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description= 3 posts published by Reidar Visser during December 2007;
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in, of, non, the, sectarian, iraq, and, federalism, far, south, southern, suffering, coexistence, on, gulf, analysis, archive, for, december, 2007, sectarianism, iraqi, federalist, tradition, ownership, local, energy, resources, regionalism, ideal, conclusion, under, pressure, archives, categories, meta, my, latest, book, amazon, com, twitter, updates, subscribe, recent, posts, oil, ideals, federal, trends, nonsense, congress, anti, police, commander, is, assassinated, babel,
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the (717), and (184), iraq (102), that (98), for (90), iraqi (68), with (67), basra (66), this (65), #federalism (63), sectarian (62), federal (60), shiite (57), from (55), 2006 (49), oil (48), 2005 (46), south (45), 2007 (44), #southern (40), has (39), government (37), their (37), have (36), was (36), non (31), but (30), fadila (30), region (29), they (28), may (28), constitution (28), not (27), one (26), are (26), which (24), more (24), october (24), some (23), been (23), december (23), governorates (23), sciri (22), all (22), were (22), august (21), had (21), july (21), even (20), its (20), also (19), new (19), where (19), central (18), september (18), local (18), 2004 (18), march (18), january (17), during (17), political (17), when (17), far (17), there (16), should (16), would (16), shiites (16), party (15), who (15), any (15), manara (15), governorate (14), support (14), idea (14), than (14), baghdad (14), february (14), about (13), instead (13), after (13), regions (13), united (13), 2008 (13), southerners (13), 2010 (13), 2013 (13), now (12), today (12), into (12), project (12), among (12), kind (12), april (12), governor (12), november (12), 2014 (12), 2009 (12), 2011 (12), 2012 (12), press (11), such (11), settlement (11), june (11), 2003 (11), resources (11), police (10), country (10), what (10), will (10), state (10), clearly (10), reidar (10), visser (10), conference (10), constitutional (10), regionalist (10), three (10), gulf (9), other (9), being (9), council (9), only (9), these (9), his (9), against (9), international (9), did (9), particular (9), entities (9), law (9), well (9), power (9), abd (9), whereas (9), share (9), arab (9), maysan (9), nationalism (8), however (8), few (8), general (8), often (8), particularly (8), those (8), congress (8), iraqis (8), area (8), first (8), through (8), entity (8), suffering (8), regionalism (8), release (8), pro (8), iran (8), summer (8), anti (7), maliki (7), provincial (7), minister (7), towards (7), religious (7), people (7), senators (7), bill (7), instance (7), existing (7), leaders (7), states (7), problem (7), status (7), parties (7), historical (7), nationalist (7), north (7), former (7), taken (7), regime (7), energy (7), like (6), com (6), posted (6), comments (6), babel (6), muri (6), another (6), between (6), special (6), iranian (6), under (6), example (6), parts (6), including (6), najaf (6), although (6), amendment (6), many (6), see (6), implementing (6), perhaps (6), two (6), major (6), popular (6), themselves (6), paper (6), letter (6), spring (6), back (6), important (6), identity (6), dhi (6), qar (6), marshes (6), areas (6), kurdish (6), attitudes (6), demands (6), already (5), dominated (5), plans (5), how (5), out (5), question (5), own (5), biden (5), yet (5), quite (5), revision (5), because (5), community (5), simply (5), beyond (5), demand (5), procedures (5), create (5), approach (5), unitary (5), sense (5), clear (5), coexistence (5), hasnawi (5), www 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in the summer of 2005 even they did not venture to try to impose sectarian federalism from above the tal had a ceiling of three existing governorates as the maximum size of future federal entities thereby preventing any purely shiite region from being formed the 2005 constitution did not impose any such specific limits but neither did it give political elites the opportunity to dictate the demarcation of new federal regions instead iraq s new federalization framework emerged as a remarkable syncretism combining ideals dating from spanish nineteenth century anarchism and brought to the table by the un and international experts involved with the demands of the more sectarian shiite political leaders for some kind of parity with the kurds 7 in an interesting testimony to the strength of non sectarian attitudes among shiite iraqi federalists resistance to sectarian variants of federalism has persisted beyond the adoption of the iraqi constitution in october 2005 in the first place it seems very likely that federalism was involved in some of the unspecified weaknesses of the constitution that sistani mentioned when grudgingly according his approval to it a few days before the october 2005 referendum 8 moreover in october 2006 some political parties like the fadila explicitly rejected the procedures for implementing federalism on the grounds that the absence of size limitations would alienate the opponents of federalism who were particularly worried about the emergence of sectarian federal entities 9 problematic as they may be in terms of methodology public opinion polls have quite consistently reported a strong shiite desire to restrict federalism and even to move back to a unitary state formula an interesting indication of the general level of ignorance about federalism that must have prevailed during the october 2005 referendum 10 in fact even sciri has been at pains to present its scheme for a nine governorate shiite federal entity south of baghdad as a non sectarian one based on the amalgamation of governorates which just happen to be shiite in demographic composition although this would seem rather disingenuous in his propaganda talks in favor of the projected region abd al aziz al hakim has spoken about the holy goal hadaf muqaddas of implementing this project also emphatically sectarian are the signals sent by joint conferences of governors from all eleven shiite governorates where shiites have a substantial presence including baghdad which is constitutionally barred