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Terrorism and Political Violence

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Polarization Between Occupier and Occupied in Post-Saddam Iraq: Colonial Humiliation and the Formation of Political Violence
Victoria Fontan
a b a b
Department of Political Science, Salahaddin University, Erbil, Iraq
Iraq Program at the Centre for International Conflict Resolution, Columbia University, New York, USA Available online: 25 Jan 2007
To cite this article: Victoria Fontan (2006): Polarization Between Occupier and Occupied in PostSaddam Iraq: Colonial Humiliation and the Formation of Political Violence, Terrorism and Political Violence, 18:2, 217-238 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09546550500383266
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Terrorism and Political Violence, 18:217238, 2006 Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0954-6553 print=1556-1836 online DOI: 10.1080/09546550500383266
Polarization Between Occupier and Occupied in Post-Saddam Iraq: Colonial Humiliation and the Formation of Political Violence
VICTORIA FONTAN
Downloaded by [Durham University Library] at 16:25 06 December 2011
Department of Political Science, Salahaddin University, Erbil, Iraq and Iraq Program at the Centre for International Conflict Resolution, Columbia University, New York, USA
This article analyses the mechanisms of colonial humiliation in post-Saddam Iraq. A case study of the city of Fallujah, where participant observation was carried out on two occasions, provides an account for the polarization between its population and occupation forces, which culminated in the partial destruction of the city in November 2004. Keywords polarization, humiliation, insurgency, terrorism, Fallujah, Iraq
Months after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime, insecurity has become a primary concern for many Iraqis. In a recent International Republican Institute poll, sixty two percent of Iraqi respondents claimed that their country is heading in the wrong direction because of a poor security situation.1 Placed in the realm of the War on Terror by the current Bush administration, the 2003 invasion of Iraq has been justified as a means to shift security threats outside U.S. territory. While no significant attack has shaken the U.S. since that of September 11, 2001, research suggests that worldwide terrorism has been at its highest level in more than twenty years.2 The current security situation in Iraq, where days without bomb blasts have now become an exception, seems to suggest that indeed, for the short-term at least, violence is concentrated in the Middle Eastern region. While the Bush administration might have succeeded in channelling violence into Iraq, evidence from the field suggests that the U.S.-led coalition presence in the country has become part of the security problem that post-Saddam Iraq is facing, part of an emerging entrapment. How did it come to this? How is such an entrapment expressed? How has the U.S. presence in Iraq managed to polarize part of the population against the very people that saw them once as their liberators? The present article will attempt to conceptualise the mechanisms of colonial humiliation in post-Saddam Iraq, established around dynamics of honour and shame, in order to help characterise the escalation of violence in various parts of the country over the months following the fall of Saddam Hussein. A case study
Victoria Fontan is directing the MA in International Peace Studies at the United Nationsmandated University for Peace, in San Jose, Costa Rica. Her research focuses on humiliation, terrorism and insurgency. Address correspondence to Victoria C. Fontan, 426th CA BN (SO), FOB Courage=Task Force Freedom, Mosul, Iraq, APO AE 09334. E-mail: vcfontan@mail.colgate.edu
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of the city of Fallujah, where participant observation among the population was carried out on two separate occasions, will give account for the growing polarization between the population of Fallujah and the coalition forces that culminated in the March 2004 Blackwater incident, which triggered the April 2004 Marine offensive in the town and was followed by the first generalised insurrection against the U.S. presence in Iraq. While this study concentrates on the systemisation of spontaneous political resistance in Fallujah into an organised insurgency, using humiliation as a catalyst but not as a primary cause, it will also analyse the conditions that led Fallujah to become a microcosm of the War on Terror, a modern day hippodrome where an esurient global audience is witnessing a brutally choreographed gladiatorial slaughter. Is the mutation of Fallujah the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy? How important are the lessons from Fallujah in leading to a broader understanding of insurgency in the rest of the country? The aim of this article is not to put blame on any party for the emerging entrapment process. Rather, it will be argued that actors on both sides of the axis are now perceiving themselves as victims, their actions motivated by honour, either to be restored, in the case of the people of Fallujah, or to be maintained, in the case of the coalition forces.
Conceptualising Honour/Humiliation in Iraq

In order to establish a pattern for conflict escalation in post-Saddam Iraq, it is necessary to analyse the relationship between humiliation, honour, and shame, as concepts and expressions of social boundaries. Of importance to the aforementioned notions will be their phenomenological expressions in a given context and culture. Humiliation, Honour, and Shame In recent years, the study of humiliation with regards to the formation of political violence has emerged, to provide an understanding for conflict escalation at an individual level. Attempting to go beyond polarized considerations pertaining to either the justification or condemnation of violence, limiting academic research and debating to peripheral rifts, few scholars have sought to link the loss of self-respect with that of national honour, this through the medium of humiliation. From an analysis of several of the humiliating components of the Treaty of Versailles to the formation of a generation of suicide bombers in the Israeli=Palestinian conflict, humiliation has been established as a decisive parameter in the individuals participation in genocide and terrorism.3 Avishai Margalit qualifies humiliation as any sort of behavior or condition that constitutes a sound reason for a person to consider his or her self-respect injured.4 In psychoanalysis, humiliation has been closely linked to the concept of shame. Both have even been characterised as being interchangeable.5 According to these analyses, the concepts of humiliation and shame are characterised as the result of a shame-inducing event, depriving the subject of self-value, or self-respect, and also ultimately inducing feelings of rejection.6 Shame is the result of the selfperception of a failure to live up to certain standards and ideals. Of importance to the analysis of humiliation therefore is the perception of an event as shameful, itself depending on cultural parameters. What is considered shame-inducing in one environment, such as having a woman directing traffic, might not only be considered as the norm in another culture, but also as reflecting gender equality. One does not
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feel humiliated at the sight of a female police officer directing traffic in the middle of Paris, New York, or Berlin. However, in the middle of Fallujah, Baghdad, or Najaf, where female coalition soldiers routinely undertake such duties, not only is this shame-inducing for the drivers who perceive themselves as being subjected to a humiliation, it also demonstrates on the part of the coalition forces a lack of cultural relativity in their occupation technique. Do Iraqis feel humiliated because the Military Police traffic officer is a female, because she is an American=occupier, or because she is both? What constitutes humiliation in Iraq? Humiliation in an Iraqi Context Avishai Margalit differentiates between two types of society with regard to humiliation: guilt and shame societies.7 Members of guilt societies internalise their norms, and therefore feel guilt when they disobey them, whereas the externalisation of norms in shame societies leads their members to seek to maintain their honour and good name in the eyes of others, this at all costs. In a shame society, disobedience is sanctioned through external humiliation, in the form of gossip and in worst cases banishment.8 Humiliation in a shame society constitutes the worst form of disgrace, leading to ostracism from the social construct. Margalit argues that humiliation in a shame society can only take the form of demotionlowering people in the social hierarchy in such a way that they feel shame with regard to the others.9 While Margalit further asserts that humiliation cannot account for the loss of self-respect in a shame society, as honour in the eyes of others supersedes any expression of self-respect, it will be argued that individual honour and sense of shame with respect to society does constitute a powerful expression of self-respect in Iraq. Should humiliation be interchangeable with shame, itself understood as the antonym of honour, then a definition of honour in Iraq would help conceptualise the dynamics of humiliation in post-Saddam Iraq. Honour is not a uniquely defined concept in Arab language and culture. It is defined by three words: sharaf, ihtiram and ird.10 Sharaf refers to a high rank or nobility obtained at birth. It can also be acquired through acts of social nobility and benevolence. Under the Ancien Regime, this aspect of honour had been appropriated by the Baathist class.11 Ihtiram accounts for the respect imbued upon one through the perceived emanation of physical force. Under Saddams regime, according to which side of the political spectrum one placed oneself, members of the police force could be considered as honourable, this as a result of the degree of respect assimilated by them, as a result of their jealously guarded monopoly of physical force. While this degree of honourability was not affordable to all, most men would own articles of weaponry to protect their families and honour. Finally, ird represents the preservation of a womans purity. Needless to say, the woman represents a most dangerous individual within Iraqi society, as a transgression on her part would cast shame on her whole family.12 An honourable father, brother, or husband will therefore ensure the protection of the women under their tutelage, sometimes by resorting to honour killing, that is to say, killing the sexually deviant female relative in order to cleanse the family honour.13 This type of killing is seen as protection exerted both against women, considered as an inherently deviant creature, and against other males.14 Although Saddam Husseins Baathist regime had sought to counter these cultural beliefsSaddam Hussein once allegedly asserted against the wearing of the hejab that the responsibility to control ones sexuality should be placed upon men, and that the sight of a womans hair
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should not be understood as an encouragement to engage in sexual activity. This vision of women has remained entrenched within Iraqi society. According to Margalit, these three perceptions of honour make Iraq a shame society, where the loss of any of the parameters explained above accounts for the demotion of the individual within the social hierarchy.15 A loss of physical force, the attempt to a womans ird, and the disowning of ones social rank will therefore account for the humiliation of an individual, of self-respect in relation to societys sense of honour. Considering the expressions of honour depicted above, the notion of a U.S. service-woman directing traffic in the middle of Fallujah might shed light as to why some men may feel uncomfortable. Furthermore, it might help understand how the demise of a twenty-five-year-old dictatorship could alienate liberators and liberated from one another.
Perceptions of Honour Humiliation in Post-saddam Iraq: Conveyed, Spread, Magnified

