October’s 2019 Protests in Iraq As Perceived by the Protestors: A Field Study in the Phenomenology of Protest Confronting the Violence of Political Power (In Arabic)

The protest wave that started on October 1, 2019 and then renewed with greater momentum on the twentyfifth of it in Baghdad and the governorates of the south and the middle Euphrates in Iraq, but constituted a decisive moment of protest in its intensity, momentum and sacrifices to bring about political change, in comparison with other waves that preceded it since 2010. The current field study sought to test four basic hypotheses by researching the phenomenology of the October protest, i.e. showing the patterns of political perception among the protesters, assuming that an essential part of the dynamics of revolutionary protest can only be understood or diagnosed in the light of the people's subjective perceptions. The study sample consisted of (1020) male and female protesters from Tahrir Square in Baghdad, who were interviewed in the field during the period from October 25 to November 17, 2019, using a questionnaire consisting of an informational introduction on the socio-economic backgrounds of the protesters (10 items), followed by (24) closed-ended questions with limited options, and (4) open-ended questions. Thus, the qualitative and quantitative methods were mixed, and statistical techniques were used to investigate the hidden implications arising from the dialectical relations between the categorical backgrounds of the protesters and their perceptions, attitudes and expectations. In its final analytical whole, the study concluded a complex set of conclusions, the most prominent of which was the remarkable rise in the educational level of these protesters, and that they represent the youth group at a high rate, but they suffer from absolute deprivation represented by a sharp rise in the rate of poverty and unemployment, and from severe economic deterioration on the individual and family levels. In comparison with the average economic conditions for the whole of Iraq, their conditions decline by rates ranging between double and triple. In addition to this absolute deprivation, their level of relative deprivation rises to a similar degree, and this means that their deprivation was a compound in which absolute deprivation is mixed with relative deprivation. As for the protest goals, it became clear that their goals of a comprehensive and radical nature (I want a homeland / fighting corruption / changing the political system) are superior to the rest of their goals of a partial reformist nature (improving services / getting my share of oil / reforming the government / getting a job/ entering the green zone). The study also concluded to prove its four hypotheses that the October protests emerged from the influence of a deep existential youth trend in which nationalism interacted with class egalitarian tendencies, and that it is a structural and functional link with the protests that preceded it. Al-Salami” is a far-reaching cognitive-behavioral strategy taken by the October protesters collectively to draw a line between the identity of the protestors and the identity of the authority without overlapping. A new fifth hypothesis was also added, derived from the results of the study, confirming the existence of a clear differentiation in the perceptions of the protesters between social religion as an individual's ideological, value and behavioral choice, and political religion as an authoritarian structure that produced conditions worthy of rejection, protest and change to the point of desperation from their point of view.