Book Review: Nadje Al-Ali and Nicola Pratt, What Kind of Liberation: Women and the Occupation of Iraq (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009, 240 pp., £29.75 hbk)
| Author | Yaniv Voller |
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/03058298110400011214 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
210 Millennium: Journal of International Studies 40(1)
Nadje Al-Ali and Nicola Pratt, What Kind of Liberation: Women and the Occupation of Iraq
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009, 240 pp., £29.75 hbk).
Amongst the flood of literature on post-invasion Iraq, only a few books have actually
tried to apply their findings to wider questions in international politics. Nadje Al-Ali and
Nicola Pratt’s book is one of them. It examines three intertwined hypotheses: firstly, that,
in contrast to pre-war promises and declarations, Iraqi women have experienced a sharp
deterioration in almost every aspect of their lives under the occupation; secondly, that the
occupation of Iraq is the main cause of this tragedy, having eroded mechanisms of
national unity; and, thirdly, that one cannot understand Iraq, or in fact any society or
state, without understanding women’s roles in shaping it, and their struggle to have a
voice in processes of state-and nation-building. The authors undertake a thorough analy-
sis of the unfolding events in Iraq, including a critical review of the statements and poli-
cies of the occupation authorities and their domestic allies and successors, as well as a
large number of interviews with Iraqi women activists at all levels of society and from
varied backgrounds, both in Iraq and in the Iraqi diaspora.
It is worth focusing on the book’s second hypothesis, as therein lies its main weak-
ness. It is hard to challenge either the idea that the occupation has done great harm to
Iraq or the accusation that the occupation authorities made grave mistakes. These errors,
the authors argue, derive from the fact that the occupation eroded Iraq’s mechanisms of
national unity, eventually leading to the emergence of sectarianism and religious extrem-
ism. As Al-Ali and Pratt argue in their conclusion, Saddam Hussein may have planted
the seeds of sectarianism and religious Islamism, but these seeds have flourished under
the occupation authorities. By imposing a de facto confessional system, early elections
and a constitution, and by excluding Sunni Iraqis and allowing infiltration by foreign
extremist insurgents, the occupation authorities fragmented Iraq and forced Iraqis to
search for new identities (p. 167). However, this story ignores sectarianism’s historical
influence on the Iraqi political system, which long pre-dates the 2003 invasion. Under
the Ba’th regime, the Iraqi ruling elite had been predominantly Sunni; Kurdish-populated
regions in the north had been Arabised and cleansed of their Kurdish natives; both Kurds
and Shiites were massacred indiscriminately by the Ba’th security forces on various
occasions1; and the opposition to the Ba’th regime had been organised on religious and
sectarian lines (the Shiite Da’wa Party, for example, became active in the 1950s and
1960s). The authors themselves acknowledge this in Chapter 1, but they dismiss these
examples of sectarianism as mere ‘moments in history’ (p. 54). This is not a simple
inconsistency. If sectarianism and religious extremism are treated as immediate causes
of the tragedy inflicted upon the Iraqi people in general, and women in particular, then
their origins should be examined more thoroughly. This is not to argue against the link
between military intervention and gendered violence. However, if we wish to under-
stand this relationship in Iraq, we must make a greater effort to discuss the historical
roots of the problem.
The book is far more successful in achieving its aim of providing the reader with an
insightful gendered analysis of Iraq. Through numerous interviews conducted during
many visits to the country, Al-Ali and Pratt present the reader with a holistic description
of life in Iraq. In a structured and articulate manner, Chapters 2 to 4 illustrate how the
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