Simon - Imposition of Nationalism on Non-Nation State

Summary

Shi’is desired a state independent from foreign rule
Kurds of Mosul and others desired an independent kurdistan
Ancient Jewish population living in Baghdad, filled most of the civil service jobs under the british and early monarchy
Assyrians
Sunni Arabs were backed as the ruling elite during the mandate
Cites Anderson - Imagined Communities, where the imagined community is “arabs” instead of “mesopotamians” or “iraqis”, although this was also somewhat debated as a result of al-Husri’s reforms
- Elites were commissioned from the Ministry of Education in Baghdad
Kurds, Jews, and Shi’i found themselves excluded from social and political incorporation in the new Iraq

1/2 of the population in Central and Southern Iraq during Ottoman rule
Governed by a series of shaykhs, who went into political systems and left as they saw fit
- Yassine al-Hashimi had to draw the shaykhs in when he returned to power per Provonce - The Last Ottoman Generation
- British bombed or empowered them in Pursely - Familiar Futures
Faiysal used ethnicity to call into question the loyalty of the Shia’s/
1920’s revolt was the key point of Shia solidarity
King Ghazi did not like to draw in Shaykhs and use visits to them as a safety valve
Opposoed to the conscription in 1927 and 1932
Jamali (al-Husri’s successor at the ministry of education) spent the last years of his tenure in the 1940’s advocating for shi’i mobility
- Shi’is began to attend government schools in 1930-1495

Also attended government schools in mass
Identified as citizens of Arab Iraq
Became part of the Iraqi Arab intelligentsia
Nazi propaganda and Zionism, along with Faiysal’s death in 1933 ended most Jewish aspirations
Farhud event killed 150 Jews and began doubts of Jewish loyalty in Iraq
Eventually obfuscated the role of Jews in Iraqi history

Both deemed political threats to the regime
No possibility of independent Kurdistan after the treaty of ankara
Assyrians were protected by the British, massacred in Bakr Sidiqi’s military campaign

Yasin al_Hashimi adovcated conscription to build a shared national identity
capstoned with the Public Education Law of 1940
- Nationalist teaching subjects, history, geography, arabic language and literature in non-government schools
Arabism was a mark of solidarity in the Baghdad Military College