Sectarianism is to be belonging to a particular religious or social sect, but not to an ethnic group. It is possible for a number of nationalities to gather in one sect other than their homelands or languages, such as the Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Pakistanis and Turks belonging to the Sunni or Shiite sect, for example.

Sectarianism also appeared in the Middle Ages between Protestants and Catholics or Orthodox and Catholics, then the concept of sectarianism was transformed to be used as an alternative to the concepts of (sect, race and religion).

Sectarianism expresses a state of crisis experienced by some societies, where sectarianism has become a doctrine, an ideology, and an identity that has replaced other national, class, or human identities.

Sectarian extremist: is a person who obstinately follows a particular sect. Sectarianism in our current era can be described as discrimination in work, income, hatred, or even killing on the basis of a person’s sect or religion.

However, all human beings have the right to freedom of belonging to any religion or sect and belief, provided that the person’s ideas are not fanatical, harming others, marginalizing them, or exposing them to death because of sectarian extremism.

In order for the opportunist politician to be able to reach power, he adopts political sectarianism as a way to do so, and they may not have a religious or sectarian commitment, but it is an opportunistic position to gain popularity to achieve his goal of reaching power.

The mere affiliation of a person to a particular sect does not make him a sectarian, but the sectarian is the one who rejects other sects, deprives them of their rights, ignores them, and fanaticizes them.

Sectarianism as a phenomenon does not belong to the Islamic religion alone, but is present in all monotheistic religions.

In the case of the struggle of forces, classes and social groups, this requires that they have an ideological cover in the superstructure that supports their existence and secures the intellectual foundations for permanence and survival in the arena of the ongoing struggle between them and their class opposites. We can conclude that sectarianism is not an ideological problem, but rather a political problem in origin.

In Iraq, the Ottomans practiced sectarian politics, and after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in World War I and the British colonial occupation of Iraq, they continued the Ottomans’ sectarian work with greater intensity to perpetuate the phenomenon of sectarianism in Iraqi society. The British Mandate established the Iraqi entity in 1921 as a state governed by a minority elite from a certain sect, as there was no existing state in Iraq before that, and the state was not the result of internal social movement, but rather a state manufactured by external invading and colonial powers, and the first king of Iraq was imported from outside Iraq, drawing the borders of the country by the British occupier according to his interests.

So, the ruling class was chosen by the representatives of the British crown and not from the Iraqi people, and this class was made up of senior feudalists and senior clan and tribal sheikhs in addition to merchants and the emerging bourgeoisie affiliated with global capital. The popular classes were excluded from workers, peasants and intellectuals.

British colonialism dealt with the Iraqi people on a clan and sectarian basis, bringing some closer and distancing the other according to the degree of loyalty to colonialism.

As for the Iraqi Parliament in that period, it was on a tribal and sectarian basis and not on a class basis, which helped spread sectarianism, ethnicity and clans.

The discovery of oil wealth in Iraq helped to provide a rentier resource for the state to finance its institutions and its repressive powers as a rentier consumerist state that restrains the growth and development of the productive forces in all fields of work and industrial and agricultural production.

In Iraq, there was no industrial or scientific-technical revolution, as happened in Europe, which led to the establishment of a bourgeois class and its opposite is the working class. Rather, there was a pastoral, agricultural, rentier production pattern in Iraq that did not help the emergence of a conscious public capable of governing itself by itself, and this enabled the state to manufacture a class Middle is linked to power and not to the wheel of production, which made it lose the ability to put pressure on the dominant authorities.

British colonialism and the forces of global capital worked to restrain the Iraqi working class, peasants, and the productive national bourgeoisie, paralyzed its infrastructure, and worked to spread an unproductive consumer culture to perpetuate the state of fragmentation and perpetuate the state of loss and weakness of the exploited productive classes, their lack of numerical growth, and impede the development of their class consciousness.

