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Relativ Pain
CNNMoney.com currently names a “Second Day of Pain” on its frontpage. They of course refer to falling stockprices and rising oil. But there was no pain for people who were short and used the financial instruments available to bet on falling markets (like I did).
But how can one counter the pain that comes up, when one of the most magical cities of this world gets bombed and destructed in senseless fighting?
Would it help to short an index that reflects the values of:
the library of Al-Haidariyah, the library of Al-Ilmin in At-Tusi’s university, the library of Ash-Shushtariyah Husainiya, the library of Al-Qawam school, the library of both schools of Al-Khalili Al-Kubra and Sughra, the library of Shaikh Jafar Al-Kabir, the library of Shaikh Fakhrul Din At-Taraihi, the library of Ar-Rabitatul Ilmiyah, the library of Abdul Aziz Al-Baghdadi, the library of Muntada An-Nashr which has been moved to the jurisprudence college which locates at Kufah street, the Public Library, the library of Al-Burujirdi, the library of university of Najaf, the library of Shaikh Mohammed Baqir Al-Isfahani, the library of Al-Aakhund, the library of Ar-Rahim, the library of Bahrul Ulum, Sayyid Al-Hakim’s library, the library of Amirul Mu’minin (Commander of Faithful) (peace be upon him), the library of Al-Ya’aqubi, the library of An-Nuri, the library of Al-Balaaqhi, the library of Al-Khutaba’a, the library of Al-Malali (which is related to Aal Al-Millah), the library of Shaikh Aaqa Buzurg At-Tehrani,
and many other libraries in Najaf city?
It doesn´t feel likely to me today.
teuton,
I cannot speak with authority on Muqtada al-Sadr’s organization, for the same reasons that I believe that nobody actually can. It is spread throughout Iraq, has personnel of varying levels of education and moral rectitude in different areas and during a time of conflict centralized authority and unity of purpose are luxuries sacrificed to circumstances that shift by the hour.
Many of the assessments of Muqtada al-Sadr and his people are filtered through class prejudices and indicate the judgmental outlook of commentators or their social separation from the people that they are describing. Few of the Iraqis who speak to journalists will have first hand, up close experience of daily life in Muqtada al-Sadr’s natural constituency.
The defections of police officers to the ranks of his fighters should give a clue to the religious dimension attached to loyalty to the man and to his position. Religious fervor, whether in angry defence of Najaf and other holy places, or in the patrols of young men in Basra, Baghdad and elsewhere who reprimand women for not conforming to perceived Islamic dress codes, threaten alcohol vendors, cinema owners, sellers of ‘objectionable’ books, CDs et cetera, is a feature of many of his followers.
This fervor translates into attempts to clean up and ‘morally police’ neighborhoods under Mahdi army control, a practice that sometimes elevates the living conditions of residents and secures them rights and protections and which on other occasions leads to intimidation, brutality, the abuse of ‘street power’ and killings.
Taking al-Sadr’s positions on the occupation, the rights of ‘his’ constituency (perhaps 15-20% of the Shi’ite population – remember that the I.R.A. made the Northern Ireland statelet ungovernable at a time when their ‘electoral support’ was only running at 10-12%), the evil of the collaboration of some Iraqis with the American imposed regime along with his unapologetic nationalism and divorce these views from his religious beliefs and you still have a figure who is articulating what substantial numbers of people believe and feel.
I would disagree with Salam Pax that al-Sadr’s people are ‘thugs, thugs, thugs’ – as I have stated, there is frequently a class basis to knee-jerk classifications of a movement made up of tens of thousands and supported by millions. Doubtless there are many who are no angels but it is a grave error to write off the movement and its members in so dismissive a way. Al-Sadr and his lieutenants really do speak for a diverse set of constituencies and who else would do that for them?
It is not to compare like with like, but in some ways al-Sadr’s movement is like a proto-trade union, articulating demands on behalf of its members, safeguarding rights, attempting perhaps to convey an ideological message to all the membership and show people that there is strength in numbers. Al-Sadr is less revolutionary than socially and religiously conservative, and as we know religious conservatism can be a comfort to many, not just Iraqis or other Muslims. Again, not comparing like with like, the Black Panthers in America contained persons of varying levels of politicization and made some valuable efforts at lobbying on behalf of, educating and even feeding their people. Agents provocateurs and persons with less vision and more aggression than was good for a social movement, coupled with the machinations of FBI, ensured that the movement became branded in the public eye as a violent one, a thing that is neither fair nor accurate.
As for the nature of the American attack – there is, for me, no ‘softly softly’ approach that uses aerial bombardment with munitions that can leave a crater 100 meters broad. Certainly great care is being taken to sensitize the media (those elements that are permitted to cover the attack, in an embedded status or via US military press releases), to the idea that this attack constitutes a gentler kind of killing but a dead Iraqi is a dead Iraqi regardless of how he or she was bombed, shot or otherwise disposed of.
Al-Sadr and his people have their place in Iraq and their voices should be heard. I make no judgments on what they believe as they will succeed or fail in their ideological goals according to the responses of the wider Iraqi population. They should not be discounted or marginalized because of the moralizing, judgmental utterances of people, Iraqi or otherwise, who deem them to be social inferiors.
As the US military lurches into another two-step controlled by hawks on the one hand and the plethora of frantic calls doubtlessly coming in from other Arab leaders, religious spokespersons and wiser counsels on the other I would hope that Najaf will pan out as another military, moral and diplomatic defeat for the American war party. They deserve nothing less.
Apologies to all for the length of this posting, but it is not easy to account for al-Sadr and his people as quickly, and dismissively, as most commentators seem to. Theirs is a lazy ‘snapshot’ that ignores the actual appeal and popularity of a far more complex phenomenon. And it is by such misjudgments that American policy seems to be guided, reassessment only coming when the original, clouded thinking runs up against realities.
Posted by: Nemo | Aug 13 2004 22:08 utc | 20
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