Social and Foreign Affairs in Iraq (Routledge Revivals)

Saddam Hussein

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781135175924
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

First published in 1979, prior to the Iran-Iraq war, this important collection of speeches explains some of the strategic foundations of Iraq's foreign and internal policies under the Ba'th Arab Socialist Party. This work concerns itself with aspects varying from advice on youth – 'Let us win the young to safeguard the future' –, to speeches on Iraq's diplomatic relations. This fundamental work, concerning a historical and contemporary range of social and foreign affairs in Iraq, will be of considerable value to both political and diplomatic departments, and universities and research organisations involved with the Middle East. It is also of major significance to anyone with an interest in the rise to power of one of the twentieth century's most infamous dictators.

1
Women — One Half of Our Society

A speech delivered by Mr Saddam Hussein at the Third Conference of the General Federation of Iraqi Women on 17th April 1971

Sisters,

Your Congress is a prominent event in the life of our people and our country. Throughout the pre-Revolution years, the women's organisation (of the Party) had various militant duties and specific forms of struggle in which women joined men in the political and social fields. There was no organisational framework capable of absorbing and expressing the aspirations of millions of Iraqi women and mobilising their energy in the fight against imperialism and Zionism and in the struggle for freedom and a better life.

Under the aegis of the Revolution which was led by our Party, the Arab Ba'th Socialist Party, circumstances were created for the building up of some social organisations, which included an organisation for women — the General Federation of Iraqi Women — in addition to other associations for students, workers, peasants, members of the professions, doctors and writers.

Despite the backward conditions which wasted most of their potential, women in our country have truly played a noble and prominent role in our people's struggle for freedom from imperialism, dictatorship and reactionary regimes and for achieving the pan-Arab aims of unity, liberty and socialism.

During the 1920 revolution in which our people gave their response to the British colonial occupation, and during the mass uprisings against the imperialist pacts and alliances, the unjust legislation and conditions and the corrupt, reactionary dictatorships, women took part and played a role which gave an example of courage and initiative and inspired bravery and enthusiasm in the hearts of the stragglers.

The women's organisation took a leading part in building up our Party and in its struggle to defeat the enemies of the people and achieve the Revolution. During the difficult period of the struggle when our strugglers were subjected to intense terror, the Women's Organisation of the Arab Ba'th Socialist Party undertook the active task of maintaining contact between the leadership and all Party organisations as well as between those comrades who had been arrested and those outside prison.

The women's organisation was also a mobilising force among the people, channelling their protests and anger against the methods of imperialism and persecution and despotic actions practised by the reactionary dictatorships against the Arab Ba'th Socialist Party strugglers and all patriotic and progressive fighters.

In every part of the homeland, the Iraqi woman fought hard for her place in society until she achieved encouraging progress which inspires pride and confidence.

Thousands of girls are entering schools every year and thousands of women go to work in factories, schools, hospitals and state establishments, apart from the great productive role performed by women in the rural areas.

Education of women is not restricted in our country to the primary stages, nor has women's employment been restricted to minor responsibilities. Iraq's five universities include a large proportion of female students and a number of women have acquired high qualifications in medicine and engineering. Some women are now teaching in the universities. Women in Iraq have also reached high positions in the government and become ministers and directors general. Others are vigorously working in such fields as the judiciary, the arts, literature, research and journalism.

For the first time in the history of our country, Iraqi women occupied, after the Revolution, leading posts in the trade unions. The Agrarian Reform Law made no distinction between men and women in their enjoyment of all the rights granted by this Law.

The complete emancipation of women from the ties which held them back in the past during the ages of despotism and ignorance is a basic aim of the Party and the Revolution. Women make up one half of society. Our society will remain backward and in chains unless its women are liberated, enlightened and educated.

Freedom is based on enlightenment, science and an understanding of the national characteristics of the country as well as on respect for the interests of the masses and the responsibilities of the fight against imperialism and Zionism. It must aim at the attainment of the national and Pan-Arab objectives. Such a freedom will be able to harness the potential of women in such a way that will lead to the building up of a free and unified country that is both strong and advanced.

We are all — in the Party and the Government, and in the social organisations — expected to encourage the recruitment of more women to the schools, government departments, the organisations of production, industry, agriculture, arts, culture, information and all other kinds of institutions and services.

We are called upon to struggle tirelessly against all the material and psychological obstacles which stand in our way along this path.

The obstacles which stand in the way of women in the various areas of life are greater than those which are facing men. This fact makes it incumbent on all the awakened elements in society to support woman in her natural and legitimate endeavour to occupy her place in society.

