High hopes: members of the Free Iraqi Movement celebrate their approval to run candidates in Basra. (Reuters: Atef Hassan)
Obama inspires black Iraqis to run for office
Updated Wed Dec 10, 2008 2:19pm AEDT
High hopes: members of the Free Iraqi Movement celebrate their approval to run candidates in Basra. (Reuters: Atef Hassan) 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," Mr 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. But Mr 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, Mr 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
Mr 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, a Reuters reporter 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 until now, the black has had no senior role in society," Mr 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.
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," Mr 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 Mr 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 was common, as were highly educated blacks in top jobs. He said the Free Iraqi Movement was 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.
Mr 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."
-Reuters
Posts: 5454 | From: Holland | Registered: Aug 2008
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posted
Many of the negative things that were written about Nubians/Zanj/Ethiopians ect. were probably because of political reasons. That also goes for writing about other groups and some hadiths
Many Europeans have observed how freed slaves became part of society with no regards to their color and the influence many black slaves had
Of course that was hundreds of years ago not modern times
At the bottom of page 307 of this book:
“Listen to one guarantee for all, our own incomparable Niebuhr ‘The Principal characteristic of the Negro is, especially when he is reasonably treated, honesty towards his masters and benefactors. Mohammedan merchants in Cairo, Jeddab, Surat, and other cities, are glad to buy boys of this kind; they have them taught writing and arithmetic, carry on their extensive business almost entirely through negro slaves, and send them to establish business places in foreign countries. I asked one of the merchants, how he could trust a slave with whole cargoes of good and was told in reply, “My Negro is true to me; but if I were to conduct my business entirely by white men, I should have to take care that they did not run off with my property.”
posted
King, and others who think like you. See how innocently like, white people lie to you? From that piece, you would never know that likely those people that were subdued in the south were indigenous Blacks.
BTW - What's up with your brotherhood stuff, looks like you're the only one. You might as well accept it, they all fear niggas, and when given a chance, will act against niggas. Know yourself, know your history, and act accordingly. Then you can have peace.
Posts: 22721 | Registered: Oct 2005
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I’m reading about Iran, as I expect it will be the next victim of American imperialism. Obama was pushed on us to facilitate an attack on Iran. Since the Iranian Islamic Revolution there is a fight about the place of pre-Islamic Iranian history. Like streets and squares which were named after Darius might now be called Towhid Street. Because the clerics regard King Darius as a heathen and a homosexual. Well he shtubbed Bagoas, before Alexander took his place in Bagoas’ bed, so they might have a point there. Anyway, the Blacks suffer from this Muslim historiography which regards pre-Islamic time as the age of JAHILLIYA, the Age of Ignorance. Even educated Arabs today regard many things African as backward and heathen. They believe that nothing worth mentioning happened in Africa, before Islam. I might mention too that many Arabs as well as Christians are creationist and believe in (a white!) Adam and Eve, and nothing about the first humans starting in East Africa and being Black and whites coming out of Blacks and all that stuff. So the idea of a Black Prophet Mohamed is like a insult to them. To them, only Bilal was Black, not his master.
Posts: 5454 | From: Holland | Registered: Aug 2008
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In "Islam's Black Slaves" page 122-123 quote from the British embassy to Iran in 1850:
quote: They (black slaves) are highly esteemed as being mild, faithful, brave and intelligent, and are generally confidential servants in Persian households...
They are not treated with contempt as in America; there are no special laws to hold them in a state of degradation; they are frequently restored to freedom, and when this happens, they take their station in society without any reference to their colour or descent.
posted
^ Hence, even Arabs are not guilty of the atrocities of white Westerners.
Posts: 26252 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
Yes, the slavers and the governments which supported them invented the "contempt" probably as a projection of their own greedy, fiendish, and morally retarded thoughts.
I don't like the "guilt-slinging" though as in large and obscuring generalizations of an entire group: 'native africa' 'white west' 'arabs' sold slaves.
I may be a 'black American man' who reallizes how my african ancestors got the very raw end of a 'deal' but I'm not like my ancestors "oppressors": I have no need to overcompensate for things I lack via the boasts of "my race" verses anyone elses.
quote:Originally posted by Egmond Codfried: I’m reading about Iran, as I expect it will be the next victim of American imperialism. Obama was pushed on us to facilitate an attack on Iran. Since the Iranian Islamic Revolution there is a fight about the place of pre-Islamic Iranian history. Like streets and squares which were named after Darius might now be called Towhid Street. Because the clerics regard King Darius as a heathen and a homosexual. Well XERXES shtubbed Bagoas, before Alexander took his place in Bagoas’ bed, so they might have a point there. Anyway, the Blacks suffer from this Muslim historiography which regards pre-Islamic time as the age of JAHILLIYA, the Age of Ignorance. Even educated Arabs today regard many things African as backward and heathen. They believe that nothing worth mentioning happened in Africa, before Islam. I might mention too that many Arabs as well as Christians are creationist and believe in (a white!) Adam and Eve, and nothing about the first humans starting in East Africa and being Black and whites coming out of Blacks and all that stuff. So the idea of a Black Prophet Mohamed is like a insult to them. To them, only Bilal was Black, not his master.
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