:29 22 January 2014

REFERENCES Baqir as-Sadr, Muhammad. 2003. Lessons in Islamic Jurisprudence, tr. Roy Parviz Mottahedeh. Oxford: Oneworld. Baram, Amatzia. 1991. Culture, History and Ideology in the Formation of Baathist Iraq 19681989. New York: St. Martins. Baram, Amatzia. 1994. Two Roads to Revolutionay Shiite Fundamentalism. In The Fundamentalist Project, vol. 4, Accounting for Fundamentalism: The Dynamic Character of Movements, ed. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby et al. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Batatu, Hanna. 1978. The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: A Study of Iraqs Old Landed and Commercial Classes and its Communists, Baathists, and Free Officers. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bengio, Ofra. 1985. Shiis and Politics in Baathi Iraq. Middle Eastern Studies 21(1): 114. Bengio, Ofra, and Gabriel Ben Dor. 1998. Minorities and the State in the Arab World. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner. Breuilly, John. 1994. Nationalism and the State. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cleveland, William E. 1971. The Making of an Arab Nationalist: Ottomanism and Arabism in the Life and Thought of Sati al- Husri. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Farouk-Sluglett, Marion, and Peter Sluglett. 1987. Iraq Since 1958: From Revolution to Dictatorship. London: I.B.Tauris. Gellner, Ernest. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Gershoni, Israel, and James Jankowski, eds. 1997. Rethinking Nationalism in the Arab Middle East. New York: Columbia University Press. Hroch, Miroslav. 2000. Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe: A Comparative Analysis of the Social Composition of Patriotic Groups among the Smaller European Nations, tr. Ben Fowkes. New York: Columbia University Press. Jabar, Faleh A. 2003. The Shiite Movement in Iraq. London: Saqi Books. Kedourie, Elie. 1993. Nationalism, 4th ed. Oxford: Blackwell. Longrigg, Stephen Hemslet. 1925. Four Centuries of Modern Iraq. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Longrigg, Stephen Hemslet. 1953. Iraq, 1900 to 1950: A Political, Social, and Economic History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

20

Critical Review Vol. 21, No. 1

Downloaded by [Tel Aviv University] at 00:29 22 January 2014

Luizard, Jean Pierre. 1991. La Formation de lIrak Contemporain: Le Role Politique des Ulema Chiites a la Fin de la Domination Ottomane at au Moment de la Construction de lEtat Irakien. Paris: CNRS. Lukitz, Liora. 1995. Iraq: The Search for National Identity. London: Frank Cass. Lukitz, Liora. 2006. A Quest in the Middle East: Gertrude Bell and the Making of Modern Iraq. London: I.B. Tauris. Marr, Phebe. 1985. The Modern History of Iraq. Boulder, Colo.: Westview. Nakash, Yitzhak. 2003. The Shiis of Iraq. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Sluglett, Peter. [1976] 2007. Britain In Iraq: Contriving King and Country. New York: Columbia University Press. Smith, A. D. 1986. The Ethnic Origin of Nations. Oxford: Blackwell. Smith, A. D. 1995. Nations and Nationalism in the Global Era. Cambridge: Polity. Tajfel, Henri. 1981. Human Groups and Social Categories. London: Academic Press. Tyrell, Martin. 1996. Nation-States and States of Mind: Nationalism as Psychology. Critical Review 10(1): 221. Visser, Reidar. 2006. Centralism in Iraq: From Midhat Pasha to Jawad al- Maliki: A Continuous Trend? http://historiae.org, 22 April. Visser, Reidar. 2007. Basra, the Failed Gulf State: Separatism and Nationalism in Southern Iraq. Berlin: LIT Verlag.