SECOND TRIBAL ARTICLE

At least three-quarters of the Iraqi people are members of one of the country’s 150 tribes. Iraq’s society is very feudalistic, with most of the population identifying him/herself with one tribe. Tribes have become an increasingly important part of Iraqi society. Even those Iraqi citizens without a tribal background often turn to neighborhood shaykhs for representation or assistance with the government.

During the Ottoman period, nomadic tribes formed the bulk of Iraq’s population. Throughout most of Iraq, direct Ottoman control was weak. Loose tribal confederations prevailed, with each tribe acting as a sort of mobile mini-state. In the absence of a strong central authority, the tribal framework fulfilled the primary functions of conflict and resource management. The most important tribal confederations in Iraq included: the Muntafiq, Anaza, Dulaim, Shammar, Zubayd, Ubayd, Bani Lam and Al-bu Muhammed. Tribal origins varied, religious divisions were not always clear-cut, and there was often a fusion between the different groups. Despite the shared religion of Islam and a general feeling of Arabness, Iraqi tribes did not have a sense of common identity.

During the Ottoman period, the Iraqi tribes earned their livelihood from herding animals, trade, raiding, and collecting tribute. A hierarchical system based on the mode of subsistence developed, with the camel-breeding tribes at the top, followed by the sheep-breeders, peasants, and the marsh-dwellers. Where sedentary agriculture prevailed, another hierarchy placed rice-growers on top, followed by vegetable growers, and manual workers. Tribesmen regularly visited towns, both to trade and to visit the holy shrines.

Beginning the mid-19th century, the Ottoman Empire increased its control over Iraqi tribes through settlement policies and land reform measures. The result was an erosion of the sheiks’ traditional source of power and a disintegration of the traditional tribal system. Following World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the British decided to unite the three Ottoman provinces of Baghdad, Mosul, and Basra into one nation-state called Iraq (a name borrowed from the medieval past of the region) despite the significant religious, linguistic, ethnic, and tribal divisions running through Iraqi society. British policies restored power to the tribal sheiks, thereby helping to preserve and reinforce Iraq’s tribal structure. At the same time, the British colonial state gradually appropriated former tribal functions like control of land, water distribution, and law enforcement. Nomadic tribes continued to settle in village communities based on extended families or sub-clans.

These communities often retained their tribal names, but they were linked to the agricultural market, rather than the subsistence economy.

Iraqi tribes continued to lose power under both the modernizing monarchy and the republican regime. The republican regime enacted and began to implement agrarian reform. At the same time, a new wave of emigration from countryside to city weakened the remaining tribal units and ties.

Following the 1968 Baathist coup, close family, clan, and tribal ties bound Iraq’s ruling Sunni elite. Most notable in this regard was the emergence of Tikritis Sunni Arabs from the town of Tikrit northwest of Baghdad related to President Ahmad Hasan al Bakr. Saddam Hussein, a key leader behind the scenes, was a Tikriti and a relative of al Bakr. Since the mid-1970s, the Baathist regime’s efforts to overcome Iraqi divisions and bring the various ethnic and religious communities under effective central control have included military campaigns against the Shia and Kurds, social and economic incentives, and the attempted creation of a unifying national ideology.

Sunni-Shia tensions peaked following the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988). During this period, the regime also increased its control by relying on tribal loyalties among both Sunni and Shia Arabs. The majority of the current ruling elite come from Saddam Hussein’s Al-bu Nasir tribe and its allies in the Tikrit region. Sunni tribes that closely support the regime include: the Dulaym, Jubbur, Ukaydat, Mulla, Sa’idat, and Shammar. A Shia tribe, al-Ahbab, from the Tikrit region also supports the regime. The regime’s rationale for increasingly relying on the tribes during this period was two-fold. First, tribal Arabs, although they had become settled, were still considered Bedouin, and thus the most genuinely Arab, and the most trustworthy in a war against the Persians. Second, they were believed to have retained tribal values such as communal spirit, honor, and valor.

For the impoverished tribes, military and government service was a respectable and profitable livelihood as well as a vehicle for upward mobility. Saddam Hussein also rewarded the villages of loyal tribesmen by providing roads, electricity, and water systems. Cooperating tribal leaders could rely on the government to provide jobs and perks to their members. In contrast, punishment for uncooperative sheiks ranged from the denial of jobs and perks to death. In the Kurdish regions, a policy of replacing uncooperative chiefs and splitting tribes was the key to the government’s interaction with the rural Kurds during the 1980s. Tribal chiefs appointed by the regime mediated between the government and their communities, and fought against Kurdish nationalists represented by the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

Because of a weakened economy and the severely reduced ability of the state to provide social services, many Iraqis increasingly turned to their tribes for support. The renewed alliance between state and tribe created a new symbiosis: the state advances the favored tribes and the favored tribes protect the state. In the late 1980s, this state-tribe alliance became official. The regime has continued to portray tribes as a symbol of patriotism, broadcasting popular forms of tribal war poetry and stressing tribal values. It has facilitated the re-establishment of tribal councils to supervise economic activities, resolve conflicts, and police the region. It also has armed the more loyal tribes throughout the country. The success of the regime’s tribal policy was demonstrated when several Shia tribes remained on the sidelines or supported the regime during the 1991 uprising.

