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description=3 posts published by Reidar Visser during January 2008;

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iraq, and, for, 2008, the, gulf, analysis, archive, january, archives, categories, meta, my, latest, book, on, amazon, com, twitter, updates, subscribe, recent, posts, southern, mahdists, speak, themselves, ashura, 1429, shiites, between, sectarianism, iraqi, nationalism, mahdism, partition, imperial, strategies, from, sulayman, magnificent, to, joseph, biden,

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the (152), iraq (43), and (42), iraqi (30), 2008 (23), that (22), this (19), january (18), 2006 (17), #shiite (16), #sectarian (15), 2007 (15), have (14), has (14), may (14), ashura (13), been (13), 2010 (13), 2013 (13), from (12), for (12), 2014 (12), 2009 (12), 2011 (12), 2012 (12), basra (11), but (11), october (11), august (11), shiites (10), also (10), there (10), federalism (10), december (10), new (9), november (9), february (9), march (9), april (9), june (9), july (9), september (9), with (8), which (8), are (8), some (8), all (8), was (8), its (8), nationalism (7), about (7), muharram (7), not (7), recent (7), nationalist (7), parliament (7), com (6), posted (6), their (6), during (6), celebrations (6), who (6), support (6), sistani (6), isci (6), sunni (6), comments (5), off (5), often (5), without (5), kind (5), quite (5), government (5), one (5), national (5), 2005 (5), fadila (5), federal (5), law (5), such (5), like (4), wordpress (4), view (4), gulf (4), analysis (4), 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2014 march 2014 february 2014 january 2014 december 2013 november 2013 october 2013 september 2013 august 2013 july 2013 june 2013 may 2013 april 2013 march 2013 february 2013 january 2013 december 2012 november 2012 october 2012 september 2012 august 2012 july 2012 june 2012 may 2012 april 2012 march 2012 february 2012 january 2012 december 2011 november 2011 october 2011 september 2011 august 2011 july 2011 june 2011 may 2011 april 2011 march 2011 february 2011 january 2011 december 2010 november 2010 october 2010 september 2010 august 2010 july 2010 june 2010 may 2010 april 2010 march 2010 february 2010 january 2010 december 2009 november 2009 october 2009 september 2009 august 2009 july 2009 june 2009 may 2009 april 2009 march 2009 february 2009 january 2009 december 2008 november 2008 october 2008 september 2008 august 2008 july 2008 june 2008 may 2008 april 2008 march 2008 february 2008 january 2008 december 2007 november 2007 october 2007 september 2007 august 2007 july 2007 june 2007 may 2007 april 2007 march 2007 february 2007 january 2007 december 2006 november 2006 october 2006 september 2006 august 2006 july 2006 june 2006 may 2006 april 2006 march 2006 february 2006 january 2006 december 2005 november 2005 october 2005 august 2005 categories basra and southern regionalism 34 de baathification 11 federalism in sunni majority areas of iraq 14 federalism in the middle east 6 iranian influence in iraq 55 iraq regionalism general 27 iraq and soft partition 39 iraq international relations 5 iraq local elections 2013 21 iraq parliament membership 13 iraq parliamentary elections 2014 26 iraq s 2010 parliamentary election 175 iraqi constitutional issues 280 iraqi nationalism 95 kirkuk and disputed territories 47 oil in iraq 46 rule of law 2 sectarian master narrative 55 shiite sectarian federalism 16 uia dynamics 133 uncategorized 59 us policy in iraq leverage issues 67 meta create account log in entries feed comments feed wordpress com my latest book on amazon com from just world books available on amazon com twitter updates tweets by reidarvisser january 2008 m t w t f s s 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 dec feb subscribe entries rss comments rss recent posts legality and constitutionality questions in iraq s reform push the federalism dimension in yemen s draft constitution federalism and decentralization in libya s constitutional proposals groundbreaking iraq supreme court ruling on the law on mp replacement after the rise of isis will iraq s shiites secede additional ministers approved for the iraq cabinet the controversial kurdish ministers in the new iraqi cabinet the iraqi parliament fails to approve new security ministers the iraqi parliament approves the abbadi cabinet haydar al abbadi is the new iraq pm candidate maliki the presidency and parliament in the iraq pm nomination battle pm nomination trouble in iraq iraq elects fuad masum as new president for the first time in iraq a large field of presidential candidates the iraqi parliament elects its new speakership archive for january 2008 the southern mahdists speak for themselves posted by reidar visser on sunday 20 january 2008 20 36 in an interesting statement the adherents of the mahdi the group targeted in recent security operations in the southern iraqi cities of nasiriyya and basra have explained the conflict from their own point of view full story here posted in uia dynamics comments off on the southern mahdists speak for themselves ashura 1429 2008 iraq s shiites between sectarianism iraqi nationalism and mahdism posted by reidar visser on friday 18 january 2008 20 32 muharram in basra circa 1920 ashura the tenth day of muharram which is the first month of the islamic calendar is commemorated by shiites as the day of the martyrdom of their imam hussein in the battle of karbala in ad 680 in 2008 ashura falls on 19 january and as usual