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Regional impact of the Turkish elections

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Regional impact of the Turkish elections

The regional implications of the forthcoming Turkish elections could be enormous, writes Salah Nasrawi

When Turks go to the polls on 1 November to choose a new parliament, the elections will be watched by regional players as never before. The outcome of the vote will impact on Turkey’s relationship with its neighbours in a variety of areas.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the snap elections to end the political stalemate that followed the June 2015 parliamentary elections. For the first time since 2002, voters denied Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) a parliamentary majority and gave the country’s large Kurdish minority its biggest ever voice in national politics.

Even before the current political deadlock, Turkey was sinking deep into political uncertainty. The country is grappling with escalating instability and economic turmoil. Turkish opposition parties have accused Erdogan of forcing snap elections in a bid to return the AKP to the majority in parliament it lost in the June elections.

Analysts say the call for the elections amid mounting turmoil in the country has increased the polarisation between the pro- and anti-AKP camps. Much of the polarisation is blamed on Erdogan himself, who has grown more authoritarian in office. He has built up a cult of personality and antagonised secularists, the Kurds, the military, the judiciary and the media.

Erdogan earlier blocked a coalition government, hoping that a new parliamentary vote would give the AKP a majority and form a government alone. A large majority would also allow him to rewrite the constitution to concentrate powers in the presidency.

For many observers, the 1 November elections are the most important in the country’s recent history, and not just for Turkey. The outcome could change the country drastically for better or for worse, and could also certainly affect the immediate region, which is already fraught with political uncertainty.

During its 13-year tenure, the AKP has used foreign policy to advance its domestic drive for power. It has favoured an ambitious approach that promotes its popularity at home while fundamentally reshaping Turkish foreign policy and making Turkey a key regional player.

One of the main issues that will decide the future of Turkey’s relationship with the region is Ankara’s attitude towards its Kurdish population. The pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) picked up about 13 per cent of the vote and 80 seats in the last elections, breaking the 10 per cent threshold required for a party to take its seats for the first time and raising hopes for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish problem in Turkey.

But a recent crackdown on the Kurds ended a ceasefire with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that had held since 2013. The government is also trying to strike at the popularity of pro-Kurdish opposition groups in order to secure an absolute majority in the elections.

In Syria, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), labelled by Ankara as the Syrian offshoot of the PKK, is making significant gains on the ground. A collapse of the peace process and the resumption of fighting with the PKK will certainly ignite turbulence along Turkey’s southern border with Syria and even with Iraq, which has a Kurdish-controlled territory.

Since the civil war in Syria started following the popular uprising in 2011, the AKP has insisted that President Bashar Al-Assad should have no role in a UN-backed proposal for a transitional government in Syria.

Ankara has also called for a safe zone to be set up in northern Syria to keep the Islamic State (IS) terror group and Kurdish militants away from its borders, and help stem the tide of displaced civilians trying to cross into the country.

There has been no international support for either idea. Russia’s military intervention in Syria has further complicated Erdogan’s plans for the future of the war-torn country. It has also left him facing the stark reality of Turkey’s limits when challenged by an international power.

There are increasing fears that after the elections an AKP-led government will be more involved in the war in Syria and will drag the country further into the country’s quagmire.

Iraq is another regional policy hurdle for Turkey. The Shia government in Baghdad has accused Ankara of siding with Iraq’s Sunnis in the country’s sectarian conflict.

It also accuses Turkey of supporting jihadists, including IS, in parts of Iraq. Iraq has criticised Turkey for its continuous bombings of what it claims to be PKK targets in northern Iraq, calling these an “assault on Iraqi sovereignty.”

Last month, an Iraqi Shia group calling itself “The Death Squads” briefly abducted 18 Turkish construction workers and engineers in Baghdad. The gunmen demanded that Ankara cut the Kurdistan region’s oil pipeline to Turkey and stop Sunni extremists from entering Iraq through Turkish territory.

In both Iraq and Syria, Turkey finds itself in confrontation with Shia Iran. Erdogan has accused Iran of trying to dominate the Middle East and said its efforts have begun to irritate Ankara.

