Living with turmoil

With disenchantment with the occupying forces steadily rising and internecine feuds threatening to go out of hand, Iraq is once again skirting the edges of chaos and anarchy.

recently in Baghdad

THE first emotion that hits you as you go around Baghdad and a few other cities of Iraq like Basra, Karbala and Najaf is a deep sense of sadness. The turmoil, turbulence and immense suffering that the people of Iraq have been subjected to through long decades seem to continue.

Of course, there is euphoria all around that Saddam Hussein, the dictator who ruled the country for over three decades, is finally gone. But those Iraqis - overwhelmingly the Shias, who form about 60 per cent of the population - who welcomed the invasion of Iraq by the coalition forces in March 2003 also expected the Americans and the British and other occupying forces to melt away, just as the various units of Saddam's army, the Republican Guards and others, disappeared as the coalition forces advanced into Iraq.

But as you watch the reality on the ground, the violent and bloody infighting among the different Shia groups, which are battling for control over the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf, you wonder at the chaos and anarchy, which can devastate this already ravaged country. Whatever little peace and quiet you find anywhere in Iraq is extremely fragile and nobody knows this better than Iraqis themselves.

In a Baghdad by-lane, Mohammed Hassan, a 70-year-old man who runs a laundry service, curses both the Americans and Saddam as he points to a woman, covered from head to toe and huddled in a corner with a huge begging bowl in which there are more flies than coins. "Both of them have reduced us Iraqis into beggars... and that too when we have so much of wealth in terms of oil," he says.

Under the watchful eye and with the blessings of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), a 25-member interim Governing Council (GC) of Iraq has been appointed. The controversial Iraqi leader, and a favourite of the United States, Ahmed Chalabi, is a prominent member of the Council. There is so much of tussle and disagreement among the GC members that they are nowhere close to formalising even a draft Constitution. The issues that have to be thrashed out in the Constitution pertain mainly to the kind of governance model that Iraq will follow when it gets back to self-governance. For instance, will it be a presidential system in which Iraq will be ruled by a single powerful leader, or will it be a collective leadership? If it is going to be a single leader, will he be elected by parliament or directly by the people?

Also, there will be a lot of turmoil over the sharing of power or seats in parliament - on whether the number of seats will be allocated according to the percentage of the population through reservation and whether there will be true federalism as the Kurds in the north want?

Another major question pertains to the role that religion will play when Iraq finally returns to self-governance. For instance, will the state follow secular laws or the Islamic law? Whatever Saddam's faults, he did not allow Iraq to become a fundamentalist Islamic nation and religion did not play an undue part in governance.

If a Shia-dominated government comes to power, the Shias being relatively more orthodox, it is feared that the first backlash will be on women's freedom. Already in Najaf and Karbala, where lakhs of Shia pilgrims were marching in from all over Iraq and adjoining Iran to participate in the birth anniversary celebrations of the 12th Shia imam, al Mahdi, who had gone into seclusion in the 9th century, one could not find a single woman who was not covered from head to toe. Inside the Shia shrines in both Najaf and Karbala, all women pilgrims have to follow a strict code of hijab and ensure that not a single hair peeps out - an impossible feat with the women having to shove and push their way around the sanctum sanctorum of the shrine, where segregation of the sexes has already taken place. The dresses have to be full-sleeved and the feet covered with socks or stockings.

The women, who appeared in these cities wrapped in black cloth with little more than their eyes and noses visible on their faces, were a sharp contrast to the fashionably and elegantly dressed women of Baghdad. Lamiya, a secretary in the Mayor's office in Baghdad, comes to work in a skirt and blouse and high-heeled shoes; her face carefully done up with rouge, lipstick and mascara.

"Oh yes, I am a Shia and I have always dressed like this. I never wear the hijab, nor does any other woman in my family. But I don't know about the future... whether we shall have the same freedom to dress the way we want. I think dress restrictions will come in for women," Lamiya says.

The last thing that Iraq needs is regression from a free and open society, where girls got almost as much education as boys and the workforce has a fair sprinkling of women, towards a more orthodox Islamic society. The important thing is choice, as pointed out by the Vice-Mayor (Technical Affairs) of Baghdad, Faris Alasam, who says that his wife, a civil engineer, does not wear the hijab. "My sister wanted to, but her husband said that he did not prefer her to wear it. So it depends on individual families."

Nouri, a 25-year-old young professional in Baghdad, frequents cinemas and attends parties. Of course, now nobody parties in Iraq. But this youngster, who loves to dance and listen to music, feels that the "fun time in Baghdad is over."

