Summer 2023 CCAS Newsmagazine

CCAS

Newsmagazine

Center for Contemporary Arab Studies Georgetown University ccas.georgetown.edu Summer 2023

T H E I R AQ WA R

T W E N T Y Y E A R S L AT E R

A NOTE FROM THE OUTGOING DIRECTOR Joseph Sassoon As my time as CCAS Director wound to a close this summer, I have had time to reflect on all that we, as a community, achieved in the past three years. I assumed the directorship in July 2020. The world was in the throes of the pandemic, and all the fear and uncertainty it brought made it a challenging and unusual time to take on the leadership of an academic department. The virtual learning environment was new to nearly all of us. But the faculty, staff, and students adapted amazingly, demonstrating unprecedented creativity and flexibility, and a shared determination to maintain not only the high educational standards, but also the sense of community, for which CCAS is known. Faculty underwent professional pedagogical training for the pivot to online learning, staff stepped up and took on a wide range of new roles and tasks, and students too, rose to the challenge, demonstrating incredible resilience.

Looking back, I believe we not only survived, but thrived as a result of these efforts.

Over the past three years, CCAS has continued to matriculate diverse and talented cohorts of graduate students from all over the globe. We have increased our scholarship endowments, hosted research and post-doctoral fellows, and added a new tenure-line professor to our faculty. Thanks to the outstanding work of our staff, CCAS and Georgetown were awarded a Department of Education Title VI grant for over $2 million to support our programming as a National Resource Center on the Middle East. The work of CCAS is more impactful than ever, thanks to the transition of our public events and education outreach to virtual and hybrid platforms, which have enabled us to greatly expand the reach and diversity of our audiences. Following the murder of George Floyd, CCAS students, faculty, and staff formed a Racial Justice Task Force and undertook meaningful steps to deepen our commitment to inclusivity and to elevating diverse voices through our curriculum, events, and programming.

Thanks to the dedication and tireless efforts of our faculty and staff, and to the energy and intellectual engagement of our students, the above list is only a small accounting of what the CCAS community has achieved despite the challenges of recent years. It has been my honor to serve as director for the past three years, and I’d like to congratulate Dr. Fida Adely as she takes the reins as the new CCAS Director.

CCAS

Newsmagazine

The CCAS Newsmagazine is published twice a year by the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, a component of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

Core Faculty

Fida J. Adely, Associate Professor and Clovis and Hala Salaam Maksoud Chair in Arab Studies; Director, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies Killian Clarke, Assistant Professor

Marwa Daoudy, Associate Professor and Seif Ghobash Chair in Arab Studies

Rochelle A. Davis, Associate Professor and Sultanate of Oman Chair; Director, Graduate Studies Joseph Sassoon, Professor and Sheikh Sabah Al Salem Al Sabah Chair

Affiliated Faculty CORE AFFILIATES

Mohammad AlAhmad, Assistant Teaching Professor Belkacem Baccouche, Assistant Teaching Professor Noureddine Jebnoun, Adjunct Associate Professor

AFFILIATES FROM OTHER DEPARTMENTS

Osama W. Abi-Mershed, Associate Professor, Department of History Mustafa Aksakal, Associate Professor, Department of History

Jonathan Brown, Professor, ACMCU and Department of Arabic & Islamic Studies Elliott Colla, Associate Professor; Chair, Department of Arabic & Islamic Studies

Welcome to Incoming CCAS Director Dr. Fida Adely Associate Professor Fida Adely stepped into her role as the new CCAS Director in July. Dr. Adely joined the Center as a core faculty member in 2007 and holds the Clovis and Hala Salaam Maksoud Chair in Arab Studies. As an anthropologist, Dr. Adely focuses her research and teaching on education, labor, development, and gender in the Arab world. She previously served as the Academic Director of the Master of Arts in Arab Studies program.

“I look forward to taking over as CCAS director, and continuing the important work of my predecessors,” says Adely. “As we approach CCAS’ 50th anniversary, I

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hope to reflect on our significant history and strengthen our academic program and public engagement moving forward. Our students and alumni are at the heart of everything we do, and I will work to further engage our alumni in the life of CCAS.” On behalf of the CCAS community, we’d like to extend both a warm welcome to Prof.

Adely and our sincere thanks to Professor Sassoon for his leadership, guidance, and support over the past three years. His many contributions have strengthened the Center and will continue to be felt long into the future. Please check back in the next issue for more on Prof.

Adely and her vision as director.

Center for Contemporary Arab Studies - Georgetown University

Felicitas M. M. Opwis, Associate Professor, Arabic & Islamic Studies Suzanne Stetkevych, Sultan Qaboos bin Said Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies EMERITI FACULTY

Ibrahim Oweiss, Professor Emeritus, SFS

Judith Tucker, Professor Emerita, CCAS and the Department of History

Staff

Dana Al Dairani Senior Director of Programs

Susan Douglass K-14 Education Outreach Director

Kelli Harris Assistant Director of Academic Programs Coco Tait Events and Program Manager Vicki Valosik Editorial Director

CCAS Newsmagazine Editor-in-Chief Vicki Valosik Design Adriana Cordero

An online version of this newsletter is available at http://ccas.georgetown.edu

ABOUT THE ISSUE

The Iraq War 20 Years Later In this issue, we delve into work being done by the CCAS community to better understand the lasting impacts of the American war in Iraq. CCAS professors Rochelle Davis and Joseph Sassoon discuss—respectively—the U.S. military’s conceptions of Iraqi culture and the regional growth of authoritarianism, post-invasion. Visiting Scholar Salma AlShami shares findings from a multi-year study on displacement in Iraq. Reflections on lessons learned are offered by alums Paul McKinney and Motasem Abuzaid.

From our students, Besan Jaber details a project to honor slain Iraqi academics, while Shano Mohammed shares a powerful essay and a poem about the deeply personal impacts of war. We hope this issue serves to add to the ongoing reflections about the devastating legacy of the war and the deep injustices perpetrated against the Iraqi people.

Vicki Valosik, Editor

ON THE COVER

Reach Linocut and Chine Collé by Sarah Anne Decossard

ABOUT THE ART The art featured on the cover and throughout the issue are part of "Absence and Presence," a print initiative of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here project. The project was founded by Beau Beausoleil in response to the 2007 car bombing of Baghdad’s historic al-Mutanabbi Street, the heart of the city’s intellectual community and home to numerous booksellers. The project, which has been archived by Columbia University, engages artists and writers from around the globe to create works that serve as witness to the bombing and express solidarity with the Iraqi people and other arts communities in the MENA region. Beausoleil has said that wherever someone sits down and begins to write towards the truth, or picks up a book to read, it is there that al-Mutanabbi Street starts. Contributing artists featured in this issue are Sarah Anne Decossard (cover), Bev Samler (pg. 6), Wilson Hill (pg. 10), Jennifer Vickers (pg.11), Anne Moreno (pg.

12), Iram Wani (pg. 13), and Art Hazelwood (pg. 19). Additionally, you can learn more about a new project of Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here called "Shadow & Light" on page 8. For more information on these projects, Beau Beausoleil can be reached at overlandbooks@earthlink.net.

In This Issue FEATURE ARTICLES New Research 6 What Iraq Tells Us About Displacement Student Feature 8 Honoring the Memory of Iraqi Academics 19 Astute War, a poem

Faculty Feature 10 The American Invasion and Authoritarianism

Alumni Feature 12 The Lessons We Choose to Draw Faculty Spotlight 14 No Good Way to Occupy a Country SPECIAL STORIES 16 Iraq 20 Years On: Prospects of Epistemic Reconstruction

Dispatches 20 Life Beyond the Borders REGULAR FEATURES 4 Faculty News 5 Center News 18 Public Events

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FACULTY NEWS

Faculty News ‫أﺧﺒﺎر ھﯿﺌﺔ اﻟﺘﺪرﯾﺲ‬

A few highlights of the recent activities of CCAS faculty Book Chapters

Staff Updates ‫آﺧﺮأﺧﺒﺎر اﻟﻤﻮظﻔﯿﻦ‬ “Gulf governments enjoy fiscal flexibility; must spend wisely over coming years” (Al-Monitor, January 2023) - Robert Mogielnicki

“Surge in West Bank violence further undercuts Abbas’s precarious leadership” (Middle East Institute, March 2023) - Khaled Elgindy “Omani and Saudi Economic Zones Create Avenues for Cooperation” (The Arab Gulf States Institute, March 2023) Robert Mogielnicki

