RETURNING EXILES to IRAQI POLITICS by Ariel I
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RETURNING EXILES TO IRAQI POLITICS By Ariel I. Ahram* Abstract: Almost from the inception of the Iraqi state, exiles have tried to formulate alternatives to the currently ruling version of Iraqi nationalism. Beginning with the Ba'th party takeover in 1968, opposition groups increasingly found succor abroad, where they tried to articulate visions for Iraq's future that could transcend Iraq's crippling problems and divisions. After Saddam's fall, exiles have returned and tried to implement their views but they face considerable challenges, including resentment by those who never left Iraq. Deciding which exiles deserve a place within the new Iraqi nation will be a major step in solving the dilemmas of Iraq's contested national identity. themes such as the role of the state, land Ten months before he was found cowering reform, the Kurdish question, the Shi'i underground in a farmhouse on the outskirts movement, or the convergence of new social of Tikrit, President Saddam Hussein vowed classes" be undertaken. 2 After helping that he would not seek asylum abroad in persuade and assist the United States in order to spare his country the onslaught of an deposing Saddam, exiles have yet to solidify American invasion. Saddam said that he a place in the new Iraq. Their role in the post- would never leave Iraq and anyone "who Saddam situation depended at first on decides to forsake his nation" by fleeing was 1 whether their American sponsors believed a traitor to the principles of patriotism. them useful and in the future on whether Of course, the state and the daily Iraqis who remained at home during the activity of a society are foremost in defining Saddam era perceive these returnees as its national life. Only in unique circumstances loyal. 3 can those who have left exert significant political influence at home, and even more THE CENTRIPETAL STATE rarely are they able to gain power. Yet even The establishment of the Iraqi state in when they lack the political power to form 1921 left Sunnis, Shi'as, Kurds and Turkmens full-fledged shadow governments, exiles can on both sides of the border. The Kurds, for develop a critique and counter-point to the example, lived on territory that was divided dominant existing order. between Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. The Marion Farouk-Sluglett and Peter travails of the Kurds, who to this day remain Sluglett, pre-eminent historians of Iraq, wrote wary of assuming an Iraqi identity and thus in the wake of the 1990-1991 war that much can only with great difficulty be considered of the earnest consideration of Iraq's modern an "Iraqi" exile group, will be discussed only history has been conducted by politically in passing. But there were also Shi'i committed Iraqi intellectuals living in exile. seminarians from the shrine cities who Only in the pages of journals like al-Thaqafa preferred living under the protection of their al-Jadida, produced in Cyprus, and al-Nahj co-religionists in Iran than under the Sunni in Damascus, could serious "debates on the Hashemite monarchy, as well as Christians 70 Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 9, No. 1 Returning Exiles to Iraqi Politics who had already begun to establish forth the dilemmas that all Iraqi exile immigrant pockets in New York, Detroit, and communities eventually would face. First, elsewhere. they had to decide whether they would For the most part, the political life of identify themselves as Iraqi at all. This would these earliest diasporic groups had little bolster their claim to a patrimony in Iraq and relationship with the central government and maintain their status as legitimate interest scarcely a trace of "Iraqiness" at all. Still, holders in the Iraqi state, but it would also they cannot be considered mere migrants who tacitly accept the legitimacy of the state that transplanted the centers of their cultural life had rejected and persecuted them. A second to another land and relinquished their ties to and inter-related problem was the question of the "old country." The Iraqi state, once integration and assimilation in their host formed, had a centripetal effect on all social countries, to what extent exiles could groups. Even as the state persecuted, participate in and identify with their new victimized, and even expelled communities in homes without losing their distinctive identity the name of its ideological commitments to and thereby their claim to their old homeland. unitary nationalism, these communities left For their part, Assyrian exiles vital components of their communal heritage, dramatically and emphatically rejected Iraqi- symbols, and institutions within Iraq; they ness. Madawi al-Rashid, studying the had to negotiate ways to maintain their status Assyrian community in London, found that as legitimate interest holders in Iraq as they Assyrians referred to their homeland as lived