Between Empires and Nation: Memories of the Great War and Iraqi National Identity

المؤلفون

  • المؤلف

  • Dina Khoury

الكلمات المفتاحية:

Memory، Iraqi Identity، World War I، Hashemites، Colonization

الملخص

This article discusses the relationship of World War I (WWI) memory to Iraqi national identity. It argues that from the establishment of the monarchy until the fall of the Hashemite dynasty in 1958, there was no national consensus on what WWI meant for Iraqi identity. The Hashemite kings sought to link the War with the formation of the first modern Iraqi Arab state. For those who oppose Hashemite commemoration of the War, it represents the colonization of Iraq. After the 1958 revolution, WWI was gradually incorporated into the narrative of an anti-imperialist modern state that had struggled for liberation since its founding. The Gulf Wars and the failures of the post-colonial modern state have led to a re-evaluation of this memory.

المراجع

  1. Abdul Rahman Munif, al-ʿIrāq: Hawāmish min al-Tārīkh wa-l-Muqāwama (Beirut: al-Dar al-ʿArabiyya lil-Ulum wa-l-Nashr, 2003).
  2. Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975).
  3. Munif. The destruction and looting of Baghdad’s cultural heritage was a clear distinction that Munif and others drew between the British and American invasions.
  4. Rashid Khalidi, Resurrecting Empire, Western Footprints and America’s Perilous Path in the Middle East (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004). For reproduction of WWI British officials reports, see: Paul Rich (ed.), Iraq and Imperialism, Thomas Lyell’s The Ins and Outs of Mesopotamia (Lincoln: Author’s Choice Press, 2001 [1991]).
  5. Jacque Le Goff, History and Memory , Steven Rendall & Elizabeth Claman (trans.) (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), p. 95.
  6. See: Mona Ozouf, Festivals and the French Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), for an insightful analysis of the elision of certain memories of the Revolution. See also: Shahid Amin, Event, Metaphor and Memory, Chauri Chaura 1922-1992 (Berkely: University of California Press, 1995), for how subaltern memories are transformed and/or deleted from nationalist memory. For the debates on collective vs. historical memory, see: Susan Crane, “Writing the Individual Back into Collective Memory,” American Historical Review , no. 102 (1997), pp. 1372-1385. Alon Confino’s warning against the danger of fragmenting memory studies in a way that would reduce them into folkloric studies (my term) is well taken, so is his warning among others that memory should not be reduced to ideology. See his article: Alon Confino, “Collective Memory and Cultural History,” American Historical Review , no. 102 (1997), pp. 1386-1483.
  7. Kurdish, Jewish, and Christian memories of the War offer distinct perspectives. I will not be able to discuss those in this brief article.
  8. Elizabeth Thompson, Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege in French Syria and Lebanon (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000). The national memory of the War as the birth of an Arab Syrian nation led by leaders of the Great Arab Revolt was belied by the realities on the ground. See: James Gelvin, Divided Loyalties, Nationalist and Mass Politics in Syria at the Close of the Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
  9. There continues to be a heated debate on the nature of the 1920 revolt and the importance of the different actors (tribal, religious, urban). The debates started in the 1950s with the ascendance of tribal political power but continue to the present. For the 1950s, see: Ali Bazarkan, al-Waqaʾiʿ al-Haqīqiyya fī al-Thawra al-ʿIrāqiyya (Baghdad:Matbʿat Asʿad, 1954) and Furati, ‘alā Hāmish al-Thawra al-ʿIrāqiyya al-Kubrā (Baghdad: Jaridat al-Hatif, n.d.). The most controversial has been sociologist Ali al-Wardi’s account which stressed the tribal character of the revolt, in: Ali al-Wardi, Lamaḥāt Ijtimāʿiyya min Tārīkh al-ʿIrāq al-Ḥadīth , vol. 5 (Baghdad: Matbaʿat al-Adib, 1978).
  10. Sami Zubaida, “The Fragments Imagine the Nation: The Case of Iraq,” International Journal of Middle East Studies , no. 34 (2002), pp. 205-215. For the best analysis of Iraq during this period, see the classic by: Hanna Batatu, Old Social Classes and Revolutionary Movements in Iraq (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978).
