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

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41

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42

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43

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44

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45

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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

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SOAS, London Middle East Institute, 28 February 2012.

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Development, Governance and Globalisation in the Gulf States, LSE, 25 April 2012.