Baghdad residents reject sectarian divisions

As ISIL steps up attacks on Shiite areas, capital's residents put blame on Iraqi politicians seeking to cling to power.

Men drink chat with friends over cups of teas in a shaded courtyard off Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad on June 17, 2016. Florian Neuhof for The National

BAGHDAD // The explosion that killed Raed Badr’s friends erupted last month in a busy marketplace in Sadr City, the sprawling Shia neighbourhood in Baghdad’s south, claimed dozens of lives and injured many more.

A week later, a terrorist bomb struck the same market again, feeding the seemingly endless cycle of violence.

Sitting with friends in a shaded square off the capital’s famous Mutanabbi Street, where bookshops and tea houses attract a bohemian crowd at weekends, Mr Badr feels that he is taking a risk.

“It has become normal that we are targeted at any place at any time. We usually don’t go anywhere that we don’t know. If I went to any other place I wouldn’t be surprised if I got hit,” says Mr Badr, a 23 year-old student about to sit his final exams.

The two friends who died in the bombing two weeks earlier were classmates and were supposed to take the exams with him. Instead, they fell victim to the deadly conflict that has rocked the country since ISIL stormed into Iraq over two years ago.

From the start, ISIL has sought to inflame tensions between Iraq’s Sunnis and Shia by committing atrocities such as the massacre of Shiite army recruits at Camp Speicher when it swept through Iraq in 2014. Now that it is losing ground against Iraqi forces, it has intensified its terrorist attacks in Baghdad.

On July 3, ISIL set off a bomb that tore through the capital's Karada district, killing hundreds in the deadliest bombing in Baghdad since 2003. The attack was the culmination of the latest round of sectarian bloodletting to grip the city since the US invasion in 2003. It was set off in retaliation for the Iraqi army's offensive to take Fallujah, which succeeded after over a month of bitter fighting late in June.

But the inhabitants of Baghdad, an ancient metropolis resting in the cradle of civilisation, are not easily sucked into the sectarian void. People of different faiths have coexisted in the city over the centuries, and ISIL has failed to eradicate this tradition with its brutal attacks, residents say.

“Since the beginning of the war with ISIL, the tensions between Sunnis and Shias in Baghdad have decreased,” says Maytham Al Hilo, a middle-aged physician who has come to the square to catch up with friends over tea. Dr Al Hilo does not divulge whether he is Sunni or Shia: “I refuse to be defined by this classification.”

ISIL’s atrocities have prompted a series of revenge killings in Iraq, including in Baghdad. The increasing sway of Shia militia groups in the capital and the country at large is also ominous. They have been accused of a number of serious human rights violations, most recently during the battle for Fallujah.

But Dr Al Hilo’s disregard for the sectarian divide is widely shared by those living in the capital. Instead, they point the finger at the political elite that has been failing Iraqis since the Americans handed power to an interim government in 2004.

“Ordinary people don’t care about the Sunni-Shia stuff, but the political leaders make money and stay in power because of this conflict. The politicians don’t feel responsible for this country, they just care about themselves,” says Rusul Al Obaidi, a 27-year-old Sunni who lives in a modest neighbourhood in south Baghdad.

Mr Al Obaidi is married to a Shia, and he continues his family’s history of religious tolerance that saw his Sunni father take a Shia wife.

Mr Badr, who is still grieving from the loss of his friends, also blames the politicians for their deaths.

“Their main goal is to stay in power. They attack the people and blame others. We are not buying this anymore,” he says.

Discontent with the government has led to regular Friday protests being held in Baghdad in recent months, and even resulted in the storming of the parliament in the Green Zone by angry Iraqis. The protesters demand an end to the corruption and mismanagement that has characterised the post-war government, and are angry that a reform initiative by prime minister Haider Al Abadi has stalled.

Mr Badr attended the protests once, to “demand rights for the poor, and to demand security”.

Others, like Dr Al Hilo, are pessimistic about protests bringing meaningful change. He believes the entrenched elites will continue to fan the flames of sectarian hatred to distract from their own shortcomings.

“The sectarian tension is the only way to preserve the corruption in Iraq. Most politicians encourage these tensions to stay in power,” he says.

Many Iraqis see through this smoke screen.

Ali Mohammend, a Shia from Mosul, had to flee when ISIL took over the city in 2014. The 28-year-old doctor lost four relatives during the dangerous escape to Baghdad, where he now teaches medicine at a college.

A proud Iraqi, Mr Mohammed confesses he is heartbroken by the current state of his country. But he refuses to place the blame squarely on Iraq’s Sunnis, condemning only those “who welcomed Daesh into their houses”.

“We are brothers in the same country, why were they supporting Daesh?” he asks.

Mr Mohammed has not been able to return to ISIL-held Mosul in over two years. In spite of this, he is confident that the widening sectarian schism will not tear the country apart.

“Sunnis and Shias have a future in Iraq together,” he says firmly.