  11. Muhammad al-Umari, Tārīkh Ḥarb al-ʿIrāq , vols. 1&2 (Baghdad: al-Matbaʿa al-ʿArabiyya, 1935); Ali al-Wardi, Lamaḥāt Ijtimāʿiyya min Tārīkh al-ʿIrāq al-Ḥadīth , vol. 4 (Baghdad: Matbaʿat al-Adib, 1974). al-Umari’s two-volume work was the first military history of the War and was meant as a textbook for the students of Iraq’s military academy. al-Umari was an officer in the Ottoman army and maintained his allegiance to the Ottomans until the fall of Mosul, his hometown. For the British side of the War until 1917, see: Mesopotamia Commission Report (London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1917).
  12. Lady Florence Bell (ed.), The Letters of Gertrude Bell , vol. 2 (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1927); The Arab War, Confidential Information for General Headquarters from Gertrude Bell , Sir Kinahan Cornwallis (trans.) (London: The Golden Cockerel Press, 1940).
  13. Tobias Dodge, Inventing Iraq (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004). Dodge examines the imperial mentality that went into the construction of British policy in Iraq.
  14. Peter Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, 1914-1932 (London: Ithaca Press, 1976).
  15. al-Wardi, vol. 4, p. 344.
  16. Al-Bilad , Baghdad, 24 March 1930, reporting on the start of the commemoration in 1924, p. 2, American University of Beirut, Jaffet Library, Mic 178-NA 1930.
  17. Reeva Simon, Iraq between the Two World Wars: The Creation and Implementation of a Nationalist Ideology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). For the struggle over the educational message of Iraq, see: Zubaida, pp. 212-214.
  18. Fakhri al-Zabidi, Baghdād: 1900 ḥattā 1934, al-Jāmiʿ min al-Mufīd wa al-Ẓarīf , vol. 1 (Baghdad: Dar al-Huriyah lil-Nashr wa-l-Tibaʿa, 1990), pp. 296, 304-307.
  19. Al-Bilad , American University of Beirut Jaffet Library, Mic-NA August-October 1930, pp. 2-3.
  20. On these trials and the precariousness of the life of the press during this period, see: Rufaʿil Butti, Dhākira ʿIrāqiyya, 1900-1956 , vol. 1 (Damascus: Dar al-Mada, 2000), pp. 131-211; Ahmad Fawzi, Ashhar al-Muḥākamāt al-Ṣaḥafiyya fī al-ʿIrāq (Baghdad: Matbaʿat al-Instisar, 1985), pp. 7-16. Butti was among the pioneers of the Iraqi press and founder of al-Bilād newspaper from which the description of the Mahmud trial is taken.
  21. al-Zabidi, p. 307.
  22. Ibid., pp. 181-212. When Maude’s statue was unveiled in 1923, the official press compared him to Cyrus and Alexander.
  23. Ibid., pp. 99-135. Fawzi reproduces a large part of the accusation and testimonies.
  24. For the use of Muhammad’s life and battles as exemplars during the War, see: Gottfried Hagen, “The Prophet Muhammad as an Exemplar in War: Ottoman Views on the Eve of World War I,” New Perspectives on Turkey , no. 22 (2000), pp. 145-172.
  25. al-Wardi, vol. 4, pp. 130-131. The Ottomans recruited Hamid Kleidar, from a Shiʿi notable family that had traditionally been the keepers of the keys to the shrine of Imam Musa al-Kadhim, in Kadhimiya. They sent letters to the clerics in Najaf calling on them to issue of fatwa calling for jihad against the infidels. Shiʿi tribal leaders were also wooed particularly the mid-Euphrates tribe of Fatlah.
  26. Ahmad al-Husseini, al-Imām al-Thāʾir: al-Sayyid Mahdī al-Ḥaydarī (Najaf: Matbaʿat al-Adab, 1966), pp. 30-34.
  27. Talib Mushtaq, Awrāq Ayyāmī, 1900-1958 (Beirut: Dar al-Taliʿa, 1968), pp. 9-16. Mushtaq, a Sunni resident of Kadhimiya, remembered his attendance of Husseiniyyas and his prayer at Kadhimayn during this period. See also: al-Wardi, vol. 4, p. 131.
  28. Al-Wardi, vol. 4, p. 132.
  29. Ali Jawdat, Dhikrayāt (Beirut: Matbaʿat al-Wafaa, 1967), pp. 33-36.
  30. Bazarkan, pp. 53-54.
  31. Ibrahim al-Rawi, Min al-Thawra al-ʿArabiyya al-Kubrā ilā al-ʿIrāq al-Hadīth, Dhikrayāt (Beirut: Matbaʿat Dar al-Kitab, 1969), p. 11.
  32. al-Zabidi, pp.179-181.
  33. Muhammad Raʾuf al-Sayyid Taha al-Shaykhli, Marāḥil al-Ḥayāh fī al-Fatrah al-Mudhlima wa-ma Baʿdahā , vol. 2 (Basra: Matbaʿat al-Basra, 1972), pp. 362-370.
