All posts by Salah Nasrawi

Mecca-Stampede-Islam Renewal

Mecca disaster rekindles urge for Islam renewal

Leave a comment

Mecca disaster rekindles urge for Islam renewal

As the causes of the 24 September stampede in Mina remains unclear, the world began asking: “How can Hajj calamities be avoided? Writes Salah Nasrawi

The footage of the bodies of pilgrims piled half naked near the site where nearly 800 were killed and hundreds wounded in a stampede near Mecca as Muslims gathered to perform a key ritual of the Hajj pilgrimage last week was shocking and heart-breaking.

The stampede apparently started when two waves of pilgrims on their way to and from a hectic stoning ritual collided in a bottlenecked footpath near the holy sites. In the ensuing chaos, hundreds were trampled underfoot or suffocated.

The tragedy, the worst to befall the Muslim pilgrimage since July 1990 when 1,426 pilgrims perished in an overcrowded pedestrian tunnel leading to the holy sites near Mecca, has rattled the entire Muslim world and raised serious questions about the management of Islam’s most sacred rituals and the world’s largest gathering.

Moreover, the crush has rekindled debates about the need for reform in Islam in order that this faith with some 1.5 billion adherents can conform better to progress and modernity and adapt to new circumstances.

A week after the deadly crush the most pressing question has remained unanswered, namely what caused the chaotic stampede.

The Saudi government has remained tight-lipped on how such a tragedy, which has drawn fierce criticisms of the Saudi authorities’ handling of the safety of the Hajj, could have occurred.

Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz has ordered a swift investigation into the “painful incident” and a review of the kingdom’s planning for the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

Yet, the kingdom’s mufti, or top religious leader, Sheikh Abdel-Aziz Al-Sheikh, has decreed that the catastrophic Hajj stampede was “beyond human control,” blaming it on “fate and destiny”.

Meanwhile, Saudi Health Minister Khalid Al-Falih has pointed the finger of blame at the dead, saying that the pilgrims were “undisciplined” and did not follow traffic instructions.

Among other suggested causes have been the pilgrims ignoring the timetable put forward by the Saudi authorities for the rituals, their rushing to end the rites, the sweltering heat, and confusion and a lack of guidance and assistance by the organisers.

While some eyewitnesses among the pilgrims blamed laxity by the Saudi authorities in crowd control, the pro-Saudi media talked about an Iranian and Shia conspiracy with others putting the blame on undisciplined pilgrims of African nationalities.

Whatever the causes behind the human crush, the disaster has echoed across the Muslim world, as countries from Africa, Asia and Europe all claimed citizens from among the dead and as some called for changes in the pilgrimage procedures to ensure greater safety.

Iran, which had the largest group of casualties with some 155 of its citizens killed in the stampede, was quick to condemn Saudi Arabia for what it termed the kingdom’s “incompetence” in organising the Hajj pilgrimage.

Iran’s supreme leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the Saudi government “must accept huge responsibility for this catastrophe.”

Iran’s state prosecutor Ebrahim Raisi said he would pursue legal action against Saudi Arabia’s rulers in the international courts over the crush.

Raisi and other Iranian officials accused the Saudi authorities of blocking a road used by the pilgrims to allow a royal convoy to pass through, causing the deadly convergence of two waves of pilgrims going in opposite directions.

Pro-Iranian Shia politicians such as former Iraqi prime minister Nuri Al-Maliki and the leader of the Lebanese Hizbullah group Hassan Nasrallah joined Tehran in the protests.

Criticism also came from Sunni Muslim countries. Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari urged King Salman “to ensure a comprehensive and thorough exercise that will identify any flaws in the Hajj organisation.”

The head of Nigeria’s Hajj delegation, Emir of Kano Muhammadu Sanusi II, said the Saudi authorities should not “apportion blame to the pilgrims for not obeying instructions”.

In Turkey, a Sunni powerhouse which maintains close relations with Saudi Arabia, a senior official of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) criticised the kingdom for failures in managing the pilgrimage.

AKP Deputy Chairman Mehmet Ali Shahin even called on Riyadh to give Turkey “the management” of the Hajj instead. Turkey, he said, would handle it in a “very orderly manner and solve the problems”.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who leads the world’s most populous Muslim nation, said “there must be improvements in the management of the Hajj so that this incident is not repeated.”

The crush came less than two weeks after a construction crane smashed into the Grand Mosque at Mecca, Islam’s holiest house of worship, killing some 100 people and wounding scores of others. The Saudi authorities blamed the sudden crash on strong winds.

In recent years, the kingdom has spent billions of dollars on upgrading infrastructure in Mecca, including the expansion of the Grand Mosque to increase its capacity to accommodate worshipers and improving transport.

Lavish mega-hotels, luxury residences with Kaaba views, and shopping malls with western fashion chains and international fast-food restaurants have also been part of the expansion projects in Islam’s holiest city.

Many of these projects, as well as the luxurious Hajj style they have introduced, have come under fire from critics who say they undermine the spirituality of the divine rituals which are one of the five pillars of Islam along with the declaration of faith, prayer, the payment of charity and fasting in Ramadan.

