A social ill is stalking Iraq. Hiding in narrow streets and poisoning the minds of the youth, this social ill is so serious it requires concerted action by the politicians of Iraq. For so long the parliament in Baghdad has been riven by disagreement. Finally, this week, those disagreements fell away and action on this problem was taken.
Sadly for Iraq, the social ill the parliamentarians focused on was not the marauding band of armed militias who currently occupy the country’s second largest city – but rather beer and wine.
For most Iraqis, the passing of a law banning the import, production and sale of alcohol, at this particular moment, is puzzling. (Some may employ saltier language.) At a time when the Iraqi army and its allies are surrounding Mosul, fearful of suicide bombers and concerned for the hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped inside, the parliament chose to spend its limited time on this issue.
The logistics of how the law came about don’t concern me here. It will in all likelihood be struck down by the supreme court.
Nor – and it is important to be clear about this – is the law about the dangers of alcohol. Parliamentarians are entitled to debate the social problems caused by alcohol and whether it should be legal. What they should not do is use legislation to remake the very identity of Iraq. But that is what is under threat.
The parliamentary vote wasn’t about alcohol or religion. It was about a very particular vision of what Iraq should be. Will Iraq be a pluralistic country that embraces and celebrates its many faiths and ethnic groups? Or will it retreat to being a country for only a few? This is the struggle that underpins the alcohol ban. And it is a struggle that goes much further back than the 2003 invasion.
It has been 13 years since the end of the Saddam era, but Iraq has still to come to terms with what kind of country it wishes to be.
The Saddam era glossed over tensions within Iraqi society – indeed, it contained them by force. But it also sought to homogenise some of the differences that ought to have been celebrated within the country. From north to south, Iraq is a complex society of cultures, many of which evolved distinctly over centuries. Iranian influence in the south, Syrian influence in the west, Turkish influence in the north – all of these have contributed to the variety of cultures that make up modern Iraq.
It is a well-known historical vignette that Mosul was originally meant to be part of French Mandate Syria, due to its closer historical links. That points to how complicated the influences that exist in modern Iraq are.
Such influences – some would say contradictions – are not insurmountable. All nation-states argue about who they are and where they are going.
The difference with Iraq is that the Saddam era defined too narrowly the national identity of Iraq, centring it around a particular vision of Arab history and Iraq’s role in it, and later a personality cult centred on Saddam Hussein himself.
When that evaporated in 2003, the task of remaking Iraqi identity took on a particular urgency, but it was overtaken by the imperative to security and stability. That is still the case, but once in a while these touchstones emerge, rallying cries to some sections of the population. Alcohol isn’t the root of this. It is merely an emotive touchstone that galvanises a political base.
If that sound familiar, it is because the banning of alcohol in Iraq is similar to the banning of the burqa in France. In both cases it is not about the purported benefits – better integration or health benefits – nor about the ideals the law is purporting to defend – secularism or an Iraqi version of Islam. Rather it is about how both societies want to see themselves.
In both cases, these small issues were hijacked by conservative politicians – not conservative in the sense of being religious, but conservative in the sense of having a narrow view of what Iraq and France are and could be.
For a glimpse of what Iraq could be, look at the small town of Bartella, east of Mosul, which just over the weekend was liberated from ISIL. In this mixed but majority Christian town, Sunday was the first day for two years that Iraqi Christians could worship freely.
Places such as Bartella are as much part of Iraq’s history as the Grand Mosque of Mosul, still occupied by ISIL.
Of course Iraq’s Shia and Kurdish communities want greater influence on Iraqi society after so many years of marginalisation, and rightly so. Shia Islam is an integral part of Iraq and has given the country some of its most vibrant traditions.
But such influence cannot come at the expense of other communities. Laws that favour one community – whether an ethnic community or a religious one – do a disservice to Iraq’s history and to its future. Only a concept of citizenship that allows these differences to flourish can right the historical wrongs.
If Iraq’s Christian heritage is washed away then, to paraphrase John Donne, the whole of Iraq is lessened by the loss. Building an Iraqi future that privileges only some communities will only lead to an incomplete country.
falyafai@thenational.ae
On Twitter: @FaisalAlYafai