  34. Ibid., pp. 372-376. al-Shaykhli recounts how in November 1915, British officers in the Thayetmoyo prison camp attempted to separate Arab from Turkish officers. There was quite a bit of confusion among the prisoners. Some Arab prisoners were eventually taken to Sumerpur, where others chose to remain. A later attempt by the British to forcefully remove Arab prisoners from Burma resulted in a near mutiny of soldiers on the train in Ahmadabad. Ibrahim al-Rawi, an Arab officer who joined the Arab Revolt in its early stages, wrote that he was sent to Thayetmoyo despite his admission of his Arab descent. al-Rawi, p. 14.
  35. al-Shaykhli, p. 275.
  36. Ibid., p. 332. al-Shaykli writes that the Ottomans had no map of the terrain they were fighting in. One of the first things he notices when he is taken prisoner by the British is that they had a detailed map of Iraq.
  37. Ibid., pp. 365-340.
  38. Ibid., pp. 382-383. Those who changed their minds were either sent to prison camps in Egypt or returned to Sumerpur.
  39. al-Rawi, who was an early defector to the Arab camp, remembers his first days in the Hijaz when soldiers and the majority of the people of Jeddah were adamantly opposed to Sharif Hussein. Ottoman soldiers who had surrendered to the Sharif Hussein’s army, roamed the streets of the city calling for the Sultan’s long life [Sultanim çok yasar]. al-Rawi was instrumental in turning them into prisoners of War. al-Rawi, pp. 78-80.
  40. al-Shaykhli, pp. 384-385.
  41. Ibid., p. 342. There are numerous examples throughout al-Shaykhli’s memoir of the differences in treatment they got at the hands of the Muslim Indian as opposed to the Hindu soldiers. Part of this discrepancy might be due to al-Shaykhli’s biases. He at times harbored some racial resentment toward his Indian captors and did not find it easy receiving what he perceived as charity from ordinary soldiers. He was acutely aware of his military rank as officer.
  42. Ibid., pp. 388-389.
  43. Ibid., pp. 353-359.
  44. Jawdat; Naji Shawkat, Sīra wa-Dhikrayāt Thamānīn ʿĀman , 3 rd ed. (Beirut: Matbaʿat Dar al-Kutub, 1977).
  45. Shawkat was member of an aristocratic/bureaucratic Ottoman Baghdadi family and his uncle was at one time Grand Vizier. He was a relative latecomer to the Sharifian cause and was one of the supporters of the anti-British coup engineered against the monarchy in 1941 by Rashid Ali al-Gailani. His uncle, Hikmet Suleyman, was director of the department of education in Ottoman Baghdad, and was responsible for student mobilization during the War. Another uncle, who was a prisoner of war with him in India in 1917 accused his nephew of treason. See: Ibid., pp. 42-45.
  46. al-Rawi, pp. 84-85.
  47. Ibid., pp. 16-18.
  48. Sulayman Faydi, Mudhakarāt Sulaymān Fayḍī, Min Ruwwād al-Nahḍā al-ʿArabiyya fī al-ʿIrāq , Basil Sulayman al-Faydi (ed. & intro.) (Beirut: Dar al-Saqi, 1998). The memoir is an expanded and editorialized edition of a 1952 memoir dictated to his daughter while Sulayman was ill.
  49. al-Rawi, pp. 78-80.
  50. Salim Abd al-Qadir al-Samiraʾi, Qaṣāṣūn min al-ʿIrāq: Dirāsah wa-Mukhtārāt (Baghdad: Wazarat al-Iʿlam, 1977). Samiraʾi reproduces many of those published in the 1930s.
  51. al-Zabidi, pp. 360-362.
  52. Zubaida, p. 214.
  53. However, even these officers were wary of the “mistakes” of the Monarchy. al-Rawi and Shawkat, for example, supported the 1941 Gailani coup.
  54. Abd al-Hamid al-Uluji & Aziz Jasim al-Hajiyya, al-Shaykh Ẓārī al-Maḥmūd Raʾīs Qabīlat Zawbaʿ, Qātil al-Kulunil Lītshman fī Khān al-Naqṭa (London: Dar al-Hikma, 2002). The book is a reprint of a 1968 edition.
  55. Ibid., pp. 49-50.
  56. Mahmud Shabib, Jawānib Muthīra min Tārīkh al-ʿIrāq al-Muʿāṣir, 1914-1921 (Baghdad: Dar al-Kitab al-Jadid, 1977). See also the more balanced: Khayri al-Umari, Ḥikāyāt Siyāsiyya min Tārīkh al-ʿIrāq al-Ḥadīth (Cairo: Dar al-Hilal, 1969).
  57. Rauf al-Waʿiz, al-Ittijāhāt al-Waṭaniyyah fī al-Shiʿr al-ʿIrāqī al-Ḥadīth, 1914-1941 (Baghdad: Dar al-Huriyyah lil-Tibaʿah, 1974).
  58. al-Wardi, vol. 4. For a critique of al-Wardi, see: Sattar Jabr Nasir, Hawāmish ʿalā Kitāb ʿAlī al-Wardī (Baghdad: Matbaʿat Ufsit al-Minaa, 1978).
  59. Yasin al-Nasir, Shāriʿ al-Rashīd, ʿAyn al-Madīna wa-Nāẓim al-Nāṣṣ (Damascus: Dar al-Mada, 2003).
Cover of العدد 16, Almuntaqa

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2024-01-01

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33 مشاهدة 73 تنزيل

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مجلد 7 عدد 016 (2024): العدد 16

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