In addition, the expansions have been criticised for encroaching on or eliminating almost all of Islam’s architectural legacy in Mecca, such as the building where the Prophet Mohamed was born, the house of his wife Khadijah, and the shrines and mosques of distinguished early Muslims.

While many of Mecca’s architectural monuments were removed as part of the expansion projects, some of these sites have been demolished in line with hardline Wahabi thinking that considers them symbols of “polytheism”.

In many ways, the Hajj, which the Quran says all adult Muslims who are physically and financially able to should make once in their lifetimes, is increasingly becoming fraught with difficulties and sometimes unsafe conditions.

The discussions over the stampede and other accidents during the pilgrimage have thus far focused on the logistics of the Hajj, including organisation, infrastructure, transport and crowd management.

They have also centred on the inconsistencies and confusion in the statements made by Saudi officials and religious leaders and the political and sectarian bickering surrounding the accident, especially the Shia versus Wahabi interpretations of Islam.

The discussions have been avoiding how to deal with the basic theological and traditional elements relating to how the centuries-old and complex Hajj rituals are performed, however.

While the Hajj logistics and infrastructure are increasing being brought face to face with modernisation and globalisation, the rituals themselves remain deep rooted in the traditions of the 7th century CE when a few hundred of the Prophet Mohamed’s Bedouin followers began flocking to the rugged desert around Mecca for the newly imposed Islamic rituals.

Indeed, the repeated calamities during the Hajj season have highlighted the need for a serious debate among Muslims from all schools of thought about theological renovation and renewed traditions within the context of Islamic revival and religious reformation.

Despite a quota system imposed by Saudi Arabia which earmarks 1,000 Hajj visas for each one million in the Muslim population of each country, the number of pilgrims is on the rise due to population increases and improved economic conditions.

According to some statistics, the number of foreign pilgrims has increased by approximately 2,824 per cent, from 58,584 in 1920 to 1,712,962 in 2012. Despite a quota cut of 20 per cent due to the continuation of the construction work, some 1.4 million foreign pilgrims performed the Hajj this year.

In essence, the millions of Muslim pilgrims perform today exactly what a few hundred of their ancestors did 1,400 years ago on the same small chunk of holy land. Meanwhile, millions of others are unable to carry out the religious duty because of the visa quota or other restrictions.

If the expansion of Islam’s most sacred holy site has been a major result of the changes wrought by modernity, then it is time not only for Saudi Arabia but also for the entire Muslim world to develop or even modify the rituals in order to make them conform to modernity without compromising their spirituality or religious values.

The Islamic concept of ijtihad, the exercise of informed independent and legal judgement on issues of the faith, has always been used by enlightened Muslims to interpret and apply divine guidance to the problems of their time.

There are many historical examples. Working with such an understanding of theological expediency, Mohamed’s second successor, the caliph Omar Ibn Al-Khattab, set aside the amputation of hands stipulated by the Quran as the penalty for stealing when the Muslims began starving during a time of famine.

Many of the Hajj rituals are not even mentioned in the Quran, and change or modification in the way they are performed would not affect beliefs, guidance, spiritual fulfilment, or attitudes towards worship.

Today is a moment of truth for all Muslims when the Hajj rites should be let free from the walls of Wahabi fundamentalism.

ما بعد التجربة

Sailing by dinghy to the European dream

Leave a comment

Sailing by dinghy to the European dream

As tens of thousands of migrants knock at Europe’s doors, still greater numbers of refugees remain stranded in Turkey, writes Salah Nasrawi

In a coffee shop in the rundown old quarter of the Turkish capital Ankara, a Syrian refugee spent nearly an hour negotiating with smugglers. He wanted them to take him and his family across the Aegean Sea to neighbouring Greece, their gateway to the European Union.

The trouble was that with so much demand from Syrians and other refugees in Turkey to travel to the continent, the smuggling networks have increased their fees. In exchange for hefty payments, the smugglers help illegal migrants cross the waterway, which is patrolled by Turkish coastguards and Frontex, the EU border agency.
Amidst the biggest wave of migration to Europe since World War II, fast-growing trafficking networks in Turkey are smuggling Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans and other migrants to Greece, their stepping stone to other countries in Europe.

Running out of options and after nearly an hour of haggling, Bassam, the Syrian refugee, accepted the fee demanded by the smugglers’ brokers and made a down payment for a journey by inflatable dinghy.
“I have no other option,” he said. “They claim that the cost is rising because law-enforcement officers have intensified their activities along the Turkish coasts, and this increases the difficulty and the cost of getting clients successfully across the waterway.
“This is our best and last chance to get into Germany. Either that or we will be stuck here forever,” said Bassam, who like all the Syrian asylum-seekers in Turkey had fled the civil war in his country.

Bassam, who did not wish to give his full name, said that he and his wife and two children have been waiting for registration with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Ankara for months.
The UNHCR office set a date in 2023 for an interview, which is the first required step for refugees seeking resettlement in a Western country. Western governments have also been refusing to let them in by legal means.

