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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Iraq
Index
A cafe in Baghdad
Courtesy Mokhless Al-Hariri
Iraq's society just before the outbreak of the war was
undergoing profound and rapid social change that had a definite
urban focus. The city has historically played an important
economic and political role in the life of Middle Eastern
societies, and this was certainly true in the territory that is
present-day Iraq. Trade and commerce, handicrafts and small
manufactures, and administrative and cultural activities have
traditionally been central to the economy and the society,
notwithstanding the overwhelming rural character of most of the
population. In the modern era, as the country witnessed a growing
involvement with the world market and particularly the commercial
and administrative sectors, the growth of a few urban centers,
notably Baghdad and Basra, has been astounding. The war, however,
has altered this pattern of growth remarkably--in the case of
Baghdad accelerating it; in the case of Basra shrinking it
considerably
(see Social Systems
, this ch.).
Demographic estimates based on the 1987 census reflected an
increase in the urban population from 5,452,000 in 1970 to
7,646,054 in 1977, and to 11,078,000 in 1987 or 68 percent of the
population. Census data show the remarkable growth of Baghdad in
particular, from just over 500,000 in 1947 to 1,745,000 in 1965;
and from 3,226,000 in 1977 to 3,845,000 in 1987.
The population of other major cities according to the 1977
census was 1,540,000 for Basra, 1,220,000 for Mosul, and 535,000
for Kirkuk (detailed information from the October 1987 census was
lacking in early 1988). The port of Basra presents a more complex
picture: accelerated growth up to the time the war erupted, then
a sharp deceleration once the war started when the effects of the
fighting around the city began to be felt. Between 1957 and 1965,
Basra actually had a higher growth rate than Baghdad--90 percent
in Basra as compared with Baghdad's 65 percent. But once the
Iranians managed to sink several tankers in the Shatt al Arab,
this effectively blocked the waterway and the economy of the port
city began to deteriorate. By 1988 repeated attempts by Iran to
capture Basra had further eroded the strength of the city's
commercial sector, and the heavy bombardment had rendered some
quarters of Basra virtually uninhabitable. Because of the war
reliable statistics were unavailable, but the city's population
in early 1988 was probably less than half that in 1977.
In the extreme north, the picture was somewhat different.
There, a number of middle-sized towns have experienced very rapid
growth--triggered by the unsettled conditions in the region.
Early in the war the government determined to fight Kurdish-
guerrilla activity by targeting the communities that allegedly
sustained the rebels. It therefore cleared whole tracts of the
mountainous region of local inhabitants. The residents of the
cleared areas fled to regional urban centers like Irbil, As
Sulaymaniyah, and Dahuk; by and large they did not transfer to
the major urban centers such as Mosul and Kirkuk.
Statistical details of the impact of these population shifts
on the physical and spatial character of the cities were
generally lacking in the 1980s. According to accounts by on-the-
spot observers, in Baghdad--and presumably in the other cities as
well--there appeared to have been no systematic planning to cope
with the growth of slum areas. Expansion in the capital until the
mid-1970s had been quite haphazard. As a result, there were many
open spaces between buildings and quarters. Thus, the squatter
settlements that mushroomed in those years were not confined to
the city's fringes. By the late 1950s, the sarifahs (reed
and mud huts) in Baghdad were estimated to number 44,000, or
almost 45 percent of the total number of houses in the capital.
These slums became a special target of Qasim's government.
Efforts were directed at improving the housing and living
conditions of the sarifah dwellers. Between 1961 and 1963,
many of these settlements were eliminated and their inhabitants
moved to two large housing projects on the edge of the city--
Madinat ath Thawra and An Nur. Schools and markets were also
built, and sanitary services were provided. In time, however, Ath
Thawra and An Nur, too, became dilapidated, and just before the
war Saddam Husayn ordered Ath Thawra rebuilt as Saddam City. This
new area of low houses and wide streets has radically improved
the lifestyles of the residents, the overwhelming majority of
whom were Shias who had migrated from the south.