Those who still look on women with the mentality and ideas of the ages of darkness and backwardness do not express the aspirations and ambitions of the Revolution. They are at variance with the principles of the Party which are essentially based on freedom and emancipation. Indeed, they are in opposition to every true desire for progress.

The Revolution is a leap towards an enlightened freedom which is placed at the service of the people and of the progress of mankind in general. It cannot be a genuine revolution if it does not aim at the liberation of woman and the development of her material and cultural conditions.

Those with a despotic and overbearing attitude who appoint themselves as guardians of woman and place artificial barriers in the way of her emancipation and full participation in society are not rendering their country and their people any service. They are in fact doing harm to their homeland and their people. They are trying, consciously or unconsciously, to dissipate their people's potential and hinder its progress.

The women of our country are the descendants of the immortal Arab women who fought valiantly side by side with their menfolk, wrote the poetry of chivalry and glory and participated in the great Arab heritage of civilisation. Thanks to their conscious commitment to the Revolution and the ideals and interests of the masses, and their correct understanding of the national characteristics of our civilisation and heritage, the Arab women, together with their Kurdish sisters and all other women of Iraq, are capable of following a correct path and playing their pioneering role in the construction of the revolutionary society.

The struggle against the camp of imperialism, Zionism and reaction, with all their modern means of science and destruction, requires committed, educated and free human beings. Any segregation of women or anything less than their full participation in society deprives the homeland of half of its citizens and half of its intellectual, productive and fighting potential.

An enlightened mother who is educated and liberated can give the country a generation of conscious and committed fighters. What a crime it would be against the younger generation if women were deprived of their rights to freedom, education and full participation in the life of the community!

Sisters, a great part of the responsibility of the struggle for the emancipation of women falls upon your Federation. But woman will not attain her complete freedom in this country until the achievement of the aims of the Revolution on the regional level and the aims of the Pan-Arab Socialist revolution within the Arab homeland.

The bourgeois concepts of woman's emancipation will not bring her any genuine freedom or either moral or material progress.

The commitment to the Revolution and the defence of its ideals and gains, together with the maintenance of the interests of the toiling masses, are the only way to the liberation of women.

Sisters, I wish your Congress all success and hope that it may arrive at the best formulas to mobilise the potentialities of all progressive and patriotic women. I also hope that this Congress may adopt practical measures to strengthen the unity of the struggle of all Arab women throughout the Arab homeland.

May this Congress become an important turning point in the work of your Federation so that its activity will cover every farm, factory, school, office and every part of this society. In this way, your Federation will be able to spread among women the principles of freedom and struggle for unity and socialism, to combat illiteracy and ignorance among women, to arouse their enthusiasm for more learning and knowledge, to instruct them in the methods of community work and to encourage them to participate extensively in the life of the community and the new revolutionary construction.

2
Avoiding Two Erroneous Tendencies

Statement given by Mr Saddam Hussein to Woman magazine of Iraq in April 1975 on the occasion of the International Woman's Year

In response to the United Nations resolution for the observation of 1975 as the International Woman's Year to be dedicated to serious discussions on the situation of woman and support for her struggle, Mr Saddam Hussein gave the following special statement to 'Woman' magazine:

From the very beginning we must emphasise that the principled revolutionary outlook must be based on the situation as a whole. That is why we don't look on woman in isolation from the total situation we are considering. She is a member of our revolutionary society with all the rights and duties associated with a human being.

Our Party in its ideological attitude and fundamental premisses and in its strategic outlook regards the human being, whether man or woman, as both the good and basic instrument of the struggle. We have outstanding examples in the women who joined the ranks of our Party. In the light of all this and with the inspiration of the brilliant history of our nation in which women played prominent roles in every field — in addition to our progressive views and the need for mobilising all the potentialities on a civilised basis and in the consciousness of our responsibilities and commitments — our attitude to women is shaped by the basic tenets of the Arab Ba'th Socialist Party (ABSP) which believes in the creative role of mankind, the importance of people's mobilisation and the realisation of all the citizens' potential in achieving the comprehensive changing of society.

In this way, this attitude avoids two erroneous tendencies. The first, to define the role and importance of women in society on the basis of feudal or bourgeois ideology which assumes that the first and last role for women is in the home and treats them as second-class citizens. Thus women are stripped of their humanity and deprived of their creative spirit and mental powers. The second, to accept certain superficial aspects of what is called modernisation in those societies and countries which are advanced in this field as if they were models for the freedom and development of women.

