Contradiction in motion: Sadrism, nationalism, and Islamism

The Sadrist Movement in Iraq: Between Protest and Power Politics, 2022

For policymakers inside and outside Iraq, including in the West, Muqtada al-Sadr has been an enigmatic leader claiming many identities, shifting from insurgent militia leader to reformist protest leader, and from election winner and government coalition builder to revolutionary. His influence is of critical importance to Iraqi and regional politics. — This research paper argues that Sadr has pursued a strategy of ‘controlled instability’, seeking to expedite political destabilization, not with the intention of reforming or bringing down the political system, but to bolster his own political power within the dominant Shia apportionment of the Iraqi state. A shift from a Shia-centric to Sadr-centric governance strategy accelerated after the movement’s 2021 election victory, further destabilizing Iraq’s already fragmented politics.

This paper analyzes Iraqi national narratives in the years from 1958 to 1961 to consider how inno vative definitions of Arab nationalisms were affected by worldwide processes of decolonization. It demonstrates how Pan-Arabism was transformed in Qasimite Iraq because of its hybridization with Iraqi patriotism and, concurrently, how various elements of Arabist discourses were integrated into local and patriotic perceptions of Iraqi nationalism. Examining cultural idioms shared by Iraqi intellectuals belonging to different political groups, especially the communists and the Bacthists, destabilizes a typology that assumes each ideological camp subscribed to a rigidly defined set of well-known historical narratives. The Pan-Arabists in this period often cultivated the notion that Arab nationalism did not entail an ethnic origin but rather the ability to adopt the Arabic language, as well as Arab history and culture, as a marker of one's national and cultural identity. The attempts to adapt Pan-Arab discourses to the specificities of the Iraqi milieu and to build coalitions with as many of the nation's groups as possible meant that the sectarian, anti-Shi ci, and anti-Kurdish notions that colored Bacthist discourses in later years were not as prominent in this period.

Hurst & Co./Columbia University Press, 2011

Viewing Iraq from the outside is made easier by compartmentalising its people (at least the Arabs among them) into Shi'as and Sunnis. But can such broad terms, inherently resistant to accurate quantification, description and definition, ever be a useful reflection of any society? If not, are we to discard the terms 'Shi'a' and 'Sunni' in seeking to understand Iraq? Or are we to deny their relevance and ignore them when considering Iraqi society? How are we to view the common Iraqi injunction that 'we are all brothers' or that 'we have no Shi'as and Sunnis' against the fact of sectarian civil war in 2006? Are they friends or enemies? Are they united or divided; indeed, are they Iraqis or are they Shi'as and Sunnis? Fanar Haddad provides the first comprehensive examination of sectarian relations and sectarian identities in Iraq. Rather than treating the subject by recourse to broad-based categorisation, his analysis recognises the inherent ambiguity of group identity. The salience of sectarian identity and views towards self and other are neither fixed nor constant; rather, they are part of a continuously fluctuating dynamic that sees the relevance of sectarian identity advancing and receding according to context and to wider socioeconomic and political conditions. What drives the salience of sectarian identity? How are sectarian identities negotiated in relation to Iraqi national identity and what role do sectarian identities play in the social and political lives of Iraqi Sunnis and Shi'as? These are some of the questions explored in this book with a particular focus on the two most significant turning points in modern Iraqi sectarian relations: the uprisings of March 1991 and the fall of the Ba'ath in 2003. Haddad explores how sectarian identities are negotiated and seeks finally to put to rest the alarmist and reductionist accounts that seek either to portray all things Iraqi in sectarian terms or to reduce sectarian identity to irrelevance.

British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2024

This essay delves into the intricate interplay between Shi'a Islam, tribalism, and the Iraqi regime during the 1990s, with a specific focus on the influential figure of Muh ̣ammad S ̣ādiq al-S ̣adr. Al-S ̣adr epitomized a compelling case of second-tier scholars who successfully engaged segments of society overlooked by the clerical leadership, recognizing the multifaceted composition of Shi'a society, with its urban poor, tribal roots, and growing intelligentsia. His Fiqh al-ʿAshāʾir, harmonized Islamic principles with tribal customs, facilitating dialogue with this traditional element, deeply entrenched within Iraqi society. S ̣ādiq al-S ̣adr believed that the tribes and their leadership, with their growing alienation from the state, were ready to return to Islam, seeking spiritual comfort and a sense of belonging. While tribalism as a sub-national construct has the potential to undermine the unity of a nation or a larger supra-national entity, in Iraq, tribalism also encompassed a shared Arab ethnic identity, offering a prospect for bridging divides between the Sunni and Shi'i population. Nevertheless, for Saddam Hussein, tribalism was a tool instrumental in consolidating his power. Consequently, S ̣ādiq al-S ̣adr's endeavour to influence tribal behaviour and inculcate an ethno-religious notion of tribalism presented a direct challenge to Saddam's autocratic rule and his manipulation of state ideology.

