In a tent set up as a library on the avenue which leads to the statue of the poet Mohammed Saïd Al-Habboubi, in the city center of Nassiriya, in the south of Iraq, men seated in a circle listen, religiously, to their forties state your ideas. "Nassiriya now belongs to the whole of Iraq. Many see it as the stronghold of protest. It makes us proud and gives us responsibility. We are tired, but we cannot show it and we must overcome this crisis by relaunching the mobilization ”, calls the activist, immediately drawn into a heated debate by his audience.
Four and a half months after the start of the anti-power demonstrations in Baghdad and in southern Shiite, and while the Shiite ruling parties are uniting to stifle the movement and form a government around Mohammed Taoufiq Allaoui, this protest bastion resists. The sit-in has lost none of its excitement. The civil disobedience movement, which closed educational establishments and administrations, remains followed. Brick shelters, decorated with colorful frescoes honoring the 170 "Martyrs" of the city, were erected in place of the burned tents during the last attack on the sit-in, on January 24.
Young idle workers who camp on the Habboubi square mix with the students, present almost daily. Tribesmen in traditional attire converse with costumed workers and city officials over tea. "The demonstrators will not give up because of the blood of the martyrs, anger, repeated political mistakes, rejection of confessionalism and a strong patriotic feeling. The society of Nassiriya is united behind these objectives ”, assures Nasser, a 30-year-old activist, who is calling for early elections to get rid of a political class he deems corrupt and incompetent.
Nassiriya has no shortage of deprived neighborhoods to fuel the protest, but above all it has a tradition that everyone is committed to honoring. "Historian Hanna Batatu said of Nassiriya that she had an untamed spirit because of her geography, her rich history and culture, her sense of resistance and resilience", continues Nasser. City of intellectuals and tribal land, it was in turn at the heart of the revolts against the British occupation in 1920, the Iraqi birthplace of communism and Baathism, and the home of the Shiite uprising against Saddam Hussein, with its marshes surrounding where the insurgents took the maquis.
