The overall objective of the project is to spread the voice of the working class and its political struggle in Iraq and the world.
Moreover, the project seeks to criticize the sectarian system in Iraq, from a progressive leftist point of view, and to highlight the struggle of the working class against the sectarian system in Iraq.
The team also seeks to document and archive events related to political life in Iraq, preserving interpretations or narratives of the working class.
Moreover, the team seeks to spread class awareness through education about workers’ rights, corruption, criticism of neo-liberal politics, the state’s lack of responsibility, and privatization projects that the Iraqi government insists on adopting without any consideration of the class reality of society.
The team uses several different and varied tools to represent its work in order to give followers enough space for articles, reports and digital documents.
Moreover, the team seeks to build networks or solidarity circles with activists and progressive journalists inside Iraq and around the world, interested in humanitarian and political issues, to provide shared information, analysis, narratives and interactive interpretations. It helps to take effective solidarity actions and activities against the political Islamic regime in Iraq.
This project also aims to provide an in-depth picture of the current political and economic system of Iraq and its impact on the people living in Iraq.
It seeks to understand the Iraqi economy and political system from a critical leftist perspective so that it can also be accessed by a critical leftist audience around the world.
In 2020-2021, we covered the following topics:
Achievements during the year 2020-2021
1- Writing more than 15 long reports (political – economic – security – social) on the details of the general situation in Iraq, in addition to an in-depth social leftist analysis on special issues, the most important of which are: (The October Uprising in Iraq and the Middle East, the Iraqi elections and its effects on security, Covid – 19 , the political and economic agreements between the US administration (occupation forces) and the Iraqi government, the role of the militias affiliated with Iran in Iraq, unemployment in Iraq). Click here
2- Writing, republishing and collecting more than 60 articles, interviews in various progressive international newspapers for the team members, progressive Iraqi writers, containing the most important updates on the political, economic, security conditions and their social repercussions in Iraq. Click here
3- Implementation of the )Street Life Campaign ( حياة الشارع – , which consists of five episodes of video clips describing the social reality of the working class in terms of health services.
The campaign’s goal was to criticize the neo-liberal policy of the Iraqi state that was adopted after the US occupation and the effects of privatization on the daily life of the working class in Iraq. We also showed the dangerous impact of the state’s absence, and the lack of responsibility towards the people in addition to showing the impact of unemployment, precarious workers and economic violence on low-income people.
Thereby, the campaign team risked filming and entering public and private sector hospitals (despite the penalty that may reach up to two years in prison), brick factories, caravan schools, and slums controlled by militias affiliated with Iran as well as public markets to highlight the working conditions of temporary workers. Click here
4- Conducting 30 video interviews with the most important progressive activists and actors in the October uprising to shed light on their demands, programs and goals.
The interviews included independent personalities of different ages, genders, and some political and feminist groups, in addition to well-known Iraqi progressive parties. Click here
5- The team was able to build solidarity circles with activists, journalists and various political groupings in more than 20 countries around the world and the Middle East to link common political issues and build solidarity activities to face different challenges. Click here
6- The team was able to archive 3 terabytes of digital content containing photos, videos, statements of the progressive actors in the history of the uprising, thereby shedding light on the tragic incidents of violence and the positive atmosphere of coexistence in the sit-in squares for the demonstrators.
*Note that the archive will be available for everyone to publish, it will be ready to use as soon as we find the technical equipment for uploading it.
7- The team translated and collected artistic cultural content containing pictures and songs, especially in the October Uprising. Click here
8- Since the beginning of the uprising, the team has continued to publish daily news on a continuous and comprehensive basis in social media sites.
At a rate of 4 news per day since 2019, all these news were also archived in the archive section. Click here
9- The team created a time line frame for the uprising supported by pictures, video clips and texts to explain the situation of that time period. Click here
10- The team worked on establishing several political seminars outside and inside Iraq in addition to some digital seminars that contributed to providing a collective common understanding of the political and economic situation in Iraq.
Activities we are working on now and until the end of the year 2021
1- )Our Narrative Campaign – روايتنا الخاصة ) The campaign aims to shed light on the difference between the people’s narratives and the government’s narratives regarding the events of political and economic violence directed against the unemployed and working class in Iraq.
In addition to providing space for people’s narratives to appear in the open, we also provide awareness about the stereotypes and negative narratives that are broadcast by the government authority in the media. This includes for example the promotion and glorification of clan and religious communities to justify their violent economic policy.
2- Conducting meetings and seminars with the international solidarity network of the team to provide a clear political picture and give more accurate information. This should make it possible to have a larger joint discussion about the political situation in Iraq on a broader global level so that global social pressure can be directed towards the authority inside Iraq.
3- Creating broadcasts about the continuous suppression of the daily demanding protests in Iraq, which is an extension of the impact of the October uprising.
4- Establishing a campaign (Our Alternative – بديلنا) to shed light on the progressive social, political and economic alternatives and discussions that people or activists in general propose in order to confront the current political militia regime in Iraq.
5- Creating a )dictionary of the revolution(, which is a content that aims to collect the cultural and political terms produced by the October uprising to preserve, archive and present them as symbolic, progressive and revolutionary signs of history.
6- Sending an invitation to Iraqi writers to write 10 articles on the current political situation.
7- Establishing an art exhibition on the anniversary of the uprising next October 2021 to internationalize the Iraqi uprising outside of Iraq.
8- Creating comic, caricature content to convey another image presented in a different way about the internal situation in Iraq on the social and political level.
We in the WAS team are proud of our class identity. We are a youth group of workers and unemployed, we come from families with limited income, we live in environments that are unfit for human life practice on several levels.
We strive to vigorously criticize and change Iraq from within and to exercise a critical type of resistance to raise our voice and organize internal and global solidarity for our causes.
The team, with its modest capabilities, seeks to learn through a left-wing lens by reading and learning, mainly from the people themselves and the political field.
We express our strong desire for cooperation with all the progressive leftist political movements inside and outside of Iraq for the sake of organized joint cooperation aimed at taking actual joint solidarity measures.
The team would also like to thank all those who participated in the team’s work from outside Iraq, including activists and journalists, from outside Iraq.
We appreciate and thank you for your love and your great internationalist heart.
We would also like to thank Rosa Luxembourg Organization for its generous support to the team at all technical, administrative and financial levels, and for providing us with unconditional support.
Thanks to everyone / WAS team
1/8/2021