The plight of minorities amidst bidding wars and battles for recognition.

One of the biggest challenges facing the cohesion of minorities is the political and regional bidding wars that are paid for and do not appear to be on the verge of fracturing and collapsing, except when their situation within their ruling elites is exacerbated by a division that exceeds the limits and possibilities of absorption, as is the case with the Faili component.

We can consider the essence of the matter to be in the (cohesion of the elites) who are trying to manage the experience from behind the scenes towards the institution. If intellectual or practical cohesion continues for two periods in a professional and deliberate manner, it creates a public whose will in political realism becomes higher than the divisions and the weakening of the components from outside and inside.

Everyone involved in politics in modern Iraq is well aware of the implications of this analysis, as it has become clear to everyone that the politics based on constituent identity is the true alternative to the centralized national and religious politics based on a single identity, which has reached its limit and entered a crisis of self-erosion that cannot be reformed, but rather its complete destruction is the best thing for the future of Iraq and its people.

Minorities have triumphed through their resilience and resistance against political annihilation, and they have withstood chauvinism, even though the latter has monopolized official institutions and resources for more than four decades.

The awareness of this mindset, which sees the preservation of the components from oppressive Arabism, is an awareness that naturally stems from the political perspective of these components after 2003. This awareness led to a desire to dismantle that oppressive mindset at the highest level, namely the constitutional level. The components were constitutionally enshrined, and everyone applauded this historic step. However, it remains insufficient for its preservation, as it must be followed by a second, more important and urgent step: establishing the components as the foundation of Iraqi identity. This step is the only guarantee that will halt the devastation caused by Arab nationalism over the past 40 years.

The constitutional, social and political transition process must be accompanied by an intensification of knowledge and clarification in order to be able to jump, as quickly as possible, from illiteracy to written records. This can only be achieved by the existence of research centers and institutions that care about this aspect and are far removed from foolish political squabbles and rivalries.

Some resort to renting out their resources to political entities whose intellectual foundations lack any belief in diversity and pluralism. Beware of them, for they are of the same ilk as unstable and unintegrated individuals—anxious, resentful of political progress, lagging behind, lazy, delusional, and even irrational. The only appropriate response to such people is political exclusion and marginalization.

We have suffered a lot from them, but despite that, we can never leave the door closed. The door has always been open to discussion and dialogue with these political entities, some of whom have come to their senses and changed their positions in favor of the public interest. In other words, we have won all the battles we have fought, and I mean the battles of recognition in light of the use of political posturing, which used methods of innuendo and slander by deliberately diminishing the importance of the roles of those who share national responsibilities and duties with them. This is a destructive way of thinking and a negative behavior that does not contribute positively to the issue of restoring rights, establishing identity, and compensating for injustice, genocide, and the erosion of culture over decades.