from becoming part of a larger entity and diyala where shiites are in a minority but in control of the provincial government 11 this leaves sciri as the most important promoter of sectarian federalism for the shiites but at the same time it underlines the relatively vulnerable position of this project among the shiite community as a whole non sectarian federalism in the far south the chronology of the emergence of specific non sectarian variants of federalism in the far south of iraq is a straightforward one pro federal ideas were current by late 2003 when the then basra governor wail abd al latif a shiite secularist promoted the vision of basra as a wealthy mercantile single governorate federal unit later shortly after the tal had been adopted governors in neighboring amara and nasiriyya were the moving forces behind a slightly larger project that would combine basra maysan and dhi qar into a three governorate federal entity to be known as the region of the south iqlim al janub this idea was supported by the next governor of basra sciri s hasan al rashid when he assumed office in august 2004 and it soon achieved a remarkable degree of cross party support in basra it was adopted by fadila and their coalition partners who sidelined sciri in local government after the january 2005 elections and was enthusiastically supported in conferences arranged by secular and religious leaders during the spring of 2005 12 the pro federal spring of 2005 culminated in southern demands that the central government should act on the provisions in the tal for creating a federal region of basra maysan and dhi qar this was however aborted in what appears to have been an act of internal shiite sabotage against the non sectarian federal aspirations of the far south in the first place it was the shiite dominated jaafari government that failed to act on the southern demands for a mechanism for forming a federal region secondly by removing the maximum limit on the size of federal entities in the constitutional drafts shiite legislators themselves overwhelmingly from the central parts of iraq effectively deprived the southerners of an obvious legal rationale for their project and finally sciri launched its competing project of a single sectarian federal region south of baghdad in august 2005 none of this served to obliterate the plans for a small scale federal entity in the far south however the fadila party in particular has continued to promote a small scale southern region although the idea of basra as a federal region of its own has apparently replaced the three governorate scheme but also tribal forces in maysan and dhi qar have expressed similar variants of opposition to sectarian federalism in the shape of non sectarian federal plans for the far south even some sciri leaders in basra remained more focused on basra than on the shiite super region as late as the summer of 2005 when the more sectarian plans of the party s politburo were well underway 13 and despite the combined efforts of sciri and the maliki government to remove the regionalist fadila from power in basra the non sectarian federalist theme has persisted even at the height of his confrontation with maliki in the summer of 2007 basra governor muhammad al waili emphasized the idea of a basra federal entity during a meeting with tribal sheikhs 14 whereas members of other parties within the fadila coalition that apparently had defected during the vote of no confidence against the governor earlier in the year also resumed propaganda with a clear basra regionalist dimension for example in the form of complaints that the central government had not given basra a sufficient quota during the annual distribution of pilgrimage permits 15 southern suffering with regard to the contents of the non sectarian federalism of the south one of its main characteristics has been a sense of a common destiny defined by historical experience and in this historical experience the theme of suffering takes center stage rather than being defined by any shared ethnic or sectarian heritage iraqi southerners claim uniqueness on the basis of a common myth of deprivation they hold that their fate has been different from that of all other iraqis including the shiites of central iraq and while this is often portrayed as a general historical trend most southerners point specifically to the recent experience of living in the battleground of two bloody wars the iran iraq war from 1980 to 1988 and the gulf war in 1991 as the formative experience that entitles them to special political demands examples of this sense of suffering are widespread in southern political rhetoric typical are the words of baqir yasin al tamimi a secular proponent of the region of the south in spring 2005 he wrote in a letter to the president of the iraqi national assembly the governorates of basra maysan and dhi qar have experienced worse neglect injustice marginalization and suppression from the days of the monarchy and until this day 16 he then went on to exemplify by referring to how the south had been transformed into the stage for the destructive bloody wars of the baath regime claiming more than 300 000 victims some months earlier the tone taken by khalaf al manshidi the editor of manara basra s largest newspaper had been quite similar those who do not believe us should visit basra maysan and dhi qar and should make a car trip along the shatt al arab river from basra to abu al khasib or travel down to fao to see for themselves what disaster the former regime brought to this lush area during the war with iran 17 and in a newspaper letter in march 2006 abd al karim al amiri echoed many of the same grievances lamenting how southerners have had to live through years of deprivation oppression violence killing and marginalization 18 one important aspect of this sense of injustice is the widespread feeling that discrimination persisted also after 2003 when supposedly more democratic regimes were installed in baghdad these increasingly acidic comments by southerners on the shiite led governments that emerged from 2004 and onwards highlight the non sectarian nature of the regionalist movement in the far south in july 2005 southerners spoke of marginalization tahmish inside the