MONGABAY.COM
Mongabay.com seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife, while examining the impact of emerging trends in climate, technology, economics, and finance on conservation and development (more)
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
|
|
Iraq
Index
Rural Iraq contains aspects of the largely tribal mode of
social organization that prevailed over the centuries and still
survived in the 1980s--particularly in the more isolated rural
areas, such as the rugged tableland of the northwest and the
marshes in the south. The tribal mode probably originated in the
unstable social conditions that resulted from the protracted
decline of the Abbasid Caliphate and the subsequent cycles of
invasion and devastation.
In the absence of a strong central authority and the urban
society of a great civilization, society devloped into smaller
units under conditions that placed increasing stress on prowess,
decisiveness, and mobility. Under these conditions, the tribal
shaykhs emerged as a warrior class, and this process facilitated
the ascendancy of the fighter-nomad over the cultivator.
The gradual sedentarization that began in the mid-nineteenth
century brought with it an erosion of shaykhly power and a
disintegration of the tribal system. Under the British Mandate,
and the monarchy that was its creation, a reversal took place.
Despite the continued decline of the tribe as a viable and
organic social entity, the enfeebled power of the shaykhs was
restored and enhanced by the British. This was done to develop a
local ruling class that could maintain security in the
countryside and otherwise head off political challenges to
British access to Iraq's mineral and agricultural resources and
Britain's paramount role in the Persian Gulf shaykhdoms
(see World War I and the British Mandate
, ch. 1). Through the specific
implementation of land registration, the traditional pattern of
communal cultivation and pasturage--with mutual rights and duties
between shaykhs and tribesmen--was superseded in some tribal
areas by the institution of private property and the
expropriation by the shaykhs of tribal lands as private estates.
The status of the tribesmen was in many instances drastically
reduced to that of sharecroppers and laborers. The additional
ascription of judicial and police powers to the shaykh and his
retinue left the tribesmen-cum-peasants as virtual serfs,
continuously in debt and in servitude to the shaykh turned
landlord and master. The social basis for shaykhly power had been
transformed from military valor and moral rectitude to an
effective possession of wealth as embodied in vast landholdings
and a claim to the greater share of the peasants' production.
This was the social dimension of the transformation from a
subsistence, pastoral economy to an agricultural economy linked
to the world market. It was, of course, an immensely complicated
process, and conditions varied in different parts of the country.
The main impact was in the southern half--the riverine economy--
more than in the sparsely populated, rain-fed northern area. A
more elaborate analysis of this process would have to look
specifically at the differences between Kurdish and Arab shaykhs,
between political and religious leadership functions, between
Sunni and Shia shaykhs, and between nomadic and riverine shaykhs,
all within their ecological settings. In general the biggest
estates developed in areas restored to cultivation through dam
construction and pump irrigation after World War I. The most
autocratic examples of shaykhly power were in the rice-growing
region near Al Amarah, where the need for organized and
supervised labor and the rigorous requirements of rice
cultivation generated the most oppressive conditions.
The role of the tribe as the chief politico-military unit was
already well eroded by the time the monarchy was overthrown in
July 1958. The role of some tribal shaykhs had been abolished by
the central government. The tribal system survived longest in the
mid-Euphrates area, where many tribesmen had managed to register
small plots in their names and had not become mere tenants of the
shaykh. In such settings an interesting amalgam occurred of
traditional tribal customs and the newer influences represented
by the civil servants sent to rural regions by the central
government, together with the expanded government educational
system. For example, the government engineer responsible for the
water distribution system, although technically not a major
administrator, in practice became the leading figure in rural
areas. He would set forth requirements for the cleaning and
maintenance of the canals
(see Agriculture
, ch. 3), and the
tribal shaykh would see to it that the necessary manpower was
provided. This service in the minds of tribesmen replaced the old
customary obligation of military service that they owed the
shaykh and was not unduly onerous. It could readily be combined
with work on their own grazing or producing lands and benefited
the tribe as a whole. The government administrators usually
avoided becoming involved in legal disputes that might result
from water rights, leaving the disputes to be settled by the
shaykh in accordance with traditional tribal practices. Thus,
despite occasional tensions in such relationships, the power of
the central government gradually expanded into regions where
Baghdad's influence had previously been slight or absent.
