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March 5, 2008

Young Iraqis Turning Away From Clerics Because Of Continued Violence


by Rohan Parker

A report has been released from Baghdad in which the young people of Iraq speak out against clerics who they say are inciting more violence in the already tumultuous region. Much of the Iraqi youth has expressed their unhappiness at being exposed to five years of war and that religious extremest clerics are still fueling the fires , leading Iraqi youth to turn away from their traditional religious leaders and their faith.

40 interviews were conducted over the span of two months in five cities in Iraq. These interviews show the disillusionment that the poor to middle class youth of Iraq are feeling towards clerics, who they say are putting more restrictions on their day to day lives and are still encouraging violence.

One of the interviewees, named Sara, said that she hated Islam and the clerics because of the prohibitions they placed on her freedom. Sara also stated that at her high school in Basra most of the girls had expressed similar anti-cleric sentiments and that they believed the current authorities in Iraq didn’t deserve to be in their places.

Another interviewee, a 19 year old named Atheer, lives in a poorer part of Baghdad and said that he thinks the religious leaders are liars and that the youth had no faith in them anymore. He went so far as to say that men of his age are no longer interested in religion at all.

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