Abstract
Since 2003, Iraq has undergone a series of upheavals, including occupation, insurgency, terrorism, and some of the worst sectarian strife in its history. Ethnic tensions between Kurds and Arabs may also be stretched to a point of no return, leaving the Iraqi state and any sense of Iraqi identity, which must undergird it, severely weakened. While it is too early to tell which way Iraqi identity is going, it is time to reexamine the past. How did Iraq get to this point? Has the sense of Iraqi identity been a myth all along, as some claim? Are ethnic, tribal, and sectarian differences “primordial,” papered over and disguised by the British creation of a state from three Ottoman provinces in 1920? How much of the current identity crisis is a result of more recent circumstances, including Saddam Husayn’s repressive regime and the disruptive U.S. occupation? If these identities are not primordial, have they been better managed in the past, and if so, how? Most important for the future, are the Iraqi state and Iraqi identity gone?
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Notes
‘Abbas al-Azzawi, Ta’rikh “Ashar’ir al-’Iraq (History of the Iraqi Tribes) Baghdad: Matba’t Baghdad) 1937–1955
Ali al-Wardi, lamahat Ijtima’ iyyah Min Ta’rikh al-’Iraq al-Hadith (Social Aspects of the Modern History of Iraq) (Baghdad: Irshad Press), v 1–2, 1969–1971.
Naval Handbook, Iraq and the Persian Gulf(London: H.M. Stationery Office) 1944.
Robert Fernea, Shaikh and Effendi (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 1970.
Amatzia Baram, “Neo-tribalism in Iraq,” International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES) (29: 1997).
Martin van Bruinessen, Agha, Shaikh and State, the Social and Political Structures of State in Kurdistan (London: Zed), 1997.
Talib al-Naqib, see Reidar Visser, Basra, the Failed Gulf State (Munster: Lit Verlag) 2005
For a good description, see Charles Tripp, A History of Iraq (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 2000, p. 5.
Baram, “Neo-tribalism in Iraq.” For an excellent essay on tribalism, see Michael Eisenstadt, “Iraq: Tribal Engagement: Lessons Learned,” Military Review (September-October, 2007), pp. 16–31.
see Yitzhak Nakash, The Shi’is of Iraq (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p 28
For example, see Yitzhak Nakash, The Shi’is of Iraq (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p 28 and Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and Revolutionary Movements of Iraq (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 1978, pp. 17–18.
Sarah Shields, Mosul Before Iraq (New York: State University Press), 2000
Hala Fattah, The Politics of Regional Trade in Iraq, Arabia and the Gulf, 1745–1900 (Albany: State University of New York), 1997
Dina Khoury, State and Provincial Society in the Ottoman Empire, 1540–1834 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1997.
Faleh Abdul Jabar, “The Genesis and Development of Marja’ism versus the State,” in Faleh Abdul Jabar, ed. Ayatallahs, Sufis and Ideologues: State, Religion and Social Movements in Iraq (London: Saqi), 2002.
Adeed Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 2005.
David McDowell, A Modern History of the Kurds (London: I.B. Taurus), 1997.
For a good analysis of regionalism in Iraq, see Reidar Visser and Gareth Stransfield, eds., An Iraq of its Regions, Cornerstones of a Federal Democracy? (New York: Columbia University Press) 2008.
Abd al-Karim al Uzri, Mushkilat al-Hukm fi-l-’ Iraq (The Problem of Governance in Iraq) (London: 1991), pp. 191–217
al-Husri, Mudhakkirati fi-l-’Iraq (My Memoirs in Iraq), v. 1, 1921–1927 (Beirut: Dar al-Tali’ah) 1967, pp. 321–334; 585–602.
For these ideas and institutions in this period, see Adeed Dawisha, “Democratic Attitudes and Practices in Iraq, 1921–1958,” Middle East Journal, 59:1 (Winter, 2005).
Military officers and nationalists favored conscription as a means of shaping Iraqi identity in a new nationalist direction. The British, fearing an assertive army, resisted this during the mandate, but conscription was instituted soon after independence in 1934. See Mohammed Tarbush, The Role of the Military in Politics (London: Kegan, Paul), 1982, pp. 79–94.
Baram, Culture, History and Ideology. For another perspective on the way in which cultural memory has influenced Iraqi history, see an excellent study by Eric Davis, Memories of State: Politics, History and Collective Identity in Modern Iraq (Berkeley: University of California Press), 2005.
The Ba’th began implementing its autonomy plan on March 11, 1974. The plan allowed the region to elect a legislative council and a president, appointed from among the legislators. The president of Iraq could dismiss the Kurdish president and dissolve the legislature. (Marr, The Modern History of Iraq, 2nd. Ed.) p. 157. See also McDowell, A Modern History of the Kurds, chap 16. For the Iraqi Kurdish struggle in general see Michael Gunter, The Kurds of Iraq: Tragedy and Hope (New York: St. Martin’s Press), 1992.
Ibrahim Ibrahim, ed. The Gulf Crisis: Background and Consequences (Washington, DC: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies), 1994
Dilip Hiro, The longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict (New York: Routledge), 1991.
Jonathan Randall, After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux), 1994
Peter Galbraith, “Civil War in Iraq,” Staff Report for the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, May 1991 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office) 1991.
Joost Hiltermann, A Poisonous Affair: America, Iraq and the Gassing of Halabja (New York: Cambridge University Press), 2007
Human Rights Watch, Genocide in Iraq (New York: Human Rights Watch), 1993.
Among the best studies of these elections is Adeed Dawisha and Larry Diamond, “Iraq’s Year of Voting Dangerously,” Journal of Democracy, 17:2 (April, 2006).
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© 2010 Amatzia Baram, Achim Rohde, and Ronen Zeidel
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Marr, P. (2010). One Iraq or Many: What Has Happened to Iraqi Identity?. In: Baram, A., Rohde, A., Zeidel, R. (eds) Iraq Between Occupations. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230115491_2
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