Board Member Pro ile

“Water and Climate Challenges in the Middle East: A Human Security Perspective” chapter in Enhancing Water Security in the Middle East (MENA Water Security Task Force, Al-Sharq Strategic Research and Colorado School of Mines, 2023) - Marwa Daoudy “Stranded in Decolonization: The Attritional Temporality of Sahrawi Activism in Moroccan-Occupied Western Sahara” chapter in In the Meantime: Toward an Anthropology of the Possible (Berghahn Books, 2023) - Mark Drury, CCAS Qatar Post-Doctoral Fellow

‫ﺳﺘﺸﺎري‬

“Saudi Arabia’s New Murabba project to lure global investors, but at what cost?” (Al-Monitor, March 2023) - Robert Mogielnicki “GCC Performing Strongly but Economic Opportunities Vary throughout the Region” (Henley & Partners, 2023) - Robert Mogielnicki “DeSantis’ ‘war on woke’ looks a lot like attempts by other countries to deny and rewrite history” (The Conversation, July 2023) Rochelle Davis

Dispatches ‫ﺑﺮﻗﯿﺎت‬

“Tunisia: A Reframed Security-Centered Approach” chapter in Security Assistance in the Middle East: Challenges ... and the Need for Change (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2023) - Nouredinne Jebnoun

“Beyond Oslo: Reimagining Israeli-­Palestinian Futures” chapter in The One State Reality: What Is Israel/Palestine? (Cornell University Press, 2023) - Khaled Elgindy

Journal Articles

Podcasts & Interviews

“No happily ever after: how Succession will end – by the experts” – Interview with Prof. Joseph Sassoon by London’s The Telegraph (March 2023)

Public Events ‫اﻟﻤﻨﺎﺳﺒﺎت اﻟﻌﺎﻣﺔ‬

“Revolutionary Violence and Counterrevolution” (American Political Science Review, December 2022) - Killian Clarke “Ambivalent allies: How inconsistent foreign support dooms new democracies” (Journal of Peace Research, February 2023) - Killian Clarke

Education Outreach ‫ﺘﺜﻘﯿﻒ اﻟﺘﺮﺑﻮي‬

“Naming the City: Saharan Urbanization and Disaggregated Sovereignty” (L’Ouest Saharien, February 2023) - Mark Drury

“Why Security Cooperation With Israel Is a Lose-Lose for Abbas” (Foreign Policy, February 2023) - Khaled Elgindy

“From Victims to Dissidents: Legacies of Violence and Popular Mobilization in Iraq, 2003–2018” (American Political Science Review, April 2023) – Killian Clarke

“Exhibition Spotlight: Shadow & Light” – Prof. Rochelle Davis spoke about her involvement and that of and that of several MAAS students in an exhibit at the University of Iowa Pentacrest Museums examining themes of academic freedom (see page 8 for details) “Knowledge Production on Iraq: Joseph Sassoon’s Intellectual Journey” – Jadaliyya (April, 2023)

“Killian Clarke: Egypt’s Counterrevolution and the Return to Tyranny” – on Babel, the podcast of the Center for Strategic & International Studies (May 2023)

In the Headlines ‫ﻓﻲ اﻟﻌﻨﺎوﯾﻦ‬

Reports & Policy Research

“Women, Peace and Security: Gulf Perspectives on Integration, Inclusion and Integrity” (Gulf International Forum, November 2022) - Dania Thafer

“China-Gulf Ties: Tougher Acts to Follow Successful Show” (The Arab Gulf States Institute, January 2023) - Robert Mogielnicki 4

“The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire” – American Historical Association talk with Prof. Joseph Sassoon (May 2023) Scholar Spotlight: Prof. Marwa Daoudy was the first to be featured in a new Scholar Spotlight series by the Environmental Studies Section at the International Studies Association 2023 convention

Mabrouk! ‫ﻣﺒﺮوك‬

Center for Contemporary Arab Studies - Georgetown University

CENTER NEWS

Center News ‫أخبار المركز‬

Memoriam MAAS NewsIn (Student News) ‫ب‬ The CCAS community was deeply saddened to learn of the recent passing of Dr. Halim Barakat, a renowned Arab sociologist and novelist, and a professor at CCAS for 27 years. Dr. Barakat, born to a Syrian family and raised in Beirut, received both his undergraduate and master’s degrees from the American University of Beirut. His doctoral studies in social psychology took him to the University of Michigan, where he earned his PhD in 1966. Dr. Barakat joined the CCAS faculty in 1976. The Center had been founded at Georgetown only a year earlier, and Dr. Barakat pioneered numerous sociology courses and became instrumental in shaping the identity, activities, and curriculum of CCAS during its formative years.

Dr. Barakat was a prolific scholar, publishing seventeen academic volumes, plus numerous essays and articles during his career. Much of his work focused on contemporary challenges facing the region such as alienation, exile, and crises of civil society. His path-breaking book, The Arab World: Society, Culture, and State (University of California Press, 1993), is considered a classic in the field of Arab studies.

Beyond his influence as a social scientist, Dr. Barakat was also an award-winning novelist and short story writer whose creative works served as a bridge between the literary and academic communities. Two of his best-known novels were translated into English. Sitat Ayam (Six Days), published in 1961, has often been called “prophetically named for a real war yet to come in 1967” and served as a prelude for ‘Awdat al-Ta’ir ila al-Bahr (Days of Dust) about the June War of 1967.

The passing of Dr. Barakat is a tremendous loss to the academic community, and CCAS extends our sincere condolences to the Barakat family. You can read a longer biography, as well as remembrances of Professor Barakat written by colleagues and students on the CCAS website.

Visiting Scholar ‫باحث زائر‬

Mabrouk to the MAAS Class of 2023!

Faculty News ‫أخبار هيئة التدريس‬

In May, we celebrated the graduation of 35 students from the Master of Arts in Arab Studies program. All of us at CCAS extend our congratulations to the graduates. We look forward to seeing what you all will achieve!

Thank you to our summer interns!

Recipients of the 2023 SFS Staff Excellence Awards (Left to Right): Julie McMurtry, Lauren Bauschard, Dana Al Dairani, and Robert Lyons

CCAS Senior Director of Programs Honored for Staff Excellence

CCAS is pleased to congratulate our Senior Director of Programs Dana Al Dairani on receiving the 2023 School of Foreign Service Staff Excellence Award recognizing her outstanding work and many contributions to the Center and the School! The award honors SFS staff members who go above and beyond the duties of their positions and whose work has a lasting impact on the school.

Dana, who joined CCAS in 2018, received the SFS Staff Excellence Award for her leadership and innovation at CCAS, as well as her role in shepherding the school through a major and successful Department of Education grant application. “Dana is an incredible worker who combines initiative, hard work, and a long-term vision of what the center does or needs to do,” said outgoing CCAS Director Joseph Sassoon. “This recognition is absolutely well deserved.”

Staff Updates ‫آخرأخبار الموظفين‬ Each summer, CCAS partners with the National Council on US-Arab Relations and Bethlehem University to bring undergraduate student interns to campus to work with CCAS faculty and staff. This summer, CCAS had the privilege of hosting Suhair Mohammad Ali and Leen Altamimi (Bethlehem University), Matthew Audi (Bowdoin College) and Aydin Henderson (Wheaton College).

Board Member Profile

‫ستشاري‬

Dispatches ‫برقيات‬ Clockwise from top left: Suhair, Leen, Aydin, Matthew

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NEW RESEARCH

What Iraq Tells Us About

DISPLACEMENT Salma Al-Shami

Untitled Etching by Bev Samler Courtesy of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here project

O

ver pizza in the charming town of Ankawa on the outskirts of Erbil, Iraq, survey field researchers start telling their stories from the field.

“I’m visiting this one house, and I come to the question about ‘do you consider yourself displaced,’” recounts a veteran Iraqi researcher. “The hajji [elderly man] stares at me silently for a minute, and then with a deadpan expression on his face says, ‘Do I consider myself displaced? No, I consider myself a lawyer!’ He then angrily yells at us to get out.”

The table erupts in laughter. The casual outing in summer of 2018 had been proceeded by a week’s worth of training workshops on survey and interview best practices, discussions on questionnaires, 6

and logistical meetings in a stuffy, high-rise hotel on Erbil’s 60 Meter Street. Research teams from Georgetown University (GU) and from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) were gathered in preparation for the latest round of qualitative and quantitative data collection for the joint project Access to Durable Solutions Among Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Iraq.

The first-ever study of its kind, Access to Durable Solutions Among IDPs in Iraq followed, over a five-year period, nearly 3,600 Iraqi households that had been displaced by ISIS/ISIL. In this one evening away from official formalities, what crystalizes among the GU and IOM teams is that the study’s substantive contributions and innovations stem from the strengths of this academic-NGO partnership.