“I have run out of money, and if we stay here any longer we will have to start begging for food. By 2023 we will be dead and buried,” Bassam told the Weekly after he had struck a deal with the smugglers.
For months, Bassam, 36, was reluctant to take his family on the risky sea route from Turkey’s western coast to the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, where news of migrants drowning after their boats capsized has been world news for months.

But after thousands of Syrians and other refugees succeeded this month in making their way through Europe to Germany, Bassam gave up his hesitation and convinced his wife to make the perilous journey, regardless of the risk.

For safety, Bassam has decided to use the little money he has left to buy life jackets and rubber rings. ”Probably, my kids will have a better chance of surviving than Aylan,” he said, referring to the Syrian boy whose body washed up on shore alongside his brother Gylip and mother Rehan after their boat capsized. The photograph of the drowned boy went viral on news outlets and social media sites.

Many of the refugees in Turkey say that the harrowing image of Aylan lying on the shore, which has reawakened the world’s attention to the tragedy of millions of Syrian refugees, will not deter them from following the same route taken by the dead boy’s father.
“Death will overtake you, even though ye were in lofty towers,” said Bassam, reading from Islam’s holy book, the Qur’an.

Bassam, an Arabic teacher, did not know much about Turkey before he arrived last year, fleeing from his hometown of Idlib, one of the flashpoints in Syria’s apparently endless civil war. Several of his neighbours have been killed in shelling or in bombardments by either government forces or the rebels.

Encouraged by Turkey’s lenient visa and residency policy, which makes living there easier, Bassam decided to come to the country in the hope that he would find a job. Many of his friends also fled the bloodshed in Syria for Turkey, which is only a short hop away from Idlib.

But after nearly a year in Turkey, Bassam has failed to secure employment and has started running out of cash, mostly taken from his life savings and from selling his wife’s jewellery.

The influx of more migrants to Turkey has also made life for them more difficult. Though refugees have a recognised status and are allowed to stay in Turkey, most of them depend on agency or charity handouts or informal work to survive.

Children’s education and health care are often available, but the enormous number of refugees makes these services largely ineffective or inaccessible.

In recent months, the number of refugees living in such a state of limbo has increased, mostly because their stay away from home has been becoming increasingly costly on both the financial and human levels.

With no hope that Syria will return to normal soon and only a tiny number of refugees being accepted for resettlement in Western countries such as the US, Canada and Australia, many refugees in Turkey have begun thinking of taking the risk of the sea crossing to Europe, even though they know the journey is extremely dangerous.

Like Bassam and his family, most of the refugees are buying slippery seats in a rubber dinghy to cross to Greece. Others have enough money to pay for a journey on safer boats or ships. A few push their way through the tight-security borders with the Balkans, smuggled in vehicles, travelling overland in a bid to reach Germany.

In at least one well-publicised case, a young Syrian, Hesham Moadamani, 24, swam six hours from Turkey on an epic journey to a Greek island before he continued his trek to Germany.

Those refugees who can afford it can make the journey all the way by chartered business jet straight to the refugee haven of Sweden where they can immediately ask for asylum.

In Turkey itself, the locals are becoming increasingly hostile towards the refugees and less willing to allow them to settle permanently. Frictions between the locals and the refugees, with many seeking to make ends meet by begging, are becoming a daily routine.

The unabated flow of the refugees, mostly Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans and Africans fleeing political turmoil in their home countries, has put an additional burden on Turkey’s ailing economy, while contributing to social unrest in the provinces where most of the refugees are concentrated.

In recent weeks, the Turkish media has reported plans by the government to revise the country’s open-door policy, in which Ankara has kept open its borders to arrivals escaping unrest abroad in the face of mounting political and economic problems.

Hundreds of Istanbul residents, angered by the presence of Syrian refugees, clashed with police on 25 August in a violent protest in İkitelli, a suburb of Turkey’s biggest city. The protests, the latest violence amid growing tensions between Turkish locals and Syrian refugees, were sparked by claims that young Syrian men had sexually harassed a teenage Turkish girl.

Angry locals armed with sticks, knives and machetes attacked shops with signs in Arabic on their fronts and smashed cars belonging to Syrians and shouted anti-Syrian slogans.

Following violent protests against the presence of Syrians in the southeastern city of Gaziantep last month, the authorities moved hundreds of refugees into camps in a bid to calm the tensions.

Turkey says it has spent $5.6 billion to care for some 1.7 million Syrians and 300,000 Iraqis living in refugee camps or in Turkish cities. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly called on Europe to take in more migrants and refugees from Syria and Iraq, saying that Turkey has borne the brunt of the Middle East’s refugee crisis.

Following the boy Aylan’s death, Erdogan accused EU states of being responsible for the refugee crisis and for turning the Mediterranean into a “cemetery” for migrants. With Turkey now hosting the largest number of Syrian and Iraqi asylum-seekers and refugees in the world, according to the UN’s refugee agency, the Arab world is coming under fire for doing little to deal with the crisis.

The picture of the lifeless body of the Syrian toddler slumped on the sand and images of refugees swamping Europe have sparked international outrage over the migration crisis. Pope Francis has called on Catholics across Europe to offer sanctuary to migrant families. Meanwhile, the Arab world has remained largely indifferent.

