396 Resisting Publics
and Shi‘a prayed in their respective mosques, celebrated their respec-
tive holidays and rituals, and competed over which sect could produce
the most effective nationalist poetry. The central role of poetry in Iraqi
nationalist discourse not only reflected the influence of the oral tradition
in Arab culture, but also the mobilization of the most prominent form of
expression in Iraqi society. Poetry became an important vehicle for link-
ing urban nationalists and rural villages and tribes. In a syncretic fashion,
cross-regional and cross-ethnic communication was encouraged through
building on a cultural heritage shared by all groups in Iraqi society.^24
n 1928, the Minister of Education, who traditionally held the one I
Shi‘i portfolio in the government, tried to dismiss a Syrian secondary
school teacher, Anis al-Nusuli, who had written a history of the ‘Umayyad
Empire that some Shi‘i clerics found offensive. This effort led to exten-
sive street demonstrations by Iraqi students of all ethnic backgrounds
who invoked the idea of freedom of expression in demanding that al-
Nusuli be reinstated. The significance of the “al-Nusuli affair” was that
it demonstrated the constructed nature of sectarianism in Iraq. It also
demonstrated its generational component. While Sunni and Shi‘i Arabs
(and other ethnic groups) in Iraq’s various ministries had an incentive
to stress sectarianism as a mechanism for enhancing their political influ-
ence, sectarianism was of little interest to those outside government, such
as students, who lacked a stake in the dominant Iraqi political economy.
Younger Iraqis, who were socialized through the nationalist movement,
rejected a political community defined in ethnic or confessional terms
which they saw as part of an outdated and corrupt political system, and a
colonial strategy of “divide and conquer” designed to set one ethnic group
against another.
uring the 1930s, Iraqis of all ethnic groups joined the General D
Strike of 1931 in response to British efforts to dramatically increase
municipal electricity rates [rusūm al-baladiyyāt]. Faced with national
opposition that crossed ethnic lines, the British ultimately backed down
and rescinded the proposed increases. What was particularly striking
about the General Strike was the cooperation between Iraq’s traditional
artisan sector, recently united in a national organization, the Association
of Artisans [Jam‘iyyat Ashab al-Sana’i‘i], and the nascent labor movement
that had begun to organize unions during the late 1920s, especially in the