Our esteemed friend Reidar Visser has another great writing now available on the question of the thorny relationship between the people of the Shiite-dominated ‘Deep South’ of Iraq and their co-religionists in the more central Shiite heartland, especially over the issue of oil.
Visser’s excellent training as a historian– and a historian of southern Iraq, in particular– stands him in good stead there as he teases apart and analyzes the recent and current political trends at work in the Iraqi Deep South… which just happens to be the part of the country in which the vast bulk of the country’s proven oil reserves are located.
In regard to questions of oil location and potential versions of decentralization vs. centralism in Iraq, I just note that at a session on Iraq that I attended last Friday at Chatham House here in London, the point was underlined that with or without Kirkuk, the Kurdish-dominated north of the country still has far, far less oil in its land than the south (especially the Deep South)… And that therefore there are some Kurds who quite credibly argue that from the economic point of view their people would do better to count on having a population-proportionate amount of revenue from the oil resources of a still centralized Iraqi state than by getting the revenue only from “their own” oil resources up there in the north.
Interesting…
Anyway, here is the bottom line in Reidar’s piece:
- [E]ven with [the] strong pressures in the direction of territorial sectarianism, signs of local resistance remain. Exhausted by experimentation with regional schemes, many Shi‘i citizens of Basra today simply favor the restoration of a central Baghdad government that can deliver security and services. Others still cling to the “southern region” project, despite a potentially fateful lack of progress in recruiting support among the secularists, Sunnis and Christians of Basra. Even the wild pan-Islamism of Ahmad al-Hasan survives. In the long run, these alternative visions may not derail the sectarian scheme and its powerful sponsors, but they will certainly delay it. In fact, they might prompt experienced actors like Iran, which probably takes a more nuanced view of the Iraqi scene than do many Western analysts, to distribute their bets more evenly, on a wider range of players on the Iraqi scene. In spite of extreme pressures from an increasingly violent political environment, projects like these will carry on an intellectual heritage that discourages many Shi‘a from thinking about their religious community in terms of crescents, rectangles or, indeed, any kind of cartographical projection.
Do go read the whole text. You can post comments and probably engage Reidar in discussion on it here.
“Foreign Office helped set up Iraqi oil deals
Ambassador passed ‘roadmap’ report to Baghdad
By Tim Webb
Published: 11 March 2007
The British Government intervened to help UK and US energy giants in their attempts to secure lucrative contracts to exploit Iraq’s ruined oilfields.
The Foreign Office delivered a report by the International Tax and Investment Center (ITIC) – a Washington-based think-tank backed by a host of multinationals, including oil companies such as Shell and BP – to Iraqi officials in Baghdad, it has emerged.”
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article2347416.ece
Reidar Vissar’s micro accounts of the intricacies of Iraqi Shiite politics are simply marvellous. I am vividly reminded of the fractious and faction-ridden Australian Labor Party here of which I was a member for years. Back in the late ’60s we then youthful reformers finally overthrew the “Stalinist” style Central Executive which had run party affairs on totalitarian lines for more than a decade and had made the party unelectable.
After the overthrow the Party then adopted a system of proportional representation for its intra-party elections. This didn’t stop the factionalism one bit of course but it ensured the winner would never take all again and infighting followed by compromise and consensus became the name of the game. I’m pleased to say Labor won 7 terms of government federally over the next 30 years including 13 years straight.
Is this an omen for Iraq? I am one who believes the democratically elected proportional representation system of government which the Iraqi people have adopted is the answer to Iraq’s – and indeed the Arab world’s – factional /fractious divides and is the hope of Iraq’s future.
Political factionalism to me is the sign of a vigorous, engaged, passionate and informed society and Iraq seems to have that in abundance. Signs for a bright future when they get through the present horrors and their political system will be one the US and UK would do well to adapt for themselves.
We call upon the Iraqi people, all its sons and daughters who care about the unity of Iraq, its future and brotherhood among all its citizens, and who desire, after decades of degenerate life under despotism and dictatorship, a strong, united and independent state, to demand the removal of the several flaws in the constitution for the benefit of the Iraqi people and their rights and unity, and that such changes are to be implemented in complete transparency through presenting the suggested amendments for the participation of the people via the public media and the civil society organizations.
It’s encouraging to see that somebody actually takes the Khalílzád Konstitution seriously enough to critique it, even if only tendentiously. There are lot of further objections that a more neutral critic might add.
If and when “Iraq” finally becomes a nation once again, that thing will of course go straight into the recycling bin. Meanwhile, though, the chances of doing anything about it, before or after 15 May, are little better than zero.
Happy days.
(mostly for “bb”)
It is always interesting to run into somebody who takes the opposite of one’s own view.
