Guest Contributor, Dr. Faris Kamal Nadhmi, is a founding member and President of the Iraqi Association for Political Psychology. He is the author of many studies, most recently, THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PROTEST IN IRAQ: From the Rise of Islamism to the Emergence of Nationalism. Dr. Nadhmi teaches at Salahiddin University in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The long social history of mankind has always had
times when its crimes have been legitimized or justified via their institutionalization
in a deep-rooted framework arising from a supposedly “infallible” law derived sometimes from
“theological necessities,” and at other times, from worldly customs and norms.
The cruelest injustices and worst abasement of human dignity have always occurred under the cover of titles such as “sacredness” or “justice”.
It is
easy to reproduce injustice via the letter of the law, and to abuse humanity by
the authority of the holy text which “cannot be accountable” so long as it
stands on the basis of legislation that remains in the grip of “true” authority
derived from the metaphysics of heaven, or of the earth - it really makes no
difference.
In Iraq, we dealt with this idea some three years ago when there was an attempt in the Iraqi Parliament to pass a draft
bill on the Ja’fari civil status codes. It was successfully frustrated at the
time by the efforts of civil activists, including many women and youth.
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| Gen. 'Abd al-Karim Qasim, |
Taking the proposed amendments altogether, their motivations
and consequences can be assessed as follows:
1 These amendments, in their essence,
are nothing more than a political effort which seeks to impose a cultural hegemony on
authority, in a defining moment before the parliamentary elections, by
reproducing a society according to a limited and hubristic theocratic vision. This vision is in conflict with the determinants of natural humanity and is in
contradiction with the rational development of the concept of the family across
history.
2. If the social purpose envisaged by the
marriage bond is the establishment of a rational nuclear family, characterized
by the ability to organize its economic, emotional and sexual affairs for the
benefit of a well-ordered society, then what is the purpose of legislation that eschews the high standards of discipline, civilization and rationality, and sinks instead to the depths of childishness, compulsion, and sexual abuse?!
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| Iraqi women protest against the proposed Ja'fari Law, May 2014 |
This definition of paedophilia as a disorder is one which has been made by the World Health Organisation. It is likewise prohibited in international covenants, including the Covenant on the Rights of
the Child issued by the United Nations in 1990, to which Iraq became a
signatory in 1994.
4.
The current proposals rob the civil
judge of his authority, springing from the overarching identity of the state, and
redistributes it between administrative authorities such as the Administration
of Awqaf and other theological authorities, such as the religious muraja’, both of which have fundamental disagreements on their interpretations of Islamic
jurisprudence (al-fiqh). This creates an intentional breach in the coherence of national
identity as an essential condition for social harmony and
civilizational awakening.
5 This change in Iraq's Civil Status Law will lead to the individual establishing
a closed, sectarian mental picture of her/his sect and religion, thereby undermining citizens' ability to develop feelings of national belonging towards other Iraqis. This potential outcome, should the law be amended, is
consistent with the destructive function which a sectarian political Islam has
played in Iraq. As an ideology, political Islamism has sought, and still seeks, to undermine the entity
of the “nation-state,” which cannot cohere and develop a national sense of identity if based sectarian foundations which promote social and cultural fragmentation and exhaustion.
Baghdad
6/ 11/ 2017
6/ 11/ 2017