Some 10 million Syrians have been displaced by the bloody civil war raging in their country. Most still remain within Syria’s borders, but around four million have fled into neighbouring countries, mostly Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. Tens of thousands have also sought refuge in Egypt.

Yet, according to aid organisations and media reports, the oil-rich Arab countries in the Gulf have taken no Syrian refugees, though Saudi Arabia claims there are 500,000 Syrians living in the kingdom, along with millions of other expatriates.

Even after several EU countries declared they would be taking tens of thousands of migrants, wealthy Arab countries showed no signs of moving to absorb any Syrian or Iraqi refugees.

Although the oil-rich Arab countries have reportedly contributed $1 billion to aid agencies working with the refugees, the UK has still donated more than Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar combined. The United States has also given four times the Gulf’s contribution.

The comparison seems even more outrageous when the vast amounts of money Gulf countries have spent to support Syrian opposition forces fighting the Bashar Al-Assad regime and the cost of the war in Yemen waged against the Houthis are taken into consideration.

Meanwhile, in Europe, despite the considerable number of new refugees that some countries have agreed to accommodate, politics are impeding the reception of more refugees who are still stranded in Turkey and other countries.

A debate has been raging between those who portray the refugees as marauders who could soon hasten the collapse of European civilisation and others who think Europe should adhere to its ideals of solidarity with people suffering from oppression and fear.

The anxieties of right-wing and ultra-nationalist Europeans that the refugee influx could bring more shwarma stands to Europe’s streets, or overwhelm the continent with lazy migrants seeking generous social benefits, are neither well founded nor healthy, however.

On the contrary, the plight of the refugees could open a window of opportunity for both Europe and the Arab world to strengthen their historic relationships and advance their joint interests.

In the short term, the migrant crisis could promote a new policy for Europe towards the conflicts in the Middle East region, including the savage civil wars in Iraq and Syria. Europe could now be more proactive in helping to solve these conflicts and problems, some of which are deeply rooted in the region’s colonial legacy.
In the long term and looking at the situation from a larger strategic perspective, the newcomers could be an asset in creating a culture of receptiveness and integration that would challenge the preposterous theory of the “clash of civilisations” which some in the West still want to use to draw a battle line between Europe and the Arab world.

This influx of refugees is not about the clock reverting to 1529, when the armies of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman sultan, were at the gates of Vienna hoping to conquer Christian Europe. It is about a new generation of Arabs and Muslims who are fleeing oppression by autocratic regimes and Muslim extremists and looking for a better future for themselves and their children.
For the refugees who have made the journey across hundreds of kilometres — through Turkey, Greece and the Balkans — it has been about the pursuit of better opportunities in life, and even mere survival.

It is a dream shared by the hundreds of thousands of migrants still stranded in Turkey, many of them now waiting to cross the Aegean Sea and set foot on the European continent.

This article appeared first in Al Ahram Weekly on Sept, 17, 2015

Iraq-Sistani

Can Al-Sistani save Iraq?

Leave a comment

Can Al-Sistani save Iraq?

Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani helped put the Iraqi Shia in power, but can he save Iraq from the scourge that has besmirched their leaders, asks Salah Nasrawi

It was Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani’s most scathing criticism of the Shia-led government in Baghdad since he helped the Shia to gain political power in Iraq after the US ousted the Sunni-dominated regime of former president Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Al-Sistani’s warning that the country faced dire consequences, including possible partition, if real reform was not carried out reflects Iraq’s top Shia cleric’s increasing frustration with the government’s efforts at fighting unbridled corruption.

The call also comes as the Iraqi security forces and Shia paramilitary units struggle to drive the Islamic State (IS) terror group from the large swathes of territory its militants captured during a major offensive in summer last year.

“If real reform by fighting corruption relentlessly and if social justice on all levels are not achieved, the situation could get even worse and might, God forbid, push [Iraq] to partition which no nation-loving Iraqi would like,” Al-Sistani said in a written response from his office to questions from the media posted on his website.

“Without rampant corruption in government institutions, in particular the security forces, and without the abuse of power by officials, the Daesh (IS) terrorist organisation would not have been able to control a large part of Iraq’s territory,” Al-Sistani said, using the Arabic acronym for the jihadist group.

Al-Sistani’s stern warning came as thousands continued to protest in Baghdad and in the Shia-dominated south of Iraq as they have done for several weeks, calling for reform and actions to be taken against corruption and the lack of services, especially poor electricity supplies.

Since the demonstrations started in late July, Al-Sistani, who has unmatched clout among the Iraqi Shia, has made several calls for reform that have played a major role in driving prime minister Haider Al-Abadi to launch a reform programme.

On 7 August, Al-Sistani gave an unexpected boost to the protesters’ demands through one of his senior aides by calling on Al-Abadi to take tougher measures against corruption, saying the “minor steps” he had announced the week before were insufficient.

The following week, Al-Sistani called, through another senior aide, for reform in the country’s judiciary which many Iraqis believe is deeply corrupt and has failed to fight graft and strengthen the rule of law and human rights.