outside its borders. Mesopotamia or Bayna Nahrayn ("land The first group to fall victim to the between two rivers"). Al-Rashid comments banner of Iraqi Arab nationalism was the that: Assyrians. From the beginning, the Assyrian position within the Iraqi borders was Mesopotamia is distant in time from precarious. Having come to Iraq as refugees Iraq with its present political from Ottoman Turkish persecution during the apparatus. In a sense, it is a negation First World War, the Assyrians were a non- of this apparatus as it exists today. A indigenous Christian community, which the political entity in the form of an Iraqi state considered an unfortunate Ottoman ancient Assyrian Empire was founded and British legacy. Their collaboration and in Mesopotamia. Assyrians readily participation in the British-raised militia identify with this entity rather than increased the popular view of the Assyrians with the present state of Iraq.5 as agents of imperialism. Finally, the Assyrians' demand to preserve their cultural Ironically, this emphasis on pre- patrimony and political autonomy under the Islamic history may have brought the leadership of the Mar Sham'un, head of the Assyrians to admire Saddam Hussein's Assyrian church, ran directly contrary to the attempts to elaborate a "Mesopotamian" desire of the new Hashemite monarchy and identity for Iraq.6 Al-Rashid quotes from a nationalist politicians to reduce the power of curious article published in the Assyrian traditional leaders and create a cohesive Observer (London) in 1991: "The new national identity. 4 redevelopment in Iraq and the rise of the new The 1933 Iraqi army assault on the Babylon, the ancient Assyrian city of science Assyrians, the exile of Mar Sham'un to and astronomy in south Baghdad and the London and eventually Chicago, and the rebuild [sic] of the new Nineveh, the last subsequent mass migration to the West, set capital city of the Assyrian Empire in north Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 9, No. 1 71 Ariel I. Ahram Mosul, under the direct jurisdiction of the British imperialism and with the Zionists. President Saddam Hussein, are clear The Jewish exodus from Iraq came in waves indication[s] of the rise of Assyria again…."7 proportional to the level of persecution Whether this statement is part of an Assyrian inflicted on the community. The 1941 chiliastic tendency, viewing the horrors of the pogrom known as the Farhud, which resulted first Gulf War (1990-91) as an apocalyptic in the death of over 100 Jews, led many Iraqi foreshadowing, as al-Rashid argues, or an Jews for the first time to consider Zionism as expression of approval for the Ba'th regime, offering a possible alternative home, and remains a mystery. consequently, an alternative identity as Nevertheless, the center of Assyrian well. 11 By 1951, all but 5,000-6,000 of the identity abroad has shifted somewhat from a over 100,000 Iraqi Jews had requested exit territorial identity to a spiritual community. permits. The government froze the assets and The Assyrians abroad, al-Rashid found, stripped away the citizenship of the departing languish in estrangement from their Jews. 12 homeland but are consoled by the continuity Unlike the Assyrians, who maintained of the Patriarchy in Chicago, which is an some institutional and communal presence in "important element in the preservation of Iraq, the remaining Jewish institutions were their identity," a symbol of unity. 8 The much smaller, weaker, and subject to Church, both as an abstract institution and as continual harassment. The Jewish attitude a physical facility, provides an important toward Iraqi-ness was also much more meeting point for the Assyrian community ambivalent. Jews had enjoyed a relatively and seems a strong basis for the perpetuation high degree of success and integration in of the Assyrian ethno-religious identity. Iraqi society. Many of the older generation of Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV resides in community leaders, like Sassoon Kedourie, Chicago but was ordained in Ealing, London chief rabbi from 1933 to 1949 and from 1953 in 1976. Contact between the American and until his death in 1971, "walked a fine line in British Assyrian communities is so close as to reassuring the Iraqi government that the Jews "divert" religious contact from Iraq, where were loyal citizens." Detractors, especially another Patriarch is also installed.9 By among the younger generation, however, acceding to the Chicago Patriarch, though, blamed Kedourie for being aloof and members of the Assyrian diaspora cut off an unresponsive to the needs of his community important element of their connection to for greater protection. 13 Unlike the Assyrians, Iraqi/Mesopotamian soil. In essence, they Iraqi Jews were actively courted by an sacrificed an element of their hope for return alternative identity, namely Israeli for the benefits of added social cohesion in nationalism, which urged Jews to jettison their new homes.