Territorial Separatism in Global Politics: Causes, Outcomes and Resolution (Routledge), 2015

The US project to democratize Iraq has given way to a dramatic upsurge in ethno-religious factionalism in which a series of groups have sought to use ‘democracy’ to create or exacerbate division. Among these divisive political elements a relatively fringe idea held mostly by power-hungry elites has become a central driving force of much political debate within Iraq: separatism. Although there are many examples of political factions within Iraq which have called for territorial separatism since 2003 (such as some Kurdish, Sunni, Assyrian and Turcoman political parties), this chapter focuses on the less known case for a Shiite state. Specifically, it concentrates on the Shia Arab Islamist political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which differs from other Shia political factions in their calls for a decentralized federal Iraq with an autonomous Shia Islamic state in the south.

Romanian Journal of Society and Politics, Vol. IX, No. 1, Issue 17, 2014, pp. 111-136

The paper is a reflection and an analysis of the evolution of Iraqi Shi’as in relation to the national construction processes of the state and its interactions with its regional geopolitical environment where religious identities represent a decisive element in shaping the behaviors of states or of different under- or over-state actors. The core of the research is represented by the political phenomenology of Iraqi Shi’as, but it is always contextualized within the broader context of domestic politics in Iraq and the multiple dynamics of the Persian Gulf and of the Middle East in general.

Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2018

This study argues that the interpretive theoretical approach generally taken by 4 Sunni Arabs toward building the Iraqi state and nation has undergone multiple transformations since 2003, which taken together are consistent with the response patterns of a community alienated from its surroundings. These patterns begin with the experience of withdrawal, then resistance, then adaptation to the environment formed by the majority of groups that make up Iraqi society and its members. In the first case, withdrawal, the Sunni Arab community abandoned its objectives and the means to achieve them, taking a passive, patient stance. In the second case, the Sunni Arab community chose objectives it sought to achieve by any means necessary, including negative means like taking up arms. In the third, the Sunni Arab community transformed to choose objectives compatible with positive means guaranteed by the democratic mechanisms steering the political process in Iraq. With regard to the driver of those response patterns, this study argues that it goes back to what we can call “patterns of communication” that are affected by faceto-face interactions with individuals from other sectarian and ethnic groups and the government, in addition to the effects of the media and political discourse on opposing sides. These patterns of communication shape the community’s response to state- and nation-building issues.

Middle East Policy

Regime change in Iraq provided a new opportunity for Shiis and Kurds to create a new power-sharing system. These two persecuted communities embraced a democratic-federal system based on a combined civic and ethnocultural model. Analyzing this new alliance, this article argues that there were prominent forces within both communities that did not uphold an essentialist sense of identity, thus providing a basis for mutual recognition, as reflected in the new constitution. However, while in theory there was room for mitigating sectarian and ethnic boundaries, in practice, the differences assumed a much larger place, as reflected in the power struggle between Baghdad and Erbil. The process of unifying Iraq lacked an in-depth debate over the place of diverse national narratives, together with an effort toward people-to-people contact. Concurrently, the struggle against the jihadists enhanced Shii-Kurdish interdependency, while the battle of Kirkuk led to greater pragmatism. Post-2003 Iraq provides a challenging case of democratization and regime change, due to the need for a delicate balancing act between power and multiple visions of religion and ethnic identity while contemplating multiple visions of nationalism.

2012

This thesis addresses the relationship between sectarianism and state-making and nationbuilding in Iraq. It argues that sectarianism has been an enduring feature of the state-making trajectory in Iraq due to the failure of the modern nation-state to resolve inherent tensions between primordial sectarian identities and concepts of unified statehood and uniform citizenry. After a theoretical excursus that recasts the notion of primordial identity as a socially constructed reality, I set out to explain the persistence of primordial sectarian affiliations in Iraq since the establishment of the modern nation-state in 1921. Looking at the primordial past showed that Sunni-Shiite interactions before the modern nation-state cultivated repositories of divergent collective memories and shaped dynamics of inclusion and exclusion favorable to the Sunni Arabs following the creation of Iraq. Drawing on primary and secondary sources and field interviews, this study proceeds to trace the accentuati...