Author: Professor. Dr. Khalid Al-Ardawi
Director of the Center for strategic studies
Translated by: Hiba Abbas Mohammed Ali
Reviewed by: Assistant Lecturer. Hussain B Abdulameer August 2018
In mid-July, sixty years after the overthrow of the monarchy in 1958, the Iraqi people were reaped only pain and suffering, in every time they thought they would achieve their ambitions, they were more disappointed than before. This begs the question, why?
The Human history moves toward building the State in two different ways: the first is the building has been done by popular will, and the other by the will of authority or individuals within the institution of the Authority itself.
The deference between these two ways is very great, States that shaped by the will of their peoples, often have more stable governance systems -even it passed through storm swings at a specific time- and the decisions of their rulers and their performs are closer to the needs and will of the people, in line with being the true owner of power and who’s capable of taking power from rulers and give it to others. While the countries that are formed by the will of the Authority or it its adventurous members, they often have doubts about their legitimacy, and facing the instability of their institutions, the failure of their decisions and the performs of their rulers from the restrictions of popular and constitutional control. The effective will is the will of the authority and its members, the absent will is the will of people and their interests.
who analyzes the situation of Iraq in the first half of the twentieth century easily discover the preoccupation of Iraqi peoples with the concerns of their daily lives that threaten their existence like: diseases, epidemics, poverty and illiteracy, or social conflicts, partly linked to the urgency of physical need, while the other part is related to the crowding of the three cultures:
The Bedouin (Invasion mentality), rural (feudal), civilian (emerging), not less than the rivalry of the main political forces: the power of the king, the power of the government, and the phenomenon or hidden authority of the British occupier. As well as the modernity of openness to the West and the emerging ideologies, which are often not rooted in the cultures prevailing concepts and did not digest and absorb its philosophy.
What confirms the immaturity of the political awareness of the Iraqis of that time, and distort their sense of self-identity, is their acceptance of the installation of a non-Iraqi king by the will of a foreign occupier invoked to achieve his goal in various arguments. The political culture of the Iraqis -at that time- was a fascinating mixture of medieval culture with its inherited mysteries, Ottoman culture with its administrative patterns, aristocratic tendencies, internal and external conflicts, and the culture of the British occupier with all the values of modernity, technical progress, political inspiration and colonial arrogance. This strange mixed culture is could noticed by the observer in Baghdad, in particular, in the style of construction, means of transport, markets, the way of dress, vocabulary, education methods and social relations. Iraqi society, then, has not yet grasped the idea of the state to demand that its nature and form be assimilated. Perhaps the Iraqi political mind in its deep unconscious thought that the Iraqi king and the British occupier were a historical extension of the Baghdad “Pashas” and the Ottoman presence but in another way.
This Iraqi reality in all its political, cultural, social and economic manifestations drives us say: the Republican option on the fourteenth of July 1958 was an option for the conspirators within the power who did not reach the political maturity, followed the easiest and most painful solutions to change the regime according to their motives and beliefs. Yes, a broad segment of the population may have supported the leaders of the military coup, but not fully aware of the difference between the monarchy and the republican system, but because of the suffering he experienced as a result of social and economic injustice, the deterioration of political reality, the existence of external catalyst, As a result of the undesirable policies of the eminent monarchists. The goal of popular support for the adoption of the Republic is linked to the desire to escape suffering rather than to believing on the Republic. Therefore, we firmly believe that if the military coup took place and worked to address the causes of popular suffering with maintaining the monarchy, then, the popular support that it has got would not be changed, especially since the Iraqis had already supported such an option in March 1941.
The absence of a popular will leads to very serious consequences, the gap between the people and their republican rulers remains very large, neither people can control the decisions and behavior of their rulers, nor the rulers respect the sovereignty of the people and their right to monitor and hold them accountable. The distribution of power and wealth has become a matter of appreciation to the rulers themselves and to those who wish, while continuing to raise the slogan of representing the popular will when necessary,
And all the prime ministers and the republic in Iraq from Abdul Karim Qasim passed through Saddam Hussein and up to the rulers of the present day talking about the acquisition of their power from the people, but, in fact, they are working to strengthen their partisan and personal interests at the expense of the people, making their fall from their thrones is the result of conspiracies taking place among power members without a real role for the people in that process.
The monopolization of the political space and the absence of popular participation have led to a detestable and catastrophic singularity in power in making unwise and ill-informed decisions, and often improvised. The result was a total destruction of all the basic structures of society, and the people were unable to reject idiot’s decisions or to protect good decisions.
In short: The Iraqi people were powerless when they adopted the republican regime and powerless the will during the course of the transformations and policies adopted by the republican members in all their intellectual, partisan and personal affiliations over the last sixty years. The Authority institutions were completely free from the burden of thinking about the interests of their people and public freedoms, and were grant rights and freedoms to individuals within their limits. Even the successes that the Authority institutions can achieve are not related to the popular will but to the geniality of the rulers themselves! So you find in the consciousness or the political subconscious when the Iraqi is resentful of his rulers and aware of his inability to remove them begins to request change through a coup within the Authority institutions themselves or through foreign sweeping power in re-production of a popular tragic and pessimistic of power. But, what has said above doesn’t present the full picture of the Iraqis’ relationship with their republican regime, how?
Yes, the popular will was not the reason to choose the Republic regime, but it was the reason for its continuation, because none of the rulers of Iraq after 1958 -despite of their strong desire to hold the power and stay there- was able to establish himself as a king of Iraq, knowing the absolute rejection of Iraqis for this matter. What these rulers do not know is that the Iraqis’ refusal to return to the monarchy is due to their lack of confidence in their rulers in large part. They realize that power is managed by the will of the people who hold it, but they have in their minds the hope of salvation from them in somehow, with the presence of the Republic the hope remains with salvation more than the monarchy. However, the countries are not build by hopes alone, so the Iraqis’ negative relationship with their republic has led to a distorting the building of state and government in their country. State institutions have not been established, citizenship has not been strengthened among individuals. Government decisions have been characterized by urgency and lack of vision during the past six decades.
Despite the analysis of the difficulties experienced by the Iraqis with their republican regime, there is an opportunity to avoid the dramatic path they have undergone through: enhancing public participation in the managing of public affairs, transforming the compass of leadership from power to the people, and restoring Iraq’s right to state-building and life in his own country. Yes, to achieve this goal may need to suffer because of the wrong choice in one hand and the difficult challenges in the other. But the experience of the people to suffer from their decisions is much better than the experience of suffering because of the decisions of those who control the people, because people are learns in the first and turn weak in the other. What is helping the Iraqis to achieve this, political space is no longer be exclusive for power, Modern technological development is breaking the chains of power, and continuous civil expansion will break the monopoly of consciousness, and gradually will develop an Iraqi culture that is free of restrictions, refusing to take over and enslaving, Willing to take responsibility from the current traditional culture. A new generation of citizens will be more powerful and skilled in harnessing their own capabilities and their country capabilities to freely determine their own destiny. The Iraqis will then abide by their republic and will build their desired state after putting it on the right path to civilized progress.
