Sadr City .. Rebellious city over time

Al Jazeera Net-Baghdad

Sadr City, or the city of the poor or ordinary as Iraqis call it, is home to hundreds of thousands of residents of the capital, Baghdad.They used fuel for all the wars in Iraq, as well as conflicts between political parties and power, and to confront the US invasion in 2003 and beyond.

Its nomenclature changed with the change of political systems, and was founded by the Prime Minister of Iraq Abdul Karim Qasim after the coup of July 14, 1958, which overthrew the monarchy, and called the city of the revolution, but after the coup against Qasim brothers Abdul Salam and Abdul Rahman Aref, called the neighborhood of Rafidain, Then Saddam Hussein returned her first name, and then changed it to associate it with his own name, called "Saddam City," and after 2003 adopted the name of Sadr City after the father of the leader of the Sadrist movement Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite religious authority, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, who was assassinated in 2003. 1999.

Create a city
Qasim's government faced a problem that could overthrow its reformist orientations, namely the massive displacement of the rural people and villages from the southern governorates, who settled in eastern Baghdad. An area of ​​144 meters, the number of houses doubled to ninety thousand as a result of the suffocating housing crisis in Iraq, causing the split of houses to two or three, or the construction of new homes on state land.

Most of Sadr City's residents are self-employed or government departments, and a large proportion of them have not had access to higher education as a result of the difficult economic conditions they experienced, specifically the days of the embargo imposed on Iraq in the 1990s, a mine for many sports stars and poets And intellectuals.

The vast majority in this predominantly Shiite city has not been abandoned, and violence has been a prominent feature since its founding.Most of its inhabitants were leftists and communists who struggled with the then political system.In the 1980s, they were recruited into the Iraqi army to participate in the Iran-Iraq war, and then in the invasion. During the 1990s, Kuwait was overwhelmed by the religious character, particularly during the so-called Saddam Hussein's faith campaign, and the leadership of the Shiite cleric, Muhammad Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, entered into a conflict with the authority at the time, which forced many of his followers into prison and executed them. M execution.

Mehdi Army stronghold
After 2003, Sadr City became a stronghold of the Mehdi Army militia, established by Sadr's leader Muqtada al-Sadr, and then engaged in two conflicts simultaneously with US invasion forces and the sectarian war that erupted in Iraq after the bombing of the shrine of Imam Ali al-Hadi and Hassan al-Askari in Samarra in February. February 2006. But the reality in the city changed after 2009 after the Mahdi Army was frozen by a decision by Moqtada al-Sadr following a law-enforcement plan implemented by then-Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government in Baghdad and Basra.

Hundreds of thousands of people live in Sadr City (there is no accurate statistics on its population but some observers speak of more than 2 million people), and most of its youth are unemployed, like other areas, so it has become an incubator for the Shiite militias that formed the backbone of the Hashd During the war against the Islamic State, al-Shaabi held large parts of the northern and western parts of the country.

Assassinations and bombings
When everybody wanders in this city, he sees the extent of the great sadness in it. The announcements of the obituaries of its youth fill its roads with assassinations, explosions, kidnappings and others. With live bullets and snipers during the recent demonstrations.

Politicians are courting the city ahead of the local and parliamentary elections to win its votes. It is a diverse loyalty, although the majority is Shiite.

The new generation in Sadr City broke the taboos set by previous generations, and did not believe in symbols or names that are not allowed to criticize. Young people who grew up after 2000 are now leading this city by participating in demonstrations calling for reform, providing jobs and fighting corruption. Symbols of the current protest movement.

Social researcher Abdul Karim al-Lami says the poor are the first to rebel against the regimes because they are the most affected by their policies. Its population by successive governments.

He added that poverty in Sadr City is known far and wide, and when you roam it you see it with your own eyes, so parties exploit the people of this city during election times through false promises that evaporate after they reach the seat of parliament, and evaporated with the dreams of the poor.

He stressed that there are areas in Sadr City that are not permanently livable, because the services are completely absent, as well as the level of education in this city is low, considering that the urgent need for the poor is what drives them to become rebellious in the face of injustice, so Sadr City was - and still - the first The cities rebelling against power in Baghdad over the past decades.

He pointed out that the people of Sadr City will try to overthrow this government, because the wounds of their children have not yet recovered, and the population of their character tribal and descendants of large tribes and can not tolerate injustice permanently.