The greatest humiliation of all was to see foreigners topple Saddam, not because we loved him, but because we could not do it ourselves. This statement, given by thirtythree-year-old Shiite Haida Assafi, in March 2004, is an indicator of the role that a collective externalisation of humiliation may have played in the Iraqi polarization against coalition forces.16 Was it ever viable for any foreign army to liberate Iraqis from Saddam Husseins dictatorship? According to a poll conducted in four different regions of Iraq, eighty-nine percent of Iraqis agree that Saddam Hussein would not have been removed from power by Iraqis if U.S.=British forces had not taken direct military action.17 In the same poll, however, more than eighty percent of Iraqis interviewed in Baghdad, Shiite, and Sunni areas, claim to think of coalition forces as occupiers. If Haida Assafis characterization of humiliation in post-Saddam Iraq is accurate, then there seems to exist a strong correlation between the collective sense of shame not to have toppled Saddam Hussein and the collective alienation of Iraqis against the coalition presence in their country, externalised in a rejection of occupation. Therefore, humiliation as the perception of shame by a given event, that is to say the removal of Saddam Hussein, and inducing a loss of honour, is perceived daily through a collective perception of the occupation of Iraq. Numerous are the Iraqis who complained to the author about petrol queues, the lack of electricity and clean water, and the security vacuum.18 While many of these complaints are foreign to many in Western environments, it may seem legitimate to ask why a growing majority of Iraqis has chosen to resort to violence in order to bring an end to the occupation of Iraq. Indeed, American right-wing news-media, as well as members of U.S. army staff interviewed during the authors research, seem to wonder why newlyliberated Iraqis would engage in terrorist activities because of such daily and relatively minor inconveniences. After all, should the Iraqi people not feel indebted to the coalition for having liberated their country? The following section will attempt to deconstruct the coalitions perception of Iraqi society. It will attempt to demonstrate how an oversimplified conceptualisation of Iraqi society may have lost the coalitions peace, if indeed it was ever possible to achieve. It will do so by providing examples of humiliation from various communities that constituted the Iraqi population under Saddam Husseins regime, understood by the coalition under the banners of victimizers and victimized. It will also explore the concept of reparation with regard to honour. While providing a few practical analyses of honour humiliation
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according to the criteria exposed earlier, the medias ambivalence in relation to Iraq will be also analysed. First, the news-media responsibility for nurturing the coalitions perception of Iraqi society will be questioned. Second, its role in maintaining the fear and discontent among the colonised will be assessed. Victimizing the Victimizer Saddam never humiliated us the way the Americans do, I had a job, I was safe, and now look at me, said Ali Rasheed, exposing a large defence wound on his right leg.19 Ali Rasheed is a thirty-eight-year old retired police officer who claims to have been robbed by four U.S. troops on May 19, 2003, at an army checkpoint located in the south of Baghdadon the road to Eskanderia. After discovering that he was carrying a semi-automatic handgun, Ali asserted that the four soldiers beat him with the gun cross, and then took a sum of 600,000 Iraqi dinars from him, as well as his watch and a packet of cigarettes.20 Two days earlier, under the de-Baathification process initiated on May 16 by Coalition Provisional Authoritys administrator (CPA) L. Paul Bremer III, Ali had to abjure his membership of the Baath Party, and was stripped of his position as a police officer. He reluctantly signed a form that states: I will obey the laws of Iraq and all proclamations, orders and instructions of the Coalition Provisional Authority. The immediate shame-inducing effect of the alleged attack on Ali is not difficult to comprehend: he claims to have been put face down on the ground, beaten, and robbed. However, Ali also felt humiliated for a number of other reasons. He was stripped of his social status as part of the CPAs de-Baathification program, he is now unable to provide for his family as a civilian, and he has lost his institutionally maintained monopoly of physical force. In the shame-society of Iraq, Ali has been socially demoted, and stripped of his ihtiram, or monopoly of physical force. In other words, Ali has suffered a multi-faceted humiliation. Some might argue that, as a Baathist officialthe ruling hand of Saddam Husseins regimeAlis power to terrorise the population had come to an end, and that what goes around comes around. Using the same logic, one might assert that his past victims, probably numerous, were vindicated by the humiliation to which he was subjected. This was the opinion of first coalition proconsul Jay Garner when interviewed on the subject.21 Ali wanted the author to report on his ordeal, and when confronted by Jay Garners statement, Ali emphasised that he joined the Party because he believed in its pan-Arab, socialist, and secular ideology. He replied that he used to believe that the Baathist precepts of welfare and equality were the only hope for sustainable development for the Arab world. He stressed that he never committed any crime against the Iraqi civilian population, he was just a police officer. The coalitions simplistic understanding of Iraq was recognized as flawed within a few months, after the realisation by the Bremer administration that the aforementioned de-Baathification program had antagonised a major part of the Iraqi population to the Coalition Provisional Authority. Instead of redeeming itself, however, the coalition once again made several unforgivable faux pas. In early December 2003, the author interviewed a former Republican Guard General, the day after the coalition asked him to join its efforts in pacifying Iraq. The General recalled: They came to my house, and said that they needed my help in rebuilding my country. . . I told them that working with them was too dangerous, that I did not want my family to be killed, and that I was not going to
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V. Fontan help them make of Iraq a puppet regime for their interests and that of the Jews in the region.
The day after he was interviewed by the author, two days after being solicited by the coalition, this man was arrested and taken to Abu Ghraib. At the time of writing, he remains imprisoned.22 Of importance to the debate on humiliation in post-Saddam Iraq is the news-media validation of a polarized Iraq. In a Manichean effort to adapt Iraq to a growing fast-food type media industry, the international media seems to have unquestionably adopted U.S. foreign policys frame of good versus evil. During the de-Baathification period, it assimilated Baathist ideology with Saddam Hussein, in the same way that Marxism was once understood as Stalinism during the McCarthy-ite erato that effect, members of the public were reminded on numerous occasions of how much Saddam Hussein aspired to become the Joseph Stalin of Iraq.23 While the international news-media has rightly emphasised the evil nature of the Saddam Hussien regime, it has failed to recognise the difference between active and passive Baathist officials, between individuals who joined the Baath Party for ideological reasons, out of fear, to gain sustainable employment, or out of devotion to the Rais. By adopting a frame of oppressors and the oppressed with regard to Iraqi society, the international media has failed in its primary duty, that of acting as monitor of the centres of power. It validated the CPAs arbitrary retribution against an important component of the Iraqi population without ever questioning its precepts. However, almost no mention was made in the U.S. of the back-peddling that was initiated by Paul Bremer after realising that de-Baathifying Iraq was a crucial mistake. After years of purges within the Iraqi ruling elite, another purge occurred in time of peace. Thousands of civil servants like Ali Rasheed were cast aside, humiliated. Those individuals were professionals. In the case of Ali, he was aware of criminal networks operating within Iraq, drug trafficking as well as human trafficking. This arbitrary division of Iraqi society along ethnic and social lines has had the effect of antagonising the rest of the population to the coalition forces, this through an upsurge in insecurity. Recently, the CPA has come to the realisation that the deBaathification process has denied Iraq of valuable members of its professional elite. The realisation that the de-Baathification process would purge the Iraqi professional elite should have arisen before it was implemented. Victimizing the Vulnerable As another expression of honour in Iraqi society, the preservation of a womans shame is central to the well-being of a family, clan, and tribe. However remote from Western values this perception of women is, it is of crucial importance to recognise its significance in Iraq, this through exerting cultural relativity when analysing the post-Saddam security situation and its consequences with regards to the reparation of tarnished honour. According to the above analysis of ird, it is necessary to consider that any violation of this honour code will cast shame and humiliation on a family, which will invariably have to be repaired.24 How is the occupation of Iraq understood by the local population as being extremely harmful to societys most vulnerable? How will the perceived coalition nonchalance crystallise the divide between occupied and occupier? The de-Baathification of an important component of the police force in postSaddam Iraq has maintained the law and order vacuum that emerged after the