At the moment the women of Iraq are watching from the sidelines as the predominantly male Shia groups fight for power. The internecine fighting has come out into the open after a young Shia cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, used the massive Shia enclaves during the holy weekend, to question the authority of the GC, calling it the stooge of the Americans. Tension mounted at the mammoth gatherings in Karbala and Najaf after the 30-year-old announced that he had founded an alternative government and urged Iraqis to support his group.

A week earlier, his followers clashed with the U.S. military in Baghdad's Sadr City, a slum with two million residents, resulting in the death of two American soldiers and one al-Sadr follower.

Increasing the headache of the occupying forces is al-Sadr's newly founded militia - the Imam al-Mahdi Army - which challenges a U.S. military ban on carrying arms in public without a licence. With al-Sadr followers addressing huge meetings in both Karbala and Najaf, urging the people to decide if they "want the interim GC or new rulers", a bloody fight broke out outside the shrine of Imam Hussein in Karbala on October 13. All the shrines were quickly closed to the public, curfew was imposed and the sound of gunfire could be heard throughout the night and the next morning. A couple of people were killed and several injured.

From a political perspective, both Karbala and Najaf are important to any future ruler of Iraq. And anybody who controls the shrines, where money pours in, can hope to wield considerable influence in Iraq's politics.

In Karbala lies the mausoleum of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, who was martyred here along with his family and associates in the 14th century. Najaf is considered the holiest of Shiite pilgrimage sites, as it bears the mausoleum of Hazrat Ali, who is considered the spiritual head of Shias. He was Prophet Mohammed's son-in-law and was killed in the Kufa mosque during the morning namaz.

Saddam Hussein is a Sunni and had placed severe restrictions on Shia Muslims visiting these shrines.

The khuddam (chief volunteer) at the Najaf shrine - where the powerful Shia leader Ayatollah Bakir al Hakim was killed in a car bomb explosion in August - said Shia pilgrims from Iran were particularly targeted by Saddam who charged each pilgrim a tax of $750 (Indian Shias had to pay a tax of $300, which is now gone, making the pilgrimage cheaper by this amount). "Not only that; his orders were to allow into Iraq only 100 Iranian pilgrims at a time. Only after they had completed the pilgrimage and left the country could the next batch come in," said the khuddam.

What surprises a visitor to Iraq is the mixed sentiment pertaining to the occupying forces. In Karbala and Najaf, people are so euphoric about Saddam's ouster that they happily point out to you that since the occupying forces are well beyond the city limits, it does not matter. But when the feud between Shiite groups broke out, Bulgarian forces entered the centre of Karbala within a few hours, of course taking care to maintain some distance from the holy shrines.

In Baghdad, some of the educated and professional people, who under the occupation have had a hefty hike in their salaries - ranging from 10 to 30 times - are grateful to the Americans "for saving us from Saddam."

Anwaar teaches management in a Baghdad university and her salary was a paltry $6.5 in the Saddam era. Today it has been raised to $160, and she says, "I finally feel I'm getting a just wage for my qualification." She feels the Americans should stay in Baghdad for at least two years. "They are necessary to maintain law and order in the streets. The moment the occupying forces leave, there will be several groups fighting for power and life will become sheer hell for us."

She points out that for something as simple as getting fuel for the car she needs the help of the Americans. "If one of them is present, the gas station owner will give us petrol at 50 dinars a litre. If they are not there, the owner quickly puts up the `No stock' sign and sells the petrol in the black market.

While security has returned to some pockets of Iraq, Baghdad is far from safe. Offices are deserted around 3 p.m. You are constantly warned not to be out on the streets at sundown, as armed gangs are on the prowl. "You can get looted even by your taxi driver in Baghdad, so distribute your money in different places," says a Baghdad resident.

Of course, the Americans do not have instant answers for many of the people's problems. Says a U.S. military officer: "The people are extremely impatient. They want instant solutions. The water supply is already better, and there is electricity in Baghdad for about 18 to 20 hours a day now. We are still battling with the sewerage system, but then it is something which has been laid in the 1950s!"

Echoing the sentiment that the occupiers did not expect the kind of targeted violent attacks, which have been gaining ground, the surprisingly honest American says, "When Baghdad fell and we took over, we could have done anything to improve the lot of the people. We had that kind of support and goodwill. But now, with so many attacks, it is getting more difficult, and with each passing day more and more Iraqi groups are fighting against each other."