Since 1st October, it is thought that up to 600 people have been killed and hundreds more have suffered life changing injuries during protests in Baghdad and Nasiryah in southern Iraq.
The peaceful protests have targeted the actions and corruption of PM Adel Abdul Mahdi and his government.
The protesters are calling for basic services like water, electricity, hospitals and sports facilities, and accounting the government about foreign interference, the mismanagement of the oil which they say is being practically stolen, and are asking why state education is now at an all-time low.
For weeks there has been an internet ban, and typically a media blackout at the time of the mass shootings, allowing these atrocities against the protesters, mostly the youth, to go largely unnoticed by the world.
Criminals keep their privileges while activists are being kidnapped and murdered yet no one is being held accountable – and calling out the militias responsible just endangers one’s own life. Tear gas bombs have been thrown directly at the protestors, literally blowing off heads, and anti-aircraft bullets have been used to kill at least 40 protestors in Nasiryah. (Source: Eyewitness reports)
Comment:
Hasbiya Allahu wa ni’am alwakeel The people of Iraq have suffered beyond belief since the US invasion in 2003, followed by years of mass arrest, torture and every kind of onslaught and abuse. From the most rural of villages to its cities, the levels of destruction have made the country unrecognisable from the once developed nation which had the highest literary rates in the region and the highest number university graduates in the world.
The aim of the US invasion was to “bomb it back to the dark ages”, as the then Secretary of State James Baker had warned, and to install a government subservient to the US that would fulfil only foreign interests and keep the people subjugated, reliant, poverty stricken and endlessly responsible for ISIS and the fallout from their orchestrated reign of carnage, which is immense and multilayered.
No one has been unaffected by the events of the last seventeen years, and the situation has only intensified. Women and children have lost their menfolk for a plethora of reasons, social and political, and have little choice but to take up low paid work without the prospect of a proper and full education. Living with insecurity at a family, community and state level has become the norm, thus negatively affecting the health and psyche of the entire nation.
Those who dreamed that the Americans would bring order through Democracy and secularism to Iraq, who thought that they would breathe freedom like Europe does, have had a harsh wake up call. Their hopes that staunch secularists would take power and advance and rebuild the country have been dashed, as despite the modern city buildings and housing estates springing up in places, most towns still bear witness to the devastation, as investment in basic infrastructure is withheld.
So it breaks our hearts to see the absolute ruin of this noble land, the continuing US hegemony through subtle measures and tactical reforms, as well as the displacement and stagnation of its noble people’s lives. The land which was blessed with vast natural resources and in which Islam once flourished, in which our worthiest and beloved martyrs fell, is in dire need of the Ummah’s attention.
The painful lesson of sectarianism, which helped tear the county apart has been learned, and there is no longer any doubt that only the Shariah rules, applied correctly through the Khilafah (Caliphate) system have the capability to reverse all these wrongs.
Islamic law has the ideological reach to create a social and economic powerhouse, which prioritises the security of the people under the authority of Shariah.
The holistic application of these Shari laws will fuse together like a Hoberman sphere, fitting yet expanding to respond to the current, future and any potential realities faced by the state.
Islamic values will emerge from such holistic governance, filtering through state structures to create and influence thoughts and emotions among the population, spreading harmony and justice to, and through, the population inshaAllah.
So it this vision that the Muslims must cling to. It is a promise of Allah (swt) not a utopian dream – so to call towards it, defend it and warn against neglecting it is a part of Tawheed.
هُوَ الَّذِي أَرْسَلَ رَسُولَهُ بِالْهُدَى وَدِينِ الْحَقِّ لِيُظْهِرَهُ عَلَى الدِّينِ كُلِّهِ وَلَوْ كَرِهَ الْمُشْرِكُونَ
“It is He who has sent His Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth to manifest it over all religion, although they who associate others with Allah dislike it.” [At Taubah, 33]
Maleeha Hasan