Social Theory: Ali Al-Wardi
17th Oct 2022 by Hadeel Abdelhameed
Ali Al-Wardi (1913-1995) was an Iraqi prominent sociologist, and a theorist who was credited for founding the first Iraqi, and Arab, modern sociology school in the mid-20th century. Al-Wardi’s works theorised the psychological, cultural, and material distances between city and country, arguing that this gap hindered the creation of a national collective identity, and thus, needed a continuous governmental intervention. Al-Wardi adapted the works of the classic Arabic philosopher Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) who dichotomised Islamic societies into two main irrevocable spaces; Bedawa/ rural, and Hadara/ urban. Applying this Khalduni social theory to the Iraqi context, Al-Wardi concluded that the Bedouin amalgamation with the urban societies fostered a dual Iraqi personality that fluctuated between the bedouin/tribal values, and modern traditions of the metropolis. Al-Wardi termed this social episode as The Ebb and Flow phenomenon ظاهرة المد والجزر in his book A study in the Nature of the Iraqi Society (1965). While the wane/ ebb of Bedouin principles, as Al-Wardin suggested, takes place when the state is strong enough to exercise its power and sovereignty, the rise/ flow of these values dominate once the state becomes weak, and decentralised. Despite the fact that Al-Wardi was not a political scientist, his works about Iraqi society have been recurrently visited by foreign policy makers, and political pundits to understand the reasons behind Iraq’s slow steps in establishing a democratic state post 2003. His works were regularly referenced to analyse the failure of the American occupation to manage, or even to understand, Iraqi social structures, and fabrics in the countryside. Hence going back to Al-Wardi’s social theory will offer a new analytical lens to help in understanding the Iraqi political crisis today.
Intellectual Context:
Al-Wardi’s intellectual formation was a product of the post WWI public intellectual era. The interwar period signified the shift of socio-political philosophy and epistemology from universalism to nationalism, and domestic state-nation relations. Edward Said identified the public intellectuals as a social group who “write[s] to, as well as for, the public”. The social role of public intellectual expanded from challenging the previously accepted conventions and dogmas, to critiquing the society through enhancing critical thinking to reach socio political reforms. Centralising the role of the public intellectual spoke to the ethos of autonomy, and nationalism dominated the Iraqi, and Arab, public sphere in a time that was witnessing the demise of colonialism, and the rise of independence. Hence, the dialectical debates about colonial and anticolonial political movements, both communism and nationalism, and the state-building process under modernisation, and urbanisation shaped the national consciousness of the state-nation relation.
Iraqi tribalism occupied a significant space in the state-nation building process, and intellectual debate, when the first modern Iraqi state was installed by the British mandate in 1920. Since the early 20th century, the spatial ontology of the Iraqi nation was constituted by popularising the narrative of the polarity of urbanists and non-urbanists, tribe members and sheikhs, peasants, or ma'dan (marsh dwellers). While the British mandate considered the tribal sheikhs as administrative apparatus to control the rural areas, Iraqi intellectuals looked at them as symbols of the nation’s backwardness and a power against modernity and reform. It is important to emphasise here that the centrality of understanding this urban-rural discourse has set the knowledge production about Iraqi society even by Iraqis themselves. As a public intellectual, not a partisan, Al-Wardi’s input to these dialectical conversations about constitutionalism, democracy and individualism underpinned his interest in the psychoanalysis of the Iraqi identity vis-à-vis the nature of the Hadara- Badawa conflict. Al-Wardi believed that this spatio-cultural contestation shaped the dynamics of the modern Iraqi state, and collective identity of the Iraqi nation.
Another factor that influenced Al-Wardi’s interest in investigating the urban-rural power conflict was his postgraduate studies (M.A. and PhD) at The University of Texas (1945-1950). The post-war intellectual climate in Texas incubated populist intellectualism driven by human rights movements, including those of Black and Hispanic communities. Several intellectual conversations gathered Al-Wardi, Walter Firey, and Carl Martin Rosenquist about the importance to historicise religious and racial structures in urban cities to understand the modern nature of dualism. These conversational relations continued after Al-Wardi’s return to Iraq in 1950.