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coalitions invasion of the country, paving the way for a strengthening of organised crime networks which had already existed under Saddam Husseins regime. While some communities seemed to have restored security in parts of the country such as in Najafbefore the assassination of Sayeed Baqr al-Hakim on August 29 and the insurrections of April and August 2004Baghdad was plagued by a resurgence of criminality, targeting especially women and young girls. In early June 2003, after being allowed by coalition forces to grant an interview to the author in his own station, Police Lieutenant Ghazi Kadhum Ghazi, from al-Alawiya station, explained the resurgence of organised crime in the aftermath of the invasion: As an Iraqi police officer, I am not allowed to do my job, I cannot implement the law against criminals. I know who they are, and my former boss also, but he was fired, and the Americans do not allow us to arrest them, they are scared to draw attention on themselves from the gangs of criminals. For the first time I have seen drugs sold freely in the streetshashish, cocaine and mostly heroin, coming from Afghanistan, isnt it ironic? Such a breakdown of law and order has had dreadful consequences for Iraqi women. Since the end of Saddam Husseins regime, women have lived in fear of abduction and rape.25 Since May 2003, rumours of rape have thrived throughout Baghdad, and many are verified. A Human Rights Watch investigation carried out between May and June 2003 has found twenty-five credible reports of sexual violence against women. The author also found several more including that of sixteen-year-old Baida Juffur Sadick. She was abducted on her way to school (walking with her classmates) on May 22 and taken into a car at gun-point. She had pleaded with her uncle to return to school amidst a climate of fear. She has never returned since and is believed to have been abducted by a neighbour.26 Baidas family is planning to retrieve her, as well as to exact revenge on the man who abducted her in order to cleanse the family honour. However, Nagham, Baidas sister, confided that, should her sister ever return home, her honour and that of her family would be eternally tarnished, and that someone would have to pay the price of reparation. Nagham fears that Baida will be targeted upon her return; she concluded that she might be safer if she is dead.27 In Iraq, a woman who has suffered rape is considered to be dead to society, as she is held responsible for having enticed males to abduct, rape, or molest her.28 While Baidas future is difficult to predict at present, a comparison of her condition and that of female suicide bombers in the Israeli=Palestinian conflict could draw the following conclusion: should she return home, Baidas opportunity to redeem herself in the eyes of society could be to engage in an act of violence against occupation forces. This was the case for Wafa Idris, the first woman to carry out such a type of operation in June 2002, as she sought to cleanse the dishonour she had inflicted on her family.29 When asked what was more important to him and his family, democracy or security, Baidas uncle, a Shiite from Sadr city, replied that security was more important than anything else. He carried on by stating that Iraqi people did not want to become economically assisted, that they wanted a decent society where their daughters could go to school without being attacked. Coalition forces understood this necessity, and started to place guards at the entrance of some Baghdad schools towards the end of May 2003, too little too late, according to Baidas uncle. Of importance to a timely understanding of Baidas story is the significance of reparation in Iraqi society, to be
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gained at any cost. Although the culprit for Baidas disappearance was at one stage thought to be a neighbour, an Iraqi, Baidas family are holding the coalition forces responsible for not ensuring Baidas security, for they perceive that their tarnished honour results from insecurity in the streets of Baghdad. The virtual decommissioning of the Iraqi army and police has touched the most vulnerable within the population, and has disregarded other members who desperately needed protection. Gangs of criminals who were known to the police now operate freely. Houses sequestrating and selling young girls and women into prostitution in Gulf countries are now functional.30 The Local Media, Rumours, and the Collectivisation of Honour Humiliation
Baidas ordeal is an example of the coalitions inability to understand warning signs relating to the escalation in occurrences of perceived humiliation in post-Saddam Iraq, in spite of such warning signs existing as early as June 2003. Indeed, the collective and individual humiliation felt as a result of a tarnishing of ird soon took epic proportions, this through the media sensationalism of a growing insecurity. The fall of twenty-five years of dictatorship has precipitated the emergence of all kinds of tabloid newspapers in post-war Iraq. This sudden upsurge of freedom of expression was not anticipated by the coalition administration. From one day to the next, facilitated by foreign funds or relying on local networks, every fringe of the Iraqi population found a voice. At first, gruesome accounts of the Ancien gime brutality became ordinary to many opposition newspapers. The Double Re of Saddam Hussein sold his story to the press, and a day-by-day recollection of the horrors of Baathist rule were serving the interests of the coalition, itself relying on a victimizer-victimized rhetoric to impose an unquestioned occupation. The majority of Iraqi people, relieved to have been saved from the ogre, spent the first few days of New Iraq celebrating their newly-found freedom. However, discontent spurred by the collapse in law and order began to emerge in newly-formed newspapers. Needless to say, after years of censorship and relying on government sources for information, local media outlets were not equipped to apply journalistic ethics to their coverage of New Iraq. A plethora of reports similar to Ali Rasheeds ordeal were printed, sometimes without verification. More damagingly to the coalition, various reports on sexual relations between U.S. soldiers and Iraqi women were published, such as U.S. soldiers distribute pictures of naked women to schoolgirls, American soldiers have sex with Iraqi women in their tanks, or soldiers night-vision goggles allow them to see underneath womens clothes. One very damaging rumour concerning the 82nd Airborne division in Fallujah was that soldiers were pawing local women when searching houses. In a matter of weeks, the coalitions presence was perceived to be impugning the honour of Iraqi women, and hence all Iraqis. In its second edition of June 1, 2003, the newly-formed ArabicEnglish newspaper Al-MuajahaThe Iraqi Witnessprinted the following statement in English: May the mercy of God fall on the earth in these days. . . Wake up, people, wake up. . . Invaders are in our country. . . Weve been through hard times under the old regime, but we were better than we are now. . . Our streets are filled with shame . . . Look at those girls who are having sex with the Americans in their tanks, or in the bathrooms at the Palestine Hotel. A
Polarization Between Occupier and Occupied in Post-Saddam Iraq man I know saw a girl go with 3 soldiers to the bathroom in the hotel, and went down to see what are they were [sic] doing. The door was locked, so he kicked it down. The Americans ran away, and he threatened to kill the girl if he saw her doing this anymore. Another girl was wearing jeans and nice clothes, hanging around and having fun in the tank. Some people in the streets asked her what she was doing with them. Her answer was so honest. She said, I am a whore. Wake up, Wake up, O People of Iraq Wake up!
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This type of article should have been correctly interpreted as a warning sign given by Iraqis to the coalition, for rumours against coalition members mirrored those rumours regarding Saddam Husseins son Uday only a few weeks earlier.31 U.S. soldiers had become as bad as Uday Hussein in collective Iraqi opinion, only this time, Iraqis would not be afraid to reclaim their stolen honour. As Iraqi women represent a crucial embodiment of honour in Iraq, reports on sexual harassment by coalition soldiers constituted a grave characterisation of the perceived humiliation of the Iraqis. While such behaviour was revered by a warped few as a demonstration of physical forcea legitimate droit de cuissage afforded to the new lords of Iraq most Iraqis resented these foul reports immensely. In the eyes of many, the coalitions indirect responsibility for creating a security vacuum which facilitated the abduction of girls and women was as bad as if soldiers had carried out the abductions themselves. In post-Saddam Iraq, all the people interviewed by the author fear for their womens security, and the inextricably related family honour. They deeply resent having to face random humiliation due to the lack of coalition efforts to maintain law and order. Fadia Nassif Tar Kovacs quantified the impact of rumours on conflict escalation in Lebanon.32 The same exercise could be applied to post-Saddam Iraq. When questioned on the damaging impact of the al-Muajaha statement quoted above, the newspapers editor, Ramzi Kysia, stressed that the feature ran in the papers opinion page, and that it was the papers intention to run an open forum on the occupation of Iraq.33 Other newspapers, not openly opposed to the coalitions policies, also ran stories based solely on rumour. In a matter of days fears became news. Reparation for the coalition neglect of the Iraqi people was sought openly in newspapers. For instance, an American Humvee was damaged following a hand grenade attack in the Mansour Area of Baghdad in late May 2003. This event was reported in several newspapers as a rocket-propelled-grenade attack which destroyed the vehicle and killed the two soldiers inside. Far from understanding these rumours as the symptomatic expression of a narcissistic collective wish to dispose of the occupying coalition authority, the Bremer administration decided by the end of May 2003 to impose press censorship in the country.34 It was too late, the damage was already done. Instead of organising media training sessions, the coalition antagonised the media even more. While it is difficult to apply a qualitative impact analysis on the local medias collectivisation of humiliation, the influence this has had on the formation of the Iraqi resistance is undeniable. Many are the Iraqis who assert their belief, for instance, of the coalition troops sexual involvement with Iraqi women. Were newspapers such as Al-Muajaha solely reflecting the public mood or were they merely involved in spreading rumour? Certainly their occupation rhetoric furthered the divide between occupiers and occupied, in much the same manner as the international media misunderstood the shaping dynamics of Iraqi society. Should freedom of expression prevail even when it is used to fuel a rebellion?
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Whether intentional or not, the institutionalisation of humiliation on the part of the coalition towards the Iraqi population (through the de-Baathification process, the neglect of post-conflict security issues or ethical media development) has created among that population a collective sense of rejection of what it now perceives as an occupation.
Learn from Fallujah: Clan Honour, Colonial Humiliation and Reparation