Center for Contemporary Arab Studies - Georgetown University

In addition to contributing to the study’s methodological rigor, GU’s participation ensured that the research was not an extractive process of collecting data on a given population in service of knowledge creation.

The GU team used all resources at its disposal—including input on budget allocation and the team’s status as educators—to ensure that both the IDP households themselves and the Iraqi research teams benefitted from the study. As such, the partnership reaffirmed that the transfer of knowledge, skills, and benefit from participation in research need not be unidirectional.

The commitment of IOM’s research leadership to the project ensured not only continuity of material resources to sustain it, but more importantly, knowledge of the intersection between IDPs’ self-reported challenges and proposed humanitarian policy solutions and initiatives. IOM field researchers and local staff provided invaluable feedback on questionnaires and new policies and laws that affected the study and its trajectory.

Six rounds of surveys and qualitative interviews with the same IDP households between 2016 and 2021 sought to assess how, when, and if Iraqi IDPs were reaching one of three, “solutions” to their displacement: voluntary return home, local integration, or resettlement to another country or location.

Determination of whether these solutions

were achieved were based on eight criteria gathered in front of the International Forum encouraged to learn how to use the qualitaoutlined by the Inter Agency Standing on Migration Statistics, Mercy Corps, the tive and quantitative data for research papers Committee’s (IASC) Framework on Durable Gulf International Forum, the World Bank, and projects.

Solutions for Internally Displaced Persons: IOM-Iraq, and the University of Kurdistan, In the field, despite the question of safety and security, standard of living, liveamong others. whether respondents considered themselves lihood, housing, access to documentation, Making such deliverables feasible displaced being met with resistance if not family reunification, participation in public required the herculean efforts of a large ridicule, IOM’s team of Iraqi field researchaffairs, and access to justice. team. Lorenza Rossi, IOM’s Regional Data ers became the mediators of researchers’ Of the many findings the study unearthed Hub and DTM Coordinator, conceived of intention and respondents’ understanding. in these numerous reports, perTraining workshops and handhaps the most important was to books the GU team ran and highlight the need for the IASC authored over the years became Framework to be more deliberkey pieces of capacity building ate and explicit in its accounting intended to hone interviewer for IDP preferences in what skills and enable future emthey considered the “end” of ployment. The hope was that displacement. The answer to the those facilitating the study could question “when does displacebe better equipped to handle ment end?” for some was simply, challenges on both this project “it doesn’t.” As such, the “end” and others. The workshops and of displacement should not be handbooks discussed strengths thought of in terms of an arrival and tradeoffs of quantitative and point or a solution but instead qualitative data; how to write of an ever-evolving process of questions; respondent selection access and belonging. considerations; and best field “Do you consider yourself interview practices in conductdisplaced?” was a key question ing both surveys and qualitative leading to this finding. Its interviews. The interviewer purpose was to give voice to team became one that IOM Members of the IOM and Georgetown teams enjoying a pizza break IDPs’ self-perceptions and com- with survey field researchers during the 2018 project training in subsequently employed in other pare them against standardized projects. At the same time, the Erbil, Iraq. Courtesy of Salma Al-Shami indicators measuring attainfeedback of the interviewers on ment of a “durable solution,” defined by the the project and CCAS Professor Rochelle the wording and content of the questions IASC Framework as being achieved, “when Davis, shepherded it for its duration. ISIM alerted the research team to key themes that IDPs no longer have specific assistance and professors Susan Martin, Elizabeth Ferris were conspicuously absent or sensitives that protection needs that are linked to their and Katharine Donato, CCAS and ISIM were obscuring results. displacement and such persons can enjoy staff members Abbie Taylor, Grace Benton, This capacity development component of their human rights without discrimination Dana Al Dairani, and Vicki Valosik, and the study complemented a second distinresulting from their displacement.”* While IOM-Iraq’s Olga Aymerich, Erin Neale, guishing feature: the largest line item in the many of the Iraqi IDP households repreShano Mohammed, Mazn Shkoor, and budget of the project was an in-kind payment sented by the study had met benchmarks more than 25 Iraqi field researchers pooled of monthly mobile phone credits to the IDP of a “solution,” by the final round of data collective talents to keep the behemoth households who remained in the study. IOM collection in 2021, more than half of all IDP study in motion. This core group conceived Iraq’s field researchers used the TextIt System, households living in displacement indicated of topics and populations to include, wrote a text messaging platform, to maintain they still considered themselves displaced. interview questions, programmed softmonthly contact with IDP families particiThe five-year study yielded six summary ware, gained necessary legal access letters, pating in the study and to verify and update reports on the experience of protracted disoversaw fieldwork and conducted interviews, their locations as they moved around in Iraq. placement; five thematic and policy reports authored reports, and organized events and What also became increasingly clear on topics such as livelihoods and economic disseminated findings online and in print. over the course of the project was that the security and experiences of female-headed Teams of GU student research assistants study’s results—and indeed the data itself— houses; and three academic papers invespainstakingly translated interviews, codneeded to be more widely distributed and tigating education in displacement and ed qualitative excerpts, cleaned data, and accessible. In service of this goal, the team experiences of return. Findings from the conducted literature reviews and secondary translated many reports and findings into study were publicly disseminated at numerresearch. In Dr. Davis’ courses over the years, Arabic so that they could be accessed by a ous presentations for audiences variously undergraduate and graduate students were wider range of people continued on p. 15 7

‫ﺧﺎص ﻣﻦ اﻟﻄﻼب‬

STUDENT FEATURE

Honoring the Memories of

By Besan Jaber

Iraqi Academics

She will not awaken, will not come back to life. I thought that I could carry on, would carry on her legacy.

I knew I would never be half the lawyer, half the teacher she was, but I thought I could carry on, keep her memory alive.

I would ask the same questions, meet the same silences, get the same look that conveyed a deadly warning.

But what was her death if I did not ask?

What was my freedom if I did not question?…

- Dr. Persis Karim

T

hese lines are an excerpt from the poem “When We Dead Awaken,” written by Dr. Persis Karim in memory of Iraqi academics Muneer al-Khiero and his wife Leila al-Saad. The couple worked together at Mosul University’s College of Law—Dr. Al-Saad as Dean and Dr. Al-Khiero as a lecturer. On June 21, 2004, both were found dead in their home in the Dandan neighborhood, South of Mosul. The pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al- Awsat quoted a police official as saying that the killings were not motivated by theft, as large sums of money were found, untouched, in the couple’s home.* Instead, Al-Saad and Al-Khiero were likely the victims of targeted assassinations, placing them among the hundreds of Iraqi academics and educators brutally killed in the decade following the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of the country. Although the exact number is not known, the Brussels Tribunal verified and published the names and details of the deaths of over 400 Iraqi academics who were killed—more than half at point-blank by firearms, while others were kidnapped, including some by security forces, and died in detention.

Karim’s poem commemorating the couple is part of “Shadow and Light,” an on-going project to set up exhibitions of photographs and artists’ statements honoring the hundreds of Iraqi academics and educators brutally killed in the decade following the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of the country. “Shadow and Light” was founded in 2018 by poet and San Francisco-based activist Beau Beausoleil, who 8

Student feature (Wissam)

sees the project as one of “witness, memory, and solidarity.” The women and men memorialized in the exhibit enriched diverse fields of knowledge, ranging from history to calligraphy to the study of bees, said Beausoleil. “Each assassination represented an attack on the underlying principle of education—to share knowledge—and served as a threat to scholars throughout Iraq that they were at risk.”

For the project, writers and artists reach out to Beausoleil to select an Iraqi scholar to honor, using a list of names compiled by a Spanish NGO. They then photograph a scene, devoid of people or animals, and write a reflection on the image and the person they are commemorating. Like many of the contributors reflecting on the lives of the slain academics, Karim did not know much about the personal lives of Al-Saad or Al-Khiero, but as a poet and professor of comparative and world literature at San Francisco State University, she shared their passion for education and knowledge.

CCAS Professor Rochelle Davis, whose work has for many years focused on Iraq, was also a contributor to “Shadow and Light.”

She chose to write her reflection on Dr. Aiad Ibrahem Mohamed Al-Jebory, a former neurosurgeon at Tikrit University, an institution with which Davis has been working on a grant project to help develop the university’s research program.

