This paper maintains that Iraq’s identity is at least partly determined by the multiplicity of its religions and sects. Also, the paper proposes that this multiplicity can be a source of socio-cultural richness and a potential engine for its socio-political unity if religious minorities can maintain their unique communal identities within a tolerant integrated political system.
However, current conditions reveal a situation whereby minority religious groups are induced to be aware of their minority status by the laws of the land, including the constitution, despite official claims of tolerance towards these minorities. The standing policy of the state mandates that Islam is the official and the only religion that can (and must) be taught and the grades students get in Islamic Education subject are considered an asset for Muslim students in public schools with some exception in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Minority students are free not to attend religion classes. Their churches and temples are places where they can be (freely!) taught to the young, but without any public obligation or support involved in the process of doing so. Hence, minority children are made (by law) to feel not only different but virtually discriminated against.
This paper demonstrably suggests that such outcome is bound to leave serious fissures in the fabric of society and make the lack of socio-religious integrity a major impediment of national unity and political of the state. Minorities, therefore, can possibly be functionally reduced to second class citizens in a supposedly democratizing state.
This paper will end by proposing reforms to the educational system whereby minority students, and therefore, minority communities, will develop attitudes and nurture values that are in the spirit of equality, justice, and human rights as such. Such reforms will be in the essence of democratic governance without infringing on the civil and/or political rights of the citizenry as a whole. Indeed, such reforms will enhance unity in society and the state. Such will be the salvation of a system that is destined to remain seriously lacking without solving the problem of religious minorities in Iraq.