“The media are denying our right to resist”
Haifa Zangana, acclaimed Iraqi novelist and former prisoner of the Baath regime, chair of Iraqi Committee for National Media and Culture, gave the following talk to MWAW in London on February 5.
Since the first six months of the invasion we have had hardly any independent reporting in Iraq. At the beginning there was euphoria — some 260 publications sprang up. Under the sanctions no one had had access to publishing, even the official Baath newspaper “al Thawra” was cut from 24 pages to four.
So just looking at newspapers again was a real pleasure for Iraqis. People wanted a place to breathe again; after the Iraq-Iran and Gulf wars and sanctions, they were too exhausted for another war. People in general were ready for political resistance, not armed resistance — although the armed resistance was born in embryo immediately in the aftermath of the invasion. There was a feeling that things might get better.
People started organising political parties, women’s groups, student unions. The started demonstrating, particularly for the US army to leave the schools and colleges they had taken over to use as military bases during the invasion. That was how the Fallujah confrontation began — soldiers opened fire on such a demonstration and 17 people were killed.
Then Paul Bremer’s administration began closing newspapers for “inciting violence” — i.e. for opposing what’s called the political process. The assassinations began of anybody who criticised the occupation. That is why academics were targeted, and journalists. Over 150 journalists have died, including some of our most prominent women journalists.
It seems like there has been a systematic process of silencing the opposition. The Arab satellite stations al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya were closed down. The latest TV station offices in Baghdad to be closed is Al Sharqiya (based in the United Arab Emirates) for criticizing the Iraqi constitution. Only two remaining TV stations actually call the occupation an “occupation”: one is Al Baghdadiya, which broadcasts from Egypt, and one from a lorry that moves around constantly — just like the “weapons of mass destruction” that Iraq was supposed to have!
[For more detail on the Iraqi media, see Dahr Jamail’s report here]
Who is targeting journalists and academics? Of course there are gangs. Kidnapping is an easy way to earn money. But this is only a small part of the violence. In the case of the academics and journalists, they are approached in the street, asked for their names, and then executed — in other words, they are targeted for who they are and what they say, not to make money.
So there are very few critical voices left in Iraq. Iraqis refuse to give interviews in Arabic — only to foreign-language media — so they can’t be so easily identified by the militias. There have been cases of people targeted immediately after they have said something on the TV or radio.
Occupation smears the resistance
The consequences for people’s lives are summed up by the fact that only 30% of children started primary school this year. This takes us back to the 1930s. Medical supplies are minimal. Women are losing all their rights — how can they compete with the militias for scarce jobs, for example? We have women members of parliament, they have not been elected but appointed by the sectarian and ethnic parties according to a specific quota. All of them represent their parties’ agenda, they hardly speak to highlight Iraqi women’s plight, most of them are covered in black from head to foot and wear black gloves, something unheard of in Iraqi society before the invasion.
In fact one of them doesn’t even speak, because she believes in Sawt Al Ma’ra A’wra — that a woman’s voice should not be heard in public, it is something to be ashamed of.
The occupation has been based on sectarianism from day one. Iraq became a black hole for corruption. When you shake hands with someone now you say I am a “Shiite” or a “Sunni”, or a “Kurd” — you have to if you want to get a job, official jobs are allocated according to the sectarian divide. And what about the occupation? The occupation is watching from a distance — who will be left standing when the fighting is over, so we can use them?
Whenever there is a successful attack on foreign troops by the resistance, however — and the Brookings Institute says there are 120 every day now — immediately there will be a huge car bomb in the middle of a crowded market in Baghdad. There is a definite sense of the occupation taking revenge — there is a definite connection in people’s minds.
We know from Vietnam and Algeria that this is counter-insurgency — you smear the reputation of the resistance.
The Zarqa massacre in January
Take the Zarqa massacre last week, near Najaf. Out of the blue we found out about a new sect, the Soldiers of Heaven (or Army of Heaven), which had never been heard of before. The US and the British committed a massacre, and they had to justify what happened — there were some 300 dead, including many women and children.
The story became more and more fantastic, like science fiction. These Soldiers of Heaven were supposed to have thousands of members and be heavily armed. Then the officials started claiming they were Saudis, Yemenis, Egyptians and Afghans. It was reported like this in the Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, the International Herald Tribune.
[Here’s how the Guardian reported it on its front page on January 29: “Iraqi troops backed by US helicopters and F-16 jets fought one of the fiercest battles since the end of the 2003 war yesterday… Iraqi officials said 250 members of a messianic Islamic group had been killed in a day of fighting…”
On January 30 it again described the confrontation with “mystery fighters“, uncritically repeating the official explanation: “US and Iraqi forces had fought hundreds of fighters from an obscure Islamic splinter group suspected of planning attacks … A defence ministry spokesman said: “The victorious Iraqi forces, with US help, have smashed the group of terrorists who were planning to disrupt the holy day of Ashura.’”]
We rang people there and asked what really happened.
There were two tribes on their way to the Ashura festival in Nejaf. Two people were shot at a checkpoint — it happens in today’s Iraq, it’s a usual occurrence. Shooting broke out as people from the tribes retaliated. The Iraqi soldiers at the checkpoint called in US airstrikes. There was a huge massacre.
The Soldiers of Heaven is a tiny sect, a cult. He has no army of thousands. But it turns out its leader is anti-occupation and also asks what is happening to the oil wealth and why it is not going to the Iraqis. [Read alternative accounts of what really happened here, here and here, or informed but sceptical opinion here]
The role of the media
What really bothers me in all this is the elephant in the living room that nobody mentions — the resistance. The media say “insurgents”, “Baathists”, “terrorists” — but not resistance. They are denying our right to resist the occupation.
Sometimes I get angry about it. But they are bound to leave sooner or later.
What happens when the troops leave? Most Iraqis believe strongly that the minute the troops leave it will be alright. It’s like the troops arrived with a virus and they will take it away when they leave. Iraq has no history of civil war. Occupation is an industry. People provide uniforms, services etc. There is the growth of a class of Iraqis who feed on this, and therefore fuel the conflict.
The Independent’s correspondent Patrick Cockburn was one of the few to start talking about the “Sunni-Shia divide”. I didn’t like it. In fact I was shocked. If they want a civil war they’ll have to divide our bedrooms — we are very mixed. Baghdad itself is one-third Kurdish. Ordinary people don’t have the feeling that there is a civil war.
But it’s being encouraged. It’s convenient to have these labels. Read Paul Bremer’s book about the first year of the occupation — he loved reminding people about which sect or ethnicity they “belonged” to.
The source of the conflict isn’t a Sunni-Shia divide. We never had one. Resistance to the Baath was never sectarian. In the 1940s-50s when we fought the British it was never because they were Christian. It’s different from Northern Ireland — there was never any segregation in Iraq.
The majority of the resistance are former officers of the Iraqi army, which points to the possibility of a military regime. Also there are the jihadists, who we never used to have in Iraq, but with the occupation people are despairing and religion is very powerful: there might be an Islamist government.
But there is also political opposition, such as the Iraqi National Foundation Congress (which I support), formed in 2004 as an umbrella organisation of 22 parties and groups. This could become the political face of the resistance.