Turkey also has serious diplomatic problems in its relations with Egypt. Relations between Ankara and Cairo soured after the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi in 2013. Erdogan, a vocal supporter of the Brotherhood, labelled Morsi’s overthrow “a coup” and said that he does not view President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi as the president of Egypt.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry has said that bilateral ties with Egypt could “normalise if the country returns to democracy and if the Egyptian people’s will is reflected in politics and social life.”

Erdogan also supports Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist resistance movement, which controls Gaza. Egypt considers the group to be a security threat because it is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Opposition leaders in Turkey, meanwhile, have said that Ankara should repair its relations with Cairo if the AKP wants to form a coalition government after the elections.

Turkey’s new approach towards the Syrian refugee problem and the deal it is negotiating with the European Union (EU) poses another challenge to its regional strategy.

The draft agreement on migrants, which is expected to give Ankara incentives including visa liberalisation, financial support and invitations to Turkish leaders to EU summits, will be in return for Turkey policing its borders and stopping refugees from sneaking into Greece and Bulgaria, and from there into other EU countries.

If finalised, the deal will allow the EU to return some hundreds of thousands of refugees to Turkey, where they will be housed in camps financed by the EU. Such a move will expose the selfish foreign policy of Ankara and its disregard for the plight of the refugees, who are mostly Syrians and Iraqis.

In another sign that it wants to use its resources to play a regional role, Turkey started supplying water through an undersea pipeline to Turks in Northern Cyprus on Saturday. The Peace Water Project will transport a total of 75 million cubic metres of water annually to the island.

In his inauguration speech, Erdogan said Turkey is ready to extend water supplies to Cyprus, the clearest indication yet that Turkey intends to use its huge water resources, generated by the South-Eastern Anatolia Project (GAP), in the region’s power game.

Turkey is also seeking to secure a role in several regional energy projects that involve Russian, Iranian and Qatari gas pipelines to Europe through the Mediterranean. Such a role would help ensure Turkey’s decisive role in the new world energy order.

No one knows what will happen in the upcoming elections in Turkey. If the AKP regains a majority and forms a government on its own, it will likely resort to its proactive regional policy. If a coalition government is formed, Turkey is expected to adopt a less confrontational foreign policy and probably return to its traditionally neutral and secular role in the region.

But whether the AKP is able to form a government on its own or through a coalition with other parties, Erdogan will still be there for the next three years. There are increasing concerns that he will continue to pursue his adventurism in regional policy in an attempt to maintain his vision of Turkey and keep advancing the AKP’s domestic push for power.

—

This article first published in Al Ahram Weekly on Oct. 22, 2015

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Sailing by dinghy to the European dream

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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

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No faith in Mosul inquiry

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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

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Assault on Iraqi writers

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Assault on Iraqi writers

Fear is hanging over secular Iraqi intellectuals following a militia raid on the Writers Union building in Baghdad, writes Salah Nasrawi

Last week’s attack on the offices of the Iraqi Union of Writers has led to fears that the country is turning into a nation ruled by fundamentalist militias and vigilante groups known for their bigotry and use of violence.

The dramatic rise of the self-styled religious extremist groups has been connected to growing pressure from the government and political groups on the media to show public support for the Shia Popular Mobilisation Forces which are battling the Islamic State (IS) terror group.

On 17 June about 50 black-clad gunmen stormed the headquarters of the Writers Union in downtown Baghdad. They beat up staff and guards and destroyed the offices of an organisation that has long taken pride in its secularism and defied rising sectarian extremism and religious fundamentalism.

The rampage shocked the intelligentsia of a nation that has been living in dread of a sectarian war since IS seized large parts of Iraq last summer. The attack by gunmen dressed in military uniforms triggered an outpouring of public anger at home and expressions of solidarity from around the world.

In a statement, the Union said that dozens of armed men attacked its offices and briefly held its guards and staff hostage. The assailants, who used SUVs without licence plates, set up temporary roadblocks to divert traffic in the area during the raid, the statement said.

It said the attackers seized identity cards, money and personal mobile phones from the Union’s employees and security guards and smashed furniture in offices before leaving.

Union President Fadel Thamir described the attack as an attempt to “turn Iraq into an extremist religious state like [Taliban-controlled] Afghanistan.” Thamir, a well-known literary critic, urged the government to “bring the perpetrators to justice and stop violations against writers.”

