There is much to celebrate but still much to worry about for Iraq

By Gary Kent

Many talk about Iraq as just a short hand term for disaster but few talk about or with Iraqis. Many focus on the rights and wrongs of the intervention in 2003 but few engage with the actually existing Iraq.

The country was pulverised by decades of fascist-type rule under Saddam. It was also both devastated by the intervention and the insurgency and also liberated from fascism.

Progressives should focus on the new Iraq, warts and all. There is much to celebrate and still much to worry about.

On the plus side, security is rapidly and radically improving as the Iraqi government and its security forces gain confidence and capacity.

The emphasis has switched from security to politics with provincial and parliamentary elections this weekend and in December, plus a referendum on the withdrawal agreements and population census mid-year.

Politics is a new profession for many in Iraq. Under Saddam, only his word counted. Dissent was suppressed. Nearly 200,000 Iraqi Kurds were murdered in genocidal attacks, which has now been recognised by the Iraqi Parliament and deserves greater recognition worldwide. 250,000 members and supporters of the now ruling Islamic Dawa Party, for instance, were murdered. Membership or any form of support for the Dawa Party was a capital offence and this applied to relatives to the third degree – parents, siblings and cousins.

People who were exiled, operating clandestinely or with the imminent possibility of death have now taken up politics. The practice of politics is not learned overnight. It is no surprise, therefore, that many parties are seeking political and other training.

A better trained and more experienced political class is vital to Iraq’s development as a democracy and all organisations with relevant programmes should see what they can do to assist Iraqi parties and others.

Independent civil society organisations have also blossomed since the demise of Saddam. They are key to underpinning a vibrant parliamentary democracy.

We are particularly pleased about the emergence of a new and independent Labour movement. Unions were all but destroyed by Saddam and now organise across Iraq. The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions seeks to bolster the new democracy, encourage women’s participation and bring together workers regardless of their creed. Many of their leaders were assassinated by the insurgents.

Yet unions are still subject to Saddam’s ban on public sector organisation and their funds were frozen in 2005. There has been a concerted global union campaign to lift these restrictions and this issue was raised directly with the Prime Minister by an LFIQ delegation to Baghdad last year.

There are some signs of progress but more moral and material assistance to the Iraqi unions is needed as part of a campaign to persuade Iraq to comply with ILO rules.

However, a union movement can only do so much if there is widespread employment after decades of destruction and economic backwardness and isolation.

Iraq’s problem, as one leading left-wing figure told me in Kurdistan, is that it doesn’t have a national capitalist class so could they borrow our bourgeoisie. They need foreign management experience and money to revive their natural and huge sources of wealth. There are many ambitious plans for new housing, hospitals, schools and other infrastructure including roads, rail, ports, airports and a new Metro in Baghdad. Agriculture and tourism are big growth areas.

However, the old images of death and destruction still predominate. Catching up with the new Iraqi realities is vital if progressives are to help the labour movement and if there is to be an increase in foreign investment and trade so that Iraq can flourish after its long nightmare.

The long-suffering Iraqi people deserve no less and a successful Iraq could add much to the prospects of peace and reform in the region.

Gary Kent is Director of Labour Friends of Iraq.