Apart from the protests, Al-Sistani has been showing signs of concern about the incompetence and greed of the Shia-led government and has spoken out in a political perspective about the need for change.

He has repeatedly called on Shia politicians to think of Iraq’s interests, not their own. Last year, he urged the leaders to refrain from clinging to their posts after a government crisis triggered by former prime minister Nuri Al-Maliki who was seeking a third term in office despite his failure to muster enough support in parliament.

Since the overthrow of Saddam, the Iranian-born Al-Sistani, who is revered by millions worldwide, has played a key role in the emergence of Shia power in Iraq. The Shia had always perceived themselves as excluded under Sunni-led governments since Iraq’s independence from Britain in 1921.

Al-Sistani was keen that Iraq’s Shia majority would not be marginalised in the new political system. Shortly after the US-led invasion, he declared that an elected assembly should convene to write a new constitution and prepare the country for general elections.

Thanks to a fatwa, or religious edict, issued by Al-Sistani for the Shia to cast their ballots in Iraq’s first post-Saddam elections, the Shia groups came well ahead of Sunni and Kurdish rivals and gained a majority of seats in the new 275-seat parliament.

Last year, Al-Sistani took the unprecedented step of issuing a call to arms after Sunni-led insurgents seized more towns in Iraq. In his fatwa, Al-Sistani said that all citizens who were able to bear arms should volunteer to join the security forces to fight the terrorists, defend their country, their people and their holy places.

Thousands joined the Shia militias which played a crucial role in the defence of Baghdad and the two Shia holy cities of Karbala and Najaf as well as in retaking Sunni-populated cities and towns from the militants.

Now many Iraqis believe that without Al-Sistani’s call for “minor” jihad, most of Iraq, and probably the capital Baghdad, would have been lost to the IS terror group.

Today, however, the Shia-led government that Al-Sistani has supported with vigour and near-religious zeal is showing signs of a total slump, bogged down in dysfunction and infighting. There are fears that the damage done by the government is irreparable and could threaten the entire country’s future.

The situation has reached the point that most of those who have been protesting against the government are Shia. In many demonstrations, protesters have been shouting slogans against the religious Shia groups and their leaders who have created Iraq’s post-Saddam ruling oligarchy.

Al-Abadi has ordered cuts in cabinet and government posts and in the number of personal guards for officials. He has also ordered the reallocation of the funds budgeted for the positions and proposed cutting vacancies.

Still, to many Iraqis, Al-Abadi’s reforms seem unsubstantial and even cosmetic. Some believe that they are too little, too late. Others say that a major gap remains between statements and implementation.

The increasing public frustration with Al-Abadi’s foot-dragging could transform the peaceful protests into a more broad-based social and political revolt that would pit the demonstrators against the Shia ruling oligarchy, probably in a violent battle.

On Monday, the government deployed the army to quell a large sit-in the mostly Shia-populated city of Hilla south of Baghdad after police failed to disperse protesters who wanted to storm the governor’s offices.

A day earlier, protesters demanding jobs closed roads in many southern cities, including by blocking access to Iraq’s main commodity port in Um Qasr. In Karbala, demonstrators stormed government buildings and clashed with security forces.

The escalation of the protests will put Al-Sistani in a frustrating dilemma: a reclusive religious leader who avoids being engaged in politics is finding himself publicly handling one of the most serious crises that has faced Iraq since the US-led invasion.

There are daunting challenges that Al-Sistani will have to face if the protests in Baghdad and in the southern Shia provinces develop into a large-scale protest movement, or even an uprising against the Shia-led government.

Many protesters are accusing Al-Abadi of being weak and scorning him as being incapable of resisting the Shia political groups, including his own Dawa Party, which benefit from corruption and even from prolonging the war against IS.

These protesters believe that even with Al-Sistani’s backing for reform, the entrenched and corrupt Shia political leadership will make changes extremely difficult.

This is even more daunting because it means that Al-Sistani will have to work hard to ensure that the Shia oligarchy and the religious groups do not continue to take advantage of his standing at the expense of the moderate and secular Shia who are behind the current wave of protests.

There are signs that the protests have been creating a new cross-sectarian secular culture and a dynamic of citizenship that the Shia Islamic-oriented political leaders who feed on the Shia-Sunni divide fear will put their power at risk.

It is not yet clear just how far Al-Sistani, who has been carefully shielding the hard-won Shia power in Iraq, is prepared to go in support of the protesters, especially if they escalate their demands and call for dissolving the government, the parliament and the constitution.

One thing is crystal clear: the gulf that has opened up between Iraq’s silent Shia majority and its rulers has been highlighted by the recent protests and any misstep in handling the crisis will perhaps create greater dangers.

Al-Sistani, however, can seize an opportunity from the crisis by taking bold steps, including by isolating the entrenched Shia oligarchy which has been emboldened by the support of religious groups and encouraging the role of the secular Shia and their civil organisations in power.

This will also help to ease the sectarian polarisation in the country and facilitate a national rapprochement by isolating radical Sunnis and building bridges with moderate Sunnis who feel excluded by the Shia predominance.