Said Thamir, “This aggression underscores the dangers to the lives and safety of all those who work in literature and cultural organisations.” The Shia-led government had no immediate reaction to the attack, but Baghdad’s chief of security promised an investigation.

Iraqi President Fouad Masum, a Kurd whose post is ceremonial and has no executive power, said the assault “undermines both the state and the rule of law.” He called on the authorities to provide protection to the Union and other organisations.

There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack, but from the little information available it seems clear that it was planned by an organised Shia-fundamentalist network, probably targeting a social club and bar on the premises.

The religiosity of society in Iraq has grown since the overthrow of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s secular regime in the US-led invasion in 2003. It is not unusual for hardline groups, sometimes working closely with the security forces, to raid alcohol shops, bars and nightclubs in Baghdad.

They step up their vigilante activities during Ramadan to ensure the Islamic fasting month is not tainted. Ramadan this year started on 18 June, a day before the raid on the Union building, but there were no reports of members or guests having been caught drinking alcohol during the raid.

Union member have been harassed by Shia fundamentalist vigilantes on many occasions before. In 2012, security forces stormed the social club in the building and forced all those who were there to leave under threat of violence.

Volunteer groups claiming to “promote virtue and prevent vice” on the streets have been chastising and, in some cases, physically assaulting and arresting people they consider to be sinful or behaving improperly.

In July, two dozen women and two men in an alleged brothel in Baghdad were murdered by gunmen who stormed the place. Scores of young people whose behaviour is perceived to be unconventional have been murdered in recent years.

There have been no investigations into these and other cases to determine the perpetrators, but many Iraqis believe it is clear who is responsible. They say the killings have been carried out by members of local militia or religious groups.

The attack against the Writers Union, however, raises broader questions about the Shia-led government’s policy toward culture in view of the increasing hostility to secular and moderate intellectuals in Iraq.

Following the fall of Saddam’s dictatorship, Iraqi writers, journalists and artists hoped that the country’s new rulers would make commitments to changes underpinned in the new constitution to build a participatory and inclusive democratic culture.

Unfortunately, the worst fears of the intelligentsia in the Arab part of Iraq have come true: Shia fundamentalist groups who came to power after Saddam’s fall have begun to impose their religious ideology and conservative lifestyle.

In Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region, which is under the rule of a heavy-handed political coalition government, free speech and political and intellectual dissent are hardly tolerated.

Today, Iraq lacks a national cultural policy with clear values and priorities able to promote democracy and diversity, sustain the country as a richly creative society and ultimately be the best hope for stability in what is now a dangerously unstable nation.

Post-Saddam Iraq has had no ministers of culture who were interested in their portfolio or took their jobs seriously. All the posts in the Ministry of Culture are now filled with political appointees or cronies with little or no cultural background or activities.

Under a chequebook reward system, thousands of carefully selected writers, journalists and artists receive financial support from the ministry each year.

But no philosophy or goals to affirm the centrality of culture and the arts to Iraq’s national identity and to ensure their role in strengthening national unity have been set. Individual creativity is rarely recognised or encouraged.

Threatened and frustrated, Iraqi intellectuals rarely form groups to oppose the government. Rather, individual intellectuals or groups of intellectuals ally themselves with cliques within the government to lend their support to the policies of the ruling groups.

Many Iraqi writers, artists and intellectuals have left Iraq for lives in exile out of fears of harassment, or because they have been deprived of jobs or opportunities. Those who have stayed and want to make a living in Iraq have had to cooperate with the state’s or ruling groups’ institutions, or resort to self-censorship.

Iraqi journalists have also been the targets of campaigns by the government or the ruling political class to stifle the media or buy their silence. Hundreds of media workers have been killed or murdered in violence since 2003, and independent journalists remain subject to intimidation, harassment and exclusion.

During the last 12 years, bit by bit, the Iraqi media has fallen into full compliance with the structures of power, most notably the government and those of the ruling cliques. The majority of the media outlets in Iraq are now either institutionally embedded with or submissive to the ruling groups. Almost all media owners or bosses are people who have nothing to do with journalism.

