Mass protests are nothing new for Iraq. But what’s different about the demonstrations currently rocking the country is that protesters are calling for the overthrow of the entire post-US-invasion political system.

Since October 1, mass protests have broken out in Iraq, particularly in Baghdad, Basra, and other southern cities. Demonstrators are demanding basic services (such as electricity and clean water), jobs, and an end to corruption. More than that, they’re calling for the overthrow of the entire post-US-invasion political system, which divides the country along sectarian lines and has produced little more than violence and poverty for most Iraqis.

The ongoing protests have been met with enormous repression by the Iraqi state. Already, more than three hundred protesters have been killed, and fifteen thousand have been wounded. Yet demonstrations continue. The epicenter is Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, which has been transformed into a miniature world of non-sectarian resistance.

Schluwa Sama, a PhD student at the University of Exeter, spoke with Sami Adnan, founder of the political group Workers Against Sectarianism and an activist in Baghdad for the last decade, about the scene in Tahrir Square, the violence of the sectarian political system, and the prospects for protest alliances across the Middle East.

Read more about it from the source: jacobin