BAGHDAD — Thousands of Iraqi protesters have
occupied the parliament in
Baghdad’s Green Zone for the past five days, the
latest political turmoil to strike the war-scarred country.
اضافة اعلان
The mass sit-in is led by followers of powerful
Shiite Muslim preacher and political kingmaker
Moqtada Al-Sadr, who is facing off
against a rival, Iran-backed Shiite faction called the Coordination Framework.
The at times carnival-like protests have seen
demonstrators repeat the Sadrist rhetoric but also express anger at a
dysfunctional political system, poor public services and the weak economy of
the oil-rich but corruption-plagued country.
Nearly two decades after a US-led invasion toppled
Saddam Hussein, and 10 months on from the latest elections, the impasse has
left Iraq without a new prime minister or president.
AFP spoke to four of the demonstrators, several of
whom did not want to be fully identified, about why they have joined the mass
protest camp.
The school teacher
Ali Mohammed Oklah, 43, left
behind his wife and three children to drive for four hours from Iraq’s mostly
Shiite south to the legislature in the usually ultra-secure Green Zone
government district.
“I’m rebelling to free my country from the fangs of
the corrupt,” said the Islamic studies high school teacher, who also wants Iraq
to adopt a new constitution and a presidential system.
He spoke proudly of his movement — “we the Sadrists”
— and its previous breaches of the Green Zone, prime minister’s office and
legislative chamber.
“I’ve joined them all and I’m proud of it,” he said,
stressing the “revolutionary ideology” of the camp around firebrand cleric Sadr
who once led an anti-US militia and who has millions of devoted followers.
Oklah acknowledged “the difficulty of the struggle
for reform” in Iraq.
But he stressed his conviction that Sadr enjoys
“divine protection” and commands a “loyal popular base, which is like the arm
with which he strikes at the dens of the corrupt”.
The mother of seven
Leaning back in a chair inside the legislative chamber, Umm Ali, 47, has
come to demonstrate with her husband, brothers, and nephews.
She vowed they
would stay “until the Sayyed tells us to withdraw,” using the honorary title of
Sadr, whose black turban marks him as a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed.
A portrait of
Moqtada sat in the lap of the mother of six girls and one boy.
“He is the only
one with integrity,” said the woman, who lives in Baghdad’s working-class Sadr
City district, named after the preacher’s late father who was a revered cleric.
Her goal, she
said, is to “recover the country. The whole country has been stolen.”
She said her
husband has been disabled since he was wounded in a 2009 bombing in Baghdad.
“He was a civil
servant, he was just getting out of work,” she said. “Since then we have
received no compensation.”
She said her son
started working after primary school to help feed the family.
“There is no work
for young people,” she said. “Even those with higher degrees become porters or day
laborers. Is this what they deserve?”
The tuk-tuk driver
Wearing shorts, flip-flops,
and sunglasses, Rassoul Ashour, 20, has used
his three-wheeled motorcycle taxi to shuttle protesters in the blistering
summer heat.
He charges only
about $0.3 for the tuk-tuk ride and says “it’s symbolic, just for the petrol”.
On a normal day
his tuk-tuk earns him just over $10, just enough to scrape by with his wife and
their one-year-old daughter.
Life is a
struggle he said, with daily power cuts, potholed streets, and a night-time
tuk-tuk ban that makes his job harder.
Pointing to other
young protesters, he said: “All these young people don’t have jobs. We want
jobs.”
Ashour said he would be
ready for any job, even with the military: “Let them give me a job and send me
anywhere, even to the border with Syria.”
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