Main Argument:
The core of Al-Wardi’s social theory can be traced in his works; A Study into the Nature of Iraqi Society (1965), and Social Glimpses from Iraqi Modern History (1968-1976). In both seminal works, Al-Wardi argues that Iraqi personality suffers from izdiwajiyah/ disharmony for embodying urban and Bedouin characteristics. This izdiwajiyah was created due to peasants' transitional position from the deserts, and from being Bedouins, to the socio-economic context of urban spaces. Al-Wardi sees that these relocated communities struggle to adapt to the codes and principles of urbanism, preferring to keep their affinity asabiyah to their tribe, later on to their sect, rather than abiding by the city laws. The tribal and nomadic values have restructured the Iraqi urban society by introducing clanic codes of behaviour, morals, and rules of conduct to the sedentary city centres. Nomadic values are instigated from the cruel environment of the desert that forces the ethos of asabiyah to the tribe, the spirit of adherence, and abidance to the Sheikhs who represent the traditional authority in the tribal community. The tribal principles are static, unchangeable which enforces the pride of the tribal identity as age old, thus, asabiyah to the tribe is the practical continuum of badawa. On the other hand, urban societies are the centre of statism, modernity and law where the loyalty of urbanites is for the state. Since the city is the centre of development and urbanism, the societal values, and lifestyle tend to be dynamic and diverse to respond to the developmental transformations brought by progress and updated legislations. Al- Wardi believes that Iraqi people still live by and under these two counteractive social systems; hadara and badawa, explaining the inverse relationship between statism and Bedouin standards:
In some socio-historical moments of Iraqi history, Bedouin values dominate the social scene, and in others they retreat, mainly depending on whether the state is strong and effective or not. The state is a face of modernity and civilization. Once the state is central, it can easily subdue internal conflicts and enforce security, thus, the industrial, and agricultural sectors will evolve, and urban cities develop accordingly [...] The Bedouin values wane, and are replaced by civilised manifestations based on docility and professionalism. But Iraqi history also witnessed times when the state was so vulnerable that it failed to protect people and belonging. Correspondingly, people start embracing the Bedouin and tribal codes as they offer some order as long as the state is weak. (1965:13)
For Al-Wardi, the rise of traditional authorities, exemplified by the tribal and sectarian entities, means decentralisation of the state. The absence of a strong state means the vacuum of law and sovereignty, thus, the rise of Bedouin asabiyah to which Al-Wardi attributed the struggle to establish a democratic political system in Iraq, and the development of an Iraqi cohesive identity (Khouri 2018:97). Having this backdrop in mind, Al-Wardi’s conclusion identified the المد و الجزر of tribalism and confessionalism as a perpetuating phenomenon in Iraq, positioning the state as the only legitimate sovereign that is able to supersede communal affinities and redirect them to unified and cohesive statal citizenship.
In Application:
Al-Wardi’s conclusion 60 years ago is still relevant to the recent political crisis in Iraq. Several Iraqi activists, journalists and political analysts started to use the term Al-Ladaula in reference to the Iraqi state despite the fact that Iraqi successive governments post 2003 came through a democratic process based on national elections, granting the quota systems for minority groups, and women. However, acknowledging Iraqi plurality came through constitutionalising
communal divisions, thus, institutionalising ethno-confessional identities. This divisive system rapidly politicised sub-identities- ethnic and sectarian, shifting the centrality of the state into multiple fragmented centres of political parties who are supported by armed tribal and confessional forces. The contemporary Iraqi state is a hybrid state, or a decentralised state, that exists by the patronage of tribal bodies and sectarian institutions. Neo-tribalism has been institutionalised and weaponized by the state itself to maintain its existence, creating a cyclical independence between tribal power and the political parties. In 2008, the former PM Nuri Al-Maleki created The Tribal Council (Majlis Al-Isnad) mainly from the Shi’a sect, helping the emergence of a new social strata - the ‘New Shaykhs’. Al-Majlis was created to support Al-Maleki’s government in providing security assistance, and helping to solve social problems. Although tribalization policy is not new to the Iraqi polity, Majlis Al-Isnad was created with new strategies; first, it was located inside urban cities, rather than rural areas, including Baghdad and other city centres of the south provinces; second, it was an exclusionary tactic as it included Shi’a tribes only. The rising force of tribalism not only replaced the statal domestic sovereignty, rather, it restructured the societal order of urban and rural spaces, centralising al-asabiyha to the tribe as the source of law and justice in a fragile country.
An Issue to be aware of
Several contemporary Iraqi sociologists still go back to Al-Wardi’s hypothesis of المد و الجزر to understand neo-tribalism in Iraq post 2003, claiming that his views about the rise of tribalism proved valid in the Iraqi context. It is still important to highlight that we do not know how Al-Wardi would interpret the Iraqi neo-sheikh's phenomenon today in relation to the regional influence and international intervention. Having in mind that Al-Wardi was an advocate of secularity and democracy, what would be his sociological understanding of Iraqi society under the influence of identity crisis and existential struggle among sectarian, political, and ethnic powers. One of the significant differences that took place in reviving the traditional authority of the tribe post 2003 was that this power no longer functions in peripheries while the central state controls city centres. Rather, sheikhs of tribes, sunni and shiá, are mostly orchestrating life in urban cities, existing on the circular narrative of state’s vacuum, and the institutionalisation of identity fragmentation.
Al-Wardi’s social theory of المد و الجزر revived itself in the 21st century in Iraq, raising many questions about the perpetuity of badawa-hadara conflict that maintains its existence from politicising the multiplicity of the Iraqi national identity rather than absorbing it and reducing its relevance to the public good.
Suggested Readings:
Al-Wardi’s works can be found on Good Read:
https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/ali-alwardi
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