The expressions of honour characterised earlier are manifested collectively in Iraq through a dyadic system of tribal organisation. It is composed of the nuclear family unit acting as a vector into the extended family network, the clan, and ultimately the tribe. In the period following the demise of Saddam Husseins government, the town of Fallujah received worldwide media attention. The name is now synonymous with international terrorism or armed resistance, depending on whether one views the war in Iraq in terms of liberation or occupation. Fallujah serves as a prime example of how the loss of honour through humiliation played an important role in the ad hoc formation of an insurgency which led to the subsequent systemization of political resistance. This culminated in the establishment of an Al Qaeda cell in the city in late March 2004, a time when the leaders of local resistance groups were being deposed of their command by foreign elements. Can Fallujah be liberated and occupied simultaneously? How has Tawfic al-Jihad, recently renamed Iraqs Al Qaeda, infiltrated the town? Can the formation of political violence be solely ascribed to Saddam loyalists? Of whom is the insurgency composed? Researching in Fallujah: Issues on Participant Observation The field research in Fallujah was carried out during two separate visits. The first, in May-June 2003, was initiated in order to analyse the polarization between occupier and occupied in the urban area. Two related variables were identified. First: the development of urban warfare as a viable resistance technique. Second: the ad hoc development of an urban peacekeeping protocol by the coalition troops. The overall objective of the research was to establish if, between May 2003 and March 2004, a perception of humiliation fostered a local systemisation of acts of resistance against a perceived occupier, and also whether Fallujah served as an impetus for the rise of future resistance activities within the rest of Iraq. Behind these assertions lay the following question: what happened between May 2003 and March 2004 for Fallujah to become a safe haven for international terrorism? An important parameter with regard to the sustainability of the resistance movement in Fallujah was established: the capture of Saddam Hussein on December 12, 2003. Fallujah was labelled by the coalition as a safe haven for terrorism, due to the fact that Fallujah was and is a Sunni-dominated and ex-Baathist town, formerly the host of major factories involved in the production of chemical warfare agents.35 Thus, the hand of Saddam was easily blamed for the upsurge of anti-coalition violence. Would the capture of Saddam Hussein diffuse resistance activities by the remaining members of the Baath Party? Indeed, was the resistance co-ordinated by Saddam Hussein himself, or by external forces? Following the arrest and sequestration of Saddam, the possibility that the armed resistance was being co-ordinated by foreign elements needed to be investigated. Such a possibility could only be verified through grass-roots research. Hence the second field research that was initiated shortly after his capture.
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The field research took the form of a qualitative observation of American raids around Fallujah in June 2003, as well as the response that these raids triggered among the local population. Interviews were carried out with ordinary members of the publicmainly local residents, but including self-confessed members of the armed resistance as well as coalition soldiers. Due to the sensitive nature of the subject, the interviews took an unstructured form and were unrecorded. Only the names of coalition soldiers can be mentioned. Were the respondents truthful towards and trustworthy of the author? The author used originally what is referred to in anthropology as the sponsoring method, drawing on an acceptance from Iraqs dyadic system, an approval which, in Iraq, represents a binding social contract. This initial method was then followed by a snow-ball technique, drawing on subsequent introductions.36 According to these methods of social introduction and referral, respondents who agreed to be interviewed were aware of the responsibility for truthfulness and openness, within security limits, both for them and for the author. On her part, it was established that the author would preserve the anonymity of the respondents. For this reason, no names, locations, or religious affiliations can be mentioned in the text. It can be stated, however, that not all respondents were Sunni Muslims. The second field research took the same form as the first, and was used as an updating field-presence in order to avoid possible effects of snapshot research. The same individuals who were interviewed in May and June were questioned again, as well as others, and the differing parameter that was introduced was mainly but not exclusively the capture of Saddam Hussein. Iraqi society is made up of approximately 150 tribes, composed by the alliance of at least 2000 clans.37 In this respect, an isolated incident involving the death or injury of a person can become a direct attack on his or her clan, itself demanding another death to cleanse the clans honour. In late March 2003, troops from the 82nd Airborne division were welcomed in Fallujah with a barbeque organised by the townspeople. A few days later on April 28, 18 demonstrators were shot dead by soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division Bravo Company in front of the local school. They had gathered to celebrate the birthday of Saddam Hussein. No ballistic evidence was found by international observers in the walls of the school, while an internal military enquiry confirmed that the soldiers reacted with disproportionate force.38 The coalition troops involved in the shooting were not equipped to understand the wider implications of such an incident. Following the shooting, no reparation (commonly referred to as blood-money) was offered to the families of the victims. However, according to the tribal organisation of Fallujah, as well as other parts of Iraq, the blood spilled on that day had to be avenged, through the payment of compensation, or the spilling of more blood. Since this tragic incident, raid after raid and retaliation upon retaliation have caused the deaths of hundreds of civilians and coalition soldiers. From Conflict Escalation to Colonial Humiliation: The Formation of Violence The field research carried out in June 2003 took the form of an observation, both of the coalitions occupation technique, and of the local populations response to it. The research became an observation of urban occupation and resistance. The following incident depicts a pattern of escalation typical of those observed in Fallujah. During the night of June 3, 2003, a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) was fired at a Military Police (MP) patrol. One soldier died and eight others were injured. The remaining members of the platoon spent the night cleaning up the disorder left by
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the assault, including the remains of their colleague scattered on the road.39 Central command in Qatar then ordered the same MP platoon to raid the street where the RPG was thought to have been launched. First, the company undertook to block the road, dispatching a visibly terrified young female soldier to face angry motorists. In a society where women solely exist in relation to shame, the presence of a woman as a figure of authority was seen by locals as an insult to their culture. Soon a defiant crowd of men gathered in front of the young soldier. She yelled at two of them not to cross the road, and in disobedience they did so. A male colleague of the female soldier joined the road block and shouted abuse at the crowd but eventually let the two men cross the road. Although the abuse directed at the crowd was shouted in English, the universality of the cursing utilised meant that it was perfectly understood by the locals. On the other side of the street, the raid was then initiated. House by house, kicking gates and doors open, a disproportionate number of MP soldiers initiated their search of private properties. Out of frustration, anger, and fear at the American intrusion in her street, a local school teacher took out her AK-47 in order to defend herself and her house. She was alone in the house at the time, with her children, and refused to have armed men enter the house, as according to the Iraqi honour code, their intrusion would tarnish her honour and that of her family. The troops spotted her and immediately put themselves in shooting position. A paramedic team, stationed in the back of the street, commented to a colleague of the author: I hope they wont start shooting. They are scared and tired, if they start firing, they will get out of control, they always