Thus far, 57 Iraqi academics have been commemorated by a community of writers, poets and artists from across the globe. As many of the artist statements are written in English, Davis felt it was important to think about how the growing collection of narratives and images could be communicated back to Iraqis. With support

Image by Dr. Rochelle Davis as part of her reflection, written in memory of Dr. Aiad Ibrahem Mohamed Al-Jebory

Center for Contemporary Arab Studies - Georgetown University

from Beausoleil, Davis began working with a team of research assistants to translate the artist statements into Arabic over a several month period. The team included three MAAS students—Noor AlShaikh, Hoda al-Haddad, and myself—as well as CCAS Professor Dr. Mohammad al Ahmad. After we translated the statements, they were then reviewed by Professor Al Ahmad to ensure the Arabic was correct. The Arabic translations are available online (see link in box below) and will be included in future exhibitions of “Shadow and Light” alongside the English, as Beausoleil continues to seek venues to host exhibitions.

Translating different forms of poetry and prose was challenging, as many of the statements are deeply personal and carry complex meanings of human connection. AlShaikh, a native Arabic speaker, shared that she found herself asking, “How can I transform a poem in a language that I know, yet I do not have a strong emotional connection to, into Arabic?” Through her work on the project, she realized that translation is a creative process that entails reproducing not just the words, but also the meaning in a piece of writing. For al-Haddad, working with the words by and about others created a sense of connection. “I felt that the authors of these letters, the people to whom the letter is written in the memory of, and I have traveled together through time and space,” said al-Haddad. “In some way we all exist outside of our physical forms from the moment the words are written.”

Focusing on the lives and deaths of these slain individuals was a somber process as well. “I tried to put aside my own emotions,” said Prof. Al Ahmad, “in order to produce Arabic texts that communicate the authors’ feelings and words about these departed souls.” He asked that readers forgive any errors in translation “as our minds were preoccupied, and remain so, with these souls suspended in the Iraqi heavens.” As my role included fact-checking the translated texts using Arabic news outlets and social media posts, I had to look up the name of every one of these assassinated scholars. The list is long indeed, and it saddened and disheartened me. Yet reading the warm words of their colleagues, students and family members, along with the statements and poems produced by the artists, I also felt deeply motivated and a little uplifted. As a way to honor these individuals, I decided to say their names out loud even when I was alone working from my office with no one there.

Photos by Dr. Persis Karim to accompany her artist statements “In the Time of Cherries” and “When We Dead Awaken,” written to honor Dr. Leila Abdu Allah al-Saad and Dr. Muneer alKhiero, respectively.

Selected writings and photographs from the “Shadow and Light” project have been part of both physical installations and virtual exhibitions hosted at universities across the country, including UC Santa Barbara, University of Michigan, University of Illinois, the University of Pennsylvania, as well as the Liverpool Arab Arts Festival. Much more than a collection of art and poetry, the reflections included in “Shadow and Light” serve as an archive and remembrance of Iraqi scholars whose lives were cut short by violence. In the words of Professor. Davis, “they remind us that these professors taught students, conducted research, and wrote books that advanced human knowledge. They also invite us to remember them and honor their lives.”

The “Shadow and Light” project also serves as a history and demonstration of international solidarity with the people of Iraq, through the global network of poets, artists, academics, and translators who have reflected on the lives and contributions of these individuals. We hope that our translations will contribute to this effort.

◆

*See https://archive.aawsat.com/details.sp?issueno=9165&article =240953 Besan Jaber, a second generation Palestinian from Jordan, just completed her first year in the MAAS program.

Learn more You can visit a virtual exhibition of “Shadow and Light,” including artist statements and their translations, on the website of Pentacrest Museums at the University of Iowa.

Beausoleil is seeking additional venues to host exhibitions. https://pentacrestmuseums.uiowa.edu/shadow-light

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FACULTY FEATURE

Faculty Feature ‫ﻣﻦ ھﯿﺌﺔ اﻟﺘﺪرﯾﺲ ﺧﺎص‬

The American Invasion and Authoritarianism In Memoriam (in memory of someone Professor Joseph Sassoon discusses the durability of authoritarianism and the decline of American predominance in the years following the Iraq War.

By Joseph Sassoon,featuring research conducted with Motasem Abuzaid

T

‫ﺮى‬

he American invasion of Iraq included economic liberalization through and bureaucrats were equipped to face in 2003 was not an isolated international financial actors like the IMF neither the American hegemon nor popular episode—as interventions by su- and World Bank and political liberalization threats to their rule should they align themperpowers have been a recurring through the promotion of democratic values selves with the occupying force. feature in the contemporary his- and human rights. Political players in the The positions of senior figures in various tory of the Middle East and its authoritarian region learned how to navigate these conArab establishments reflected a great deal trajectories. Even so, the American invasion trasting pressures and turn constraints into of uncertainty in the immediate aftermath stands out in terms of its scale and the reach opportunities. Even so, an invasion of this of the invasion. A patent line of ambiguity, of its aftermath. The events of 2003 have scale was unprecedented, and Arab leaders for example, emerged in the Syrian narinfluenced Arab regimes and rative. On the one hand, Syrian societies far more than other officials described American wars or softer forms of global actions as “genocide,” “terror,” involvement—and in ways that and “war crimes,” and expressed remain more distinct today. their approval of suicide missions The fallout and lingering against the United States. On the effects of the American invasion other hand, they welcomed a visit included regional polarizations, from Colin Powell and signaled to securitization, sectarian/ethnic observers that Syria was ready to manipulation, transferred councommit to further reforms, albeit terinsurgency practices, and the on a gradual and restricted scale. expansion of carceral systems.

Among the most noticeable Although Middle Eastern and immediate consequences of regimes varied in their capacity Saddam Hussein’s toppling was to translate their learning in the Libyan nuclear disarmament. the face of social and geopoThis was Gaddafi’s gambit to litical pressures, these fallouts set the record straight with the found unique expression in the United States, particularly given “rogue states” that were targets the sanctions on Libya and the U.S. of American democratization pursuit of banned weapons. But at campaigns and played a key the same time, Libya denounced role in autocratic revival and the wide mismanagement of Iraq’s well-being post-2011. daily affairs and “bloody operations” Historically, western interests like the killing of Uday and Qusay in the Middle East have hardly Hussein. been homogenous. U.S. foreign Iran took the opposite approach, policy found its way into comdoubling down on nuclear weapons, batting Soviet (read commuwhich it considered the only guarnist) influence and preserving antee against foreign intervention.

American oil interests. Beyond The regime capitalized on the anmaintaining the political ti-U.S. sentiments prevalent across Prosperity Digital Print by Wilson Hill stability of allies and the region the region—which have contributCourtesy of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here project as a whole, core interests also ed to the election of conservative 10

Center for Contemporary Arab Studies - Georgetown University

leaders—to justify its growing domestic repression and military involvement in Lebanon. As Iran’s intentions were revealed, other Arab countries followed suit, and by the end of 2006, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and the UAE had all declared their intentions to acquire a “nuclear capability for civilian purposes.”

Post-2006: Doubling Down on Authoritarianism

While the United States was well-prepared for a military invasion, it was ill-equipped for the administration of Iraq. As the U.S.occupation gave rise to various ideological groups, the insurgency expanded into a prolonged and vicious conflict that resulted in the large-scale displacement of Iraqis.

Despite setting up key institutions of Iraqi democracy, the U.S. was compelled to gradually deprioritize democratic influences as it lost control of the security situation.

Divisions grew, with two particularly trendsetting polarizations taking place in the mid-2000s: those between Sunnis and Shi’as and between anti-American and anti-Iranian camps. The former, based on sectarian divisions, was due to the de-Baathification and dissolution of the army, followed by insurgency, then civil war (2003–2008). The latter did not fall neatly along the lines of Arabs and non-Arabs. Instead, what emerged was more of a “New Arab Cold War” that revolved around the representation of “Arab interests” between states (e.g., Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia) and “radical” non-state actors (e.g., Hezbollah and Hamas) that stemmed from social movements appealing to an Arab-Islamic narrative.

By 2005, Syria’s stronger ties with Iran became critical in repositioning the state’s relations and policies with its neighbors, and all attempts to isolate Syria failed. Similarly, Gaddafi gained significant confidence following Iraq’s Civil War. He defended the “resistance” in Iraq and, by 2007, backed the Iranian nuclear project (even though it contradicted his own earlier stance). In response to social pressures, Gaddafi would fall back on anti-U.S. rhetoric.

Iran emerged as the major winner of the invasion, with its authoritarian stance faring better given the country’s ideological, economic, and geopolitical prominence. In the

Arab Puzzle Newspaper and stitch collage by Jennifer Vickers Courtesy of the AlMutanabbi Street Starts Here project

process, Iran achieved two of its main goals: putting a stop to territorial threats from Iraq and gaining an ally government in Iraq, which it sustained through several spheres of influence including loyal politicians, covert networks and militias.

