Předpoklady genocidy iráckých jezídů / Vícečetná krize
Preconditions for the Genocide of Iraqi Yazidis / A Multiple Crisis

Summary/Abstract: This two-part study, the first part of which is published in this issue, examines the preconditions of the genocide of the Yazidi religious-ethnic group perpetrated by the Islamic State in Iraq’s Nineveh Governorate in 2014. Thousands of Yazidis were killed or abducted into slavery, while hundreds of thousands were forced to flee their homes. The authors focus on the processes that preceded the genocide, offering an innovative analysis of its preconditions not at the macro level of global or national dynamics, but rather at a lower analytical level – that of the province and district. To this end, they briefly introduce various theoretical concepts of genocide. The analytical framework of the study is derived from the concept of the genocidal process and multiple crises, as developed by the American social psychologist James Waller. According to this approach, genocide emerges from the simultaneous occurrence of sociocultural, economic, political, and security crises. The authors argue that such a complex crisis developed in Iraq at the level of Nineveh Governorate following the fall of the dictator Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) in 2003. They identify its key components and demonstrate how each contributed to the development of the overall genocidal process. The sociocultural crisis consisted of the strengthening of stereotypical categorizations of Yazidis as apostates from Islam, heretics, or even infidels who worship the devil, disregard gender segregation, are impure, and even inhuman. In addition to Islamic narratives, this stigmatization of Kurdish-speaking Yazidis was also rooted in Arab nationalism, tribal conflicts, and rudimentary yet effective folk beliefs. The parallel economic crisis manifested in the decline of what had once been a relatively prosperous province. Unemployment and poverty were exacerbated by neglected infrastructure, the influx of refugees from central and southern Iraq, and recurring droughts. The authors identify the political crisis as the key factor in the development of the genocidal process. After 2003, this crisis in Nineveh was, in many respects, deeper and more distinct than in the rest of Iraq. The province suffered from political conflicts stemming from the two main cleavage lines of the new Iraqi state: the Arab–Kurdish and Sunni–Shia divides. Yazidis, living as a religious minority in the so-called disputed territories, found themselves at the epicentre of these struggles among more powerful actors. At the same time, they were affected by weak state institutions, the unresolved legacy of injustice from Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, and the weakness and fragmentation of their own elites, who had only limited political representation at national, regional, and local levels. As the frustrations of Sunni Arabs turned against vulnerable minorities such as the Yazidis, the weakened Iraqi state lacked both the political will and the institutional capacity to protect them. The genocide was ultimately made possible by a security crisis caused by the dismantling of the previous regime’s structures, as well as by corruption and sectarianism within state security forces, the rise of non-state militias, interventions by foreign armed actors, the displacement of Islamist militants into Nineveh from other parts of Iraq, the spread of a culture of impunity, the elimination of moderate Sunni Arab figures, the proliferation of conspiracy theories, the rise of militant forms of Islam, the inaction of the central government, and the failure of Yazidi elites.

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