By rejecting both tendencies we can abandon the feudal and bourgeois mentality and retrogressive tyranny and emphasise at the same time our refusal of the false and superficial kinds of development which do not penetrate to the essence of the problem but only deal with its surface.

The genuine role of women cannot be established by haphazard action or by reliance on the effects and results of the process of time. This is a matter which calls for the interaction of a number of subjective and objective factors. In the process our Party should play a leading role to ensure that the result of the total movement of society takes a mature and revolutionary form as a qualitative change in the desired direction. By accepting this we concede that the total and radical emancipation of women as we see it cannot be achieved without the emancipation of the whole of society, politically, economically and culturally because it is the liberation of society which provides the objective condition for the emancipation of women and their liberation from the bonds of backwardness and ignorance.

Such emancipation cannot be achieved by legislation only, despite its great importance. The forward move of the revolutionary process and its continuous interaction with society provide the legislator with the necessary conviction and psychological background for achieving the desired change and transformation. In fact they create the very needs for making such legislation or decisions.

As our Pan-Arab and socialist ideology provides the basis for our definition of the true role of women in our society, we believe that any mobilisation of the people or activity of the masses will remain deficient without the serious participation of the woman. Through their natural position in looking after the cohesion of the family and its development on a solid and correct foundation as a living cell in the body of society, women give expression to the unity, totality, and equilibrium of society.

The emancipation of women is accordingly a basic condition to ensure that such activities and mobilisation movements take their correct form as well as an essential criterion for judging the application of the democratic practices to the whole population. Dealing with the question of women's emancipation in an ideological and comprehensive manner is one of the basic tasks of the ABSP because it is a question which affects the strategic aims of the Party.

The ideological premiss of the ABSP and its theory of action indicate that no revolutionary change may he achieved through legislation alone. It requires persistent struggle, extensive popular action, precise knowledge of the laws which govern social change and their correct utilisation by a capable leadership which defines with precision sound formulas and the correct areas for the emancipation of women. Thus the process of emancipation may be completed to the maximum extent to which revolutionary action is capable and that society can absorb within the movement of the Revolution which aims at the forward transformation of society. Attention must be duly given to the correct revolutionary balance so that the desired movement and action may not disturb the process while overstepping the retrogressive forms, traditions and customs and bypassing the superficial bourgeois concepts of freedom.

Action to overcome the degrading view of women which is the product of the ideals of a tribal and feudal society must be kept up through a revolutionary effort against the attitude which preaches submission to the dictates of haphazard development. Although this task is a general responsibility, there is a primary need for a distinctive participation of women as a result of the circumstances of oppression, exploitation and backwardness inflicted on women with all their negative effects that must be eradicated.

The achievement of the complete emancipation of women is a revolutionary necessity for accelerating the wheels of progress. The present realities of our society and the critical challenges facing it allow no room whatsoever for excluding the woman from the Pan-Arab and national tasks. These require her participation in meeting these challenges and providing the various essentials which constitute the dynamic struggle against them. The emancipation of women is a principal basis for bringing up the new generation and the discharge of its heavy responsibilities.

Hence, the educational, economic and social backwardness of the woman is one of the toughest obstacles standing in the way of development. The endeavour to secure the rights of woman and open the door for her to work, excel and liberate herself in every respect, theoretically and practically, is therefore one of the essentials in our thinking and in our determination to accomplish revolutionary changes and eradicate any source of defect.

When we are building up in Iraq the liberated base for the movement of Arab Revolution, our actions should be connected with the long-term strategic objectives.

This calls for a revolutionary action with a view to the reality related to our aspirations — that is the revolutionary transformation of the reality in the light of the subjective and objective factors. It also calls for an ever-increasing struggle to bring the outcome closer to the central aims of the ABSP, as laid down and outlined in the Political Report of the 8th Regional Congress.

This is an element in our outlook as revolutionaries dealing with objective facts. This requi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Half Title
• Original Title
• Original Copyright
• Contents
• Translator's Preface Khalid Kishtainy
• 1. Women — One Half of Our Society
• 2. Avoiding Two Erroneous Tendencies
• 3. No Fear but Careful Planning
• 4. The Planned Progress of the Revolution
• 5. The Revolution and the Historical Role of Women
• 6. Let Us Win the Young to Safeguard the Future
• 7. The National Potential and International Politics
• 8. Detente and the Arab-Zionist Conflict
• 9. The Realistic Approach to the Palestinian Cause
• Index