WAJDI, Baghdad.
More than 280 people have been killed since the beginning of Tishreen Revolution in Iraq, more than fourty days ago.
The police forces in Iraq have been violently dealing with civilian protestors, wounding
thousands in direct clashes across the country for over a month now.
The U.S. expressed its concerns over the increasing use of violence against protestors coupled with shutdown of the Internet; the major medium that the young Iraqi protestors use to organize themselves.
On saturaday November 9th, the police forces killed five people while trying to take the main bridges in Baghdad from the protestors and pushing them instead towards Tahrir Square.
A photographer from Reuters saw a man being rescued by volunteers after being hit straight in the head with a tear gas grenade.
The prime minister, Adil Abdul-Hadi, urged the protestors, in a statement, calling for the normal public life to be back in uprising and angry Baghdad after several weeks of instability that have costed Iraq tens of millions of dollars even though oil exports haven’t been impacted so far.
The Movement:
This movement that popped up out of pure social and economic reasons, all began in Tahrir Square, Baghdad on October 1st, 2019, as protestors took on the street to express their desire for a job and a better quality of life that meet the minimum standards of human decency.
Then it all spread out to other regions in Iraq, particularly in the south, until the demands shifted to changing the sectarian political system prevailing in the country.
Most of the protesters are young men and women in their twenties and thirties.
Looking for a better life for themselves and their families, they went out to the streets in early October, carrying the Iraqi Flag -as a symbol of national unity, solidarity and a weapon against sectarian agendas- and chanting anti-government slogans that express their relentless aim to fundamentally change the system and more importantly chase down “the thieves that have been governing us for very long” as one elderly protester and attendant of “The Najaf Picket” told Al Rafiden, a local TV channel, on November 5th, 2019.
The everyday Iraqi citizen find himself facing a harsh economic reality. At the current exchange rate of 1USD = 1191,00IQD, the 5000 Iraqi Dinars bill can hardly fullfill the basic needs of a typical Iraqi family. People are struggling and the religious and political elites do not seem to care much. And that is the very first reason why the Iraqi took on the streets.
As one women protestor reveals to Al Rafiden Channel, “We are here to stop these thieves that have used religion to get away with their bureaucracy and corruption. “
The solidarity between protestors is astonishing. During “The Najaf Picket” you can see people cooking and sharing food, tents, and drinks. Orginized, young, energetic and relentless, the Iraqi protestors, who labeled their uprising as “The Tishreen Revolution”, are going after their dream of a better Iraq that has been destroyed and impoverished over two decades of conflicts, war and tragedy combined with ever-increasing interventions from regional powers and their agendas.
More than 400,000 people died during the period between the American Invasion of Iraq on March, 2003 and 2011 according to a survey conducted by PLOS Medicine.
Along with the human cost, the infrastructure and properties that had been damaged by ISIS in Iraq is yet to fully recover.
The country with the fifth largest oil reserves in the world (and water resourses larger than any of its neighbors) has a lot of potential for development and change in the future. However, the challenges are trivial and many. For one, many Iraqis feel that they need to grab their country from the Islamist Parties that have gained so much power since the fall of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
It has been said over and over again by many analysts and writers, such as the Egyptian writer AbdilHalim Qandil, that Iraq after Saddam Hussein failed to recover or deliver on the post-Saddam-Hussein democratic, peace and prosperity promises.
With mainly a coalition of Iranian-backed Islamists in power, the new uprising voices in Iraq may seem hopeless in their pursuit challenging the mighty and powerful.
Yet the strength of The Tishreen Revolution, and the solidarity of its protesters, stems from the shared belief among the young Iraqis that the country has got to change, and for the better.
And although the majority of them are Sh’iaa Muslims , they don’t seem to care much about the superficial sectarian labels and choose instead to identify simply as Iraqis struggling for a better future, for a nation that has suffered much during the past twenty years.
Some Stability and Many Promises of Reform:
Iraq have experienced some stability and peace since defeating ISIS in 2017, but the government finds itself in a cumbersome situation facing the young protestors, most of them unemployed, and their legitimate demands from the political elites.
 |
| Source: Prime Minister's Office |
The Prime Minister promises that reforms are coming:
“The political parties have indulged in many false practices while in power.” said the Iraqi Prime Minister, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, on Saturday confessing to the legitimacy of the protests to change the political system. He also promised to change the electoral system.
“Any militia outside the sphere of the Iraqi government will be considered illegal and we will fight it” added the prime minister, on satuday, after concerns over some present militias that took part in killing protestors.
Abdul-Mahdi also stated that the government and the legal authorities will investigate all the cases in which protestors have been either killed or wounded, and that justice will be served.
These statements came one day after Ali Al-Sistani, the most influential spiritual leader for Shiaa Muslims in Iraq, had urged the authorities to seek a peaceful way out of the crisis.
“His eminence made clear the importance of enacting serious reform within a reasonable time frame”, Declared Al-Sistani through his office.
He went on to express his concern that the political parties are not serious enough about going forward with a true reform.
In Basra, one of the biggest cities in the south, the police forces have taken grip of the city blocking and preventing protestors, after two people had been killed one day earlier on Friday.
An official from the Kuwaiti Consulate in Basrah said the Consulate will withdraw all of its employees from the city amid security concerns.
According to Aljazeera’s correspondant in Baghdad, Tahrir Square now is in a state of rest after a series of clashes, back and forth, between protestors and the police forces.
“Although many mistakes have been committed during the protests and pickets, we still stand with solidarity and much respect for those who took on the streets” said the leader of Sadrist Movement, Moqtada Al-sadr, on Wednesday November 13th.
He went on to urge the security forces that “liberated Al Mosul” not to harm the protestors and to let it be a true peaceful revolution.
The leader of the religious and populist movement demanded from all government employees to commit a general strike “even for a single day” to support what he called “the revolutionnaries”.
The Tishreen Revolution, if succeded, will impact the future of Iraq for many years to come. As Iraqis aspire for change, better quality of life and prosperity, they will have to go through the challenge of keeping foreign powers from altering the course of their future and that of the next generations of Iraqis.
Comments
Post a Comment