Iraqi journalists are subjected to sectarian polarisation in their daily practices. Acrimonious infighting, selective engagement in public causes and a lack of professionalism are common. As a result of cunning operations by both the government and complicit media organisations, Iraq now has a toothless mainstream media that lacks efficiency and influence, and is not trusted by the general public.

The country’s national media organisation, the Iraqi Media Network, has fallen under the total control of the state, as journalists who served in party propaganda machines or loyal bureaucrats with little or no knowledge of journalism and carefully chosen by the prime minister’s office have been appointed to key positions.

The Iraqi Journalists Syndicate is seen to be cozying up to the government and the political elite in return for protection and profits such as financial rewards, pensions and land.

The absence of objective and professional coverage has led to the widespread reporting of government propaganda, something that is sadly familiar to Iraqis from Saddam’s decades in power.

Since IS’s advances last summer, the government has increased its pressure on the media to make journalists follow the official propaganda line on the war against the terror group. Criticism or “negative reporting” are often labelled as treason or even denounced as betrayals of the Islamic creed.

Last week, local media reported that Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi has formed a “War Media Cell” to oversee and coordinate news reporting on the fighting with IS.

They said the main duty of the group will be to feed the media with the government’s narrative of the war and circulate news of the “successes” of the security forces and the Popular Mobilisation Force. It will also monitor local and international coverage of the war, the media said.

This article appeared first in Al Ahram Weekly on June 26, 2015

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Shia-Sunni schism deepens

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Shia Sunni schism deepens

If we have any sense of history, the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East are sectarian in essence, writes Salah Nasraw

Like the summer heat, the fear of impending sectarian clashes is weighing on the Middle East these days. Compared with previous catastrophic wars, a sectarian flare-up looks much worse and could have profound implications for our time. Even Ramadan, Islam’s most sacred month, doesn’t seem immune from the gloom.

From wars in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, a government crisis in Lebanon, and the bombings in Saudi Arabia, the perception that the region is sinking into deep sectarian conflicts is becoming a reality. Fierce rivalry between a Sunni camp led by Saudi Arabia and a Shia conglomerate led by Iran is heightening sectarian tensions, even in conflicts that are primarily political.

A key factor behind the tension is the rise of Shia Islam that followed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and fears that the newly empowered Shia will try to carve out political space for themselves in a Sunni-dominated region. The turmoil that marred the region in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring revolutions, which trigged a tectonic shift in the Middle East’s geopolitical landscape, has also increased regional sectarian tensions.

In Iraq, the rise of the Shia upset the sectarian balance in the multi-ethnic and multi-religious country and reinforced the historic conflict between Islam’s two main sects. The Shia-led government failed to build a consensus democracy following the overthrow of the Sunni-dominated regime of former president Saddam Hussein. This gave rise to Sunni radicalisation and mobilisation to fight back against what Sunnis perceived as exclusion and marginalisation.

The culmination of the Sunni insurgency in the Islamic State (IS) group’s onslaught last year and its seizure of vast chunks of territory has sharpened the sectarian divide as Shia militias moved quickly to fight for what they saw as their survival against the militants. Sectarian violence and atrocities committed by both sides have deepened the intercommunal strife and taken the region’s historic Shia-Sunni split to a potentially explosive level.

The popular uprising against the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad in Syria soon turned into another regional sectarian flashpoint when Iran and the rest of the Shia in the Middle East backed the Alawite-dominated regime, while Sunni Arabs supported the country’s Sunni majority. The war has engulfed the residents of Alawite and Sunni villages and towns in massive atrocities and in many cases revealed vengeful tendencies towards sectarian point-scoring.

In a recent interview with the Al-Jazeera television network, Abu Mohamed Al-Golani, head of the radical Al-Nusra Front, warned that his Al-Qaeda-affiliated group did not only want Syrian Alawites to disavow Al-Assad and drop their arms, but also to “correct their doctrinal mistakes and embrace Islam.” Al-Golani vowed to fight Iran, which he described as a “non-Islamic” and “Persian” state hostile to the Arabs.