it will prompt many shiite individuals to reflect on their relationship to wider communities the sectarian shiite one as well as the national iraqi one historically in iraq ashura has been a special occasion for shiites to assert their religious identity but mostly without challenging the basic ideal of inter sectarian muslim coexistence within a unified administrative framework in late ottoman times for example ashura would occasionally be restricted by the sunni rulers rather than outlawed outright there were sometimes bans on loud celebrations prior to the day of ashura itself at least in certain areas after 1921 during the monarchy a similar tendency of pragmatism on both sides of the sectarian divide prevailed it is true that there were isolated instances of anti sunni agitation during the muharram celebrations the years of 1927 and at least in the basra area 1928 belonged to these exceptions but more often ashura was celebrated without incidents or sectarian tension in fact there are frequent reports from the monarchy era about sunnis and shiites celebrating ashura together in 1932 iraqi nationalist shiites in basra invited sunnis christians and jews to their nightly commemorative gatherings sunni newspaper editors in the 1920s often used the muharram season to publish complimentary articles on shiite subjects such as the life of imam hussein and a 1950s lexicon of basra s shiite husayniyya s religious places of congregation that play an important role during the muharram celebrations by muhammad rida al kutubi emphasised the benevolent role played by sunni christian and jewish merchants who supported the shiite muharram and ashura celebrations financially it also showed that ashura celebrations were frequently organised on the basis of membership in a particular occupational group or town quarter so that the typically iraqi multiplicity of identities came into expression also during this supposedly very sectarian festival in 2008 both these two themes iraqi nationalism and shiite sectarianism are in evidence among the shiites of iraq on the one hand projects that clearly have a sectarian edge to them are still favoured by some such as the idea of a single shiite federal region as sponsored by the islamic supreme council of iraq isci it is deeply ironic that its leader abd al aziz al hakim should use the occasion to claim that the process of national reconciliation in iraq has been delayed by the pet projects of individual politicians isci s own ideas about a single shiite federal entity is arguably the clearest possible example of such projects and iraqi national reconciliation could have made great strides if this divisive scheme had simply been taken off the table similarly there is unwillingness by some but not all sadrists to accept concessions associated with the sunnis like the new de baathification law its recent adoption in the iraqi parliament was hailed by a few vocal sadrist mps but thoroughly condemned on websites that express a more sectarian sadrist view such as nahrainnet which has highlighted negative reactions to the bill among some of the lower ranking clergy of the shiite holy cities but on the other hand important non sectarian trends are also blooming the recent agreement by a majority of iraqi parliamentarians the coalition is said to number around 150 mps to work against radical decentralisation of the iraqi oil sector and for a negotiated approach rather than a referendum to the kirkuk question represents this kind of important inter sectarian effort that brings iraqi nationalists of all shades together whether they be shiite sadrists sunni islamists or secularists it may even be possible that this kind of nationalist alliance which is the fruit of a process that started almost as soon as the maliki government was formed in 2006 will have better prospects now that a de baathification law has been agreed on and no longer automatically will torpedo rapprochement along such lines in the way it has done so often in the past still few issues are clear cut in iraqi politics and some details regarding the recent manoeuvring in the iraqi parliament as well as in basra may suggest that the sectarianism nationalism dichotomy itself could be quite fluid the fadila party which since 2006 has been part and parcel of most initiatives to create a broadly based non sectarian alternative to the maliki government was conspicuously absent from the list of signatories to the recent anti federal demands indeed the party has officially issued a statement to the effect that it does not support the initiative albeit without stating the reason for this opposition conceivably this may have to do with the federalism issue where at least some forces in fadila are quite pro federal but disagree with isci on the size of future federal entities but it also comes on top of a rather sudden calming of the chaotic political scene in basra here isci and fadila have been at each other s throat for two years straight but have recently both signed up to some kind of city wide truce although without revealing any details that can corroborate the idea of a real political compromise increasingly there is a growing contrast between fadila and isci who now both claim the situation in basra is improving and independent politicians like wail abd al latif and khayrallah al basri who assert that there has been no real change moreover it is noteworthy that tanzim al iraq branch of the daawa party the daawa faction most frequently hit by accusations of iranian