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Abstract
This article analyses the development of a tenuous Iraqi national identity since the creation of the Iraqi state in 1920. Informed by the ideas of Anthony D. Smith, Benedict Anderson and Eric Hobsbawm, it argues that various political actors in Iraq have sought to reshape historical memory and thus forge a national identity. Despite many setbacks and a long series of authoritarian regimes seeking to appropriate Iraqiness for their own political purposes, and recently the threat from Kurdish irredentism, this article nevertheless contends that an Iraqi cultural ‘ethnicity’ has been created over the past nine decades.
Notes
1. Abu Khaldun Sati al-Husri (1881–1968) was of Syrian descent but born in Yemen. Before the fall of the Ottoman Empire, he had studied political science in Istanbul. Note that Kenny (1963, p. 231) claims al-Husri was born in Aleppo in 1879.
2. The Sharifians were a group of Arab nationalist military officers and soldiers of mostly Iraqi origin who, during World War One had joined a British-sponsored revolt against the Ottomans under the leadership of Sharif Husayn of Mecca. Following the war they were briefly able to set up a nationalist administration in Syria where they elected Faysal, the Sharif's son, king. Ousted from Syria in 1920 by the French they settled in Iraq, where following a violent revolt in mid-1920, Faysal was eventually appointed king by the British.
3. For more on these terms, see (Pfaff, Citation1970).
4. At the time, Syria and Lebanon constituted a single state.
5. Officially, King Faysal II was crowned in 1953 but ‘Abd al-Ilah continued to run affairs along with the British.
6. Between 1920 and 1929, no less than 105 newspapers were established, many with explicitly radical agendas (Davis, Citation2005, p. 49).
7. Sami Shawkat was the brother of the more famous Naji Shawkat, who was briefly Iraqi prime minister in 1932–1933 and Sa'ib Shawkat, who was a prominent doctor. The Shawkats were of Turkish and Caucasian origins, but the family had lived in Iraq for generations.
8. For a more extensive description of al-Futuwah, see (Wien, Citation2006, pp. 89–105).
9. For a history of the Ahali group, see (al-Wakil, Citation1980).
10. For more in-depth treatment of these events, see (Farouk-Sluglett & Sluglett, Citation1990, pp. 55–60).
11. For a more in-depth account of this episode, see (Franzén, Citation2011, Ch. 3).
12. The 1920 Revolt was predominantly a tribal rebellion against the newly proclaimed British mandate, albeit with some nationalist character. The 1948 Wathbah (‘the Leap’) broke out as a response to attempts made by Iraqi elite politicians to secretely renegotiate the terms of the 1930 Anglo–Iraqi Treaty with the British at Portsmouth. The Intifadah that broke out in 1952 was caused by the reluctance of the Regent and the British to accede to oppositional demands for electoral reform. Finally, the 1956 Intifadah erupted as solidarity demonstrations across Iraq in support of Egypt and Gamal ‘Abdel Nasser during the Suez crisis.
13. Min Ajli Ta‘ziz Wahdat al-Quwa al-Wataniyyah fi l-Difa‘ ‘an al-Jumhuriyyah wa Makasib al-Thawrah, Report of the Central Committee of the Iraqi Communist Party, mid-July 1959, originally published in Ittihad al-Sha‘b, 29 August 1959, reprinted in Yusuf and Khaled, Salam ‘Adel 2001 2, p. 523.
14. ‘Abd al-Salam ‘Aref (1921–1966), who together with Qasim had overthrown the monarchy in 1958 as a Free Officer joined forces with the Ba‘thists in February 1963 to overthrow his former ally. As the Ba‘thists launched a ‘year of terror’ when in power and as they increasingly fought bitterly amongst themselves, ‘Abd al-Salam struck against them and seized power for himself in November 1963. He was later killed in a helicopter accident in April 1966 and was replaced by his older brother, ‘Abd al-Rahman ‘Aref (1916–2007).
15. Taha Baqir (1912–1984) was a Shi‘i who served as curator of the Iraqi National Museum 1941–1953 and who was appointed Director of Antiquities in 1958. Following the 1963 coup, he was relieved of his posts and was later exiled to Libya. He was brought back by the Ba‘thi regime in 1970 and made a member of the Iraqi Academy of Sciences (Abdi, 2008, p. 16).
16. Taha Baqir, Afaq ‘Arabiyyah, March 1977, quoted in (Baram, Citation1991, p. 102).
17. This, however, was a practice the Ba‘th had employed previously as well. In 1971, it expelled some 50,000 people from the Fayli community, a heterodox Kurdish group that practice a Shi‘i religion. The pretext used back then, as following the Islamic Revolution, was that because they were Shi‘is they were also ‘Persians’.