An Islamist Social Movement under the Authoritarian Regime in Iraq during 1990s : A Study on the Shi'ite Leadership of Sadiq al-Sadr and its Socio-political Base

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  • YAMAO Dai
    Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University:Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

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  • 1990年代イラクの権威主義体制下における社会運動 : サーディク・サドルとその政治社会的基盤にかんする一考察
  • 1990ネンダイ イラク ノ ケンイ シュギ タイセイ カ ニ オケル シャカイ ウンドウ サーディク サドル ト ソノ セイジ シャカイテキ キバン ニ カンスル イチ コウサツ

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Abstract

Iraqi Islamist parties attract considerable attention, especially after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and subsequent regime change from an authoritarian to a "democratic" system. Among these groups, the Sadrist Movement led by young activist Muqtada al-Sadr has been controlling the casting vote in Iraqi politics. However, previous researches, which focus either on the Islamist opposition movements under the Ba'thist regime until the 1990s or their performance in the administration of the state in the post-2003 era, have been unable to provide a decisive image of the Sadrist Movement, because this group has no experience of exile. Dispersed documents show that the Islamist movement was widely mobilized in Iraq in the 1990s by Sadiq al-Sadr, who constructed the Islamist movement in the form of a social movement, which then became the core of the socio-political basis of the Sadrist Movement and its constituency in post-2003 Iraq. Hence, this paper aims to clarify the reason for formation and proliferation of the social movement initiated by Sadiq in the 1990s in Iraq, as well as how it was able to achieve its massive mobilizing power in spite of the widely believed fact that the Ba'thist authoritarian regime prohibited the activities of Islamist movements within Iraq after the 1980s. This paper concludes as follow: Sadiq's unique stance, characterized by activism as well as a strategic alliance with the oppressive authoritarian regime, correlated with the policies of the regime itself-the "Islamization of society" and "co-optation" meant to stabilize the regime-, providing him with the means to legalize his movement This legality assured his mobilization of the masses for his social movement, which was characterized by the Friday congressional prayer sessions that were widely organized by and as a result of the reconstruction of the representative system and supported by the tribal network.

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