From Indifference to Obsession: The Role of National State Celebrations in Iraq, 1921–2003

Rulers and elites have invented rituals and commemorations in order to serve their interests—to legitimize their hegemony as well as to maintain the existing social and political order. This process is most salient in the new modern states, whose national identity and collective memory are at an early stage of construction. This article analyses Iraq's state celebrations in the context of its state formation and nation-building processes. Before the US occupation in April 2003, Iraq had been governed by four regimes: the monarchy (1921–1958), ‘Abd al-Karim Qassem (1958–1963), the ‘Arif Brothers (1963–1968), and the Ba‘th (1968–2003). This article shows how successive Iraqi regimes moved from indifference to obsession with regard to celebrating national holidays. It advances three major arguments. First, each regime attempted to de-legitimize its predecessor by erasing or significantly changing its national calendar of holidays. These changes adversely affected the ability of the Iraqi polity to establish a shared historical memory serving as a basis for its national identity. Second, though a modern invention of British colonialism, Iraq's cultural artefacts of celebrations were taken from a mixed reservoir: foreign—both Western European and Eastern European—and local or ‘traditional’, either Islamic or pre-Islamic. The end result of the use of this wide symbolic market was a calendar reflecting a hybrid political culture. Third, the Iraqi case study shows that an inverse correlation exists between the calendar's density and the regime's perceived legitimacy. It seems that a ‘thick’ calendar reflects a shortage of legitimacy while a ‘thin’ calendar reflects a more secure and legitimized regime.     

The Struggle over Turkish Village Coffeehouses (1923–45)

D.I. Soyfyer, in his Krakh Sionistskikh tyeoriy, The Bankruptcy of the Zionist Theories (Dniyepropyetrovsk: Promin's Press, 1980; 192 pp.)

A.B. Doyev's Sovryemyenniy Iudaizm i Sionizm, Contemporary Judaism and Zionism (Frunze: Kirgizstan Press, 1983; 68 pp.)

Myedzhdunarodniy Sionizm: istoriya i politika (sbornik statyey), International Zionism – History and Politics: A Collection of Articles (Moscow: Nauka Press for the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, 1977; 176 pp.)

Zionism: Enemy of Peace and Social Progress. Volume 2 of this work (1983)

I. Zvyagelskaya (authoress of a book in Russian on the Israeli military élite in politics), entitled ‘Who Is Obstructing the Settlement of the Middle East Conflict’ (pp. 137–68).

Ye. Dmitriyev (a prolific writer on the Arab‐Israel conflict), entitled ‘Zionist Ideas as Reflected in Israeli Government Policy on A Middle East Settlement in the Early 1980s’ (pp. 205–19).

Felitsia Langer is an Israeli Jewish lawyer, close to the leaders of the Israel Communist Party, who specializes in defending Arabs suspected of terrorism before the Israeli Courts. Her Oni moi brat'ya, They Are My Brethren (Moscow: Progress Press, 1979; 192 pp.)

Gorst’ rodnoy zyemli: Sovryemyennaya Palyestinskaya novyella, A Handful of the Fatherland Earth: Contemporary Palestinian Stories (Moscow: Progress Press, 1981; 312 pp.),

This Leitmotif is set by the title of the first story, ‘Return to Haifa’ (pp. 21–64) by Ghassan Kanafani (1936–73),

Ghassan Kanafani and entitled Lyudi pod solntsyem, People under the Sun (Moscow: Raduga Press, 1984; 343 pp.)

Put’ k miru na Blidzhnyem Vostokye, The Road to Peace in the Near East (Moscow: Myedzhdunarodniye Otnoshyeniya Press, 1974; 248 pp.)

Ye. Dmitriyev and V. Ladyeykin includes a chapter on ‘The Arab People of Palestine’ (pp. 55–74).

A.P. Barishyev, entitled Blidzhniy Vostok: problemi mira na rubyedzhye 80‐kh godov, The Near East: Problems of Peace at the Threshold of the 80s (Moscow: Znaniye Press, 1979; 64 pp.).

L.L. Vol'nov, Livanskiy dnyevnik, Lebanese Diary (Moscow: Political Literature Press, 1980; 96 pp.).

U vrat Vostoka: Ochyerki o Livanye, At the Gate of the East: Essays on Lebanon (Moscow: Misl’ Press, 1982; 112 pp.),

Liban: ekho agressii, Lebanon: Echo of the Aggression (Moscow: Political Literature Press, 1984; 112 pp.).