EXTENSION OF THE CONFLICT: The war in Syria has spilled over into neighbouring Lebanon, with the Shia group Hizbullah siding with Al-Assad and many of the Sunni faithful in Lebanon openly supporting Syrian rebels. Over the past few weeks, clashes have roiled the borders with Syria as Hizbullah carried out its most intense operations against Sunni militants who have taken up positions in the porous mountainous region.

Hizbullah’s offensive has increased Shia-Sunni tensions in a country that has its own turbulent history of religious and sectarian struggles. Many expect that in a post-Al-Assad Syria dominated by Sunnis, their co-religionists in Lebanon will take heart and demand a greater role and more power. If Al-Assad, or the Alawite minority, stays in power, or if Syria falls apart into ethnic mini-states, Lebanon could easily follow suit, but only after another bloody war.

The crisis in Yemen, where competing forces are also fighting for control, has further galvanised the region. Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition of Gulf Arab nations in the fight against Shia Houthis who now control large swathes of land in the impoverished but strategically important country. The Saudi-led intervention has turned what was mostly seen as a political and tribal power struggle into a sectarian conflict between the Houthi minority and Yemen’s Sunni majority.

In all these countries the conflicts between the Shia and Sunni communities are seen as part of the larger regional geopolitical struggle between Shia-ruled Iran and Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia. The sectarian alignment, crystallised in the war in Yemen with Saudi Arabia assembling a coalition of Sunni nations against the pro-Iranian Shia Houthi rebels, is a clear sign of how sectarianism is snowballing.

Given the intensity and scale of the Shia-Sunni conflict in the region and its dynamics, Saudi Arabia itself is not immune to the sectarian competition. Saudi Arabia’s Shia, who comprise about 15 per cent of the population, have been struggling for greater political and economic rights and especially equal treatment by the country’s dominant Wahhabi establishment, which considers them as heretics.

Last month, attacks in the Shia-dominated eastern province of the country, where dozens of Shia worshipers were killed by IS suicide bombers, were an indication of how rising tension in the region is penetrating the kingdom itself, feeding a bloody sectarian struggle. Following the deadly attacks, messages posted on social media in the kingdom were rife with anti-Shia rhetoric, with some calling for the killing of the “impure” Shia infidels and the destruction of their “temples.”

Frightened and feeling betrayed, Shia in the eastern province sought to take matters into their own hands and create self-protection committees to guard against IS attacks. That was immediately rejected by Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Nayef, also deputy premier and minister of the interior, who warned that the government “will confront those who try to undermine its security and stability with an iron fist.”

Other Middle Eastern Muslim countries where Shia are small minorities, such as Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Sudan, have not been spared the spiralling sectarian tension raging in the region.

In Egypt, a report by the Cairo-based Regional Centre for Strategic Studies cautioned against the “repercussions of Shia political and religious activity” in Egypt after the 25 January Revolution in 2011. The report said the “reactions of the Egyptian Shia sect to Operation Decisive Storm have gained a lot of attention and raised questions about the extent of the presence of the Shia in Egypt.”

In April, a new Salafi group was formed to combat Shia activism in Egypt. The announced launch of the Coalition for the Defence of the Prophet’s Companions followed increased Shia-Sunni polarisation over the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen. Security crackdowns on the Shia in Egypt, including closing down their offices and questioning their leaders, have also increased.

FIRE UNDER THE ASHES: The modern Shia-Sunni struggle dates back to the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and its aftermath, when conservative Sunni countries in the Middle East, faced with Shia Iran’s claim to lead Muslims worldwide, responded by challenging the Islamic credentials of the Shia ayatollahs who had become Iran’s new rulers. The Iraq-Iran War in the 1980s opened a new chapter in the sectarian schism, as most of the Arab countries supported Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated regime against Shia Iran.

The animosity gained new impetus with the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, which empowered the majority Iraqi Shia at the expense of the Arab Sunni minority that had ruled Iraq since independence in the 1920s. The prospect of a Shia-led Iraq triggered alarms bell among many Sunni regimes of the danger of a geopolitical shift in the region, one in which Shia Arabs could ally themselves with Shia Iran.