do.40 The school teacher realised that she was powerless and let the MP enter her house. She was arrested and taken away by two female soldiers. Upon her release from the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, in October 2004, more than sixteen months after her arrest for pointing her AK-47 at U.S. soldiers, she stated to her neighbours that she had heard that U.S. soldiers were touching women during raids, and that therefore she was afraid to have strange men entering her house. On the occasion of the womans arrest, tension had been diffused between soldiers and locals, and no shots had been fired. Nevertheless, this womans fate was sealed. A few days after her release from Abu Ghraib, she disappeared. Her neighbours believe that she was thought to have been raped during her time in prison, and that she was killed in order for her familys honour to be cleansed.41 After her arrest, the house-to-house raid resumed until another house decided to resist. The result was the same with two men being sent to Abu Ghraib. Ordered to carry out a house-byhouse search to retrieve incriminating ammunition that could have been used in the attack carried out the night before, the MP were then faced with the difficult task of searching the local candy store. A frail old man was taken out of his shop and his neighbours, astounded, commented: [H]ow dare they, he is a powerless old man, these people have no shame. The residents of the street felt humiliated by the intrusion of the MPs in their homes, as well as by the treatment of a defenceless old man, praying as he was taken out of his store. Fortunately for everyone that day, there were no direct casualties, but irreparable damage had been done to the residents honour. On the same day, searches only a few streets away resulted in the death of civilians.42 Are the platoons required to carry out these raids aware of the antagonism that such a mishandling of the locals provokes? When asked if the MP approved of these methods, Sergeant Seth Cole asserted that these were standard practises, ordered by the Divisions chain of command. He stated:
Polarization Between Occupier and Occupied in Post-Saddam Iraq [W]e keep telling our superiors that this is not the way to operate with the locals, but they dont listen, they never do this sort of operation. They want us to get tough and they do not understand that this is not the proper way to behave with the Iraqis. The chain of command is alienating the locals from us. We kill and get killed because of that.43
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At the time of researching in June 2003, such incidents occurred in an increasing number of locations placed under U.S. army control, not only in Fallujah but also in numerous other locations around Iraq. When asked how he saw his involvement with the U.S. army in Iraq, Sergeant Cole replied:
[W]e arrived in the region genuinely thinking that this was going to be a short mission, and that there were weapons of mass destruction. Frankly, I dont think there are, they [the U.S. government] should just have planted some. . . We dont know when we are going to return home, we are tired and we know things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. Sergeant Cole was right about his last statement. Moreover, morale still appears to be low among soldiers, as most interviewees have made similar statements to the author. Their fear and resentment of the population results in a widening of the gulf between occupier and occupied, whereby both parties now see themselves as victims, blaming each other for the escalation of violence. Between May 2003 and April 2004, raids could be ordered on houses solely based on unverified snippets of information, which in turn triggered random acts of violence and retaliation.44 While troops were aware of the shortcomings of these practises, they felt that their requests for more decent procedures were falling on deaf ears. As a result, they became increasingly nervous when carrying out grass-roots operations. Many troops told the author that they were fully aware of the fact that local people were bound to react against the daily humiliations that they were ordered to carry out. Corporal Chris Tooey, 82nd Airborne Corporal, wounded in Fallujah in November 2003, explained how things deteriorated in the town: [W]e arrived from Afghanistan and thought that things were going to be the same. We never got any cultural awareness training for Iraq because we never ran into any major problems over there [Afghanistan], things were so much easier, the population liked us. In Fallujah, we encountered resistance almost as soon as we got in, they viewed us as occupiers from the start, well, we were I guess. We let things escalate from pretty early on, we had no clue how to deal with locals, we thought they were all out to get us, maybe they thought the same.45 Ghassan Hage refers to humiliation as the experience of being physically demeanedtreated less than a human being, by someone more powerful than you.46 In relation to Alphonso Lingis characterisation of the rage and resentment towards oneself for not being able to crush an aggressor, from either social weakness or fear of group retaliation, Hage then transfers the stoked violence felt by such an individual into a collective and national context. He states: One has to imagine how much more powerful this effect, this stoked violence, is when this situation described by Lingis is a structured, enduring, daily encounter with a colonial aggressor, whom you cannot even hope to
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V. Fontan have the strength to be witty against. Alphonso Lingis allows us an insight into the colonial circulation of affect, without which an understanding of the social conditions of the emergence of suicide bombers cannot be complete.
In a Fallujah context, and in light of the type of humiliating event as portrayed above, a conceptualisation of not only the escalation of violence, but the systematic formation of resistance, becomes clearer. Hage concludes, referring to organisations that recruit suicide bombers: [P]erhaps their primary function and the secret of their success is that they are mechanisms for the channelling of this colonial affect, transforming the stoked violence born out of colonial impotence into anticolonial potency An important difference can be made between the Palestine=Israel conflict and the formation of the resistance in Fallujah: recruitment and training are not the only viable parameters. As the case of the local female school teacher demonstrates, resistance can be born out of frustration, and was expressed as such across Fallujah. Among other factors, the crucial parameter that the coalition failed to understand with regard to the formation of resistance activities in Fallujah was that it found its roots within the population. At no stage during her June research did the author come across foreign fighters organising, training, and financing resistance. Indeed, the resistance did not exist as such. Rather, it was expressed through ad hoc acts of anticolonial potency. Retro-ceding Collective Honour or Re-creating Urban Occupation Warfare? After months of attacks, retaliation, and retribution, in the same frame of mind that would later push the Bremer administration to unde-Baathify Iraq, the 82nd Airborne Division chain of command agreed to apply some form of cultural relativity in its handling of the people of Fallujah. The Mayor of Fallujah organised a meeting on August 9, 2003 between Lt. Col. Hickey, local U.S. forces commander, and the heads of the seven major tribes comprising the towns population.47 A stabilization pact was brokered between the different parties.48 It consisted of initiating the gradual, although limited, retrocession of ownership of force to the Iraqis, and adopting local customs with regard to reparation or blood-money. U.S. military police checkpoints in the town were taken over by Iraqi police, handing the monopoly of force, ihtiram, back to the Iraqis. After storming a house on false grounds, 82nd Airborne Lt. Col. Hickey wrote a letter of apology to the owner, thereby diffusing potential future tension. More importantly, it was agreed that the accidental killing or wounding of a civilian would be compensated for by payments of $2000 and $500 respectfully. This practise would have been successful in Fallujah if the compensation scheme brokered between the troops and the local community had been met with an efficient response on the part of the twelve Civilian Military Operation Centres (CMOCs) operating at the time out of Baghdad, and in charge of administering compensation claims. Claims could be filed for death, injury, damage to property, or seizure of goods during a search operation. Soon, the families of victims killed or seriously injured complained to the author about the difficulty of claiming