Another striking feature of the initial waves of migration to
Baghdad and other urban centers is that the migrants have tended
to stay, bringing with them whole families. The majority of
migrants were peasant cultivators, but shopkeepers, petty
traders, and small craftsmen came as well. Contact with the point
of rural origin was not totally severed, and return visits were
fairly common, but reverse migration was extremely rare. At least
initially, there was a pronounced tendency for migrants from the
same village to relocate in clusters to ease the difficulties of
transition and maintain traditional patterns of mutual
assistance. Whether this pattern has continued into the war years
was not known, but it seems likely. A number of observers have
reported neighborhoods in the capital formed on the basis of
rural or even tribal origin.
The urban social structure has evolved gradually over the
years. In pre-revolutionary Iraq it was dominated by a well-
defined ruling class, concentrated in Baghdad. This was an
internally cohesive group, distinguished from the rest of the
population by its considerable wealth and political power. The
economic base of this class was landed wealth, but during the
decades of the British Mandate and the monarchy, as landlords
acquired commercial interests and merchants and government
officials acquired real estate, a considerable intertwining of
families and interests occurred. The result was that the Iraqi
ruling class could not be easily separated into constituent
parts: the largest commercial trading houses were controlled by
families owning vast estates; the landowners were mostly tribal
shaykhs but included many urban notables, government ministers,
and civil servants. Moreover, the landowning class controlled the
parliament, which tended to function in the most narrowly
conceived interest of these landlords.
There was a small but growing middle class in the 1950s and
1960s that included a traditional core of merchants, shopkeepers,
craftsmen, professionals, and government officials, their numbers
augmented increasingly by graduates from the school system. The
Ministry of Education had been the one area during the monarchy
that was relatively independent of British advisers, and thus it
was expanded as a conspicuous manifestation of government
response to popular demand. It was completely oriented toward
white-collar, middle-class occupations. Within this middle class,
and closely connected to the commercial sector, was a small
industrial bourgeoisie whose interests were not completely
identical with those of the more traditional sector.
Iraq's class structure at mid-century was characterized by
great instability. In addition to the profound changes occurring
in the countryside, there was the economic and social disruption
of shortages and spiraling inflation brought on by World War II.
Fortunes were made by a few, but for most there was deprivation
and, as a consequence, great social unrest. Longtime Western
observers compared the situation of the urban masses unfavorably
with conditions in the last years of Ottoman rule. An instance of
the abrupt population shifts was the Iraqi Jews. The
establishment of the state of Israel led to the mass exodus of
this community in 1950, to be replaced by Shia merchants and
traders, many of whom were descendants of Iranian immigrants from
the heavily Shia populated areas of the south.
The trend of urban growth, which had commenced in the days
immediately preceding the revolution, took off in the mid-1970s,
when the effects of the sharp increases in the world price of oil
began to be felt. Oil revenues poured into the cities where they
were invested in construction and real estate speculation. The
dissatisfied peasantry then found even more cause to move to the
cities because jobs--mainly in construction--were available, and
even part-time, unskilled labor was an improvement over
conditions in the countryside.
As for the elite, the oil boom of the 1970s brought greater
diversification of wealth, with some going to those attached to
the land, and some to those involved in the regime, commerce,
and, increasingly, manufacturing. The working class grew but was
largely fragmented. A relatively small number were employed in
businesses of ten or more workers, whereas a much larger number
were classified as wage workers, including those in the services
sector. Between the elite and the working masses was the lower
middle class of petty bourgeoisie. This traditional component
consisted of the thousands of small handicraft shops, which made
up a huge part of the so-called manufacturing sector, and the
even more numerous one-man stores. The newer and more rapidly
expanding part of this class consisted of professionals and
semiprofessionals employed in services and the public sector,
including the officer corps, and the thousands of students
looking for jobs. This class became particularly significant in
the 1980s because former members of it have become the nation's
elite. Perhaps the most important aspect of the growth of the
public sector was the expansion of educational facilities, with
consequent pressures to find white-collar jobs for graduates in
the noncommodity sectors.
Data as of May 1988
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