Painted into a Corner

The scene was reminiscent of the street protests which took place prior to the Iranian revolution in 1979. Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets brandishing the same symbols; white coffins and anti-American slogans. The scene this time was not Tehran, but the city of Al-Najaf Al-Ashraf, and the protesters were the followers of Muqtada Al-Sadr, the 32-year-old activist who enjoys a large following among sections of the Iraqi Shi'ites. This strong show of force was intended to send a message to the US occupying powers which has excluded Al-Sadr from its hand- picked Iraqi Governing Council (IGC). Al-Sadr – whose father Ayatollah Mohamed Sadiq Al- Sadr, was a prominent Shi'ite leader and an outspoken critic of Saddam Hussein's regime and was assassinated in 1999 – has been the focus of media attention since he castigated the newly appointed council in his sermon last Friday. He described it as, "an illegitimate body of American lackeys" and called for volunteers to join the ranks of what he called "Al- Mahdi's army", or "Islamic army" to stand up against the injustices committed against Iraq. On Tuesday, the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper reported that a million volunteers had registered with the "army".

The Sunday demonstration was only one of the many manifestations of protest against the newly appointed IGC. In the Friday sermons, both Sunni and Shi'ite imams spoke in a unified voice, expressing their opposition to the council.

Barely a week after the IGC appointments, many of Iraq's political and religious groups are questioning its legitimacy as a representative of all Iraqis. Iraqi observers and politicians speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly expressed growing fears that the council, with its current constellation, might set the stage for the establishment of sectarian bases of political power and undermine solidarity between Iraq's two major Muslim communities.

The newly appointed IGC was seen as a first step by the US occupiers towards establishing an interim Iraqi government, which will pave the way for an Iraqi constitution and free elections. It was finally established after months of haggling between the US occupying administration and Iraqi leadership figures over council membership. The IGC comprises 25 members demographically representative of Iraq's religious and ethnic groups. There are 13 Shi'ite members, five Sunnis, five Kurds, one Turkoman and one Assyrian. The majority of the council members were hand-picked from "the Follow-up and Arrangement Committee", a committee which was the fruit of the Iraqi opposition conference held in London in December 2002.

Iraq's Sunni and Shi'ite groups were united in their denunciation of the council. Al-Sadr's views were shared by one of Iraq's most prominent Sunni movements, the Body of Iraqi Ulama, whose leaders poured scorn on the council membership. In a statement issued after last Friday's prayers, the Iraqi Ulama insisted that the criteria according to which the council members were appointed simply reinforced the notion of sectarianism. "The council has divided the Iraqi people by making ethnicity and religion the sole criteria for appointment. We do not consider this council to be representative of the Iraqi people," the statement said. This view was contradicted by Adnan Bachachi, the former Iraqi foreign minister and prominent member of the council. "None of the Shi'ite members belong to the religious establishment. Within the council, the Shi'ite members do not constitute a single homogenous group and sectarianism and ethnicity are not the criteria for selection," Bachachi told Al-Hayat newspaper on Tuesday.

Some independent Iraqi analysts disagree. They argue that the quota was based on proportional representation of each ethnic or religious group.

"There are fears that employing these tactics in today's Iraq could possibly lead to the creation of sectarian tension," Muwafak Al- Rabe'i, an Iraqi exile living in Abu Dhabi, told the Weekly.

After the creation of the state of Iraq in 1920, explained Al-Rabe'i, Britain succeeded in dividing the two Muslim communities when it proposed the formation of an Iraqi government based on sectarian criteria – which then became the model adopted by subsequent governments. "We fear that this might continue to be rules of the political game in the future. The Iraqi Shi'ites want to have civil and political rights but this should, in no way, be at the expense of Iraqi national unity," said Al-Rabe'i, who was one of the co-authors of a paper entitled "What do the Shi'a want?" published last year.

His views were supported by Mohamed Al-Hariri, the Damascus-based spokesperson of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Al-Hariri told the Weekly that the majority of Iraqi Shi'ites are not seeking to establish a political system whereby they hold the majority of positions. "We want a state which respects all Iraqi citizens. We don't want a system based on the numerical majority of the Shi'ites, but one where all groups are on an equal footing," Al-Hariri told the Weekly. The SCIRI is represented in the IGC by Abdul-Aziz Al- Hakim, brother of Ayatollah Mohamed Baqir Al-Hakim, the head of the SCIRI.

Both Al-Hariri and Sahib Al- Hakim, an Iraqi Shi'ite exile based in London, acknowledged that Al- Sadr and his followers have been sidelined completely and that the council should also represent the diverse trends existing within one community. Al-Hariri, however, insisted that the council should be given a chance to function before a judgment is passed. "We are still in a transitional period and we face great challenges, like drafting the constitution and holding elections. We have yet to see how this council will function. But we believe it should be able to make decisions in the interest of the Iraqi people," said Al-Hariri.

There is yet another reason for opposing the council. Mohamed Khalaf Al-Eissawy, the imam of the Abdul-Qader Al-Kilani's mosque in central Baghdad, said the council lacks credibility because it includes former exiled opposition leaders -- who did not actually live through the heavy years of Saddam's rule -- whose political advantage stems from their contacts to the US.

"The core issue here is that the council has turned its back on the Iraqis who stayed on and resisted the former Iraqi regime, ignoring some prominent Iraqi figures. Now we are faced with the mother of all problems; the Iraqi Governing Council."

While the debate continues to rage, the heart of the problem remains the issue of representation. Kamil Mahdi, a professor of Middle Eastern Politics at Exeter University and himself an Iraqi exile, said the problem is not only who represents the Iraqi street, but also the fact that "the US occupation in Iraq is stoking the fires of Iraqi nationalism and resistance." "With the rise of nationalism," says Al- Mahdi, "difficult times are indeed ahead of the US occupying powers and the IGC, which will have the hard task of earning its legitimacy not only in the eyes of the Americans, but most importantly in the eyes of the Iraqi people whom it purports to represent."