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compensation. These difficulties ranged from communication shortcomings, lack of infrastructure, or limitations in CMOC opening times (some were only open one day a week). Most complaints referred to the lack of evidence collection on the part of the coalition, a limitation that was perceived by victims or their families as an act of hostility. In cases involving the death of an individual due to random shooting, no forensic evidence or visits to locations were ever arranged.49 Under the CMOCs claims rules, these limitations instantly rendered a file invalid. In practise, none of the families of victims interviewed for this research ever reached a satisfactory level of compensation. Setting aside administrative considerations of the scheme, it is also important to state that the deal brokered in August 2003 had the effect of being understood by some soldiers as an impunity trump card. Referring to the scheme, a soldier stated to the author: We break their houses and they get money for it. It is difficult to ascertain as to whether or not the behaviour of some soldiers has changed as a result of the introduction of the system, but the practise of destroying front gates with dynamite during raids is increasingly common. In the practise of house-to-house searches, a higher level of violence was reached between June and December 2003. Urban occupation warfare is not an appropriate term to qualify searching procedures in Fallujah, for not only do front gates become systematically destroyed, but so does every human being or object that happens to be located in the vicinity. Due to the failure of the compensation scheme in Fallujah, the towns mayor, previously nominated by the seven aforementioned Sheikhs, and later endorsed by the Americans, was discredited. He fled Fallujah in November 2003 after his car was bombed. As he had vouched for coalition troops, and hence had become the sole intermediary between the coalition and local Sheikhs, his authority and credibility were rendered invalid. More importantly, the local population became further alienated from the coalition, which it saw as betraying their agreement. U.S. Senator Leahy has since launched a project to compensate the Iraqi population for any physical and material loss caused by coalition troops. The American origin of the funds, however, is never disclosed to the people receiving reparation. It is thought that Iraqis would never accept this money, for fear of retaliation, and that the lives of the project workers and their families might be threatened.50 I Am the Resistance: The Banality of Political Violence Did the capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003 cause any change to resistance activities in Fallujah? In light of the present analysis of the polarization between occupier and occupied in Fallujah, the question formulated above may be understood as being rhetorical. Saddam Hussein was captured in al-Dawr, near his home town of Tikrit on December 12, 2003. After months of searching, he was found in a humble farm overlooking the Tigris river, a setting quite remote from Dr. Evils high-tech underground bunker. Saddam Hussein did not directly co-ordinate the Fallujah resistance. So who did? Surveying local peoples hearts and minds a few days after the capture of Saddam Hussein, the author was met with incredulity, sadness, but also relief, for Fallujah was not solely inhabited by Saddam supporters. One person in particular, whose comment constitutes a warning sign for the future of the occupation, stated: I was afraid that if I joined the resistance, I would help Saddam regain power. Now he is gone, I can join and get rid of the Americans. The catharsis provided by the capture of Saddam Hussein went far beyond considerations pertaining to twenty-five
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years of dictatorship. One might even say, the democratisation, freedom, and human rights ideals that the U.S. administration sought to foster in Iraq might have settled too well in an Iraqi context. Every Iraqi was set on establishing his or her own vision of a free and new Iraq, seldom including U.S.-friendly policies. For the aforementioned interviewee, the ideal of a free and new Iraq was not only devoid of Saddam Husseins grip, but also of the coalitions and its acolytes. In relation to the capture of Saddam Hussein, these ideological considerations also brought reflections regarding his humiliation. Some interviewees were deeply shocked by the way Saddam was handled and shown to the public. However, this show of power over the former dictator may in fact have been serendipitously handled with the appropriate cultural relativity. Had Saddam not been shown to the Iraqi public in such a brutal way, there are many who would not have believed in his captureneedless to say, some still believe that the man shown on TV was a double. Moreover, had he not been shown in such a submissive state his supporters would have believed in the possibility of his return; the Lion of Baghdad would have still been alive. One can state the following: Saddam Hussein was handled, and humiliated, in a manner relative to his violent Tikrity culture. However, one can also con` clude that the coalition practises an a la carte understanding of human rights, professing human dignity, human rights, and democracy while publicly resorting to the humiliation of Saddam Hussein. It is undeniable that the public show of such subservience has undermined some elements of the insurgency; although, having lost their leader, there are many who now feel that they have nothing left to lose. In an attempt to further the idea that the capture of Saddam Hussein would not be of benefit to the coalition in Fallujah, the author met with an individual who could be referred to as a co-ordinator of the Fallujah resistance until the end of March 2004.51 Neither a former Iraqi army soldier, nor an Al Qaeda operative, the individual was a simple middle-aged shop-keeper. A lifelong resident of Fallujah, he was eager to see the coalitions humiliating practises defeated by the concerted efforts of each and every one of Fallujahs inhabitants. When asked about the deal brokered between the coalition and tribal leaders in August 2003, he replied that the U.S. had not kept its word, was not to be trusted, that all diplomatic channels had been exhausted, and that resistance was just beginning. The day following the capture of Saddam, a demonstration of support was met with random shooting by coalition troops. A little boy who was grocery shopping at the time was shot in the leg. Two other individuals were shot dead.52 The message of the interviewee was clear: reparation will be sought. When asked about the identity of the Fallujah resistance, this humble shopkeeper claimed: I am the resistance. When asked about the co-ordination of the resistance and the financial issues pertaining to it, he replied that ad hoc operations or fire retributions, i.e., shooting at coalition soldiers when the latter were conducting raids for instance, were met with rewards and incentives to pursue opposition efforts. Concerning the supply of weapons, he asserted that the location of surrounding former Iraqi army arms caches were known to the resistance, and that at present they were being distributed to Fallujah residents, either as ammunition replacement or in preparation for the planned acts of violence. With regard to the financial retribution for violent acts of defiance, involving the death or injury of a coalition soldier, he claimed that the finances available were issued from funds available to former Iraqi army middle-ranking officers. Was the interviewee genuine about the financial origins of the resistance, or did these emanate from foreign sources? This
