Al-Sadr City: Support from the impoverished

In the main square of Baghdad’s largest Shia ghetto, an
elderly man in the worn uniform of the former Iraqi air
force directs donkey and car traffic with a ping-pong
paddle.

Al-Sadr City, once called Saddam City, has always been
on the neglected margins of Iraq’s power centre and
capital.

Piles of trash and long pools of raw sewage line the
boulevards, while battered looking men stand on corners
with shovels waiting in the hot sun for work.

Living deep in every alley are the families of martyrs
from the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, from riots against
Saddam Hussein and from executions on the gallows of
Iraq’s prisons.

Every billboard, painting and poster advertises them -
from shaikhs, Ayat Allah clerics and religious students
killed by the former regime, to Ali and Hussein, the
7th-century father and son - cousin and grandson of the
Messenger Muhammad - who inspired the Shia sect of
Islam.

Many martyrs

But the largest portraits are reserved for the one
after which al-Sadr City is named - Muhammad Sadiq al-
Sadr, a snowy bearded Ayat Allah who launched a
revolutionary Shia movement here in the 1990s.

A member of al-Mahdi Army with a rocket-propelled
grenade

Posters of his son, Muqtada al-Sadr, now wanted by
occupation forces, are usually plastered nearby.

The support for al-Sadr and his son runs as deep as the
poverty, gruelling lifestyle and sacrifices do for the
citizens.

Al-Sadr City has its origins in the masses of destitute
Shia farmers who fled the feudal conditions of Iraq’s
countryside in the last century, creating a ring of
slums around Baghdad.

In 1963, Abd al-Karim Qasim, the founder of the modern
Iraqi Republic, created the neighbourhood as a
dignified alternative for the masses of urban poor and
dubbed it Madinat al-Thawra - Revolution City.

Under class

Under ensuing regimes, al-Sadr City’s Shia made up to a
third of Baghdad’s population, but held few positions
of power and were disproportionately represented in
Iraq’s unemployment rolls, prisons, and the frontlines
of its wars.

The people first turned to communism to address their
social woes, then to the homegrown revolutionary
ideology of Ayat Allah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, executed
by the regime in 1979, and his cousin Ayat Allah
Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr assassinated in 1999.

Both men had studied for years under the leader of the
Iranian Revolution Ayat Allah Khomeini.

Support for the al-Sadr family among the urban poor is
strong

According to Shaikh Abd al-Zahra, the Imam of al-Hikma
mosque in al-Sadr City, Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr was
revolutionary because he called for the formation of a
just Islamic state. He won support from the
impoverished because he called the clergy to a leading
role against social injustice.

Most importantly, he dared to stand up for them to
Saddam Hussein.

"Al-Sadr demanded the government release prisoners,
because many of our youth and men of religion were just
rotting in jail and no one knew their fate," says Abd
al-Zahra.

"He called state ministers to ask for forgiveness. He
used to chant: ’No, no to Satan, no, no to the unjust
one!’ And everyone knew that what he meant by Satan was
Saddam."

Executions

In 1999, Ayat Allah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr was
assassinated after Friday prayers in the city of Najaf.

A billboard depicts the protests of 1999 that were
quickly crushed

As news reached al-Sadr’s loyalist enclave in Baghdad,
tens of thousands of poor Shia converged on al-Muhsin
mosque in al-Sadr City in mourning. Security agencies
fired into the air to break up the crowd, and mourners
turned into an enraged mob, attacking them with rocks
and their bare hands.

Before long, more than 1000 Bath party and security
forces were on the scene with tanks and APCs, firing
randomly on the mostly unarmed crowds.

Security forces closed al-Muhsin mosque, welded its
doors shut and launched a massive campaign of arrests
and executions.

No one knows how many died overall but residents say
the events touched all families and left victims in
every street of the city. Similar scenes were repeated
in Najaf and other cities of southern and central Iraq.

A militia born

The protests in al-Sadr City began at 10:30am and were
over by noon but left a deep historical impression and
served as a turning point for followers of al-Sadr
line, sealing their allegiance to the Ayat Allah and
militarising the movement.

There is growing opposition among many Shia to US-led
occupation

After Baghdad’s fall last year, Muqtada al-Sadr emerged
as a militant voice against the occupation.

Though most viewed him with scepticism, in al-Sadr City
the mantle of his father slipped easily to his
shoulders.

Along with Muqtada, another child of the protests and
long years of Bath rule surfaced - Jaish Al-Mahdi, the
thousands-strong militia of the poor, unemployed
soldiers and religious students fiercely loyal to al-
Sadr family.

Fresh martyrs

Down a beaten mud alley, where black banners announce
the recent deaths of martyrs, Ali al-Muraidi, a retired
porter, sits looking at photos of his two dead sons
Husayn and Qasim.

