Four years after the US invasion, an ethnic cleansening in Baghdad has been achieved.
Le Monde has a map of Baghdad's neighbourhoods in 1919, 1956 with an assessment of post-Saddam Baghdad. If you look at the 1956 map, the yellow covers mixed neighbourhoods in Baghdad. The light yellow is mixed neighbourhood with a Muslim majority and the strong yellow is simply a mixed neighbourhood with no majority.
It emerges that ethnic mix between Sunnis and Shias in Baghdad was well advanced in the fifties and maintained afterward by the Baath party secular regime. However, the US invasion has prompted an unprecedented ethnic cleansening in Baghdad with displaced families by the hundreds thousands and that is probably the only achievement of the US occupation.
It is ironic that today I read an article by former Israeli Knesset member and Gush Shalom director Uri Avnery about to which lenghts Israel is ready to go against those who, even by peaceful and legal means, defy its founding idea as democratic and an ethnically pure state. Avnery underlines the oxymoron that is the definition of Israel as a 'Jewish democratic state', democratic only for its Jewish population.
''According to Ha'aretz, the Israeli Security Agency... "would foil the activity of anyone seeking to harm Israel's Jewish or democratic character, even if that activity was carried out by legal means." This is an admission, ''not only that anyone who strives to alter the Jewish character of the state is considered an enemy and will be treated as such but that the secret service has no respect for democratic practices and procedures.''
Many reasons were advanced for the Iraq invasion, among them Oil. However, an invasion and an occupation of this magnitude might have more than one reason. And I believe that among the many reasons the US went to Iraq is the desire to create small ethnic states at the image of Israel, as we all know by now the prominent role of pro-zionists in the advocacy for the 2003 Iraq invasion. However these new small ethnic states will be unchallenging for Israel because of their submission to the US and because their forced divisions will bring about tens if not hundred years of internal strife leaving Israel the only superpower in the Middle East as the rest of the Middle east will be ruins. At least, the Iraq invasion seems to have achieved this objective very quickly. And the war of agression on Lebanon, despite failing to crush Hezbollah, succeeded in pushing the internal divisions of the country to the surface once again by underminig a fragile national dialogue through an inconditional support for the corrupted sanyura government from the US and the criminalisation of lebanon's high profile and popular party, the Hezbollah. As for Palestine and Israel, the new generation of Israeli Politicians like Gaydamak and Lieberman, if the Israeli electorate is not going to stop them, will make sure that the ethnic cleansening project will take place. Syria will be destabilised by continuous pressure, a refusal to broker a peace deal on the Golan, and support for anti-baathist islamist organisations, until the baathist regime falls apart to be overtaken by Islamist extremists who are already on the wait in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the recently 'liberated' Lebanon from Syrian baathist influence.
It is easier to divide rather than unite. Breaking the fragile social and ethnic cannevasses of the Middle East and stigmatizing part of its population while providing the other part with support and weapons and access to supervised power, are certainly a 'good' start for the Neo-cons. However, despite their troubled history, the peoples of the Middle East have always lived together. Zionist and neo-cons may distort narratives, provoke wars, displace populations, implement government sponsored terror, the natural order of things for us, peoples of the Middle East, is to live together.
Since March 29th 2006
4 comments:
I have seen on newspapaers photos of Sunni and shiite clergy men walking down the streets of Bahgdad hand in hand in the fourth anniversary of the ocupation. They were chanting unity slogans and asking Iran,U.S and Syria to sort out their problem out oF iRAQ
Also, some reports referenced in the fanonite blog, hinted that el-Sadr and Suni opposition are working to close the chasm!
I dont know what is going on behind the scenes, but I'm optimistic, for the current resistance discourse is reminiscnet of the YEAR 2004.
Amre,
There is no shiite sunni strife in the ME. It is an invention of the US and Israel. However sunnis and shiites who engage in hate mongering and internal wars are just immoral paid thugs. Unfortunately, these people exist and they are a shame for both communities.
Sophia
what do you think of the Palestinian tactic of kidnapping reporters? I am afraid it is not a good tactic. Am curious to hear what you think.
Usually, I don't answer anonymous comments on this blog. But all my readers know that I condemn such practices as suicide terror and kidnappings of reporters or civilians.
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