Tue, Apr 19, 2005 page9

• The Iraqi public speaks up on what it wants

  • By Mansoor Moaddel
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  Most of what we think about Iraq is shaped by the daily violence that plagues the country. Intelligence and military analysts debate how much of the violence is caused by the presence of foreigners, though it is widely conceded that most of the attacks can be attributed to what US officials call "former regime elements," with the Iraqi Sunni community the main pillar of the resistance. Having dominated Iraq under former president Saddam Hussein, and despite numbering less than a quarter of the overall population, Sunnis, it is said, are fighting to prevent their communal interests from being overwhelmed by the majority Shiites and the Kurds, a distinct ethnic group concentrated in the north.

  Late last year, I was an organizer of a major national survey of Iraqi public opinion that demonstrated the complexity of the country's communal relations. To be sure, Iraqis of different ethnic or religious backgrounds are divided over many issues, but they also embrace a common national identity, as well as a desire for democracy.

  To begin, we asked Iraqis to reflect on the fall of Saddam: Was Iraq better off without him? Among Sunnis, only 23 percent thought so. Among Shiites, however, 87 percent saw a better Iraq without Saddam. Kurds exceeded this number, with 95 percent claiming an improvement.

  At the same time, overwhelming majorities of Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites -- more than eight out of 10 -- preferred to be seen as Iraqis first, believing that "Iraq will be a better society if people treat one another as Iraqis." Strong majorities also endorsed the idea of a democratic system for Iraq.

  Important divergences re-emerge on social questions. Kurds have a much more egalitarian view of gender relations than either Sunnis or Shiites. Asked if university education was more important for boys than girls, 78 percent of Kurds disagreed. Among Shiites, the number disagreeing was 50 percent. Among Sunnis, the number fell below a majority: Only 44 percent believed in the equal importance of higher education for girls and boys. Similarly, 78 percent of Kurds rejected polygamy, compared to just 49 percent of both Shiites and Sunnis.

  While these findings demonstrate the shadings of opinion across Iraq's dominant communities, they do not explain attitudes that may be behind the continuing violence that disfigures Iraqi life. The most radical differences in opinion can be found in communal perceptions of control of the future -- the possibility of building a better life in post-Saddam Iraq -- and security.

  We asked respondents to indicate how much control they had over their lives and how optimistic they were about the future, using a scale on which 10 indicated a highly optimistic sense of control and one a deep level of powerlessness and pessimism.

  Kurds had the highest perception of control and optimism, with 19 percent indicating the highest level of control over their lives and 17 percent the greatest degree of hope in the future. The comparable figures for Shiites were 10 percent and 14 percent, respectively, but were just 4 percent and 5 percent, respectively, for Sunnis. The results for extreme pessimism were skewed in the opposite direction: 14 percent of Sunnis thought things were as bad as could be, while only 2 percent of Kurds and 3 percent of Shiites shared this opinion.

  The effects of localized violence were also made clear in the survey: 17 percent of Kurds, 41 percent of Shiites, and 77 percent of Sunnis felt that life in Iraq is unpredictable and dangerous, a clear demonstration of the effects of the ongoing resistance that is centered in the Sunni Triangle.

  This disparity in attitudes toward the future could determine what eventually happens in Iraq. Widespread political violence in both Iran and Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s demonstrated a connection between popular feelings of powerlessness and the growth of urban guerilla movements. Leaders of these groups often defended terrorism by insisting that violence was the only means of bringing hope to demoralized people. This argument, long discredited, resonates in the actions of the Iraqi insurgents and their fanatical allies.

  This is not to say that an insecure and demoralized community supports violence. By its immobilization, however, such a community may simply be too passive to oppose the violent men acting in its name. If Iraqi Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr and his followers chose to stop their own violence, it was not simply because of the superior firepower of the coalition forces. It was because Shiite religious leadership felt empowered, optimistic and secure enough to press the Sadrists to end their revolt.

  If the Sunni leadership were to feel that it has a stake in the outcome of political events now unfolding, it would also be able to stop the insurgency. That's why the political talks -- open and clandestine -- now reported to be underway are vital. They offer the possibility for the Sunni community to participate in the new system.

  The US-led coalition can help by taking more steps that would reinforce a message of hope and optimism for the exhausted and demoralized Sunnis of Iraq. Military action by itself may simply make matters worse.

  Mansoor Moaddel, a principal investigator for a national survey of Iraqi public opinion, funded by the US National Science Foundation, is professor of sociology at Eastern Michigan University and the author of Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism: Episode and Discourse.

  Copyright: Project Syndicate
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