How Al-Sistani will handle the crisis will be crucial not only for the Shia but also for the future of Iraq.

ما بعد التجربة

No faith in Mosul inquiry

Leave a comment

No faith in Mosul inquiry

An inquiry into the fall of Mosul to Islamic State forces has finally been concluded, but it is unlikely to satisfy the Iraqi public, writes Salah Nasrawi

A long-awaited parliamentary commission report about the fall of Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul to the Islamic State (IS) terror group has been finalised in Iraq amid controversy over its findings and the competence and independence of the panel.

An ad hoc parliamentary commission to investigate the fall of Mosul said on Sunday it had sent its final report to the parliament for endorsement. But efforts to muster enough support in parliament to approve the report have become entangled in a row over its outcome.

A ferocious battle immediately started over the commission’s main recommendation to refer former Iraqi prime minister Nuri Al-Maliki to face trial over the fall of Mosul. The move came a week after the present Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi, launched a sweeping reform campaign which led to the abolishment of Al-Maliki’s post as vice-president.

On Monday, Speaker of the Parliament Salim Al-Jibouri scrapped a debate on the report by lawmakers after noisy protests by Al-Maliki’s supporters and asked members to vote on sending the findings to the judiciary to decide if legal action was needed.

The move is likely to open the door to a prolonged legal battle over the political nature of the case and the jurisdiction of the criminal courts to try officials accused of crimes related to military or national security matters.

Many Iraqis believe their judiciary is far from being truly independent. In the past, the judiciary has come under fire for being influenced by Al-Maliki himself, and last week Iraq’s top Shia Muslim cleric grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani called for reforms to the judiciary.

The row started immediately after the head of the commission, Hakim Al-Zamili, said the report had been endorsed by a majority of the panel’s members. Al-Maliki dismissed the findings as “worthless” and his supporters challenged the assertion as politically motivated.

Al-Zamili did not disclose details about the findings, but media reports quoting the report have said that some 35 military and government officials have been indicted by the panel for their role in the fall of Mosul.

The capture of Mosul shocked Iraqis who have sought to learn the truth about the seizure of the city and demanded that the perpetrators be brought to justice.

In addition to Al-Maliki, who also served as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces at the time, the panel named acting Defence Minister Sadoun Al-Duliami, Deputy Minister of Interior Adnan Al-Assadi and governor of Nineveh Atheel Al-Nujaifi.

The list also includes chief of staff Babakr Zebari and two of his deputies. Other top brass named are the head of Al-Maliki’s military office Farouk Al-Aaraji and several army and police commanders. Several provincial government officials were also implicated.

Al-Maliki had refused to be quizzed by the commission and instead sent written testimony. Sunni Iraqi Vice-President Osama Al-Nuajaifi and Kurdistan regional President Masoud Barzani also sent written answers, but the two were cleared by the findings.

In June last year IS jihadists seized control of Mosul, routing the Iraqi army in the city of more than one million people. Later they advanced to consolidate their hold over dozens of cities and towns in western and northern Iraq and formally declared the establishment of an Islamic “caliphate” with Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi as caliph, or its head.

The advances and the declaration of the “Islamic State” sent shockwaves around the world and pushed the United States to form an international coalition to fight the group, which has also extended its control to vast areas in neighbouring Syria.

For many Iraqis and foreign observers, the reasons behind the fall of Mosul have remained dubious, especially since a large contingent of army and police force was policing the city and its surroundings before the IS onslaught.

The investigation started in December after months of wrangling about its jurisdiction and the competence of its members. The panel was originally composed of a few members of the parliament’s defence and security committee but was later expanded to include some 26 lawmakers to reflect political, ethnic and sectarian diversity.

Al-Zamili said the commission had relied on testimonies, evidence, witnesses and documents related to the fall of Mosul to reach its conclusions. At his Sunday press conference Al-Zamili referred to an unspecified foreign role in the capture of Mosul, and in a television interview later he indicated that the Turkish consulate in Mosul had been involved.

Information emerging shortly after the fall of Mosul and details given to the media by some officers, including some of those who were named by the panel, indicated enormous corruption, incompetence, recklessness, negligence and dereliction of duty by top commanders and politicians.

The events ran from 10 June last year, when dozens of IS militants overpowered a tens-of-thousands strong garrison in Mosul, a sprawling city of mostly Sunni Arabs mixed with small ethnic minorities of Kurds, Turkmen and Christians.

According to various accounts, IS militants had taken over many neighbourhoods in the city days beforehand, exploiting the lack of resistance by the security forces and in some cases in collaboration with the local police.

In the hours before the militants took overall control of the city, tens of thousands of army and police personnel vanished from their camps and posts, leaving behind huge quantities of weapons, vehicles and equipment.

The commanders who had fled their posts and abandoned their soldiers exchanged blame about the state of disarray which they had left behind, forcing units to retreat or surrender.

The commission findings showed that “responsibility for the fall of Mosul to the criminal gangs of IS lies in the political and security leadership,” the report said, using the Arabic acronym of the terror group.

