The Iraqi Chimurenga
By Kenneth Bell
20 October, 2004
Countercurrents.org
It
should not be regarded as unusual for socialists to come together with
others to oppose the war against Iraq. The issue is not Saddam Hussein
and the Baath party; the issue is opposition to imperialist aggression.
If the early steam-powered left could support the Boers in their fight
against
the British Empire in the early Twentieth Century, then it is only right
and proper that the Internet powered left should rally to Iraq's aid
in the early Twenty-First. The Transvaal and Orange Free State were
hardly models of liberal government and neither for that matter was
Abyssinia in 1936 nor the clerical-fascist dictatorship that was the
Poland of 1939. In supporting these countries weignore what they are
because of what they represent, which is opposition to imperialism.
Neither is it unusual
to see a few socialists acting as imperialism's cheerleaders. We are
lucky today in that these are minor figures whose loss is scarcely noted,
but in 1899 the movement lost men of the stature of Robert Blatchford,
one of the founders of modern British socialism. If the early labour
movement could shrug off Robert Blatchford then losing today's pseudo-socialists
presents even less of a hardship. Blatchford made his last contribution
to British politics in 1937 when he announced his support for the Tory
government of the day. Few people on the left even bothered to comment.
However, what is
strange about this war is how different it is from previous anti-imperialist
struggles in one important aspect: there is no government or political
organisation that can be said to head the resistance. Turning back to
those earlier fights, the governments either continued in place - on
horseback in the case of the South Africans - or they went into exile.
In either case a leadership existed that could claim to speak for the
people under occupation. Such a leadership could persuade the guerrilla
groups to unite under one national banner. France, for instance had
at least eight separate resistance groups that covered just about every
shade of political opinion in thecountry. However, it also had General
Charles de Gaulle in London who could sent his representatives into
the country to cajole the groups to unite. Iraq seems to have a myriad
of groups, most of whom are doing sterling
service in freedom's cause, but the outside observer is entitled to
wonder just why the Iraqi General de Gaulle has not put in an appearance?
Scott Ritter, the
former UN weapons inspector for Iraq thinks that he has in the form
of Vice President Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, with Rafi Tilfah, the former
head of the Directorate of General Security (DGS) as his deputy. Ritter's
argument is that the Baath Party changed its ideology during the 1990s
and became less pan-Arab and more Islamic. Thus the flag was changed
to include the "God is Great" message and the various Sunni
and even Shia tribal and clan groups wereincorporated within the Baathist
state framework. Ritter goes on to argue that resistance operations
in such cities as Fallujah and Ramadi are "carried out by well-disciplined
men fighting in cohesive units, most likely drawn from the ranks of
Saddam's Republican Guard".
Although Ritter
does not state this, some evidence for the view that the Baath Party
is still in charge could be deduced from the seamless transition that
Iraq made from a conventional war against the foreign aggressors to
a guerrilla resistance. Normally one would expect to see an interregnum
as the defeated people come to terms with the disaster that has overtaken
them. However, in Iraq, as the casualty figures show, the war did not
end, it simply shifted from a conventional defence against aggression
to a guerrilla one.
However, the first
problem here is that if the Baath Party was providing the impetus for
the resistance it is surely inconceivable that they would not have set
up a resistance front of some kind by now. It probably would not call
itself the Baath Party, so as to attract as many nationalist followers
as possible, and it would probably have as its titular head an individual
not directlyconnected to the party. However, it would be claiming to
be the legitimate government of Iraq, it would be demanding to take
that country's seat at the United Nations and its spokesmen would be
appearing on our television screens every evening. The Baathists may
very well have been the thugs that George W. Bush and his poodle in
London claimed, but there is a no evidence to suggestthat they were
so stupid as to not realise the propaganda value that having an underground
government would bring.
Another problem
is that Fallujah erupted not as a result of any well orchestrated insurrection,
but because the Americans killed 18 demonstrators in April 2003. That
casual act of brutality came on top of house raids, road blocks and
body searches, events which had already alienated the population, anyway.
What began with children throwing stones then spread to men firing rifles,
but it was a resistance that grew; it did not suddenly explode, fully-formed,
into life.
What was true of
Fallujah was true of other cities as well. The city of Hit actually
welcomed the invaders until house searches led to stone throwing and
then a single grenade attack on American forces. The American response
was to swamp the town with soldiers in May of 2003. The people rose
up in what one correspondent called "the first popular uprising
against the US occupation". In the ensuing street battles some
five American soldiers and an unknown number of Iraqis were killed.
To make matters
even more interesting, of the insurgent leadership that has emerged,
most if not all are people who were actually persecuted and who lost
family members under the old order. The case of the young Shia radical
Muqtada al-Sadr is probably the best known in the West. He lost his
father,
two brothers and an uncle to Saddam Hussein, but that did not stop him
from raising aninsurgent force to fight the Americans. Less well known
is the tribal sheik who seems to be acting as the spokesman for the
insurgents in Fallujah. Sheikh Abdullah al-Janabi is now wanted by the
Americans, a situation not unfamiliar to him since as he remarked to
a journalist, "during Saddam's time I was tortured and prevented
from preaching. If you say the truth you will become an outlawand wanted.