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is difficult to ascertain. However, emanating from the research is the fact that two main types of opposition can be identified: spontaneous, such as the case involving the local female school teacher, and foreseen (systematically organised), geared towards inflicting harm on the coalition, but more importantly as a way for the perpetrators to be contracted for further operations. In the interlude separating the two field researches, the first type of opposition has lost importance to the benefit of higher profile and better-organised operations, involving higher numbers of casualties. In this respect, it can be concluded that the resistance is intensifying, even though the average number of attacks is decreasing. Far from claiming to map the entire organisation of the resistance in Fallujah, a task incumbent to strategic organisations, the present research sought to conceptualise the grass-roots formation of political violence in Fallujah, in support of more sustained attacks. In conclusion, it can be asserted that grass-roots resistance has given way to a sustained, co-ordinated, and rewarded effort (see Figure 1), culminating in the March 29 Blackwater incident (see page 25). What is the impact of the formation of political violence in Fallujah for the rest of the country? As the experience of the Hezbollah in South Lebanon fuelled the onset of a second Intifada in Israel=Palestine, Fallujah sought very early on to become a model of resistance for the rest of Iraq53. In December 2003, another shop-keeper in town was producing audio-cassettes calling for a national uprising. When interviewed, he claimed to have produced, sold, and disseminated thousands of these in various locations around the country. Calling for Iraqi unity in the face of the occupier, the non-sectarian message of the tapes was significant. A preacher, and not a Sheikh, by the name of Hisham al-Etabi, directly called on humiliated Iraqis by saying: I ask the men who have honour and pride to take their swords . . . for Shia and Sunnis [are] hand by hand united. The aforementioneds allusion to swords is a call for the Shia population to take arms, as in the Shia faith the sword is the symbol of the Imam Ali, murdered in 661 over the succession of Prophet Mohammed. Aiming to foster a national movement, the cassettes proffered that
Figure 1. Political violence in Fallujah over time.
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there was no difference between Sunnis and Shias. While such efforts may have been rendered void in light of the numerous glorifications of Abu Uday, alias Saddam Hussein, in the preachers prose, subsequent versions of the same product, in the form of a DVD calling for resistance while showing footage of the movie Black Hawk Down, among others, no longer mentioned Saddam Hussein.54 In an attempt to channel all sectors of the population into the resistance, al-Etabi called on former looters to be more constructive, i.e., carry out acts of armed violence: You will not gain from looting and crashing doors, and to ordinary members of the population who do not necessarily wish to take arms to not give information about the men who have pride, that is to say, the fighters. The cassettes did not seek to cause division among the Iraqis themselves, and in reference to the death of other Iraqis as a result of resistance operations, blame is cast on the U.S. for occupying the country and triggering acts of violence. Referring to the Iraqis who collaborate with the U.S. the cassette states: The traitors betrayed the ones who have manliness, a way to dehumanise, i.e., womanise, them in the eyes of their fellow Iraqis. The preacher then took on geographical expressions of resistance. Praising Fallujah and Ramadi for being the cradle of the movement, he paid tribute to Baghdad for initiating its own rebellion, and called on Mosul and Basra to bring honour to the rest of the country: lets struggle people of Mosul, Lets struggle Arabs and Khurds. What impact did those cassettes, clearly referring to humiliation and honour in post-Saddam Iraq, have on the formation of political violence within the rest of the country, and on Fallujah itself? Take-Over or Mutation? From Infinite Resolve to Entrapment The lynching of four U.S. contractors in late March 2004 can be seen as a turning point in the escalation of violence in post-Saddam Fallujah. That day, four employees of Blackwater, a company that P.W. Singer refers to as a privatized military firm, were filmed being killed, dismembered, dragged through the streets of Fallujah, and hanged from an old English-built bridge.55 When asked about this event, the then co-coordinator of the Fallujah resistance distanced himself from what he referred to as an act of barbarity. He blamed the local youth, who he claimed had become uncontrollable in their actions.56 He accepted responsibility for the death of the contractors, but explained that the scene had been hijacked by a few, and then got out of hand: As usual, this was planned as a random operation: wait for an opportunity and seize it. Informants from the local police made a satellite phone call when they saw an SUV convoy arriving on Highway 10. We knew they were heading in our direction, so a contracted group of local men waited for them, and had a local cameraman ready to film the attack so that they would be paid by us later. We take films as proof for retribution. Then they ambushed the convoy, did what they usually do, and were about to leave it there when a crowd of local youth came and overpowered the men. Our men just left, and you saw the rest on TV. . . I dont know how why this happened [sic], but that must have been orchestrated by others from outside Fallujah. Should this explanation be verified, its implications would suggest a) that the rejection of the occupier could have been socialized into rites of passage within
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the local male youth, in the same manner as being arrested by the Israeli army in Palestine has since the First Intifada been integrated as a rite of passage into adulthood for young Palestinians, and=or b) that a power take-over was indeed initiated by foreign elements on that day, using local youths as a catalyst.57 Was this incident a mutation of local resistance or an orchestrated take-over? Considering the aforementioned Etabi DVD of Black Hawk Down, calling for rebellion while using footage of the movie as a background,the occurrence of such an event in Fallujah can clearly be seen as a mimicking of the 1993 dragging of a U.S. soldier through the streets of Mogadishu. Moreover, considering that Osama bin Laden acknowledged the involvement of his people in the Mogadishu incident, this act may have been more than just a mimic of the resistance DVD, it might have been the real thing: a grand opening of Al Qaeda operations in Fallujah.58 As a response to the perceived colonial humiliation felt by Fallujah residents came a reciprocity expressed in the intended humiliation of the U.S.A. Osama bin Laden saw the U.S. as a paper tiger as a result of the 1993 Mogadishu incident.59 A few days later, after the initiation of a U.S.-led coalition retaliation called Operation Infinite Resolve geared towards taking control of Fallujahthe authority of the then co-ordinator of the Fallujah resistance was deposed, thus benefiting the foreign elements. The people of Fallujah who needed protection. . . welcomed Al Qaeda with open arms.60 Grass-roots resistance had mutated into international terrorism. Only a few days before the Blackwater incident, on March 24, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force from San Diego had taken over from the 82nd Airborne division. Hopes were high during the first week of deployment of the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC). Contrary to their colleagues of the 82nd Airborne, each new soldier had taken special courses in cultural awareness. The USMC stated that its soldiers would reach out to the local population in a compassionate and peaceful manner. An iron hand in a velvet glove was to pacify Fallujah where the 82nd Airborne was said to have failed because of its use of disproportionate force. Each Marine grew a moustache, a sign of cultural awareness for a Sunni Muslim population, learned Iraqi etiquette, and some basics of the Arabic language. Plans of future football games between U.S. military and local residents were even suggested.61 Two days after the Marine deployment, a street battle lasting several hours was fought between U.S. Marines and local residents in the citys Al Askari district: a deja vu from April 28, 2003 for Fallujah residents. According to the Jordan Times of March 31, 2004: One Marine was killed and seven others were injured. Five Iraqis, including a freelance ABC News cameraman, were killed. The battle led to a Marines show of force that many residents say was unlike any theyd seen in nearly a year of U.S. occupation. . .Those Marines are destroying us. They are leaning very hard on Fallujah. Home raids have been a sore point with Iraqis and are viewed as a violation of the privacy of women. Many had been led to believe that the Marines would drop the tactic and apply a soft touch to win over Iraqis, showing more cultural sensitivity than their predecessors in Fallujah.62 From the very first days after the Marine take-over of Fallujah, local residents claimed that nothing had changed. What good is it to grow a moustache if they still dishonour our women and kill our children? Who are they fooling?, asked Abu Mustafa, an al-Jolan resident.63 As the old cliche has it, the rest is history. Operation
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Infinite Resolve was launched a few days after the Blackwater incident, followed by the first Shiite insurrection in Najaf and Kerballa a few days later.
Concluding Remarks: The Dialectics of Humiliation in Post-saddam Iraq