Unfortunately you do not say enough to convince me that I am mistaken in thinking that the government (?) provided for under the militant GOP’s Khalílzád Konstitution might as well be a malicious parody of proportional representation. (NB: I do understand how PR is supposed to work, since here in Cambridge MA the city council and school committee are elected that way — uniquely in the USA, I believe.)
The petition that “Saleh” posted a link to seems to agree more with my view than yours, although there may be a special problem lurking in the background about it: apparently lots of Arab Sunnis simply refuse to accept everybody else’s best guess about what proportion they are of all neo-Iraqi subjects and how much representation they are accordingly entitled to.
To be sure, classical PR is about known proportions of votes recorded in particular elections, not guessed-at percentages of ethnographic “communities” in a populace at large, but it requires turning a blind ideological eye on the facts to pretend that those two distinct ideas do not get badly mixed up in neo-Iraq.
It would be nice if your “political factionalism” could suddenly trump what the Occupyin’ Power (and many other less prejudiced observers) usually call “sectarianism” nowadays. How to make that happen, though, so that the present horrors are concluded as swiftly as possible?
Would it help, do you think, if P.R. were applied within a large number of small districts rather than on the basis of colony-wide party lists? A local minority of twenty percent could presumably make a noisy demonstration against infringement of their fair share at Basra City Hall much more easily than if twenty percent of all neo-Iraqi subjects have to address themselves to the remote and GOP-dominated Green Zone, where they probably could not get anywhere near the other 80% of “their” elected “representatives” in the first place, let alone keep them in line with regular face-to-face confrontations, potential or actual.
Perhaps it is the scale that one ought to look to, rather than the method?
Happy days.
JHM: PR based on districts has been used here in Australia in our state of Tasmania for many, many years. It’s advantage is that electors can vote for as individuals not party lists.
I’m not sure why Iraq chose the party list form of PR rather than districts, but its not a “malicious parody” as you put it. According to Wiki, Party List PR is used throughout Scandinavia, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Finland, Poland and New Zealand. South Africa post apartheid and Indonesia post Suharto also adopted a system of party list PR.
The benefits of PR is that it puts limitations on the majority, virtually ensures coalitions and compromise and gives the minorities an effective voice and chance to participate in government.
If the Iraqis junked the PR system, what would replace it? Return to Winner take all?
Re the Sunni demographic: the results of the straight Yes/No constitutional vote and the following Dec 05 general election established the Sunni vote at a consistent 20%. Although the Sunnis, like the Kurds, are minorities in Iraq, this is where the benefits of PR kick in. In the general election the UIA was unable to get near 50% of the vote, let alone the 66% required to change the constitution, which means the Sunnis, Kurds and secular parties combining together put a break on the majority, as was seen when they combined to deny Jafaari the Prime Ministership.
The New drafted oil law It does so to the benefit of the companies, but to the great detriment of Iraq’s economy, democracy and sovereignty
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/13/opinion/edjuhasz.php
Helena,
I just note that at a session on Iraq that I attended last Friday at Chatham House here in London
They are already in north Iraq, after securing the Southern Oil Fields.
BG Looks To Iraq Gasfield
BTW, Gas it’s another high product in Iraq after the oil, Yammm
many Shi‘i citizens of Basra today simply favor the restoration of a central Baghdad government that can deliver security and services. Others still cling to the “southern region” project,
One question to Reidar Visser
What are the percentages of those Shi’i in favor the restoration of a central Baghdad government and that small minority who looks for “cling to the “southern region” project”?
Did you also take those Sunni in Basra? What about Christians also?
Or the Jews you first start talking about southern Iraq Project early days of your interest of Iraq.
Two main political parties, the Iraqi Accordance Front and the Iraqi National Slate, have said they oppose the draft law, which needs to passed by Parliament to take effect. (Other accompanying measures must also be agreed upon, which is not assured, before Parliament votes.)
The Iraq oil unions, which represent tens of thousands of workers, have also opposed the law.
At issue is whether the oil sector, which has been nationalized for decades, should allow foreign companies the same access as Iraqi national oil companies, which the United States has called for.
“The United States should not be requiring Iraq to open their oil fields to private foreign companies as a condition of ending our occupation. The administration’s strong push to enact a hydrocarbon law has little to do with the needs of the Iraqi people,” Kucinich said.
“Instead it is a concerted effort to ensure that American oil companies are granted access to Iraqi oil fields. By adopting this benchmark in the supplemental, and requiring the enactment of this law by the Iraqi government, Democrats will be instrumental in privatizing Iraqi oil.”
http://www.upi.com/Energy/kucinich_take_oil_out_of_iraq_funds_bill/20070314-013542-9226r/