The Impact of the Economic Embargo on Iraqi Families: Re-structuring of Tribes, Socio-Economic Classes and Households

Abstract

The economic embargo imposed on Iraq since 2 August 1990 has had profound effects on Iraqi family life. This paper attempts to explore these effects, concentrating on the ways in which families are coping with the stifling pressures of the embargo. People have been compelled to resort to a variety of channels and strategies in their hard struggle for survival. Economic problems - including the ever-present threat of hunger - are the most prominent features in the embargo panorama. This paper also describes the decline of collective sentiments, a decline which the embargo has laid the ground for. The enormous difficulties of living have sapped peoples emotional reserves and have thereby weakened their social ties. Families either use whatever money they make to buy the bare necessities of life or stockpile it; they no longer devote any economic resources to the maintenance of social ties. The decline in sociability since the beginning of the embargo has affected and is affected by individual morale. Sometimes people have responded to the embargo as if it were a challenge, while at other times they vacillate between hope and despair. A third point covered by the paper is the effect of the embargo on socio-economic stratification. The withdrawal of wealth from the kinds of social activities which formerly required large expenditures - and which continually reconstructed social relations - has been accompanied by an increasing economic polarization between the poor and the wealthy. Old, respected urban families with centuries of prestige and family traditions have become impoverished and must devote all of their resources to the struggle for survival. At the same time, a few uneducated rural families enjoy unprecedented prosperity.. This coupling of elite family decline with the rapid rise of certain rural families is a phenomenal paradox that has been brought on by the embargo. The distorted and lopsided social mobility is perceived by many Iraqis as chaotic and disorienting.

Rival characteristics that provoke jealousy: A study in Iraqi Kurdistan.

“…To further examine the potential cross-cultural influence on gender differences in the rival characteristics that provoke jealousy, the exact same procedure was used to study the jealousy-evoking effect of rival characteristics in Iraqi Kurdistan, a culture that attaches much more value than The Netherlands, Spain, and Argentina to chastity and marital sexual exclusivity (e.g., Bennett, 2007). Iraqi Kurdistan is a relatively autonomous region of Iraq, and like other regions in the Middle East, it is historically a tribal culture, culturally closely related to Iran, where loyalty to the family and clan is of utmost importance (e.g., Al-Nouri, 1997). Related to this, the degree of free mate choice is limited, and parents determine to a large extent the mate choice of their offspring.…”

Man-made disaster and development

“…As Iraq's oil-dependent economy withered, child malnutrition, disease, and infant and child mortality increased sharply in the 1990s, and food self-sufficiency declined (Dobson, 2000;Garfield, 1999;UNICEF, 1998). Al-Nouri (1997) found that the UN trade embargo created profound effects on Iraqi family life by distorting social mobility, weakening social norms, altering longstanding social networks, and producing emotional strain and psychological distress. Sanctions were chiefly responsible for the excess deaths of 300,000-500,000 infants and children during the 1990s (Garfield and Leu, 2000).…”