Shi&#39;is and Politics in Ba&#39;thi Iraq

Ofra Bengio

Shi'is and Politics in Ba'thi Iraq

Shi'is and Politics in Ba'thi Iraq Ofra Bengio Although the regime has been reluctant to admit it, the Shi'i issue has of late become a major problem for the Ba'th in Iraq.' To compare this problem with the Kurdish problem, another intractable problem for the regime, would be instructive. Both Shi'is and Kurds have been on the margin of political power. Unrest in both communities has jeopardized stability in the country and has been a challenge to the Ba'th's authority. The two issues were rendered extremely complex by the involvement in them of an external actor - Iran. In both cases the regime has resorted to force as its ultimate weapon. In the Kurdish case, force was applied against them directly (April 1974 to March 1975) and Iran, under the Shah, was on the point of being drawn into the military conflict as well. In the other case, force was applied against the source of inspiration and incitement, namely, the Islamic Republic of Khomeyni. The two problems, however, differ in other respects. Being Arabs, the Shi'is find it less difficult to identify and integrate with the Iraqi state. Not so the Kurds who form a distinct non-Arab people. Unlike the Kurds, the Shi'is have not produced in the course of Iraq's modern history a strong political leadership of their own; nor have they a tradition of an organized military struggle or a political movement with well-defined and coherent aims. (The Shi'i tribal rebellions of 1935-37 were the result of manipulation from Baghdadi poli- ticians rather than an expression of an independent Shi'i will.) The central government's physical access to the Shi'is is very much easier than its access to the Kurds, so consequently is its control over them. Indeed, the regime perceived a twofold threat from the Shi'is: one, a somewhat ill-defined religious challenge to the secular, modernist Ba'thi ideology; the other, a more tangible threat - a popular rebellion, masterminded by the Shi'i clergy and modelled on the Iranian upheaval. This paper attempts to gauge how serious the Shi'i threat really was and to assess its influence on Ba'thi politics. THE ROOTS OF THE PROBLEM In his famous memorandum of 1932, King Faysal I analyzed the relationship between the Shi'is and the monarchy. He pointed out that due to the per- secution of the Shi'is under Ottoman rule and their exclusion from power in that era, they continued to feel alienated from the Sunni government of the day. Faysal pointed out that the Shi'i clergy who had been deprived of the funds and awqafs which their Sunni counterparts enjoyed were inciting their followers to withdraw their support from the government. As an illustration of the Shi'is' feelings of deprivation, the King quoted a popular Shi'i saying: 'taxes and death are for the Shi'i while [government] posts are for the Sunni' 2 In 1968 when the Ba'th seized power in Iraq - the essential relationship between the Shi'is and the Ba'thi-Sunni-led government was not fundamen- tally different. The age-old discord between Shi'is and Sunnis subsided below This content downloaded from 132.66.162.194 on Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:16:00 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Shi'is and Politics in Ba'thi Iraq Author(s): Ofra Bengio Source: Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Jan., 1985), pp. 1-14 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4283042 Accessed: 18-08-2016 07:16 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Taylor & Francis, Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Middle Eastern Studies This content downloaded from 132.66.162.194 on Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:16:00 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Shi'is and Politics in Ba'thi Iraq Ofra Bengio Although the regime has been reluctant to admit it, the Shi'i issue has of late become a major problem for the Ba'th in Iraq.' To compare this problem with the Kurdish problem, another intractable problem for the regime, would be instructive. Both Shi'is and Kurds have been on the margin of political power. Unrest in both communities has jeopardized stability in the country and has been a challenge to the Ba'th's authority. The two issues were rendered extremely complex by the involvement in them of an external actor - Iran. In both cases the regime has resorted to force as its ultimate weapon. In the Kurdish case, force was applied against them directly (April 1974 to March 1975) and Iran, under the Shah, was on the point of being drawn into the military conflict as well. In the other case, force was applied against the source of inspiration and incitement, namely, the Islamic Republic of Khomeyni. The two problems, however, differ in other respects. Being Arabs, the Shi'is find it less difficult to identify and integrate with the Iraqi state. Not so the Kurds who form a distinct non-Arab people. Unlike