Re-Claiming Babylon: Epistemic Violence and Rhetorical Sovereignty in Iraq Discourse

Ali Al-Hassani, Ruba (2024) Re-Claiming Babylon: Epistemic Violence and Rhetorical Sovereignty in Iraq Discourse. UNSPECIFIED.

Abstract

For two decades after the U.S.-led invasion, White people have been dominating English-language discourse on Iraq. Despite effort by some Iraqis in the diaspora to guide the conversation, White men and women in government, think-tanks, and academia expect to lead the conversation. They sideline pluralistic Iraqi voices in favour of a West-centric perspective and through the prism of a U.S.-Iran proxy war. This type of conversation externalises and reduces Iraqis to a passive polity if not collateral damage—rhetoric reminiscent of the 2003 invasion.