Because of the policy of British colonialism, the Iraqi people turned into a people of sects, clans, and races, and not a people of classes and social groups that are fighting their struggle on the ground, and the British occupier of Iraq used descriptions such as: Arab, Kurdish, Assyrian, Turkmen, Sabean, Yazidi, Sunni, Shiite…. Etc. away from mentioning its classes and categories on a social basis and their relationship to existing production relations at the time.

“Sectarianism is a germ that thrives in any ethnically diverse country when it finds the appropriate economic and social conditions such as stagnation in production, inflation, poverty, unemployment, and the spread of ignorance and underdevelopment. Its malicious goals can be easily achieved if it succeeds in tearing the national fabric and sowing sectarian strife”.

Workers Against Sectarianism

The Iraqi citizen went to the ballot box and risked his life to cast his vote, hoping, among many motives, to find a sound mechanism for the peaceful transfer of power and the dedication of the spirit of Iraqi citizenship, away from the sharing of positions in a way that enshrines the sect as a fait accompli, and thus the deliberate confusion between political consensus and quotas on sectarian and ethnic grounds. , and intersecting with the essence of elections, democracy and building a modern, modern and developed society.

The mouthpiece of the Iraqis says: It is not for this that we have made great sacrifices, and have been patient with the oppression of dictators and Saddam. It is not for this that we challenge terrorism today, and endure the difficulties of life and the lack or lack of services.

  Our people are right in all of this, and they are also right in distinguishing between oppression, sectarian and national discrimination that took place in the former Baathist regime, and a legitimate aspiration to end the injustice that occurred, and the consecration of sectarianism as a political approach.

Replacing the old sectarian components with new ones will involve the same error inherent in the foundations and essence of building the state and society as well, which is what the current project wants and intends specifically, to sabotage and destroy the country, and not allow it to build properly and naturally rise, and this is one of the most prominent forms of conflict between the parties Nowadays, there are many opportunities to decide the fate of the homeland, and to determine the shape of its state and its future, especially between the national direction and the occupation.

Sectarianism is the most severe form of racial discrimination and the most lethal and destructive of social peace and any social and human relations in the society in which it announces its emergence, as it appears in Iraq, as it quickly imposed inhuman identities on the Iraqis, and the Iraqis became Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, Christians, Sabians, Turkmens…etc.

The sectarian conflicts that are taking place now in Iraq are not limited to the struggle of the Shiites with the Sunnis, or vice versa, but rather they have become an existing danger that extends to include all other sects and nationalities in Iraq. The sects that have lived in this country since their emergence on this land are looking for safe havens to continue their terrifying lives, like the Mandaeans or Christians.

Sectarianism has burned the social contract between the citizens of the same country and reinforced the lack of a sense of citizenship that prevailed as a result of the authority and practices of the former dictatorial regime in favor of sectarian and national affiliations and unleashing historical grievances that are intended to continue crushing the lives of innocent Iraqis as if the history of sectarian wars that Iraq witnessed through the ages The past is unable to give us an example of the extent of the ugliness of sectarianism and the barbarism of those who want to harness it to serve hateful political or religious goals.

As if these incidents live with us and impose their hegemony and power over our lives, our culture, our relationships, and our future, or as if the bloodshed that started in the first sectarian wars must continue. And so our lives turned into hell.

Sectarianism today is a real danger that threatens society and the state with fading, division, and the perpetuation of rivalries, wars, and lack of security and stability.

From administrative federations formulated by corrupt politicians and endorsed by a reactionary constitution, to sectarian and ethnic federations approved by the US Congress, with which Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders rejoiced.

Sectarianism and nationalism, with its parties and militias, cannot live and continue its ugly project in the event of a strong state governed by law and various democratic authorities. Therefore, we see all the leaders of sectarian and nationalist parties talking about a decentralized state.

Decentralization they mean that the powers of their parties and militias are stronger than the authority of the state and its laws, but in return for the decentralization of the state they build their centralization and strengthen their powers, tyranny and individualism with power, wealth and control over the fate of those subject to their powers.

Note: This article expresses our own opinions and narratives and does not necessarily express complete facts that based on scientific research.