With a daily narrative that changed from a few pockets of insurrection to a few pockets of order, peace in post-Saddam Iraq was lost. Iraqi resentment of the occupying coalition force was spiralled into an entrapment that neither a wellintentioned Marine force, nor a grass-roots insurgency movement, can now suppress. It is undeniable that international terrorism has reached Iraq, and that segments of the resistance movement have merged with this alien entity. Once, the banality of political violence in Fallujah was expressed in ones daily encounter with ordinary individuals vowing to boot the enemy out of their town, to transform, as Hage expressed, colonial humiliation into anti-colonial potency. The early Fallujah insurgency was a lesser evil that could have been avoided had the Bush administration given its army the means to keep the peace it so bravely won, instead of transforming it into an occupying force through a lack of sufficient numbers of ground troops. Of importance to this research is not the unique role of humiliation as a catalyst for political violence. Rather, it is the commitment felt by individuals to fight as a result of their perceived humiliation, and the processes related to colonial humiliation in the formation of political violence. By no means is humiliation the primary cause of armed resistance in post-Saddam Iraq. It is, however, a common denominator expressed by the people of Fallujah in relation to the violent occupation of their city; it is a trigger rather than a cause. Of importance also are the coalitions inconsistencies with regard to peaceful occupation techniques, crowd management, and control. In Fallujah, rude and culturally insensitive soldiers still co-exist and work alongside conversely righteous and culturally aware colleagues. Relevant training, recruitment, and policy issues need to be addressed on the part of the U.S. military, especially in light of the Abu Ghraib crisis, whose pictures have become an unexpected recruitment poster for Al Qaeda within and outside Iraq. The simple fact that the British army kept the peace in Basra, through applying basic peacekeeping techniques of letting the helmet and body armour down, ought to have been taken on board by the U.S. military much earlier than the USMC deployment in Fallujah: too little too late. For the first time since the end of Saddam Husseins regime, two negatives may have produced an ominous positive: the dual denial (U.S. and Iraqi) of collective responsibility for the escalation of violence in post-Saddam Iraq. The polarization between occupier and occupied has sprung out of colonial humiliation, while Etabis DVDs have become the face of a national insurrection that has taken on a life of its own: even the people of Mosul have now become subjected to an insecurity that they resent. The post-Blackwater Fallujah insurgency can now be seen as central to the spread of insecurity within Iraq. This could have been avoided had the pre-Blackwater grass-roots resistance not formed as early as it did.
Notes
1. Available online: http:==www.iri.org=pdfs=IraqSept-OctPublicOpinion.ppt, accessed December 1, 2004. 2. Alan B. Krueger and David D. Laitin, Misunderestimating Terrorism, Foreign Affairs, 83, no. 45 (September=October 2004).
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3. For an analysis of humiliation in the Treaty of Versailles: Evelin Gerda Lindners Love, Holocaust, and Humiliation. The German Holocaust and the Genocides in Rwanda and Somalia in Medlemsbladet for Norske leger mot atomkrig, Med bidrag fra psykologer for fred, 3, 2829 (1999). In relation to humiliation and suicide bombers in the Israeli=Palestinian conflict: Ghassan Hage, Comes a Time We Are All Enthusiasm: Understanding Palestinian Suicide Bombers in Times of Exighophobia in Popular Culture 15, no.1 (2003), 6589. 4. Avishai Margalit, The Decent Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 9. 5. Barbara Steinberg, Shame and Humiliation: Presidential Decision Making on Vietnam (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996). 6. Leon Wurmser, The Mask of Shame (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1981). 7. Margalit (see note 4 above), 130. 8. Fatima Mernissi, Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics In Modern Muslim Society (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1987). 9. Margalit (see note 4 above), 131. 10. Michael H. Johnson, All Honourable Men: The Social Origins of War in Lebanon (London: I. B. Tauris Publishers=Centre for Lebanese Studies, 2001). 11. Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein (New York: HarperCollins, 1999). 12. Sana al-Khayyat, Honour and Shame: Women in Modern Iraq (London: Saqi Books, 1992). 13. Victoria Firmo-Fontan, Peace-Building in Lebanon: Endogenous Patriarchy and Social Humiliation in a Developing Re-creation Process (Ph. D. dissertation, University of Limerick, 2003). 14. Al-Khayyat (see note 12 above). 15. Margalit (see note 4 above ), 131. 16. Interview of Haida Assafi, al-Jadryah, Baghdad, March 13, 2004. 17. Gallup, US Today, and CNN poll of 3,444 Iraqis carried out by the Pan Arab Research Center of Dubai between March 22 and April 2, 2004. Only one per cent of Kurdish respondents claimed to see coalition forces as occupiers, while 97 percent saw them as liberators. This poll is available online: http:==www.usatoday.com=news=world=iraq=2004-04-28gallup-iraq-findings.htm. 18. For more data on daily life in Iraq, please refer to the aforementioned poll, where 67 percent of Iraqis believe that U.S. forces are not trying at all to keep ordinary Iraqis from being killed or wounded during exchange of gunfire; and 85 percent believe that U.S. forces are only trying a little or not trying at all to restore basic services like electricity and clean drinking water to Iraqis. 19. Author interview with Ali Rasheed, Baghdad, May 30, 2003. 20. The then equivalent of $600. 21. Author interview with Jay Garner, al-Hamra Hotel, al-Jadryiah, Baghdad, May 25, 2003. 22. Out of security concerns for this individual who is still detained in the Abu Ghraib detention centre, his name will not be revealed. 23. CTV, Canada, 14 December 2003; Financial Times, Deutschland, 20 March 2003; Washington Post, 17 December 2003. 24. Al-Khayyat (see note 12 above). 25. Human Rights Watch, 2003, Climate of Fear: Sexual Violence and Abduction of Women and girls in Baghdad, July 2003, New York, available online: http:==hrw.org= reports=2003=iraq0703, accessed on December 1, 2004. 26. Author interview with Ali Abu Monar (uncle) and Firas Juffur (brother), Baghdad, May 29 and December 12 2003. 27. Author interview with Nagham Juffur, Baghdad, May 29, 2003. 28. Al-Khayyat (see note 12 above). ` 29. Dominique Godreche, Du secourisme au terrorisme in Le Monde Diplomatique, March 2003, p. 35. 30. Human Rights Watch (see note 25 above). 31. Uday Hussein had the reputation of randomly abducting and raping Iraqi women. 32. Fadia Nassif Tar Kovacs, Les Rumeurs dans la Guerre du Liban: Les Mots de la Violence (Paris: CNRS Sociologie, 1998).
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33. Author interview with Ramzi Kysia, in Baghdad, June 4, 2003. 34. The Independent, London, 10, June 2003. 35. Central Intelligence Agency, Iraqs Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs (Langley, VA, 2002). 36. Kathleen Dewalt and Billie Dewalt, Participant Observation: A Guide for Fieldworkers (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2002). 37. Charles Tripp, A History of Iraq, 2nd Edition (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 38. Human Rights Watch, 2003, Violent Response: The U.S. Army in al-Fallujah, June 2003, New York, available online: http:==www.hrw.org=reports=2003=iraqfalluja= iraqfalluja.pdf, accessed on December 1, 2004. 39. Conversely, remains of Iraqis (police, army, or civilians) are rarely cleared by coalition troops after similar incidents. 40. Statement gathered by Robert Fisk. 41. Telephone interview with neighbours, October 15, 2004. They were subsequently killed during Operation New Dawn in November 2004, although they had never engaged in any act of resistance against U.S. troops. 42. Interview with Peter Bouckaert, Human Rights Watch, Baghdad, June 4, 2003. 43. Interview with Sergeant Seth Cole, Fallujah, June 3, 2003. 44. Nir Rosen, Making Enemies in Clint Willis, ed., Boots on the Ground (New York: Thunders Mouth Press, 2004). 45. Interview with Chris Toey, November 14, 2004, Cresap Town, Maryland, U.S. 46. Ghassan Hage (see note 3 above). 47. The tribes in question are the Albuaisa, the al-Jumela, the al-Halabsa, the al-Mahamuda, the Albu al-Wan, the al-Zubaa, and the Albuaisa-Qais. 48. The Observer, London, 9 August 2003. 49. Occupation Watch Centre, 2004, Joint Report on Civilian Casualties and Claims Related to U.S. Military Operations, Baghdad. Report accessed on January 17, 2004: http:==occupationwatch.org=downloads=compensationreport.pdf 50. Interview with Thomas Hill, Iraq Project co-ordinator, Centre for International Conflict Resolution, Columbia University, NY, November 19, 2004. 51. Unattributable interview, December 2003. 52. Interview at Fallujah hospital, December 2003. 53. Laeticia Bucaille, Gaza: La Violence de la Paix (Paris: Presses de la Foundation Nationale de Sciences Politiques, 1998). 54. The Saddam Hussein persecution of the Iraqi Shiite population, especially after their American-led uprising in 1991, has left him no supporters among the community (Cockburn & Cockburn, see note 11 above). 55. P. W. Singer, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003). 56. Telephone interview, April 2, 2004. 57. Bucaille (see notes 53 above). 58. Robert Fisk, The Great War for Civilization (London: 4th Estate, forthcoming in 2005). 59. Ibid., 35. 60. Interview with Fallujah resident, Baghdad, July 2004. 61. Marines take over Fallujah, AP, 25 March 2004. 62. Marines seek to pacify Fallujah with show of force, residents are sceptical, Jordan Times, 31 March 2004. 63. Interview with Abu Mustafa, Baghdad, July 18, 2004.

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This article was downloaded by: [Durham University Library] On: 06 December 2011, At: 16:25 Publisher: Routledge

Terrorism and Political Violence

Department of Political Science, Salahaddin University, Erbil, Iraq

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Conceptualising Honour/Humiliation in Iraq

Polarization Between Occupier and Occupied in Post-Saddam Iraq

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Perceptions of Honour Humiliation in Post-saddam Iraq: Conveyed, Spread, Magnified

Polarization Between Occupier and Occupied in Post-Saddam Iraq

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Polarization Between Occupier and Occupied in Post-Saddam Iraq

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Learn from Fallujah: Clan Honour, Colonial Humiliation and Reparation

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Polarization Between Occupier and Occupied in Post-Saddam Iraq

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Polarization Between Occupier and Occupied in Post-Saddam Iraq

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Polarization Between Occupier and Occupied in Post-Saddam Iraq

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Figure 1. Political violence in Fallujah over time.

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Polarization Between Occupier and Occupied in Post-Saddam Iraq

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Concluding Remarks: The Dialectics of Humiliation in Post-saddam Iraq

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Polarization Between Occupier and Occupied in Post-Saddam Iraq

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