Anyone who is Tikriti is easily understood to be affiliated with the Baath regime and the state. Anyone who had a problem with a Tikriti would not receive proper protection from the state as he would in any other country. Individuals in disagreement with a Tikriti in Iraq certainly face severe retributions, and even death. Alternatively, if one is having a problem with the Barzani family in Northern Iraq or the Halabchei family heading the Islamic Movement, one will be persecuted, regardless of one’s identity or political perspective.

The Iraq government was a family enterprise. It’s run by family members, tribal members, second cousins, their sons, their nephews. It is a tribal system that runs the country and family relations is the most sure to loyalty, in the system and a guarantor of having no coups, no assassinations from with.

Emphasizing the tribal structures as a ruling aspect is quite important as the Iraqi security system is under the umbrella of the National Security Council. The Council was headed by the President and conveneed in the presidential palace. When Saddam Hussein was not there, his son-in-law Ali Hassan Majid took over this function. Lately the ruling family leaders, i.e. Saddam Hussein and his brothers and half-brothers, met and decided that his son Qusay should replace him in all meetings or ceremonies where he is not present due to illness or other reasons. This provision is another indication that the tribal life was firmly incorporated in the daily decision-making process in Iraq. The same applies to the KDP where it has already been decided who is going to replace Massud Barzani, should anything happen to him. They are working on this individual to promote him like a prince.

In a passport one will usually find three names: the name of the person, the name of their father, the name of the grandfather. However, the actual surname, which is the indication of the tribe or region one belongs to, was not written in the passport. The Iraqi government came up with this deliberate policy in order to not identify the area or tribe a person comes from for security reasons. This practice was partly a protection for the individual. If somebody is e.g. called a Tikriti, it is easy to know that they are part of the ruling family which may expose them to particular security risks.

The tribal society brings along some other consequences: individuals are protected, yet at the same time limited by the tribe. This fact is very visible for women and children. Women belong to the family and do not have much right to choose about their own future. Deciding whether to work or not, choosing a profession, choosing their spouses is not in their hands. What is decisive is the family’s approval. If one defects from the existing social structure, it means that one is immoral. Since immorality would ruin the honour of the family, the respective family member should be punished. In Sulaymaniyah one woman’s nose was cut in order to set an example. She was accused of having an immoral relationship which, however, was not proven. After 1990 there were quite a high number of honour crimes in Iraq, which according to Iraqi law were not punishable. If a woman transgressed a social norm, e.g. by being with a man without marriage or eloping from her husband without permission of the family, the tribal law prescribes capital punishment for this behaviour. This punishment is tolerable according to the Iraqi criminal code. It should give the families the right to instruct their children ethically with the methods they choose, be it punishment at home, be it not letting their children attend a specific school. The result is a circle of social relations at home, with the brothers having superiority to the sisters and the father having superiority to the rest of the family. This pattern is reflected at district as well as government level. After the Baath Party came to power in 1968 they were opposed to this tribal society and wanted not only to abolish the tribal names, reflecting the Ottoman style of naming people, but also to do away with these tribal structures altogether. However, the developments in the Middle East were not allowing them to reach their aim.

According to Judith Yaphe, "Baghdad through the 1990s encouraged the reconstruction of clans and tribal extended families where they existed. In other areas, the government al lowed the manufacture of new "tribal" groups based on economic ties or greed. Where the initiative was weak, Baghdad apparently encouraged prominent citizens to take the initiative or permitted non-leading families to manufacture an entity in order to gain power and wealth.... This has created a new symbiosis: the state advances the favored tribes and the favored tribes protect the state. The state benefits from its absorption of the tribes and the tribes use the state to enrich themselves. "

In Northern Iraq the tribal society helps the parties to maintain their power by assigning their own people to specific positions in the government and by using the benefits of this mechanism for themselves or their families. When the KDP took over the rule of Arbil, first they just kept everything in the same order in which they had received it. In time, however, they started to promote Bahdinani people (from the northern regions of Kurdistan) to be assigned to positions in Arbil City, the supposed capital of Kurdistan. This caused some reaction from Arbili people, still they support the KDP position in the government and in Arbil City for reasons of security and further settlement in the administration and society. This phenomenon does not only occur with the KDP. The PUK is also including some tribes, assigning tribe members to specific apparatuses.

The situation in the south is not different. The head of the Supreme Assembly of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is the umbrella organization for Shia opposition groups, is Mohammed Bakr al-Hakim. He comes from the al-Hakim family who for centuries have been scholars. His predecessor Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, his name deriving from his tribe, was a well-known scholar of Shia Islam, too. He was was assassinated in Najaf in February 1999. These people are known because of the reputation of their tribe. The rise of an individual is quite rare in this kind of society. The routine chain of feudalistic relations continues to exist, making it difficult to ensure life, bread and security under these conditions.