Thursday, Jan 22, 2004
For the first time since 1920, Iraq's ayatollahs have the power to shape the destiny of the Iraqi state and bring their followers, the majority Shia Muslims, to a prominent political role commensurate with their numbers.
But the first struggle they face is with the lessons of history - to understand the mistake they made 84 years ago, when a Shia revolt brought down the British occupation of Iraq, but then brought their Sunni rivals to power.
No one can agree on exactly what went wrong. Some say the mistake was in revolting at all, others say it was in not taking the revolt further. In cafes, mosques and sitting rooms throughout Iraq two opposing readings of Iraqi history are being hotly debated, each with radically different implications for how the Shia of today should proceed.
"The people blame the Maraji'a [Shia clergy] for having wasted the previous opportunities for freedom," said Sheikh Ali Ruba'i, a representative for a senior cleric in the holy city of Najaf. "They say, 'We will not lose this chance'."
Today, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the spiritual leader of the Shias, is faced with a situation almost identical to that faced in 1920 by his distant predecessor, Ayatollah Mohammed Taqi Shirazi.
Iraq was in the hands of a western occupier, Britain in 1920 and the US today, that put an end to a repressive Sunni-dominated regime - the Ottoman empire in 1920 and Saddam Hussein today. In the midst of a political vacuum, the Shia clergy has taken centre stage as one of the few organised forces in the country.
In June 1920, Ayatollah Shirazi made a fateful decision. Amid distrust over British plans for Iraq, worries over the Shia clergy's progressive marginalisation from the political process, and growing resentment of the conduct of British occupation troops, he issued a fatwa, or religious edict, which declared it permissible to take up arms against the foreign occupiers. The Shia took to the streets.
They surrendered five months later, following a string of defeats. They had gained a British pledge of sovereignty for Iraq, fulfilled the following year. But having lost the goodwill of the occupiers, who still had the upper hand in shaping the political settlement, the Shia Mujtahid (interpreters of the law) had to watch the Sunnis benefit from opportunities their sacrifices helped to create.
For the rest of the 20th century, Sunnis dominated every Iraqi government, and the Shia suffered repression and massacres under Saddam Hussein's regime.
That lesson has been painfully digested by mainstream Shia clerics. "The 1920 revolt was a beautiful act of martyrdom," said Seyd Hussein Sadr, a leading Shia imam in Baghdad. "But it is true that we sacrificed a great deal, and got nothing in return."
Faleh Jabar, an Iraqi sociologist in London, writes in a recently published book The Shi'ite Movement in Iraq: "Older and younger generations seem to agree now that Shia politicians in the 1920s made a grave mistake when they fell from favour with the colonial power, Great Britain, which had the keys to mould the political system - much to their distaste."
Until recently, the Shia clerical establishment appeared to be acting according to these lessons. Until this month, Iraq's mainstream Shia leaders had largely been model participants in the political process, and rewarded by a quota of seats in Iraq's Governing Council and cabinet commensurate with their population.
In return, the Shia forbearance has given the coalition much needed breathing room in Iraq, where it is faced with a full-blown uprising in the Sunni Arab central region. The broad support of the Shia has been a decisive boost for the US following the war.
But the coalition and the Shia clerics have at last come to a point of no return. Rather than counting on the continued goodwill of the US, they appear to have decided that elections are the only guarantee the Shia will at last achieve power in line with their numbers.
On January 11, Ayatollah Sistani put his opinion in writing, stating that elections were the only legitimate means to transfer power to Iraqis later this year, and declaring his opposition to coalition plans for a system of provincial caucuses to select the provisional assembly in May.
Sheikh Ruba'i, an ally of Mr Sistani, said that tribal delegations offering their support to Mr Sistani had a different interpretation of 1920. One particularly widespread notion is that the top clerics were bought off and surrendered before the fight could be won, and did not press for Shia rights after the revolt.
"They say: 'If your word is violated, we will fight.' The people blame the ulema [top clergy] for the fact that they surrendered to the Sunnis in 1920," he said.
Starting last week, a series of demonstrations throughout southern Iraq and Baghdad has lent weight to the 75-year-old Ayatollah Sistani's words, though his office hastened to put out a press statement that the cleric had not called for acts of "civil disobedience".
While the clerics still appear to control their followers, the risk for both sides is that the political demands of Mr Sistani will slip out of his control and on to the streets.
If the Shia move decisively against the US-led coalition, it would be devastating for US policy in Iraq. Anthony Cordesman, an expert on Iraq at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, put it starkly. If the Shia turned against the coalition, "this would be like losing the Buddhists in Vietnam. It would mean losing the war."
Charles Clover
Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2004. Privacy policy.