the Kurds, the Shi'is have not produced in the course of Iraq's modern history a strong political leadership of their own; nor have they a tradition of an organized military struggle or a political movement with well-defined and coherent aims. (The Shi'i tribal rebellions of 1935-37 were the result of manipulation from Baghdadi politicians rather than an expression of an independent Shi'i will.) The central government's physical access to the Shi'is is very much easier than its access to the Kurds, so consequently is its control over them. Indeed, the regime perceived a twofold threat from the Shi'is: one, a somewhat ill-defined religious challenge to the secular, modernist Ba'thi ideology; the other, a more tangible threat - a popular rebellion, masterminded by the Shi'i clergy and modelled on the Iranian upheaval. This paper attempts to gauge how serious the Shi'i threat really was and to assess its influence on Ba'thi politics. THE ROOTS OF THE PROBLEM In his famous memorandum of 1932, King Faysal I analyzed the relationship between the Shi'is and the monarchy. He pointed out that due to the persecution of the Shi'is under Ottoman rule and their exclusion from power in that era, they continued to feel alienated from the Sunni government of the day. Faysal pointed out that the Shi'i clergy who had been deprived of the funds and awqafs which their Sunni counterparts enjoyed were inciting their followers to withdraw their support from the government. As an illustration of the Shi'is' feelings of deprivation, the King quoted a popular Shi'i saying: 'taxes and death are for the Shi'i while [government] posts are for the Sunni' 2 In 1968 when the Ba'th seized power in Iraq - the essential relationship between the Shi'is and the Ba'thi-Sunni-led government was not fundamentally different. The age-old discord between Shi'is and Sunnis subsided below This content downloaded from 132.66.162.194 on Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:16:00 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Changes in the management of the Habsburg Empire and new technologies, expanding the circulation of social communication, accelerated the modernisation processes taking place in Central Europe. It was an area inhabited by various ethnic, national, religious and linguistic communities; they had to rework their modus vivendi and to find their place in complex networks of relations, in the context of the liberalising legal framework of the 1860s in the Austrian part of the monarchy and the tightening grip of the state on the local non-Magyar initiatives in the Hungarian part. Deep and multi-faceted sociocultural changes were leading to new cumulations of symbolic (and political) power; new groups, termed here as local communities (political, social, religious), were gaining visibility and sought recognition, according to changing configuration of values and integration impulses. We pose the question how the new or redefined communities were formed and managed. We are interested in the local perspective and local reflections of ongoing processes in general, as they have not been sufficiently represented in research on the cultural and socio-political space of the Habsburg monarchy. On the one hand, it is interesting to see how individual actors functioned in the triangle of loyalty, between belonging to a local group (municipality, urban community, etc.), national identity and loyalty to the emperor and the state. On the other hand, their strategies and choices were influenced by the conditions of the individual countries of the monarchy, which are also worth analysing. We invite papers that address the time frame between the establishment of Austria-Hungary (a longer process that started in the early 1860s and finished in 1867) and the start of the World War Two in 1939, thus encompassing the last decades of the Habsburg Empire, World War One, the interwar period and the fate of the successor states in Central Europe. We propose the following thematic areas: ❖ networks of contacts between the centres and the periphery ❖ formation and the role of local centres ❖ cooperation and confrontation of old and new elites ❖ civic ethos between the ideas of the state, nation and local community ❖ new local leaders and charismatic personalities ❖ intellectual and economic elites and their role at the local level ❖ communication and language politics from the local perspective Contributions are to be submitted by email to Acta Poloniae Historica (aph@ihpan.edu.pl) by 1 September 2024. Decisions on submissions will be made by the end of September 2024. All submissions will be subject to a double-blind peer review process. They should be up to 40,000 characters long, including the abstract and bibliography/references (up to ten items), and conform to the journal guidelines (https://aph-ihpan.edu.pl/en/for-authors/submission-guidelines).

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Shi'is and Politics in Ba'thi Iraq