As Iraq’s demonstrations continue, what comes next?

Iraq’s demonstrations appear to have settled into at least a temporary “new normal.” In Baghdad, the protesters have a more or less constant occupation of Tahrir Square and the adjacent “Turkish restaurant” building, which provides an overlook from its 14 stories. While reliable numbers are hard to get, there are clearly hundreds of thousands, and some claim over a million, demonstrators who are maintaining  consistent, day-after-day presence. This includes at least a significant minority holding the “terrain” at night so that it is not reclaimed by security forces, despite the use of lethal violence that has claimed over (perhaps well over) 200 lives.

That the Iraqi demonstrations are not a daily story in the Western media is both understandable and puzzling. At one level, the “Iraq fatigue” of the Western (and especially American) news consumer is commonplace. But at another level, what is happening in Baghdad — and in other cities throughout southern Iraq as wel l— is something new and novel, just not for Iraq, but perhaps something new in absolute terms.

The demonstrations are both distinctly Shiite and at the same time not Shiite at all. The demonstrations are Shiite in that they are being carried out almost entirely by Iraq’s Shiite Arab majority — originally Shiite men, but since the “reboot” of the protests Oct. 24-25, they have a substantial female component as well. Many to most of the iconic photographs now coming forward feature women. Further, the organizational structure of the protesters, the way in which services are being provided — food, medical care, and the now iconic “tut-tut” transportation service — cannot be understood outside of the traditions of hospitality that have sprung up around Shiite religious holidays —Ashura and Arbaeen.

Yet the protesters — who are not describing themselves as Shiite, who are not calling for any particular Shiite equities and who have only the loosest of ties to the Shiite religious establishment — are deeply critical of established Shiite political parties and are not using any distinctly Shiite symbols. And, of course, they are demonstrating against a Shiite-dominated government (and Iranian influence on the same). So while there is a sectarian cultural aspect to this phenomenon, to date, that has not translated into any particularly sectarian demands.