The Rise of Sunni Identity in Iraq

April 5, 2013 Topic: Civil SocietyHistoryIdeologyReligionSociety Region: Iraq

The Rise of Sunni Identity in Iraq

How entrepreneurial politicians helped make sectarian affiliation a big deal.

This feeling made it easier for the current mobilization to start, with the Arab Spring playing an inspiring role. The comparison with Syria is inescapable: both the Shia-dominated government and the Sunni protesters look at Syria as a connected front.

The two conflicts are interconnected, but they are not identical. The Alawite-dominated regime of Bashar al-Assad is facing a Sunni-dominated uprising in a country where Sunni Arabs are the dominating demographic majority (around 70 percent). This is not the case in Iraq. A violent confrontation between Sunni groups and the Iraqi government would be very destructive. But it would hardly lead to anything other than more sectarianism—and probably a de facto partition.

To avoid that scenario, the Iraqi government has to give moderate forces more incentives to stand up to radicalization. Maliki will not do this if he perceives that his posture of the “strong Shia” is his only choice to appeal to his electoral constituency. But as a rational leader, he realizes that avoiding civil war should be a priority. If mainstream Sunni leaders and popular clerics manage to find a formula that maintains the mobilization and simultaneously isolates its radical representatives, there will be a better opportunity to negotiate a new pact after the next general election.

Iraq needs a clear vision and a formula that addresses the confusion surrounding the relationship between the national community and its subsidiary components. As much as the increasing sectarianism has jeopardized the very existence of a national community, the current troubles may be the last opportunity to rethink the foundations of the Iraqi state.

Harith al-Qarawee is an Iraqi scholar and author of Imagining the Nation: Nationalism, Sectarianism, and Socio-Political Conflict in Iraq.

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