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African-Iraqi men sing after their group Free Iraqi Movement was approved as a political party to run in the coming local elections in Basra, Iraq - Source: Reuters
Barack Obama's election in the United States has already had an
impact in Iraq, inspiring some black Iraqis to run in a forthcoming
election in the hope of ending what they call centuries of
discrimination.
"Obama's win gave us moral strength," said Jalal Chijeel, secretary
of the Free Iraqi Movement.
He said the group would be the first to field black candidates in
any Iraqi poll when it joins provincial elections scheduled for
January 31.
President-elect Obama's ascendancy in the United States has
coincided with increased public support for their cause: "When he
became a candidate, so did we," Chijeel said.
He argues Iraqis of African origin are not represented in top
office, suffer disproportionately from poverty and illiteracy and
are commonly referred to in derisive terms.
Other Iraqis see no discrimination against Iraqis of
African-origin, whose number is unclear given a lack of
statistics.
Chijeel said there were some 300,000 in the southern city of
Basra alone.
This January's provincial election will be the first to be
organised by Iraq and held under Iraqi laws since the US-led
invasion in 2003 overthrew Saddam Hussein, and will be followed by
national elections later in 2009.
As such it could be a crucial step to reconciling the country's
sectarian and ethnic groups after years of bloodshed.
Black people in Iraq suffer discrimination partly because of their
colour, and also partly because they do not belong to a tribe,
Chijeel said.
Tribal family networks and ancestry are important in Iraq and
much of the Middle East.
The movement's eight candidates could suffer a backlash from their
lighter-skinned countrymen, who respond with indignation to charges
of racism and say blacks are treated with respect.
They argue electioneering based on race is divisive.
Even fellow blacks in Basra's largely black district of Zubayr,
where young men stood chatting and a boy herded sheep across the
road, voiced reservations.
"There's no discrimination," said black shop worker Mohammed Nezal,
sharing a view echoed mostly by older men, as they sat fingering
worry-beads.
"There's so many blacks that have done well in Iraq. There's
respect."
The A word
Chijeel argues that blacks in Iraq are subordinated, partly by a
history
of slavery
.
"To this day blacks are not given their rights," he said.
"We don't see blacks in local councils, in parliament or cabinet
or as ambassadors ... We have educated people, doctors, graduates,
but to our great regret we still have no importance."
In Zubayr - dusty and poor, like most Basra neighbourhoods - Salim
Hussein stood chatting in the street with friends: "The people here
don't treat us any differently. But look with your own eyes. Do you
see a single black person with a decent job?"
During a five-day visit to Basra, Reuters mostly saw black people
working as domestic help and car cleaners.
The Free Iraqi Movement's electoral candidates are teachers,
engineers and office workers.
They insist they are not a special interest group and want to
tackle problems faced by all, such as unemployment.
For a brief period, long ago, blacks once controlled Iraq's south:
there was a revolt in 869 AD by East Africans brought by landowners
in Basra to work as slaves, draining marshes in the hot and humid
south.
The rebels eventually took Basra and even parts of Iran.
But by 883 AD the uprising was crushed, its leader's head
delivered to the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad.
"From that time till now, the black has had no senior role in
society," Chijeel said.
"They suffered as slaves or servants, and worse. They did the
most despised jobs."
As is often the case, language is a core of the problem.
The word abd is Arabic for slave, and even though slavery was
abolished in Iraq in 1924, it persisted for many years and many
people continue to use abd to describe a black person.
Those who use the word say they mean no insult and use it only as a
descriptive term.
Muddying the debate is the fact that some Iraqis are as
dark-skinned as those of African origin.
For some for whom colour is irrelevant, ancestry and tribe is
paramount and unknown lineage or having a slave ancestor is
unacceptable.
"I would never allow my daughters to marry an 'abd' ... Who's their
tribe? Do they know who their forefathers are?" said one
dark-skinned Iraqi man who declined to be named.
Bandwagon?
The Free Iraqi Movement wants the word abd to be banned.
The group also wants blacks to be a considered a minority, a status
which gives some benefit to Iraq's Christians, Turkmen, Yazidis and
Shabaks, who by their similar physical appearance to the Iraqi
majority are less obviously different than blacks.
"Our fundamental demands are to be considered a minority, to
have a paragraph in the constitution protecting black people and
punish those who use the word 'abd' as defamation and we want an
apology for the crimes of the past," Chijeel said.
While these demands are unlikely to be achievable at the local
level, wins for the Free Iraqi Movement in the January provincial
polls could give momentum for a later parliamentary vote.
Younger blacks in Zubayr voiced support for the movement, some
citing Obama's success.
"The racism is not obvious, but you feel it. I have a
qualification; my Arab friend has the same qualification. He gets
the job and I don't," said Mohened Omran.
Lighter-skinned Iraqis interviewed on Basra's streets saw the Free
Iraqi Movement and its demands as introducing discrimination into a
colour-blind society.
"The blacks are our friends and are Iraqis. There's no difference
between us. This movement is in fact racist," said Farhan al-Hajaj,
an engineer out shopping.
Basra University history professor Hamid Hamdan said intermarriage
is common, as are highly educated blacks in top jobs.
The Free Iraqi Movement is simply jumping on the bandwagon of
sectarianism and ethnic fracture engendered by years of war.
"This is opportunism ... Now that there's sectarianism and ethnic
differentiation, some people think they can use this to achieve a
specific aim," he said, adding that though slang, abd is used by
most Iraqis to simply mean black person.
Chijeel said you would have to be black to understand.
"This word describes a person as a slave, someone with no free
will, no dignity, no humanity. There's no worse word ... Black
people feel this. Others do not."