It said that “the commander of the Armed Forces and former prime minister [Al-Maliki] did not have a clear idea about the security situation in Nineveh because he was relying in his assessment on misleading information sent by military and security commanders without double-checking it.”

Among the wrongdoings attributed to Al-Maliki is his “appointment of incompetent and corrupt commanders” without “subjecting them to vetting and accountability.”

The report highlighted Al-Maliki’s failure “to build the army and provide it with appropriate weaponry and training.” It said he had promoted loyal officers without consideration for the army’s command system and power structure.

One of the serious accusations against Al-Maliki made by the report is that he failed to deal with the aftermath of the fall of Mosul, costing Iraq more territory.

The Nineveh governor is also charged with “creating an atmosphere hostile to the security forces in the province,” a reference to his repeated claims that the largely Shia-dominated security forces were mistreating the local population.

Several military commanders, including the Iraqi chief of staff and other senior officers, were blamed for negligence and corruption and held responsible for the capture of the city.

While some Iraqis welcomed the report as a positive step towards revealing the truth about what happened in Mosul, many fear the exercise needed to be more open and transparent. Others have warned of a whitewash, citing the secrecy of the deliberations and the dilution of the findings.

Now all Iraqis’ eyes are on Al-Abadi, many people waiting with bated breath to see how he will react to the deadlock over the Mosul findings as he continues his drive to bring change to the government, including getting rid of Al-Maliki’s legacy.

Hours before the disclosure of the report Al-Abadi approved a decision by an investigative council to refer military commanders to a court martial for abandoning their positions in the battle against IS militants in Ramadi in May.

There are increasing fears that Al-Maliki, who leads a parliamentary bloc of some 80 lawmakers and enjoys the support of his Dawa Party and some Iran-backed militias, will try to tip the panel’s recommendations away from what they are supposed to be.

Many members of his State of Law bloc have threatened to boycott the parliament if Al-Maliki is put on trial.

“Why should Al-Maliki be held responsible,” asked Amir Al-Khuzaei, one of his key supporters, during an interview.

“The Prophet Mohamed wasn’t responsible for [the defeat] at the Battle of Uhud. The archers were,” he told the Iranian-owned Al-Itijah television channel.

He was referring to the 7th-century battle that the Prophet Mohamed lost to infidels in Mecca.

This article appeared first in Al-Ahram Weekly on August 20, 2015

Iraq-Protests

Why Iraq’s protests matter

Leave a comment

Why Iraq’s protests matter

The protests in Iraq may not produce change immediately, but they will affect the country’s ailing system of government in the long run, writes Salah Nasrawi

Iraqis are taking to the streets. Thousands gathered in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square on 7 August to protest against corruption and the centralisation of power. Similar protests took place in other cities, including Basra and the two Shia holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.

Hundreds of Iraqis also gathered in front of several Iraqi embassies abroad in support of the protests.

Friday’s demonstrations, organised by young activists and joined by the disenchanted, were the second in a week in Baghdad and across Iraq, with participants initially calling on the government to address the country’s chronic energy shortages and lack of basic public services.

Temperatures above 50 degrees and power cuts that leave Iraqis with only a few hours of electricity per day coupled with severe shortages in running water and an unhealthy environment have exacerbated the effects of the current heat wave in the country.

The protesters blame the lack of essential services on poor government and rampant corruption. They say the crisis has stalled Iraq’s once-promising economy and contributed to the country’s instability. Many protesters blame corruption for wrecking living conditions and the country’s economic and political turmoil together with the rise of the Islamic State (IS) terror group.

Twelve years after the ouster of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s regime in the US-led invasion, Iraq’s ruling class has failed to rebuild the war-torn country despite receiving nearly one trillion dollars in oil revenues, leaving behind a deeply divided country steeped in ruin.

Leaving Iraq’s fragile political system unfettered, corruption has become deeply entrenched in Iraq’s state bureaucracy, and few Iraqis believe their political leaders are capable or willing to tackle the endemic graft problem.

In its 2014 corruption index, the international NGO Transparency International said Iraq was the fifth-most corrupt country in the world out of the 175 countries surveyed. Over more than a decade Iraq has remained among the top ten worse countries for corruption.

Most of Iraq’s political elite is believed to be involved in one type of corruption or another, plundering the country’s wealth in order to create rents that can be used to secure control of the government and build political and sectarian fiefdoms.

Corruption and the misuse of public office in Iraq is widespread and systematic. It includes bribery, extortion, embezzlement, fraud, legal plunder, money-trafficking and laundering, patronage, cronyism, nepotism and plutocracy.

Iraqis began unprecedented mass protests against corruption and government mismanagement in January 2011, influenced by the Arab Spring uprisings which broke out in several Arab countries to bring down their autocratic regimes.

Though former prime minister Nuri Al-Maliki ruthlessly cracked down on the opposition, anti-corruption and pro-reform demonstrators continued to hold small protests every now and then but with no efforts made by the government to accede to the protesters’ demands.

The new wave of demonstrations against the electricity shortages started last month in the southern port city of Basra and was triggered by the killing of a demonstrator protesting against electricity cuts. Angry protesters then called on the local governor and council members to step down.