The young men were typical al-Sadr followers.

Impoverished porters like their father, they stood for
hours in the market leaning on pushcarts, waiting to be
paid a few dinars to move goods.

With no money in their pockets and no weapons in their
hands, they rushed into the street at the first sound
of gunfire.

"My sons were poor and all they had left was heaven.
They didn’t even have guns and the army opened fire on
them randomly"

Ali al-Muraidi, retired porter

"My sons were poor and all they had left was heaven,"
says Ali, weak-eyed and fiddling with their ID cards.

His voice is hoarse and broken. "They didn’t even have
guns and the army opened fire on them randomly. But we
know that the martyr who stands up to the unjust one
goes to paradise with the prophets on a level near
God".

The unjust one Ali speaks of is not Saddam Hussein, nor
did his sons die in the 1999 protests.

Husayn and Qasim died on 5 April 2004 in a new protest
over several days of armed clashes with US occupation
forces in the heart of al-Sadr City and across other
Shia neighbourhoods and cities.

The clashes were triggered by the forced closure of al-
Sadr’s newspaper and had led to the death of more than
100 Iraqis and scores of US occupation troops in al-
Sadr City alone.

Tough lessons

When the US military first entered Baghdad, Ali and the
people of al-Sadr City hailed them as heroes and
liberators.

But a year later, this sentiment has reversed and a new
saying is heard in the streets: "The student left and
the teacher came."

Al-Sadr City officials, Iraqi police and residents
complain that US forces launched a campaign of arrests
of youth and men of religion, raids, curbs on freedom
of expression, random killings, and oppression
reminiscent of Saddam Hussein.

Ali al-Muraidi, with remaining members of his family

Like the regime, they also neglected city services in
the area including sewage maintenance, jobs creation,
water and electricity.

When US occupation officials vowed to kill or capture
Muqtada al-Sadr and to destroy al-Mahdi Army, many felt
a sense of deja vu. What differs now, say residents, is
their reaction to the situation.

"We didn’t resist enough during Saddam’s time and we
kept saying to ourselves: ’We’re guilty, we’re guilty,
we didn’t stand with Sayyid al-Sadr against the
tryant’," says Muhammad, caretaker of the re-opened al-
Muhsin mosque and a witness to the events of 1999.

"But now, no, we won’t be guilty again. Now, we have
Jaish al-Mahdi."

Local security

Even the security arm charged with maintaining public
order in al-Sadr City - the Iraqi police - appears as
loyal to al-Sadr, to his wanted son and to the outlawed
Jaish al-Mahdi as the area’s ordinary residents.

Al-Mahdi Army finds support among Iraq’s police force

"If there are any more clashes here, we won’t
intervene," says Colonel Maruf al-Lami, head of al-Sadr
City’s police directorate: "We’re from the people of
this city and the people in Jaish al-Mahdi are our
relatives. We can’t fight our brothers and neighbours."

Top police officials in al-Sadr City describe the
militia as a "cooperative force" in keeping order. And
beat cops talk about quitting their jobs and joining
Jaish al-Mahdi if US forces move on al-Sadr’s son.

"I’m one of al-Sadr’s followers," says Aqil, an officer
on patrol in the area, "and my brother is in Jaish al-
Mahdi. And this is my cousin," he says pointing as he
drives past a large painting of a martyr. "He was one
of the heroes of the 1999 Intifada. I’m not a member
of Jaish al-Mahdi now, but when the time comes, I will
be. All of us will be."

House of al-Sadr

Most of al-Sadr City’s residents continue to follow the
fatwas and religious declarations of Muhammad Sadiq al-
Sadr even though he is dead.

His memory, more than any other, is a touchstone for
the community, a reminder of courage and collective
loss.

"Muqtada lived the tragedy of the people as did his
father"

Muhammad, caretaker, al-Muhsin mosque

And the emotion towards al-Sadr extends protectively to
his son.

"Muqtada lived the tragedy of the people as did his
father," says Muhammad of al-Muhsin mosque. "The people
who lived here and suffered, who were dispossessed and
exhausted, who fought the wars, who were denied
education and jobs and lost loved ones and everything
during the time of Saddam.

"He is the son of the people. The father died and now
we only have one left. When I think they could kill
him, I see the fire of hell in my eyes.

"He’s the son of the revolutionary; the only one who
stood up to Saddam Hussein," echoes Aqil the police
officer. "His family sacrificed and was killed off.
Now, Muqtada is all that remains for us."

Aljazeera By May Ying Welsh in Baghdad

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D58B4A08-5E73-4A57-B8A3-2E478F0B6DAD.htm