M. Ye. Hazanov's OON i Blidzniyevostochniy krizis, The United Nations Organisation and the Near‐Eastern Crisis (Moscow: Myedzhdunarodniye Otnoshyeniya Press, 1983; 176 pp.),

Hazanov's book is Palyestinskaya problyema: Dokumyenti OON, myedzhdunarodnikh organizatsiy i konfyeryentsiy, The Palestinian Problem: Documents of the UN, International Organisations and Conferences (Moscow: Progryess Press, 1984; 240 pp.).

D. Sokolov, entitled ‘Palyestinskaya tragyediya i istoki Palyestinskogo dvidzyeniya soprotivlyeniya (1917–1949 gg.)’,

‘The Palestinian Tragedy and the Origins of the Palestinian Resistance Movement, 1917–1949’ (Palyestinskiy Sbornik, Vol. 26 (89), 1978, pp. 3–21).

(Palyestinskiy Sbornik, Vol. 27 (90), 1981, pp. 3–22.)

Ye. Dmitriyev, is entitled Palyestinskiy uzyel: k voprosu ob uryegulirovanii Palyestinskoy problyemi, The Palestinian Knot: Towards the Question of Settlement of the Palestinian Problem (Moscow: Myedzhdunarodniye Otnoshyeniya Press, 1978; 304 pp.).

al‐Qadiyya al‐Filastiniyya: al‐'Udwan wa‐'l‐muqawama wa‐subul al‐taswiya, The Palestinian Problem: Aggression, Resistance, Means of Resolution (Moscow: 1983; 230 pp. Oriental Studies in the USSR, 3).

The Palestine Problem: Aggression, Resistance, Ways of Settlement (Moscow: ‘Social Sciences Today’ Editorial Board, 1984; 277 pp. Oriental Studies in the USSR, 9).     

The failure of economic reform in the Kurdistan region of Iraq (1921–2015): the vicious circle of uncivic traditions,resource curse,and centralization

This study sheds light on the causes of failure of economic reform in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). It argues that the success of economic reform largely relies on the choices available for ruling authorities as well as their willingness to share power with the people and with each other. Since the birth of the Iraqi state and the KRI the interaction of uncivic traditions, rent seeking, and centralization has been the main cause hindering economic reforms that are desired to sustain development. To investigate, the study provides a comprehensive account of the failure of the region’s past and present economic policies and the sociopolitical structure that supported it.     

The Limits of the State: Student Protest in Egypt,Iraq and Turkey, 1948–63

Student youth have been at the centre of social and political unrest in the Middle East since the era of reforms under the Ottoman Empire. However, although nationalist and revolutionary leaders encouraged students to actively participate in politics ‘for the sake of the nation’ during the first half of the twentieth century, revolutionary regimes progressively sought to ‘depoliticise’ them, once again ‘for the sake of the nation’, throughout the second half of the century. This article explores both dynamics while seeking to account for the failure of attempts to depoliticise the student body ‘from above’ in Egypt, Iraq and Turkey between 1948 and 1963.     

Nationalist Mobilization and State–Society Relations: The People's Houses' Campaign for Turkish in Izmir,June–July 1934

This article studies the campaign against the use of non-Turkish languages that was organized by local forces in Izmir in 1934. In contextualizing the campaign within domestic politics and state–society relation, the article attempts to study domestic politics through a local perspective and explore the impact that similar events in the periphery had in the centre's policies, which the literature is usually inclined to comprehend solely with reference to state ‘high politics’. The article argues that cases of autonomous mobilization from below, such as the 1934 Izmir campaign, contributed to the evolution of the Turkish political regime in the 1930s by turning the centre towards decisions that would redesign the relationship between the state and the ruling party, and have an impact on state–society relations.     

The rise and fall of “respectable” Spanish liberalism, 1808–1923: an explanatory framework

Abstract

The article focuses on the reasons behind both the consolidation of what I have termed “respectable” liberalism between the 1830s and the 1840s and its subsequent decline and fall between 1900 and 1923. In understanding both processes I study the links established between “respectable” liberals and propertied elites, the monarchy, and the Church. In the first phase these links served to consolidate the liberal polity. However, they also meant that many tenets of liberal ideology were compromised. Free elections were undermined by the operation of caciquismo, monarchs established a powerful position, and despite the Church hierarchy working with liberalism, the doctrine espoused by much of the Church was still shaped by the Counter-Reformation. Hence, “respectable” liberalism failed to achieve a popular social base. And the liberal order was increasingly denigrated as part of the corrupt “oligarchy” that ruled Spain. Worse still, between 1916 and 1923 the Church, monarch, and the propertied elite increasingly abandoned the liberal Monarchist Restoration. Hence when General Primo de Rivera launched his coup the rug was pulled from under the liberals’ feet and there was no one to cushion the fall.     