Iran was also free of its two major regional nemeses— the Taliban and Saddam Hussein—thanks, ironically, to the United States.

Regimes in the Gulf endeavored to maintain intimate ties with Washington, even against the demands of their respective populations. But throughout the 2000s, the GCC established neither high-level diplomatic missions nor embassies in Iraq, and hence fell short in joining the efforts of building stable and democratic statecraft in Iraq to check the Iranian influence.

By the end of the 2000s, Arab regimes employed new mechanisms of legitimation, based on multiple polarizations and on the structures of American militarism. The Arab uprising of 2011—which the dominant perspectives of the 2000s failed to predict— exposed the full spectrum of the regimes’ learning of authoritarianism. Following 2011, regional polarizations evolved into a vacuum in global leadership. The result was the further securitization and militarization of the various camps involved in what would emerge as a new institutional assemblage of regional security.

Key learning in terms of intelligence and security cooperation took place within these alliances. For example, the Abu Ghraib model inspired a number of regimes to adopt supermax prisons as part of their punitive measures. And while the official number of prisons in the region is estimated to be over 1,600, many informal prisons were constructed by non-state actors (e.g., Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, and the Nusra

Front) following critical milestones such as the 2006 Lebanese war or the 2011 Arab uprisings. Sparking sectarianized conflict, a technique used in the past by Arab regimes, became a key tool that helped these groups thrive and also served as a defensive securitization tactic.

Authoritarianism is rising globally and remains strong in the region. This is supported by recent findings from the Arab Barometer, which measures social, political, and economic attitudes across the region.

A 2022 Arab Barometer survey of 23,000 participants across nine Arab countries and the Palestinian territories showed that the “majority of citizens across the Arab world are losing faith in democracy as a system of governance to deliver economic stability.”

Conclusion

The American invasion in 2003 was a critical juncture point that altered both the U.S. hegemony and the regional balance of power for the following two decades. It could be argued that the invasion helped sustain the durability of authoritarianism in the Middle East—albeit in disproportionate ways. While the fall of Saddam’s regime made each state in the region liable to domestic and international pressures to reform, these regimes—already remarkable in their authoritarian resilience—adapted well. As the repercussions of American intervention and the dynamics continued on p. 15 11

‫ﺧﺎص ﻣﻦ اﻟﺨﺮﯾﺠﯿﻦ‬

ALUMNI FEATURE

The Lessons We Choose to Draw

By Paul J. McKinney

I

n September 2003, just a few violent months after the Bush administration proclaimed major combat operations had ended, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) – the US-led civilian body charged with administering occupied Iraq – organized a two-day workshop in Baghdad to identify best practices for countries transitioning from state-led to market economies. Seeking to draw lessons that may be applicable to Iraq, the CPA invited former ministers and finance officials from Central and Eastern European countries to share their experiences. Evidently impressed

by Poland’s “shock therapy,” in which Warsaw introduced a drastic neoliberal package during the country’s emergence from Soviet domination in the early 90s, the CPA appointed the former Polish finance and prime minister responsible for those reforms, Marek Belka, to head the CPA’s Office of Economic Policy. With Belka at the helm, lessons learned from Poland’s transition would be univer-

12

salized and superimposed onto Iraq, with little regard to contextual factors. Iraq was, after all, seen as a blank canvas upon which the West could project its own visions.

Zealously driven by a belief that markets are the most efficient way to organize a society and, by extension, to optimize individual freedom, the CPA issued what can only be described as the economic equivalent to the U.S. military’s “shock-and-awe” campaign.

Within a year, the CPA issued an astoundingly high number of Orders to build the new neoliberal state. Some of the most notable included, for example, selling about 200 state-run enterprises, Sombras Pasean Por La Casa de los Recuerdoes / Shadows walking around in the house of memories Etching, Cardboard & Polyethylene, pencil by Anne Moreno Courtesy of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here project

Center for Contemporary Arab Studies - Georgetown University

eliminating the right to unionize in most sectors, outlawing labor the previous year by five shell companies, implicating several senior strikes, opening Iraq’s banks to foreign ownership and control, mangovernment officials. Few are holding their breath that the funds will dating a regressive flat tax on income, lowering the corporate rate to be fully returned or that justice will ever be served. a flat 15%, eliminating taxes on profits repatriated to foreign-owned With Iraq back in the news surrounding the 20th anniversary, I’ve businesses, and even prohibiting Iraqi farmers from re-using “prothought about the U.S.-led occupation a great deal in recent weeks, tected” varieties of genetically modified seeds. and I keep coming back to this “lessons learned” workshop of 2003, Just as important as providing physdominated as it was by self-proclaimed ical security, these reforms were seen experts – many with limited regional as essential to enhancing human secuknowledge. Although I was not presrity, and the surest path to achieving ent, it is not difficult to imagine how democracy, stability, and prosperity for those conversations unfolded, and we Iraq. According to this logic, once the heard echoes of them in several recent remnants of the regime were ousted, articles and events held contemplating a comprehensive sanctions regime the invasion and subsequent occupalifted, and market-oriented reforms tion of Iraq. Sadly, many of the popenacted, foreign direct investment ular accounts from U.S. perspectives would be bountiful, and its fruits frame the tragedies of the Iraq War would trickle down. Revenues from primarily as a result of poor execution, Iraq’s natural resource wealth would focused mainly on poor planning and generate the national funds needed for administrative dysfunction. While its reconstruction, elections could be it is well-documented that the Bush held, and a constitution drafted. The administration failed to prepare for order of events here matters: Iraq’s the “day after” it began occupying Iraq, neighbors and, indeed, the entire Arab and turf wars between Foggy Bottom World, would see a thriving demoand the Pentagon often resulted in incratic country because it was “open coherent policies, far less attention was for business.” Meanwhile, in the real given to the deeper structures and sets world outside the Green Zone fortress, of beliefs that informed decision-makthe security situation worsened each ing to go to war and which shaped day, and unemployment soared to the policy prescriptions that followed, nearly 60 percent. For anyone paying such as the dogged conviction that attention, it was clear the country was neoliberal reforms necessarily lead to burning. Undeterred by events on the free, open, and prosperous societies. ground, however, the CPA vigorously Like the workshop twenty years ago, pursued the opening of the Iraq Stock these popular narratives – perpetuated Exchange: the September workshop by “thought leaders” in the DC think Streets Have Souls had, after all, identified a functioning tank circuit – are dangerous because Collagraph by Iram Wani Courtesy of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here equity market as a critical part of any they provide a false sense of greatproject economic transition. er understanding without seriously Twenty years later, the results of challenging any underlying assumpthe CPA’s attempts to remake Iraq in its vision speak for itself. tions. Without space for deeper reflection, we risk misidentifying According to a 2020 World Bank report, which uses similar metrics the root causes of the cataclysmic injustices perpetrated against Iraq as the CPA to measure economic growth, Iraq’s non-oil GDP has and Iraqis. And if only superficial critiques of the Iraq War are made remained flat for the past two decades, its economy continues to accessible, then we should not be surprised when the mainstream suffer from low labor participation and one of the lowest female “lessons learned” literature is confined to ahistorical and myopic participation rates in the world, and the country places just above thinking, offering only small tweaks along the margins of a faulty Afghanistan in its “Ease of Doing Business” ranking. And despite (or system anchored in notions of American exceptionalism and neopartly due to) its hydrocarbon wealth, Iraq has abysmally low levels liberal beliefs that are clearly in need of fresh thinking and radical of human and physical capital, coupled with the third-highest pover- transformation. The importance of this publication and others like ty rates in the world among upper-middle-income countries. While it is that they encourage critical analysis, and act as a counterbalance, most Iraqis struggle to make ends meet, elites have captured the offering alternatives to the same tired ways of thinking and set of state and treat public resources like personal slush funds. This was tools that contributed to the tragic consequences of the Iraq War evidenced most egregiously in October 2022, when the Ministry of twenty years ago.

Finance announced $2.5 billion dollars of Iraq’s national funds had been stolen from the General Commission of Taxes account over Paul J. McKinney is a 2021 MAAS alum and a veteran of the Iraq War.