Despite the erosion of the historic purposes of tribal
organization, the prolonged absence of alternative social links
has helped to preserve the tribal character of individual and
group relations. The complexity of these relations is impressive.
Even in the southern, irrigated part of the country there are
notable differences between the tribes along the Tigris, subject
to Iranian influences, and those of the Euphrates, whose historic
links are with the Arab beduin tribes of the desert. Since
virtually no ethnographic studies on the Tigris peoples existed
in the late 1980s, the following is based chiefly on research in
the Euphrates region.
The tribe represents a concentric social system linked to the
classical nomadic structure but modified by the sedentary
environment and limited territory characteristic of the modern
era. The primary unit within the tribe is the named agnatic
lineage several generations deep to which each member belongs.
This kinship unit shares responsibilities in feuds and war,
restricts and controls marriage within itself, and jointly
occupies a specified share of tribal land. The requirements of
mutual assistance preclude any significant economic
differentiation, and authority is shared among the older men. The
primary family unit rests within the clan, composed of two or
more lineage groups related by descent or adoption. Nevertheless,
a clan can switch its allegiance from its ancestral tribal unit
to a stronger, ascendant tribe. The clans are units of solidarity
in disputes with other clans in the tribe, although there may be
intense feuding among the lineage groups within the clan. The
clan also represents a shared territorial interest, as the land
belonging to the component lineage groups customarily is
adjacent.
Several clans united under a single shaykh form a tribe
(ashira). This traditionally has been the dominant
politico-military unit although, because of unsettled conditions,
tribes frequently band together in confederations under a
paramount shaykh. The degree of hierarchy and centralization
operative in a given tribe seems to correlate with the length of
time it has been sedentary: the Bani Isad, for example, which has
been settled for several centuries, is much more centralized than
the Ash Shabana, which has been sedentary only since the end of
the nineteenth century.
In the south, only the small hamlets scattered throughout the
cultivated area are inhabited solely by tribesmen. The most
widely spread social unit is the village, and most villages have
resident tradesmen (ahl as suq--people of
the market) and government employees. The lines between these
village dwellers and the tribespeople, at least until just before
the war, were quite distinct, although the degree varies from
place to place. As the provision of education, health, and other
social services to the generally impoverished rural areas
increases, the number and the social influence of these nontribal
people increase. Representatives of the central government take
over roles previously filled by the shaykh or his
representatives. A government school competes with the religious
school. The role of the merchants as middlemen--buyers of the
peasants' produce and providers of seeds and implements as well
as of food and clothing--has not yet been superseded in most
areas by the government-sponsored cooperatives and extension
agencies. Increasingly in the 1980s, government employees were of
local or at least rural origin, whereas in the 1950s they usually
were Baghdadis who had no kinship ties in the region, wore
Western clothing, and took their assignments as exile and
punishment. In part the administrators provoked the mutual
antagonism that flourished between them and the peasants,
particularly as Sunni officials were often assigned to Shia
villages. The merchants, however, were from the region--if not
from the same village--and were usually the sons of merchants.
Despite some commercial developments in rural areas, in the
late 1980s the economic base was still agriculture and, to a
lesser but increasing extent, animal husbandry. Failure to
resolve the technical problem of irrigation drainage contributed
to declining rural productivity, however, and accentuated the
economic as well as the political role of the central government.
The growth of villages into towns and whatever signs of recent
prosperity there were should be viewed, therefore, more as the
result of greater government presence than as locally developed
economic viability. The increased number of government
representatives and employees added to the market for local
produce and, more important, promoted the diffusion of state
revenues into impoverished rural areas through infrastructure and
service projects. Much remained to be done to supply utilities to
rural inhabitants; just before the war, the government announced
a campaign to provide such essentials as electricity and clean
water to the villages, most of which still lacked these
(see Electricity
, ch. 3). The government has followed through on
several of these projects--particularly in the south--despite the
hardships caused by the war. The regime apparently felt the need
to reward the southerners, who had suffered inordinately in the
struggle.
Data as of May 1988
|
|