Le Monde: For these reasons, Nasserism is the last bastion of the movement in Iraq

With a high concentration, a number of men listen in a regular episode in a tent in the center of Nasiriyah (Dhi Qar Governorate Center in southern Iraq) to a man who proudly talks about Nasiriyah, saying that it belongs today to all Iraqis who see it as the stronghold of the protests, pointing out with condemnation that some of the people of Nasiriyah are tired of Due to the difficulties they faced as a result of their apparent activity in the movement, and called for overcoming it by reactivating the mobilization.

The correspondent said that the civil disobedience movement that closed educational institutions and departments is still ongoing, and protesters have built brick shelters - instead of tents that were burned at the end of last month - decorated with murals on which pictures of the city's "martyrs" were placed as a result of the recent 170 protests.

In the Habboubi Square (the center of the Nasiriyah protests), students come almost daily to support other unemployed youths, and meet tribesmen in traditional dress and tea officials.

"The demonstrators will not surrender to the blood of the martyrs, anger at repeated political mistakes, a rejection of sectarianism, and a strong national feeling. The Nasiriyah community is united behind these goals," said activist Nasser, 30, who calls for early elections to get rid of a political class that he believes is corrupt and incompetent.

The correspondent warned that Nasiriyah is a city that does not lack the deprived neighborhoods to fuel the protest, noting the history of the city "unruly because of its geography, rich history, culture and sense of resistance and flexibility", as it is a city of intellectuals that was at the heart of revolts against the British occupation in the 1920s, and the birthplace of communism and Baathism, And the home of the Shiite uprising against the regime of the late President Saddam Hussein.

Dominant tribes
And again, since October 2019, Nasiriyah held the flame of competition, and expelled General Jamil al-Shammari following a massacre in which 29 protesters were killed, and contributed to the overthrow of Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, and she has not yet surrendered despite the sit-ins in Baghdad and other cities. Repeated attacks.

Sheikh (Asad al-Nasiri) who left Najaf to settle in a tent in al-Haboubi Square after distancing himself from the leader of the Sadrist movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, said that they (the Sadrists) "tried to stifle the movement, but the people in Nasiriyah are stronger than them ... because the number of Sadrists there is few."

"I have come to support the demonstrators in Nasiriyah who are demanding rights and the restoration of the homeland that the parties and Iran stole from them, because my name and my position as Sheikh of religion give them more power," added Nasseri, who is well guarded by some of his supporters worried about the threats he receives from Sadrists.

The correspondent said that it is the dominant tribal identity in the region that gives strength to the demonstrators, because "the tribes here are strong and united unlike Baghdad, and they have mobilized on several occasions in favor of the demonstrators, including the appearance of tribesmen armed in the streets of Nasiriyah to end the cycle of violence during the massacre committed by the general's forces." Shammari, "says Sheikh Al-Nasiri.

Many threats
The correspondent said that the support of Sheikh Ali Hussein Khioni - who leads more than one hundred thousand men - to the sit-in and his warnings that he regularly sends to the authorities and politicians have made him a target of numerous threats, the evidence of which is found in the effects of bullets on the windows of his garden.

His car was attacked by a machine gun last December by guards of a deputy in the Al-Shatrah area near Nasiriyah when he came to prevent the demonstrators from burning his house. "I finally interfered with party officials to prevent further attacks against sit-ins in Nasiriyah and Shatrah," he said.

In Al-Haboubi Square, a Sadrist activist said before he disappeared that "this challenge will end soon, because the salaries of the tribal leaders have been paid," and indeed - the correspondent says - that 16 tribal leaders demanded the protesters to calm down on the eighth of this month.

The correspondent cited what the spokesperson of the Bouchhama Initiative, Sheikh Adam Maan Safa al-Ghazar, said that he supports the protest and understands the anger of the young protesters, but he demands that Prime Minister Allawi be given an opportunity.

Warning to the danger of civil war, Sheikh Khion says, "Only a few are honest who say they support the challenge, and most of them have supported all governments since 2003 against graffiti, and they are receiving money to suppress the challenge."