Saddam was unjust and the Americans are also unjust. That is why I am
wanted".
Moving down the
guerrilla line to the rank and file insurgents, those who have been
interviewed all seem to either be singing from the same choir sheet,
or they are all telling the simple truth as they see it. What they say
is that they had no connection to the Baath Party. The guerrilla who
uses the
nom-de-guerre Abu Mujahed can stand as a representative of all those
nationalist who are fighting for Iraq. Here is a man who watched American
films and listened to American music, especially that of Bon Jovi:
"It gave me
a glimpse of a better life. When I heard that the Americans were coming
to liberate Iraq I was very happy. I felt that I would be able to live
well, travel and have freedom. I wanted to do more sport, get new appliances
and a new car and develop my life. I thought the US would come here
and our lives would be changed through 180 degrees."
However, when he
saw the rabble that had been let loose on the streets of his part of
Baghdad, his welcome turned to rage and he found that his neighbours
shared that fury as well. A seven man resistance group was formed. Each,
according to Abu Mujahed, has his own reason to fight. Some are unemployed
former soldiers, one is a strict Muslim and fights for his faith, the
rest are simple patriots who want the Americans out of Iraq. They started
out by buying weapons from the looters who had raided the Iraqi Army's
weapons dumps at the end of the conventional phase of the war. Then
they asked superannuated army officers to give them "impromptu
tutorials in bomb-making and communications". According to this
guerrilla, there is supposedly "a sheikh who co-ordinatessome of
the groups," but Abu Mujahed claims not to know who this man is.
In the days when
journalists could move more or less freely around Iraq, other reporters
filed similar stories: the Iraqi resistance was made up of just about
anyone who could beg, borrow or steal a weapon and it was born out of
the "humiliations of foreign occupation".
What all this seems
to show is that those who are waiting for a Ho Chi Minh or Fidel Castro
Ruz to emerge and lead the people to independence are probably going
to be disappointed. There is no national leadership behind the Iraqi
insurrection. The guerrillas are locally based and what leadership there
is only operates at regional or tribal level.
It is possible that
William S. Lind is correct in his view that pre-modern forms of warfare
are making a comeback. In the case of Africa the pre-modern period was
yesterday, at least in historical terms, and the Rhodesian Revolt of
1896-97 will serve as a well-documented case-study of how such warswere
fought. The Shona people of what is today Zimbabwe had a word to describe
tribal conflicts where everyone who wanted to fight that day piled in.
The word that they used was chimurenga. Following their revolt against
rule by the British South Africa Company in 1896-97, the concept of
chimurenga began to be applied to any war against oppression - for that
reason the guerrilla war of1972-1980 that led to the destruction of
Southern Rhodesia and to the independence of Zimbabwe is the Second
Chimurenga.
However, for our
purposes, it is the First Chimurenga - that of 1896-97 - that is important.
On the one hand there were the Ndebele regiments that fought as conventional
infantry. They managed to put the city of Bulawayo under siege, but
once the British had recovered from their initial shock the rifle and
machine gun soon decimated the Ndebele army. Once this had been done
the Whites could negotiate an Ndebele surrender because the latter had
a national political leadership that the ordinary people obeyed. However,
the Shona had no such leadership because they did not live under a single
political authority. Their system of government was a clan based confederacy
which did not allow any single leader to emerge as the Shona's paramount
chief.
The Shona revolt
wasled by their local chiefs and drew its inspiration from spirit mediums
who were in contact with the people's ancestral spirits. These mediums
were often able to negotiate strategic alliances with other Shona groups,
but this coordination remained essentially local, and each clan basically
turned out to fight when the mood took it. This meant that the Shona
were never able to threaten a Whitecontrolled city, but it also meant
that it was the Shona revolt that lasted longer than that of the Ndebele.
Since the British colonisers had nobody to talk to, they had to suppress
each rebel group individually. This they were able to do because the
rifle tends to outmatch the spear. This option is probably not available
to the Americans and their clients in Iraq. Unlike the Shona, the Iraqis
are equipped with modern weapons and have proved that they know how
to use them. (See: Ranger, Terence; Revolt in Southern Rhodesia 1896-7,
Heinemann, London, 1967. Esp. Ch. 6 & 8)
The jury is probably
still out on the type of war that the Iraqi people are waging. A leader
may still emerge to unite everyone under one national banner, but given
what has happened thus far that does seem increasingly unlikely. However,
in the final analysis, it really does not matter how the Iraqis choose
to wage their war of liberation. What matters is that they have joined
a select and heroic pantheon of nations who have refused to go quietly
into imperialism's long night. If for no other reason than that we owe
them our support. They already have our admiration.
(c) 2004 Kenneth Charles Bell