The political crisis in Bahrain came just in time to save Al-Hawza’s Supreme-Clerics face, exaggerated reactions and condemnations led to clashes among Iraqi demonstrators on the slogans raised in the protests last Friday, those who demonstrate against the government and the others who demonstrate for the support of Bahrain Shiites, as reported on Al-Hayat.
The amount of religious Fatwas released by many clergies to prevent the protests and the calls to give the government a chance to fix what irreparable is a turning point not only in the continued alliance between the religious and the political powers, but in the public awareness about the total meaning of these Fatwas.
The most significant change in Iraq’s demonstrations is the transformation of the slogans chanted by the demonstrators, old slogans such as “Sunnis and Shiites are brothers” and “no Imam but Ali” are replaced with “no .. no to corruption”.
If we can understand the Prime Minister’s position from the demonstration, the positions of High-Supreme clerics are still uncertain and range between support and condemnation. Few Supreme-Cleric [outside the Hawza in najaf and Karbala] supported the protests from the beginning such as Sheikh Qasim Al-Tai, others such as Al-Yaqoobi described the protests as: “suspicious, and we don’t know how stand behind it”.
The official position of Al-Hawza was unclear and shadowy, Sistani’s spokesmen (Al-Karbalai and Al-Saffi) sent controversial messages.
Over two months, both men strongly defended some of the people’s demands, such as downsizing the government, the poor services and the high salaries of the government’s officials, corruption, unemployment ..etc, which is a positive position, adopted by the Supreme Council, the Sadrists and other religious forces also.
In the Friday sermon before the demonstration Al-Saffi’s position was clear in his call to confront the corrupt, comparing government’s officials to “thieves and sharks who swallow the state’s resources” [a description never even used by the media hostile to the government over the past years].
In the later Friday sermon Sistani’s spoke men used a different language to ease the previous speech, on the eve of 25 February demonstration, this position changed to issue a warning and conditions against the participation, which came in harmony with the prime minister’s remarks, and before that Muqtada Al-Sadr called to postpone the protests for a period of 6 months to give the Government a opportunity to fix itself .
Despite the obstacles put by the government (road blocks, arrests), the demonstrations have succeeded in drawing the attentions and forced the clerics to recognize the legitimacy of the demonstrations, in a statement formulated very carefully thanked the demonstrators, stressing on maintaining the peace, hinted that Al-Hawza still support the government and the sectarian political process by thanking those who failed to demonstrate.
Al-Sadr tried to contain the demonstration and transform it from a popular demonstration into a “Shiite-revolution” against Maliki [this topic about Al-Sadr’s motivation will be covered in the coming days] , especially in the southern provinces where the Shiite-Shiite conflict still occurred.
Al-Hayat reported the following:
Sayyid Muqtada Al-Sadr sent an oral message to his representatives in Iraq, demanding to urge the public not to participate in the demonstration, the current government is elected by the people and they must give it a chance.
Despite the critics to the government, it was very clear for the public that the Supreme-Clerics want to maintain and continue the new political process, a deliberate move on the religious side came in support of the political movement.
There is something broken in the image of Supreme-Clergies and their relationship with the public, Al-Hawza emerged as supporter to the corruption, the quotas ruling system “Muhasasa”. This is something I do not believe that the public is ready to accept eight more years.