Who is ruling Iraq?
Haifa Zangana
Wednesday, 12 August 2015 13:37
When the Iraqis took to the streets in 16 of the 18 Iraqi
governorates in 2011, the “silent” Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists,
invisible to the public, spoke up and warned the protestors against bad
services and corruption as well as from the exploitation of their
protests by “infiltrators” trying to harm Iraq.
Nouri Al-Maliki, the prime minister at the time and who is backed by
the Guardianship, had labelled the peaceful protestors as terrorists.
The day before the protest, Al-Maliki made a nationally televised
statement on an official Iraqi television channel saying: “I call upon
you not to participate in tomorrow’s demonstration because it is
suspicious… those behind this protest are Saddamists, terrorists and
Al-Qaeda.”
The result was shots being fired at the protestors and the death of
29 of them, including one child. Nearly 300 people were arrested,
including prominent journalists, artists and lawyers, as a means of
intimidation. In addition to the Guardianship, i.e. Ali Al-Sistani,
Muqtada
Al-Sadr also proposed, during the most critical time of the sectarian
government, to give the government 100 days to make reforms. This, along
with the campaigns of threats, enticements and arrests, was another
means of distracting the protestors from their main goals and dissolving
their issues and causes, thus ending the campaign demanding their
rights.
Just as the government forces escaped those demanding their basic
rights in 2011, the same forces returned in the present day after mass
demonstrations began in many cities, extending from northern Iraq to the
south to escape and avoid these demonstrators. However, they did so by
means of a different tactic than the last time. The government did not
use force against the protestors and did not open fire on them. Instead,
all of the politicians rushed to declare their solidarity with the
demonstrators against corruption. It is as if corruption is a disease
placed in Iraq from an outside force and they have nothing to do with
it. They condemned and denounced.
Some of them took to the television stations to express their
“concerns” regarding the corruption hindering the oppressed people’s
access to electricity, just as the good-hearted United Nations
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon did.
Others threatened to open the corruption file (for the hundredth
time, at the very least) in order to prosecute those responsible and
expel the unqualified. The step of containing demonstrations and
dissolving the people’s demands reached its peak when the corrupt
politicians themselves, including officials and beneficiaries from the
various parties and militias, joined the masses in the squares to
protest in various Iraqi cities. They did so to carry out acts they have
mastered over the past 13 years: theft, looting and blaming others.
Not even the protestors’ squares, slogans and legitimate demands have
been spared by the hungry hands accustomed to looting. Suddenly the
people’s tragedies became theirs. Muqtada Al-Sadr, leader of the Sadrist
movement, was among those who woke up from their slumber to the voices
of the protesters. He called on Haider Al-Abadi, to “form independent
committees in his direct administration to refer the corruption and
corrupt individuals’ files from the former and current governments to
the attorney general’s office.”
Iraqi Vice President Usama Al-Nujayfi followed in his footstep and
renewed “his support for the voices of the protestors” and criticised
corrupt officials, even though he is one of the defendants in a serious
corruption case. Iraqi President Fuad Masum stressed the “right of the
people to free expression of their rights, demands and the
accountability of the corrupt.”
As for the president of the Parliamentary Bloc, he reassured Al-Abadi
that “the masses will support the prime minister in his decisions
regarding removing the corrupt from government; the determination of the
people is invincible.” He disregarded the fact that the three prime
ministers who drove Iraq to the brink of dismantlement and the current
administrative and political corruption are leaders of the Dawa Party
and that the “wise” Guardianship’s call on Al-Abadi to come down with an
iron fist on the corrupt will require, as a first step, holding the
Dawa Party leaders accountable for their actions, regardless of how much
they claim and pretend they are making reforms.
With regards to the Guardianship’s calls for Prime Minister Al-Abadi
to “be more daring and courageous in the steps he is taking towards
reform,” and his immediate response in the form of declaring his full
commitment to the valuable advice given to him by the Guardianship,
which expressed the concerns and aspirations of the Iraqi people, this
first of all shows that the Guardianship is aware that the government is
on the brink of collapsing under the anger of the masses. Secondly,
this shows that the demands are no longer limited to services, but have
escalated to the defence of the right to life.
Thirdly, this suggests that Iraq is not actually being governed by
the so-called government and parliament, but by the entity that goes by
the name of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists, which lies in an
isolated house in the city of Najaf. The people only hear its voice
through a spokesperson, and the people have only seen fuzzy pictures of
him, the dates of when they were taken are unknown. There is also video
footage of him being transported to London when the American occupation
forces desecrated the shrine of Imam Ali. So how much can this
Guardianship really know about Iraq and the world’s affairs, including
the economy, technology, international and regional policy, and the
military balances of power? How much does it really understand about the
statistics and geography outside its specialisation in fiqh books?
Despite this, the current government portrays the invisible Guardianship
as the source of inspiration for the country’s major policies and also
portrays it as the icon for ideological, popular and pure emotions.
The Guardianship “sees everything” and therefore, obeying its fatwas
have become the duty of the people, especially when these fatwas align
with the politicians’ requirements and demands and go hand in hand with
preserving the sectarian government. Perhaps the most important question
the protesting masses will ask themselves when the demonstrations are
dispersed pending the achievement of the promised reforms is what is the
use of the government and the House of Representatives’ existence if
Al-Sistani’s Guardianship is capable of running the country by means of
fatwas? Why are there elections? What about the civil state, the rights
of the citizens and the rule of law? More importantly, what about the
rest of the Iraqi people, which are spread across the religious and
sectarian spectrum, who are face with a Guardianship that only
represents one doctrine?
Translated from Arabi21 on 11 August 2015.