connections but due to its name frequently misrepresented by commentators outside iraq as the home grown daawa for the first time since the adoption of the law for implementing federalism in october 2006 now appears to be in the nationalist anti isci camp this could all suggest that there may be certain changes in the way iran is playing its hand in iraq perhaps with an attempt to win over its old arch enemy fadila whose long standing iraqi nationalist non sectarian federalist positions may have reached a level of frustration due to the lack of external support in view of the collective ignorance by the international community of the iraqi nationalist alternative this is unsurprising and the very persistence of iraqi anti federalism is in fact quite remarkable given all the material and moral support the rest of the world extends to its opponents in the maliki government the un special representative to iraq staffan de mistura recently avoided an opportunity to highlight the nationalist option when he instead chose to focus on the lack of national reconciliation spirit in iraq whereas president george w bush apparently intends to defer completely to general david petraeus in all questions affecting us troop strength in iraq and thereby seems to entirely overlook the potential of this kind of political bridge building in terms of a different security climate where in this landscape does the spiritual leader of most iraqi shiites the grand ayatollah ali al sistani stand with a few exceptions sistani has been markedly silent since late 2004 at which point he lent his support to the shiite coalition known as the united iraqi alliance uia but then gradually began distancing himself from it a much anticipated new book by one of his many representatives hamid al khaffaf does not really shed much new light on this question in addition to the pronouncements bayan s that have been publicly available on the sistani website khaffaf also adds some interesting correspondence between sistani s office and various international players however there is not much new material from 2006 and later on a contentious issue like federalism there are no statements later than 2004 before the question of shiite federalism was on the agenda all in all there is nothing in the book to suggest that sistani has abandoned his traditional position which has always been to emphasise the idea of national iraqi unity and the key role of the central government in preserving it it is also noteworthy that the often quoted fatwa supposedly in favour of the 2005 constitution it was in fact quite grudging in its support and unlike official pronouncements was not published on the sistani website also does not appear in this encyclopaedic work by one of his own assistants finally ashura is also about the diversity of the iraqi shiites in theological terms last year saw dramatic challenges to the idea of shiite orthodoxy through the increased activities of millenarianist mahdist movements in the muharram season some of them militant and all determined to go beyond the re enactment of the karbala drama to create apocalyptic scenarios of their own increased tension related to this kind of intra sectarian tension has been evident during the build up to the 2008 ashura celebrations as well not least in basra where followers of ahmad al hasan a mahdist ideologue who shared many ideas with the soldiers of heaven cult implicated in the january 2007 conflict were arrested in large numbers during the final days of 2007 many newspapers misreported this as a case involving mahdi army i e pro muqtada sadrist militants but the followers of ahmad al hasan who always distanced themselves from the soldiers of heaven back in 2007 have angrily protested the arrests which allegedly also involved pro mahdist clerics who had travelled to basra from nasiriyya amara and najaf recent clashes have been reported in nasiriyya as well whilst the shiite clergy historically have been quite successful in fending off this sort of internal challenge from 2006 they have also enlisted the support of the central government in doing so mahdism remains an enduring force in iraqi shiite politics it has changed the entire community more than once as was the case with the shaykhis the babis and the baha is in the nineteenth century and it persists as an ideological current that is neither nationalist nor sectarian in the traditional sense posted in iraqi nationalism uia dynamics comments off on ashura 1429 2008 iraq s shiites between sectarianism iraqi nationalism and mahdism partition iraq imperial iraq strategies from sulayman the magnificent to joseph r biden posted by reidar visser on tuesday 15 january 2008 16 18 this paper is inspired by concern about how us policy makers talk about iraq it has grown out of concern about the ways in which false arguments related to iraq s past are being used in discussions of us policy often without protest from the academic community full story here posted in iraq and soft partition iraqi nationalism comments off on partition iraq imperial iraq strategies from sulayman the magnificent to joseph r biden create a free website or blog at wordpress com subscribe subscribed iraq and gulf analysis join 203 other subscribers sign me up already have a wordpress com account log in now privacy iraq and gulf analysis subscribe subscribed sign up log in report this content view site in reader manage subscriptions collapse this bar design a site 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