Many Sunni Arab leaders started warning of a Shia Crescent, the crescent-shaped region of the Middle East where the majority population is Shia, or where there is a strong Shia minority in the population. The idea was that a shared faith could lead to potential cooperation between Iran, Iraqi Shia, Alawite-dominated Syria, and the politically powerful Shia Hizbullah in Lebanon.

Sunni militant groups, such as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which were born in the upheaval that following, took anti-Shia zeal to new heights. The rivalry reached genocidal levels with the resurgence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL), an Al-Qaeda offshoot, after civil war erupted in Syria in 2011. The group, which later declared itself as a caliphate and came to be known as the Islamic State, refuses to recognise the Shia as Muslims and has given them a grim choice of conversion or death.

ROOTS OF DIVISION: The Sunni and the Shia are the two main sects of Islam. Followers of both sects believe Allah is God, that Mohamed was his last prophet, and that the Qur’an is the holy book of Islam.

Unlike the different denominations of Christianity, the division between Muslim Shia and Sunnis is not defined by doctrine. They share most of the same Islamic tenets, but have some differences in their interpretation of the religious texts and the Prophet Mohamed’s traditions.

However, there are also differences between the two groups in the way they govern themselves and how they view political leadership within Islam. These variations stem from a disagreement over who was the legitimate leader to succeed the Prophet Mohamed after his death in 632 CE.

Some of his companions argued that the new leader should be chosen by them, while others claimed the role should stay within the Prophet’s immediate family. Those who supported the idea of “selection” won, and Abu Bakr Al-Sidiq, a close companion of the Prophet, was installed as the caliph (successor) or chief Muslim civil and religious ruler.

Muslims who felt that the leadership should stay within Mohamed’s clan rejected Abu Bakr and his successors and instead supported Ali ibn Abi Talib, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet. This row has led to two main branches within Islam: the Sunni and the Shia. While supporters of giving rule to the Prophet’s descendants took on the name of Shiat-Ali (“the party of Ali”), commonly shortened to Shia, the others were called Sunni, meaning those who follow the traditions of the Prophet.

Today, Sunnis account for some 90 per cent of the 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide and have been the dominant branch in the Middle East for centuries. Although the Shia are spread across the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, they constitute a majority only in Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan and Bahrain. Hundreds of thousands of Shia also live in the United States and other Western nations, and they, like their Sunni counterparts, are primed for sectarian sentiments.

Despite its historic roots, however, the split within Islam has not been this deep or bloody for centuries. It is only in recent years that it has emerged as the biggest fault line in the struggle for dominance in the Middle East and beyond.

The geopolitical conflicts raging between the Sunnis and Shia are shaking the Middle East today. Sectarianism is being instrumentalised in various ways to advance geopolitical aims, including justifying extremism and employing religiously oriented propaganda in conflicts.

As if to underscore the antagonistic nature of these conflicts, the warring parties have showed no willingness for a pause during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan which started last week. The United Nations has asked for a halt in the fighting in Yemen during Ramadan, a time of fasting, spiritual reflection and worship, yet the fighting has not abated neither in Yemen nor in other countries.

Consequently, with so much blood being spilled and chaos spreading, the most pressing question being asked now is whether rising sectarianism in the Middle East reflects real religious differences between Islam’s two main branches or is merely politics.

For those who believe sectarianism is the work of the colonial powers, the phenomenon was not such an issue before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and its growth is a result of the struggle for wealth, power and territory in the region.

A careful and in-depth analysis of the modern history of the Middle East shows that the rise of sectarianism is not spontaneous, though religious, sectarian and ethnic divisions after the independence of the Arab countries from the Ottomans and Western colonial powers seemed less pronounced. The recent turmoil may just have been the catalyst that exposed long-hidden sectarian prejudice and biases.

In their heyday, during the immediate post-colonial era, the focus of the region’s founding fathers was on establishing a common pan-Arab and national identity in the face of religious and ethnic identities. But sectarianism has revealed not only the fragility of the modern Arab nation-state, but also the deep religious hatred that seems to be the sole preserve of one sect group or the other.

For now, sectarianism continues to exacerbate regional conflicts. For many people, the fear is that the vicious Shia-Sunni division that has been poisoning Islam for 1,400 years may become even get worse.

This article appeared first in Al-Ahram Weekly on June 26, 2015