New Iraqi Protest Movement Targets Corrruption

The maneuvers of the political class were not limited to the executive, as they also included parliament. Whereas the parliament resists the demonstrators’ demand to cancel its members’ pensions, the speaker and some of its members denounced the security forces’ suppression of demonstrators. And while the parliamentary blocs promised to review the salary issue, the parliament refused to discuss the issue at its meeting held two days later.

It is safe to say that the symbolic dimensions of this protest movement are more important than the explicit demands.

As faith in political parties degenerated due to the general feeling that these parties have failed to adequately rule the country, achieve peace or work for economic and social development, the political vacuum widened. Some civilian groups and others that focus on political, social, economic or cultural issues started to fill this vacuum.

Remarkably, these demonstrations started upon the initiative of individuals who do not belong to any political party and do not enjoy the sponsorship of any religious view. The demonstrations were free of any sectarian slogans and a significant number of intellectuals and secular writers took part in them.

The ethnic and sectarian political groups have thus far benefited from the deep social divide that prevented the emergence of civil, cross-sectarian movements, strengthening their grip over the federal and local authorities and using a large part of the state's resources to their own ends.

Thus, the emergence of a genuine protest movement motivated by non-ethnic or sectarian reasons will constitute a significant challenge for this system and perhaps provide a useful way to redefine the political struggle and move it beyond an ethnic and sectarian conflict to a socioeconomic one. Yet, there is still a way to go before this protest movement matures and turns into an active popular movement, given the sectarian divisions and the escalating violence that continue to impede its development.

Harith Hasan is an Iraqi scholar and the author of Imagining the Nation: Nationalism, Sectarianism and Socio-Political Conflict in Iraq. On Twitter: @harith_hasan