The Ottoman Identity: Turkish,Muslim or Rum?

It is awkward for historians to depict a clear-cut portrayal of Ottoman identity. Scholarly analyses by and large lay emphasis on the Islamic and Turkish character of the Ottoman Empire. However, it would be reductionist to evaluate an empire that lasted for six centuries, on three different continents, with solely monolithic ethno-religious tools. A new approach around the term Rum may help to get rid of this reductionism and to understand the sui generis structure of the Ottoman identity. Instead of focusing on ethnic and religious aspects, this novel approach would add both a territorial dimension of Ottoman hegemony and also a social component regarding the relations between the rulers and the ruled. The Rum, with a meaning above Orthodoxy, Greek or Roman Empire, can highlight the ingredients of Ottoman identity and help to overcome the influence of modern nationalist discourses in historical readings.     

The Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate, 1917–1923: British Imperialist Imperatives

The article sets the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the final confirmation of Britain's Palestine Mandate in 1923 within the context of national imperial concerns: in particular, anxieties over the security of the Suez Canal and the country's sea-route to its economic and military power-base in India. In 1917 strategic issues were paramount in the progressive annexation of Palestine by the Lloyd George coalition, this the essential territorial precondition for the pursuit of the Zionist project. In 1923 these global considerations were again to the fore when the new Conservative administration, less Zionist than its predecessor, decided finally to accept and implement the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and the obligation therein to advance the cause of a Jewish national home. And throughout this period there was a widespread sense in official circles that Zionist settlers might perform as direct agents of Empire, acting as grateful, loyal, and developmental servants of the British imperial interest. Paradoxically, however – and largely on account of the ill-informed and reflexive manner in which plans were formulated in London – the entire exercise was, in the long-term, to prove a source of profound weakness to Britain's strategic authority in the East. Palestine policy, like so much imperial reasoning in the twentieth century, was to prove intrinsically delusional.     

Church Finances in the Colonial Age: The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem under British Control, 1921–25

The British Mandatory government established in 1921 a commission in order to control the finances and the vast landed property of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. This paper sketches out the commission's early activity, arguing that its significant powers and its operation at the expense of the clerical apparatus were not so much grounded on the need to facilitate the recovery of the historic church, but were in fact determined by the socio-political developments, at a local and international level, as well as by the necessity to strengthen the British authority in Palestine during a fluid period for public order.     

Turkish Radicalism and its Images of the Ottoman Ancien Régime (1923–38)

This article develops a comparative study of Turkish radicalism (i.e. Kemalism and Unionism) demonstrating its resemblances and differences vis-à-vis its European counterparts, especially French republicanism and Bolshevism. The historiographical vistas of Turkish radicalism are thoroughly examined to elaborate on the ancien régime imageries of Turkish radicalism and the contradictions inherent in these coexisting historiographical vistas. The article aims to develop a critical perspective of Turkish radicalism, arguing that many clichés reproduced in the academic literature had been in fact produced by the Kemalists as self-fashioning.     

Tribes and telegraphs in lower Iraq: The Muntafiq and the Baghdad–Basrah telegraph line of 1863–65

Aside from a few exceptional works, studies on the subject of the Ottoman Special Organization (SO, Te?kilat-? Mahsusa) are marred by confusing, vague, and inconsistent sets of arguments and assumptions. This may be attributed to certain methodological and linguistic shortcomings of particular studies and a general laziness in the use of existing primary and secondary sources. It is also an outcome of the degree to which contemporary political and ideological currents and concerns colour the nature of the historical inquiry into the subject. Based on a comprehensive and systematic critical reading of existing literature in the light of certain sets of hitherto unused archival material, the present study aims to re-open to discussion such historiographical problems both by revisiting the most speculative, and well-trodden, research topics in the literature, such as the very nature of the organization as well as its administrative features, and offering insights into the potential(s) of certain little-explored Turkish archives.