constitutional committee which in purely sectarian terms was shiite dominated 19 what has sciri leader abd al aziz al hakim done for maysan demanded an angry fadila leader in amara in may 2006 after more than one year with a shiite islamist coalition in power in baghdad 20 and when steps were taken by the nuri al maliki government to try to unseat basra s governor from the fadila party in the summer of 2007 talk of neo baathism as well as accusations of a cave in to iranian interests by the shiite led central government and their sciri allies surfaced in an angry shiite on shiite altercation 21 the southern idea of suffering also has a concrete physical focus that is unique to the region the scars of the wars of the 1980s and 1990s are still evident in the area above all in the vicinity of basra which saw some particularly ferocious military action during the war with iran historically basra was the pre eminent date growing region of iraq with a thick belt of date palms extending along the shatt al arab from fao all the way to qurna today it is only a pale shadow of its former glory but perhaps the most important symbol of southern suffering is the marsh areas shared by the three governorates in the south and largely destroyed by the former regime during operations targeting opposition groups in the 1990s regionalist southerners often refer to the marshes as an example of the tragedies unique to the southern parts of shiite iraq complaining that the southern marshlands were dried out on the pretext of security operations killing millions of birds fish and domesticated animals 22 this is another area where criticism has persisted beyond 2003 even though there is growing awareness that the local authorities themselves have not fully exploited the opportunity to improve conditions in the marshes for instance whereas basra politicians were busy highlighting the plight of the marsh inhabitants during an international conference in amman in jordan in the summer of 2006 basra newspapers back home had already sounded a critical note about the lack of local initiatives for doing something about the problem 23 example of southern regionalism propaganda dating from the summer of 2007 the accompanying map is slightly atypical in that it also incorporates one locality north of the old basra vilayet diwaniyya ownership of local energy resources a watershed in iraqi political discourse after 2003 has been the burgeoning idea of local ownership of energy resources according to the standard iraqi nationalist canon no such thing has ever existed iraqi oil belongs to the entire iraqi people full stop as late as in january 2004 even a member of the kurdistan democratic party would maintain that he saw the central government as the natural administrator of all iraqi oil regardless of whether it was located in basra or in kirkuk 24 accounting for perhaps 70 of iraq s oil wealth and more than 97 of the energy resources located in the shiite areas basra with its two neighboring governorates spearheaded the changing attitudes on this issue soon after having assumed power as basra governor in august 2004 sciri s hasan al rashid revealed ideas that broke dramatically with the orthodox approach to resource management and ownership taxation is among the prerogatives of the local government and as a local government we have the right to put tax on exports whether on oil or on other goods basra should not be the milk cow all the oil fields of iraq are in basra the united arab emirates is a country whose oil resources has made it into the most important state in the region abu dhabi takes 50 of its oil income and hands over the other half to the central government we also have the right to take a share from the oil 25 subsequently different approaches to the oil question emerged among southern regionalists some were content to juxtapose the legacy of neglect with the presence of oil resources and present this as a big paradox as seen for instance in a statement by a basra delegate to the big national convention in baghdad in august 2003 who had left the proceedings in protest basra is the city of the deprived and the oppressed but also the city of the oil wells 26 similarly the sadrist politician abd al jabbar wahid in april 2005 made the following complaint the maysan governorate is rich in natural resources but it has suffered neglect and marginalization the sum set aside for it of 110 million dinars is not appropriate for this governorate which suffered so much under the former regime 27 others went further echoing hasan al rashid s demand for a disproportionate share of the oil revenue this was evident in march 2006 when fadila supporters in nasiriyya called for a general strike to to guard our rights to administer our natural wealth as southern governorates that were hurt by the former regime 28 and again in may 2006 when muhammad sa dun al abbadi of the harakat al daawa vented his anger basra single handedly finances all of iraq and had it not been for this city iraq would have come to a standstill and yet in terms of finances basra is treated as if it were another ordinary governorate 29 and in some cases the idea of local ownership was explicit in may 2006 a fadila member in maysan openly accused the central government of theft of the region s oil resources for the benefit of the central government and the kurdistan government 30 whereas in july 2007 advocates of setting up a southern regional government in the three southernmost governorates referred to our rich south janubna al ghaniyy to back up their political demands 31 these ideological developments have been accompanied by cruder actions on the ground since its emergence in early 2003 the fadila party has worked systematically to assert its influence within the local oil industry in basra more than any other party it has succeeded in exercising some kind of control through personal links with leaders in the southern oil company and through its dominance in the special security forces charged with guarding the oil installations on more than one occasion political strikes in the oil industry have been construed as acts of regional protest by fadila leaders as for inst...
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