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‫إضائة على الهيئة التعليمية‬

FACULTY SPOTLIGHT

No Good Way to Occupy a Country:

Conceptions of Culture in the Iraq War Q&A with Professor Rochelle Davis

CCAS Professor Rochelle Davis’ latest book project examines the role that the U.S. military’s conception of culture played in the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Her work—which makes use of interviews with U.S. servicemembers and Iraqis, as well as military documents, cultural training materials, journalist reports, and soldier memoirs—analyzes the narratives that are told about Iraqis, Afghans, Arabs, and Muslims and explicates the paradoxical military objectives of cultural sensitivity and occupation. Professor Davis, who has published two prior books on Palestine, is currently finalizing the manuscript for No Good Way to Occupy a Country. She shares a bit about her project below.

research—which includes interviews with 70 U.S. military personnel and 50 Iraqis, plus thousands of pages of written material and videos—grew into a book project, which is now almost completed.

What are some of the takeaways from the book?

First, that so much of the cultural training is mired in Orientalist and/or racist tropes copied and pasted from material that is ten, twenty or seventy years old. For example, the

How did you get started on this research?

When I came to teach at Georgetown in 2005, the U.S. occupation was in its third year and CCAS had invited the late Anthony Shadid to speak on his book Night Draws Near: Iraq’s People in the Shadow of America’s War. I recall an American military officer in the audience remarking that “we are trying to do better, we are trying to provide cultural training now.” As an anthropologist whose academic discipline is about culture and society, I was intrigued and wondered about the content of military cultural training.

I began going to lectures by civilians who worked for the military about their vision of “cultural training” and collecting material and eventually trained six student research assistants to conduct interviews with veterans and current services members. The 14

Mealtime etiquette tips from “A Short Guide to Iraq,” produced in 1943 by the U.S. War and Navy Departments, advised soldiers— even “southpaws”—to eat only with their right hands and to accept up to three cups of coffee, when offered, but to decline the fourth.

idea that Arabs take offense easily has been baked into military guides across the decades. The 1943 U.S. military’s Short Guide to Iraq issues a warning to take care in not offending locals, as that could undermine

Center for Contemporary Arab Studies - Georgetown University

the entire mission: “American success or failure in Iraq,” it reads, “may well depend on whether the Iraqis [...] like American soldiers or not.” This idea of the offendable Arab gets repeated in a Department of Defense Pocket Guide to the Middle East from 1962: “To avoid offending Arabs, you must observe their customs when you are with them. If you do, you will gain their warm friendship. Since their religious and social customs are closely intermingled, one misstep on your part might violate both.”

Fast forward forty years to the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan—and soldiers were still receiving similar information. One reported being told in his cultural training: “Instead of shaking hands, use the hand gesture of putting your palm over your heart. Not showing the bottoms of your feet.

The type of conduct that would be offensive to an Iraqi you picked up quickly.”

This trope of Arabs taking offense suggests that somehow Arabs are rigid and bound by their own behaviors, and thus are not familiar with other ways of life.

The focus on avoiding offence also struck me as misplaced. Perhaps because I saw the invasion of the country (any country) as wrong, the concern that a soldier might do something “offensive” seemed to focus on something trivial, given there was so much American violence toward Iraqis and the discounting of Iraqis’ expertise and knowledge. Suggesting that “causing offense” was what was critical to the occupation missed the point about why some Iraqis were not supportive of the U.S. presence in Iraq. One soldier described how, in his experience with cultural training, the power dynamic was framed almost as if the soldiers were tourists in a host country, and causing offense could result in getting

laughed or shouted at or kicked out of a café.

“You know,” he recalled learning “here are three or four things that you can do to not offend people. In sort of the same way that you would tell a tourist, which was not really … I don’t think at the depth of what we needed.”

Another example is the simplified depictions of the kufiya. For example, a red and white kufiya, according to the Iraq Culture Smart Card, meant the person was from a country with a monarchy, while black and

Depictions of the kufiya from the “Iraq Culture Smart Card.” The card was produced in 2006 by the Marine Corps and provided to U.S. soldiers as a pocket reference to the Iraqi people, their customs and history.

white indicated he was from a country with presidential rule. A plain white kufiya signified that the wearer had not been on pilgrimage to Mecca. But what did all this have to do with Iraq? Over and over again the

cultural training material relied on wrong information and Orientalist stereotypes and failed to demonstrate an understanding of the big picture. Was it racism on the part of the developers? Lack of time? Lack of knowledge? Much of the material lists no author, so it is difficult to probe further.

A second takeaway from the book was how the cultural training was counter to the U.S. government’s stated reasons for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The examples are many, but a blatant one is that President Bush cited, as one of three reasons for the invasion, the goal of bringing democracy to Iraqis. Many of the soldiers interviewed gave the same reason as to why they thought they were there. At the same time, the Soldier’s Handbook to Iraq, published by the Army 1st Infantry Division in 2003, declared that Iraqis are essentially unable to practice democracy because of their culture and faith: “[Their] desire for modernity is contradicted by a desire for tradition (especially Islamic tradition, since Islam is the one area free of Western identification and influence). Desiring democracy and modernization immediately is a good example of what a Westerner might view as an Arab’s ‘wish vs. reality.’”

DISPLACEMENT continued from p. 7

affected by—and endowed with power to affect—displacement-related policies. More significantly, the GU-IOM partnership concluded by creating a website where not only the published reports, but also the methodology, questionnaires, and merged panel dataset (combining rounds one through five of the study) are all publicly available for download and use.* At the inception of the study in 2015, IOM Iraq reported that there were approximately 3.3 million IDPs in the country.

Today, the IDP population stands at just under 1.2 million. These numbers, however, are calculated using the internationally recognized and codified standards of “counting” IDPs. If the IASC Framework suggests that most of Iraq’s IDPs have, over the years, found a solution to their displacement, Access to Durable Solutions Among

In other words, American soldiers being sent to invade and occupy Iraq to free its citizens were being told that Iraqis were not ready for democracy. This is despite the fact that Iraqis were on the street demonstrating for elections to be held after Paul Bremmer cancelled them in June 2003.

In presenting my research, I’ve had a number of military contractors and personnel ask me how I would recommend it be done differently. My response is always: “I’d start by not invading other countries”—hence the title of my book. I know that military personnel don’t have a choice.

They have to obey their orders.

Could the cultural training have been better? Certainly. Would it have changed the outcome? Unlikely. The most damaging impacts of the occupation resulted not from the types of surface-level, cultural interactions covered in the training materials. They resulted instead from policies that created sectarian political representation, postponed elections, and disbanded the Iraqi military and police—to name but a few.

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Associate Professor Dr. Rochelle Davis is the Director of Graduate Studies and holds the Sultanate of Oman Chair at CCAS. AUTHORITARIANISM continued from p. 11

IDPs in Iraq should serve as a reminder that it is equally important to take into account how IDPs see themselves; or in other words, to remember not only what the Framework tells us about the end of displacement in Iraq, but what Iraq tells us about the end of displacement.

of instability and war in Iraq unfolded, this resilience allowed them not only to survive threats at home but also to reap benefits from the regional insecurity left by the United State—and resulted in the clear decline of American predominance in the region.

Salma Al-Shami is Director of Research at Arab Barometer, a non-resident visiting scholar at CCAS, and an adjunct professor in the Global Human Development Program.

She served as the chief data analyst for Access to Durable Solutions Among Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Iraq.

Joseph Sassoon is a professor of history and holds the Sheikh Sabah Al Salem Al Sabah Chair at CCAS. The research for this article was conducted with Motasem Abuzaid, an alum of the MAAS program and current PhD student at St Antony’s College, Oxford.

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*See also https://ccas.georgetown.edu/resources/iom-gu-iraq-idp-study/ to read the IASC Framework and summary reports.

15

PUBLIC EVENTS

CCAS Conference on Iraq Twenty Years On: Prospects of Epistemic Reconstruction

By Motasem Abuzaid

Commemorating the 2003 invasion of Iraq twenty years on, CCAS hosted a conference exploring the invasion’s economic, social, and geopolitical consequences, as well as its representation in Iraqi arts and culture. The conference, held on March 31 in partnership with George Mason University’s Middle East and Islamic Studies Program and the Arab Studies Institute, also included a screening of the 2004 documentary, About Baghdad, the first film made after the fall of the Ba‘th regime. The film screening provided a way of foregrounding native Iraqi voices and perspective on the aftermath of the war and was followed by a discussion with the film’s directors.

The conference’s first panel session, titled “The Invasion of Iraq and After: Twenty Years On,” offered concise insights from a broad range of angles: the occupying forces, the state, the geopolitical order, and most importantly, ordinary Iraqis. It convened panelists with a considerable history of intellectual engagement with the subject,

who had the challenge of presenting their work in only twelve minutes each—twelve minutes for “twenty years and more, and one million lives,” remarked Iraqi writer Sinan Antoon on the magnitude of responsibility in the task at hand. With emphasis on the process of constructing historical narratives 16

while silencing certain historical events, Antoon highlighted how the “United States of Amnesia” has ignored or romanticized its actions (read congenital crimes) in the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. These actions, he asserted, led to the devastation of Iraq’s infrastructure, economic collapse, and the suffering of its people under American sanctions.

