MediaApart: Youth revolution in Iraq is threatened by the slide to civil war?

Iraq is one of the countries where demonstrations have recently erupted in the Arab world, but it has witnessed the bloodiest and most surprising campaign, killing more than 320 people since the beginning of last month, and fuel the protests are boys described as attachment to video games.

Mediabart French site reviewed the opinion of researcher Lulwa Al-Rashid, specialized in Iraqi affairs with regard to the revolutionary situation in Iraq, saying that the protests reflect the multiple failures of the regime in place since 2003 after the US invasion.

Unprecedented uprising
The uprising for the researcher is unprecedented, because it erupted in the unexpected place, where protests usually start in the city of Basra (south of the country) afflicted in terms of health, social and economic, but this time began in the capital Baghdad, and the poverty belt that surrounds it, especially In Sadr City (east of Baghdad) to include a number of other cities.

She added that this uprising is unprecedented, because it forced the abandonment of sectarianism, which is called whenever the talk about Iraq, and because the conflict today is based on purely socio-economic foundations.

What is new for the researcher this time, this uprising revealed the vibration of the usual social frameworks, where women returned to work as the unions that were in a coma.

Unprecedented repression
In the context of the interview, the researcher said that the repression in Iraq is unprecedented in other Arab countries witnessing similar protests; while hundreds of deaths and thousands of wounded in the demonstrations in Iraq, there was no drop of blood in Algeria, which has been a popular movement for months, as well as Do not compare to what is happening in Lebanon, Egypt or Sudan.

Iraq has also seen the use of live ammunition, tear gas, arrests and disappearances of intellectuals and activists.

The author is amazed that this is taking place in a country that is classified as democratic in theory, where many elections have been held since 2005, with pluralism and political rotation, as well as freedom of the press, and should not be compared with Egypt and Algeria ruled by dictatorship and the military.

But the reason is not unknown - the researcher says - that the regime is deadlocked and unable to guarantee minimum social and economic organization as a result of the corruption of the ruling elites and public administration, where oil money is levied to a few government, ready to defend its privileges, even with repression Lateral and bloody.

Youth Revolution
The researcher considered that what is happening in Iraq is a youth revolution like that that occurs in other Arab countries;

What is striking is that the protests in Iraq come out young people, and among the dead and wounded almost see only the faces of adolescents, which means it is a revolution of young people from the margins of the poor, between the ages of 15 and 25 years, most of them depend on families lost their families because Violence and successive wars.

The writer said that it is also new to occupy the Turkish restaurant demonstrators after the high building housing the center for snipers who destroyed the 2011 demonstrations in the cradle.

Solutions and machines
When asked about a way out of the crisis, the researcher said that the official Iraq today is still a denial of the scale of the crisis, which makes it difficult to face, and believes that the announcement of some solutions by the government will not contribute to calm things, because the political system is unable to work, and the government The legitimacy of violence is not monopolized after it has lost its financial clout because of the cost of the war against the Islamic State and low oil prices.

When the barrel of oil was above $ 100, the government could buy social peace with subsidies and create some jobs in the country.Today, it is forced to borrow to finance its expenditures, even military, making some demand an international trusteeship or elections under the auspices of the United Nations.

She concluded by saying that the protesters convinced of the need for a complete regime change will not stop, which may mean that repression may resolve the enthusiasm of the rebellious youth.

The researcher warned of the outbreak of civil war in Iraq, in an armed society, and said that a bloodbath can easily be expected in the capital, especially since the early days of demonstrations showed the possibility of this.

The future also depends, according to the researcher, on Iran, which is trying to play the role of governance to maintain the current situation established by the Americans, but it is the beneficiaries of it.