Late last week, train drivers for the Iraqi Railways Company protested in an unprecedented way at the delay in their monthly salaries when they blocked the main roads in Baghdad with trains. The staff of several state-owned industrial companies held similar demonstrations and cut roads in Baghdad for the same reason.

On 7 August, the security forces were out in strength to discourage protesters from reaching Tahrir Square in the heart of Baghdad, which had been chosen by organisers as the venue for their rally. Intimidation and harassment by the security forces and supporters of the ruling parties were reported to have forced thousands of people to join the demonstrations.

Public frustration has been building after the government announced austerity measures this year because of the severe budget deficit following a sharp fall in oil prices. However, it maintained the huge salaries and allowances received by senior officials.

Although the protesters have focused most of their anger on deteriorating living conditions and an almost total abandonment by the state of its responsibilities to society, the demonstrations have also highlighted Iraq’s deeper governance problems.

This wave of protests has revealed new forms of political mobilisation in response to ever-increasing grievances against the monopoly of power, political hegemony, cronyism and mismanagement.

Significantly, the protests have been held mostly in Shia-populated cities and towns, marking increasing dissatisfaction by the Iraqi Shia with the political class, mostly Islamic-oriented groups.

In a rare show of disdain for the Shia political oligarchy, protesters slammed what they called its “manipulation” of religion to maintain a grip on power and plunder the state’s resources.

Such sharp public salvos must have rung alarm bells with Shia religious and political leaders who are keen to defend the hard-won Shia rule in Iraq after the US-led invasion, especially at a time when they are being challenged by IS militants who control large swaths of land in Iraq.

The remarks must also have sounded a warning signal to elements of the Shia political groups who support the rule of clerics in state affairs based on Iranian ayatollah Khamenei’s concept of velayat faqih, or the rule of the jurist.

Sensing the danger to the Shia gains he has carefully nurtured, Iraq’s top Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani was quick to intervene and directed Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi to take tougher measures against corruption and name politicians standing in the way of reform.

But criticisms of rising theocracy by the protesters have evoked strong reactions from Shia clerics and religious groups, who have attacked the organisers for being secular.

Sadr Al-Din Qubanchi, a Friday prayer imam in Najaf and a senior member of the Iraqi Supreme Council led by Amar Al-Hakim, called on Iraqis to boycott the demonstrations. Qais Al-Khazali, leader of the radical Assab Ahl Al-Haq, or “League of the Righteous,” militia, warned that the protesters “will be crossing a red line” if they criticise “religious elements.”

The protests have invested new energy in long-stagnating Iraqi politics, however. In an attempt to appease the protesters, Al-Abadi approved a wide-ranging reform plan that would abolish the three vice-presidential posts in the government as well as the office of deputy prime minister in order to slash spending and improve the government’s performance in the face of the mass protests.

Al-Abadi’s seven-point plan which promises anti-corruption reforms, a number of government posts be filled with political independents and drastic cuts in government jobs and some ministries has received parliamentary approval.

Doubts have also arisen about whether Al-Abadi’s package of reforms will be able to assuage the protesters, as many of them have voiced concerns that their demands for real change have gone unanswered.

To many analysts, the crisis would exacerbate if young activists will be able to forge across-nation alliance that will organize a bigger protest movement in case the reform programme falls short of their expectations.

Meanwhile, the protests and the power struggles they have led to have fully exposed the dysfunctional political system in Iraq forged following the US-led invasion and based on a quota system that distributes power among Iraq’s main ethnic and sectarian groups.

The system, in theory forged to build a consensual democracy through power-sharing, has turned into the rule of an oligarchy where power resides with a political class controlled by a few religious families or groups.

The question now is whether the new crisis will change all that and allow a new and more viable and functional political system to emerge. This will largely depend on how the protest movement evolves and on whether it can provide a creative leadership and shape a strategic programme with realistic goals.

So far, the biggest weakness in the protest movement has been its fragmentation and lack of leadership. This makes it prone to manipulation by politicians who try to use the protests as a revolving door to go back to dirty politics.

There have already been signs that politicians and media figures with agendas are trying to use the protests to serve their own agendas. Leaders of groups that have been excluded from the government and militia chieftains aspiring for power are also taking advantage of the protests by adopting their slogans.

On the other hand, much will also depend on Al-Abadi and on whether he can deliver on pledges he has made in his reform programme. One of his biggest challenges will be how to deal with the country’s entrenched oligarchy, including vice-president and former prime minister Al-Maliki.

Al-Maliki who is Al-Abadi’s boss in the Dawa Party, is at the top of the protesters’ list of those they want to see stand trial on corruption and mismanagement charges, including by losing some one-third of Iraqi territory to IS jihadists.

While it is too early to judge the pros and cons of Iraq’s nascent protest movement, one of the most complex experiences in the country’s modern history, the effort is certainly being made, and it is worth supporting if it sets in motion a process that will help Iraq change and hopefully for the better.

—

This article appeared first in Al Ahram Weekly on Aug, 13, 2015