REFUGEE FACT SHEET NO.11| << | CHAPTER |
| IRAQIS
— THEIR
HISTORY AND CULTURE
REFUGEE FACT SHEET NO.11 |
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CONTENTS | PREFACE | INTRODUCTION | LAND | PEOPLE | SOCIETY | HISTORY | RELIGION | LIFE | CULTURE | ARABIC | ENGLISH | EXPRESSIONS | BIBLIOGRAPHY | ORDER A PRINT COPY | ||||
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The people who live in Iraq include a number of ethnic groups, physical types, and languages. |
The People For centuries, the population of Iraq consisted almost entirely of settled farmers in the river areas; Bedouin nomads who raised their flocks in the western plains and desert; Arabs who fished and raised water buffalo in the marshy areas around where the Tigris and Euphrates joined; and Kurdish farmers and herdsmen living in the mountains. These traditional ways of life have all been altered in the last century by several factors, including the gradual filtering into the society of Western thought and politics, the influx of foreigners in connection with the discovery and processing of oil, and the migration of segments of the population from rural to urban centers. More recently, there have been the changes in government and society brought about by the Ba'ath Party and Saddam Hussein, the effects of the long Iran–Iraq war and, of course, the effects of the invasion of Kuwait, Desert Storm, and the associated embargoes. The people who live in Iraq include a number of ethnic groups, physical types, and languages. According to 1993 estimates, the total population of Iraq is about 19,435,000, of whom about 77% are Arabs, about 19% Kurds, and the rest a variety of different groups, including Turkmens, Assyrians, and Armenians. Nearly all Iraqis follow Islam, and all speak at least a few words of Arabic, the state language. The Iraqi Arabs The Iraqi Arabs share most of the values and practices of other Arabs, which is to say that their life is greatly dominated by religion, but is also affected by the same secular pressures and benefits that affect the other oil-producing Arab countries. Most Iraqi Arabs were traditionally farmers, but these days an Iraqi is as likely to be a city dweller. The proud Bedouin nomads, with their unsurpassed knowledge of the desert, have been lured away from their difficult traditional life by government policy and by the possibility of more lucrative employment; there are very, very few of them left. The Ma'dan There is a distinct sub-group of Iraqi Arabs, called the Ma'dan or Marsh Arabs, who inhabit 6,000 square miles of marshy area just above the point at which the Tigris and Euphrates flow together, in a rough triangle formed by Amara, Nasiriya, and Basra. This area is truly marshland, and during high water times much of the land is submerged. The Ma'dan have a very different life from other Iraqis. They do very little farming, depending instead on fishing and the raising of water buffalo. Their quonset-hut-shaped houses, built of reeds resting on piles to keep them above water, are architecturally unique. The Ma'dan get around in canoe-like boats when the water levels are high and in other ways have a unique lifestyle in the area. As you will read below, this lifestyle is in grave danger, if it has not already disappeared, as a result of actions on the part of the Iraqi government. The Kurds More than three and a half million Kurds, about 19% of the population, live in northeast Iraq. Mosul, Irbil, and As-Sulaymaniyah, the third, fourth, and fifth largest cities in Iraq, are all Kurdish towns. The most valuable oil fields in Iraq are in the areas where the Kurds live. The Kurds are an Iranian ethnic group who for centuries have inhabited an area that stretches from Syria and Turkey through Iraq and Iran into Azerbaijan. The Kurds have their own language, an Indo-European language most closely related to Pashto and Baluchi, spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and less closely related to Iranian Persian. These days many if not most Iraqi Kurds also speak Arabic. The Assyrians One of the most interesting minority groups in Iraq is the Christian Assyrians, descendants of an ancient sect, the Nestorians, who are often called "the first Iraqis" because their presence in the area predates the Muslim Arabs. The Assyrians have a long history of persecution, and as a result there are few of them left—only about 170,000 scattered throughout the area. There are old communities around the oil fields of Iraq, however, and the Assyrians constitute a disproportionate percentage of the Iraqi refugees. Some Assyrians still speak Syriac, and most use it as a liturgical language. |
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The Cultural Orientation Project--http://www.culturalorientation.net,
for more information contact sanja@cal.org |
