I am currently working through a book by Naomi Klein. The book talks about America's business in Iraq, and the push for getting the American corporations involved in Iraq after buying out all of their state owned companies.
There is a specific part of the book that really caught my attention however. Briefly, Iraq is portrayed as a nation with an extensive public sector, which operated on par with the will of the people. Iraqis unlike Americans hated privatisation, and were willing to take violent action against factory managers who were willing to sell the companies to the Americans, even threatening suicide if that were to occur.
After the Shia government tried to stand up to the neocons in Iraq - neocons who were essentially buying out Iraq, upon being given green light by the insurance companies. This did not end well, and soon after, even acts of counter terrorism did not help. Iraqis had no way to get food, water, supplied, medication etc.
A lot of the towns were destroyed, and instead of helping them rebuild, as Americans claimed, they instead waited for the state companies to fall, and attempted to buy them from the Iraqis for dirt cheap .
This, as one would expect, made people get together and form unions that would take care of other people via donations etc. All of this happened in a very similar fashion in Poland under German rule, for example.
One thing that caught my eye was how they went about forming these unions. The unions were paramilitary in nature. Yes, they helped to rebuild the homes, get food and water to people, supply medication, etc. but moreover, they were also Islamic.
This was skimmed over in the book, and left without, frankly, an explanation. Why is it that the paramilitary organisations were not free market, liberal, and secular? Is there, perhaps, date I say, a genetic component, or at the very least, a cultural component which would make these people radicalise in this VERY particular way? What are your thoughts on this, and why is this issue so particular to the middle east specifically?