Antoon, who is a MAAS alum, also pointed out the epistemic violence that has been perpetrated against Iraqis in various forms, such as the fragmentation of Iraqi identity, the introduction of ethno-sectarianism, and the looting of artifacts (roughly 170,000 artifacts from museums and archaeological sites) and cultural objects (more than a million books and manuscripts, not to mention the Ba‘th Party archives). In line with this argument, CCAS Professor Rochelle Davis illustrated the tools underpinning this epistemic logic by analyzing the cultural training material provided to U.S. military personnel about Iraq. Davis, who interviewed over 90 American soldiers between 2002 and 2007, reported that the majority found the cultural training to be unhelpful, but still used the vocabulary and framework from the training to make sense of their mission. The framing of Iraqi identity, she maintains, assumed sectarianism

Center for Contemporary Arab Studies - Georgetown University

was inherent to Iraq and that Iraqis were incapable of democracy, contradicting one of the stated reasons for invading Iraq in the first place. (Read about her research on page 14) Taking an economic perspective, Case Western Reserve University Professor Pete Moore used the concept of a war economy to understand how regulatory seizure has allowed organized criminal groups to take control of parts of Iraq’s public sector, leading to a form of “unbuilding” the Iraqi State.

The state has not disappeared but rather has adapted to new political power, with the public sector expanding from 900,000 employees in 2003 to more than 3 million in 2015. However, these shifts have not led to improved socioeconomic outcomes for Iraq, which has one of the lowest human development index (HDI) scores. On the other end of political economy, Omar Sirri, a research associate at the University of London, highlighted the neglect of public infrastructure and the struggle for a “public” in Iraq.

He gave the example of vendors of basic materials like speed bumps selling primarily to local residents rather than to the government, as it was beyond imagination to think of the state taking responsibility for public roads—a reality that underlines the lack of trust in the successive governments since the invasion. Years of for-profit governance have privatized social life to such an extent that a return to any semblance of public administration would be difficult—and even the idea of it has become hard to entertain.

Geopolitically, the 2003 invasion of Iraq led to a spillover effect of authoritarian adaptation and practices. These have included regional polarization, securitization, sectarian and ethnic manipulation, transfer of counter-insurgency practices, and expansion of carceral systems (which bred early cells of the Islamic State). Iran was the major

political winner, and China the economic. In this light, CCAS Professor Joseph Sassoon explored a new institutional architecture of regional security in which the Abu Ghraib model inspired the adoption of supermax prisons by various regimes in the region as a punitive, often militarized, measure.

The second session, “Perspectives on Cultural Production Post-2003,” included a discussion with Lowkey, a British-Iraqi hip-hop artist, academic, and political campaigner. Drawing on historical examples of cultural resistance against British colonialism, Lowkey underscored the importance of culture in moments of tension between the occupier and occupied. In his view, the U.S. employed “soft power” and cultural diplomacy to shape narratives about Iraq and the invasion. American and European companies were awarded contracts for psychological operations, with a focus on altering Iraqi perceptions of the coalition forces. In a sense, much of the cultural production has been co-written by intelligence networks or their corporate “extractivists” to acquire Iraq and warp the art created.

Teacher and art-maker Rijin Sahakian shared her own take on epistemic violence, noting the challenges facing Iraqi artists and local cultural production, such as the lack of funding, limited access to resources, and constant exposure to successive trauma and instability. She noted how Iraq and its artists can sometimes be instrumentally used or misrepresented, as exemplified in the use of exhibitions on Iraq to whitewash past actions of a particular government or “philanthropist” against the Iraqi people, or to publicly normalize the dehumanization of Iraqi victims and the display of their tortured bodies.

On that note, Hanan Jasim Khammas, a postdoctoral fellow at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, insisted that the increased interest in translating and awarding post-2003 Iraqi fiction should be carefully considered, as it can lead to the commodification of people’s suffering into cultural products subject to market demands. After all, Iraqi literature should not be seen only as a record of pain and trauma, but also as a testament to life, creativity, and resilience.

In response to a question about the absence of U.S. invading forces in post-2003 Iraqi literature, the panelists noted how contemporary writing is still processing the 30 years of dictatorship and the horrors experienced under the Ba‘thist regime. They pointed out that the wounds of an eight-year war, the mass destruction in 1991, followed

by genocidal sanctions, all persist to this day.

Still, to Khammas, the sentiments induced by the invasion were akin to an Iraqi Nakba, so to speak. Several observations stand in support of this analogy: The invasion went against UN charters, the death toll today nears a million, and the internally displaced approximate 1.2 million, while 8 million more are scattered across the globe.

Throughout the 2000s, displaced Iraqis lived in the neighborhoods of Jaramana and Sit Zainab in Damascus right next to the Palestinians, in various districts in Istanbul and Berlin before the arrival of displaced Syrians, and formed cosmopolitan commu-

Dr. Omar Sirri, a research associate at the University of London, speaking at the “Iraq 2023: Twenty Years On” conference

nities in London and Birmingham, as well as Detroit and Chicago. As such, how many decades of writing would it take to actually process the catastrophic consequences of the invasion—which are still manifesting—and elevate them to a level of collective consciousness that counters the epistemic and moral disregard for Iraqi lives?

The conference ended with a screening of About Baghdad (available on YouTube) and a panel discussion with its directors: Sinan Antoon, Suzy Salamy, Adam Shapiro, and Bassam Haddad. The filmmakers noted the importance of offering a non-linear, fragmented perspective and focusing on the voices of average Iraqis eager to share their stories. They sought to highlight that Iraqis were not a monolith by showcasing historical and cultural diversity and varied perspectives on the war. The multiple interviews and conversations elucidate how living under a dictatorship for so long could generate drastically different impressions on the calamitous potential of the occupation

or views of how Iraq should be governed.

Released in 2004, the film pushed against the post-invasion hegemonic media current of the time and remains relevant with more recent youth-led protests in the country against the “1,000 more Saddams” in place of the original. More than 600 protesters were brutally killed, injured, or forcibly disappeared in 2019 as the world looked on with indifference.

“Do wars ever come to an end?” asked Sinan Antoon. They do end for the politicians and the pundits, he answered, but not for civilians—scars remain in the psyches of people, in their bodies, and in the urban and social fabric in which they live. Youth under the age of 25 today constitute two-thirds of the population and hardly remember the invasion. But these young Iraqis are also breaking free from narratives of victimization, incorporating revolutionary paradigms into the cultural landscape and moving away from colonial domination at the epistemic level (i.e. under the terms of tahrir or taghyir). Most of the panelists viewed collective action as a viable means for restoring the “public” and unshackling Iraq from the ethno-sectarian order that has been institutionalized in the post-invasion years. Compared to the discussions surrounding the tenth anniversary of the invasion, and despite the continued need for greater inclusion, Iraqi perspectives have been better represented in the major English-speaking publications and platforms this time around. Emerging scholarship—not to mention journalism, art, and literary production—dedicates more space to Iraqi voices, as exemplified through the works of Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, Sana Murrani, Omar Sirri, and Balsam Mustafa, among others. Such works also challenge America-centric knowledge production.

Standing in the face of an imperial juggernaut may be exacting, but as the conference demonstrated, this generation of Iraqis is equipped with a more solid intellectual and political foundation to express the suffering of their people and to engage in epistemic reconstruction of resistant imaginations.

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Motasem Abuzaid (MAAS ‘22) is a DPhil student in Politics at the Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR) at the University of Oxford (St Antony’s College).

Having lived in Damascus as a Palestinian, his current research examines the intersection of identity, local politics, and political violence in the Levant and Iraq.

17

PUBLIC EVENTS

A Hub of Knowledge Production

By Coco Tait CCAS has been fortunate this year to work with over a dozen external partners to expand our audience and the diversity of our public programming, with our twenty-five hybrid and virtual events reaching thousands of live attendees. Highlights of the spring events programming included three major conferences and a multi-part series on Palestine, which are detailed below and on page 16.

Palestine: Land, Life, Dignity

Over the spring semester, CCAS collaborated with American University’s Arab World Studies to feature four prominent Palestinian scholars and activists in a multi-part series exploring questions relating to land, life, and dignity within anti-colonial struggles. Their work brings to the forefront the living textures of colonial existence and highlights the centrality of innovation and collaborative visions in working against colonial erasures and in helping to forge emancipatory futures. Dr. Nour Joudah provided a glimpse of how mapping initiatives for Palestine and Hawai’i defy settler temporalities and work to actively build emancipatory futures. Ghadeer Malek performed poetry and discussed her seminal compilation (with co-author Ghaida Moussa), Min Fami: Arab feminist reflections on space, identity, and resistance.

Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s event focused on the power of the story, and of indigenous feminist voices that articulate presence, steadfastness, and wounds.

Shalhoub-Kevorkian emphasized that these voices mark existence, despite colonial attempts of erasure.

Vivien Sansour shared images and processes of development for two of her most recent art works, “The Belly is a Garden”, and “Something Else is Possible.”

Towards Sustainable Peace and Democracy in Yemen

The conference “Towards Sustainable Peace and Democracy in Yemen” was held on January 9th, in partnership with the DC think tank Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) and the Tawakkol Karman Foundation. It brought together leading Yemeni figures, subject matter experts, and Biden Administration policy makers to discuss how best to reach a permanent ceasefire and build a lasting peace. The conference highlighted how the U.S. and the international community can play an important role by uplifting Yemeni voices, addressing major humanitarian crises, and supporting the regional economy. For this conference, CCAS served as a resource and hub for knowledge production by providing the logistical management and incoming CCAS Director Dr. Fida Adely delivering opening remarks.

18

The Druze in their Adopted Lands

On April 14-15th CCAS, in partnership with the American Druze Foundation (ADF) and the Department of History and Archaeology at the American University of Beirut, hosted The Druze in their Adopted Lands. The conference, which brought together panels of leading researchers from across the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, explored the social and cultural evolution of the Druze, and the political roles of Druze communities, both in their countries of origin as well as in the diaspora. Among the speakers and moderators were current and former CCAS American Druze Foundation Fellows, including Dr. Benan Grams, Dr. Graham Pitts, and Dr. Lindsey Pullum.

Coco Tait is the CCAS Events and Program Manager.

Education Outreach Explores the Long 19th Century

During the week of July 31 to August 4, CCAS hosted the 2023 Summer Teacher Institute, “The Long 19th Century in the Middle East and North Africa, and Its Global Impact.”

The institute provided educators with a framework for understanding and teaching about the forces, groups and individuals who were agents of the enormous changes that took place during the mid-1700s to early 1900s—a period known as the "long nineteenth century"—and their impacts on people at all levels of society. Several Georgetown faculty, past and present, were among the speakers, including Joseph Sassoon, Mustafa Aksakal, Emad Shahin, Daniel Neep, Graham Pitts, and Benan Grams. The institute was made possible by a Title VI grant from the U.S. Department of Education and held in partnership with the Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.

Center for Contemporary Arab Studies - Georgetown University

‫ﺧﺎص ﻣﻦ اﻟﻄﻼب‬

STUDENT FEATURE

Student feature (Wissam)

Arise from Flames Woodcut by Art Hazelwood Courtesy of the AlMutanabbi Street Starts Here project

Astute War

By Shano Mohammed Yesterday my town fell ill

for a goodbye to hold on

Fathers bravely relented

at dead of a sunless dawn

Solemn kisses were left

Wrestling foreign forces alone

from its eyes, a fire blazed

On forehead of youth years

there was not much of a choice

dazzlingly everyone rode

Spring dreams by tombstones at rest

food, schoolbooks, legal papers

From a Phoenix bird

one prayer mat

In Nana’s colorful hand-sewed suitcase

to ants’ swarms.

centered muezzin and saint

from cradle to coffin

At the feet of astute war,

Whose minaret died

one purpose and only one

brought to their knees,

For the sake of marine corps

From remnants in unified rage

until they grew frail,

I asked my mother

to rise above mines and guns

mothers in faint voices wept

who are the new arrivals?

one step after another

from what they have bled,

shouldn’t we serve visitors tea?

fleeing death on feet

for what they have borne.

what differs them from the usual?

until the sky appears overhead

on sidewalks and under tents,

little did I know!

towards foreign fields able to bear

children were born

our tea and land fell in their hands

Wounded identities and weeping hearts

others were abandoned

and we no longer owned our house

beyond the borders of the homeland

little girls were placed,

little did I know

where our humanity was crossed out

Under barren trees and on hills,

she was making Sophie’s choice

for fate to step in.

to remain and have faith

grandmothers went underworld

or flee and save us both!

not even a slight handwave

At frontline rebel forces formed

Shano Mohammed is a rising second-year student in the MAAS program. See page 20 to read a personal essay by Shano.

19

DISPATCHES

Notes From Abroad

Life Beyond the Borders

by Shano Mohammed

I was born in March 1991, at the back of a lorry carrying nearly 100 women and children fleeing the horrors of Saddam Hussein’s regime. My life started amid the Kurdish uprising in Iraq, during which my family sought refuge in the Kurdish region of neighboring Iran. Being born under these circumstances, in war-torn, conflict-ridden, indeed blood-soaked Kurdistan, shaped my life and colored my personality in ways that I continue to discover every day.

My mother was forced into a marriage at the age of twelve, to an older man, who abused her for sport. My faint memory of home is of the recurring cries, screams, aches, and pains of mother and daughters abused by father and brother, while outside the confines of my so-called home, everyday life teemed with loud explosions and airstrikes. Everyone seemed to proceed with their ordinary lives, but I could not.

As a female in a Muslim Kurdish family from the historically-disputed, oil-rich city of Kirkuk I became acutely aware of the injustices that constantly surrounded me. I also became critical of the ultranationalism and religious zealotry that was forced down my throat from my early childhood education onwards. The possibility of a different way of life, wherein we all cherish our humanity and accept our differences, became my life pursuit. In that pursuit, I developed a voracious love of reading. I read everything within my reach. Perhaps this was because of the words that my mother often recited, almost like a sacred prayer: “Look at me, you don’t want to be like me, your education is everything, go study and be something, be someone.”

As I was preparing to attend university in 2011, Iraq was undergoing yet another bloody war. I was accepted to the University of Mosul, the epicenter of numerous regional conflicts. Fortunately, I was able 20

Dispatches ‫برقيات‬

Public Events ‫ت العامة‬

to transfer to university in Kirkuk. Had I what it’s like to finally find a place where not, I may have shared the fate of many in you belong.” In a truly meaningful sense, Mosul who were murdered or kidnapped. while I was still a foreigner at that moment, My Mosul-to-Kirkuk education as an enI did feel as though I belonged. For the very gineer was formative. Training as a scientist first time in my life, walking under a sky drove me to seek science-based solutions. clear of airstrikes, I was finally able to listen However, from my own experiences with to Fairouz without the obstructive sound conflict, I know that the response to indiof bombs. No longer was I bleeding from viduals and communities in conflict must decades of war. go beyond science.

Now, at the Georgetown Center for I believe the plagues and uncertainties Contemporary Arab Studies, I continue to of war require highly-educated and skilled cultivate a better understanding of culturalwomen to take responsibility and facilitate ly-adequate solutions to gender inequality a transition to peace and stability. As such, in the Arab world. In the course of my study in January 2016, I joined the International at Georgetown, I intend to directly engage Organization for Migration (IOM). Being stakeholders across genders and ethnicities a part of IOM’s Iraq Mission during and to craft solutions, thereby expanding the will after the crisis inflicted upon the region by ISIL helped me put my personal experiences into context. I learned how to better articulate the needs of conflict victims on the ground by considering both scientific logic and the humanity of these victims.

I had often pondered what life was like beyond the borders of the war-torn country we called our homeland…what Shano during her field research conducting interviews life looked like for those not with displaced Iraqis as part of an IOM-GU joint study born into war. Upon arriving in the United States for graduate school, the answers to these pressing quesfor growth in my country. Under the MAAS tions began to appear before me. When I banner, I hope to contribute to effective first walked the streets of Washington D.C., capacity-building in Kurdistan in order to in the front of my mind were all the little move away from the victim-perpetrator dyad girls back home who had been traumatized and effectively deal with the aftermath of at the hands of foreign forces in the name the many regional wars. of “saving,” or by their own families in the name of “honor.”

I was also trying to process my reality Shano Mohammed is a rising second-year as a Kurdish girl from a non-state nation, student in the MAAS program. One of Shano’s destined to remain a foreigner regardless poems appears on page 19. of destination. Then, on a morning walk through Columbia Heights, I happened upon a banner hung across a city wall that read in colorful bold letters, “You don’t know

Center for Contemporary Arab Studies - Georgetown University

Education Outreach

In the Headlines ‫اوين‬ Mabrouk! ‫مبروك‬

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