406 Resisting Publics
economic resources; why, then, are these groups the subject of attacks?
Why are professionals viewed as such a threat, and by whom?^39
nswers to these questions are important because they reflect the A
power of ideas, particularly in historical memory, to influence and shape
contemporary Iraqi politics. As numerous public opinion polls since 2003
have indicated, Iraqis continue to identify themselves as Iraqi, rejecting
the division of the country along sectarian lines. Representing the most
educated sectors of society, Iraq’s threatened and dwindling professional
classes constitute the most visible example of the antisectarian tradition of
Iraqi society. Because the professional classes are highly respected by large
segments of Iraqi society, their views are still heavily influential.
owever, ideas of cross-sectarian tolerance and cooperation threaten H
the political and economic agendas of sectarian militias, death squads,
insurgent groups and criminal organizations. These groups increasingly
filled the post-2003 political and economic vacuum that resulted from a
weak and faction-ridden central state, a moribund economy, the lack of
social services and the near collapse of the education system during the
1990s. These groups intimidated local populations to assert their con-
trol over them, often by using physical violence to force Iraqis to think in
terms of vertically defined political identities, namely according to which
ethnic group and religious sect they belong, rather than in national and
cross-ethnic terms. Because Iraq’s educated middle and especially profes-
sional classes still believe in an Iraq defined in Iraqi rather than sectarian
terms, they have been, ipso facto, viewed as a serious threat by the radical
organizations that have proliferated in post-Ba‘thist Iraq.
e professional classes in Iraq maintain an important position of Th
power precisely because they provide a model that corresponds to the
sentiments of Iraqi public opinion and an alternative to the attempt by
radical political organizations to impose sectarian politics on Iraqi soci-
ety. Professionals in Iraq thus represent an intellectual elite that helps to
keep alive the idea of a tolerant and nonsectarian politics in Iraq. The only
weapon they possess is their ideas, which invariably are antisectarian and
support the tradition of cross-ethnic cooperation that extends back to the
twentieth-century nationalist movement. That these professionals, who
reject sectarian values, remain high profile targets of Sunni insurgents
and Shi‘i militias, points to the overwhelming rejection by Iraqi society