The slum area of Baghdad populated mainly by Shi'a Muslims, and known under the dictatorship as Saddam City, technically has reverted to its old name, Thawra (Revolution) City; in fact, its people call it Sadr City, after the Shi'a leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, who is emerging as one of the contenders for power in post-Ba'athist Iraq.
Son of a cleric murdered by Saddam in 1999, al-Sadr built a base in Sadr City, and in the holy city of Najaf, before the war. According to some reports, his group - identified with the al Da'wa Party (the Islamic Call) repressed by the regime in the early 1980s - is the largest organised Shi'a movement. Its chief rival is the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), whose leader, Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, returned on 10 May from exile in Iran.
As chaos continues to reign in Iraq's cities, the religious leaderships are moving in to fill the gap. Hospitals, for example, have been taken under the control of the mosque.
The US attempts at forming some kind of sympathetic interim government are floundering. Their nominated military governor, retired general Jay Garner, has proved a liability. The various oppositionists backed by the US under Saddam, principally the Iraqi National Congress, have been unable, so far, to come up with a government.
AK47s are being sold on the streets to civilians anxious to protect their property - and despite the occupying forces' efforts to seize arms which they fear will be used against them. Increasingly, that fear is not simply of the militias of the deposed regime. Confrontations between the US army and protesting civilians become more and more common - with the civilian death toll rising almost daily. In Baghdad there are signs reading "Job Done, Go Home" - a clear indication of the growing unpopularity of the foreign military presence and impatience of the Iraqi people. In the absence of systems of democratic control, the growth of local vigilantism will probably mean growing civil disorder and violent conflict.
On the streets, looting continues; notoriously, looters even ransacked hospitals - under the noses of US forces too busy guarding oil company headquarters to intervene. It is inevitable, in the absence of some alternative, that existing - religious - leaderships will establish control over such essential services.
The need for local democratic systems, independent of both the military occupiers and the religious leaders, is urgent.
SCIRI has been in exile in Iran for over 20 years, and has built up an armed force there of perhaps 20,000 men. It is close to the Iranian regime - which may, indeed, undermine its base of support in Iraq - and no friend to democracy. Al-Sadr has also been in exile in Iran, but appears to be less closely associated with the Tehran government. Both these religious movements have been saying that they are opposed to democracy, and want only an Islamic government based on the Koran. For now, this sentiment is receiving cheers of approval from the crowd, though it must be an open question how long this will remain so.
Secular, democratic and working class forces will surely come into conflict with SCIRI and the movement behind al-Sadr - as well as the US/UK occupation. In Baghdad in particular, and the central part of the country, where there is a mix of Shi'a and Sunni Muslims (the south is mainly Shi'a), the need for local democracy free of sectarian affiliation is very strong.
So far, there don't seem to be signs of violence taking on a sectarian form, but it is, of course, a danger.
Hospitals, in some ways, symbolise what is at stake in Iraq today. In the aftermath of war, they are more needed than ever, but after 12 years of sanctions, and with constant power cuts and some of their equipment looted, they are hugely ill-equipped to deal with the health crisis. The US has suggested that its longer-term plan for the health system is to privatise it - this in a country which prior to the ravages caused by Saddam's military adventures, rich with oil wealth, had one of the best hospital systems in the "third world" (providing, in fact, levels of health care which would make most Europeans envious). A private health system in Iraq would be a disaster.
In fact what would happen would be that the care of the poor would fall to the mosques. As elsewhere in the Middle East, the Islamists will grow as the state retreats from providing basic services. An efficient public health care system, however, calls for a national economic policy, which the clerical leaderships are unable to provide.
A democratic, secular movement could give voice to such demands. And the disorganisation of the health and other public systems, along with the non-payment of wages, etc, pose the need for working class self-organisation. Alternative systems of local, working class democracy are possible in Iraq now, and logically called for - in the immediate term, perhaps along the lines of the localised self-management which exists in Argentina in the wake of economic collapse.
The American and British forces invaded Iraq, supposedly, to bring democracy - along with the elimination of weapons of mass destruction, which, of course, they have yet to find. The dictatorship has fallen. But there is still no democracy. Many Iraqis are already looking back to Saddam with some nostalgia. In their desperation they think, then at least, their homes weren't looted by mobs, the electrical grids didn't switch off all night, they could buy petrol to get to work (for which they would be paid), and there weren't foreign soldiers on the streets threatening to shoot you after curfew.
The US is already extending its plans for staying in Iraq, talking openly about the need to be there for a year, not only months.
Meanwhile it is awarding huge contracts (worth hundreds of millions of dollars) to US companies for the "reconstruction" of the country. All it can offer is some government of unpopular exiles, and look with growing alarm at the growth of the Shi'a movements.
The only answer, at national as well as local level, is proper, full democracy. The Iraqi people should be able to decide their own future.
There should be free elections to a Constituent Assembly. The Kurdish people should be promised their right to self-determination in the new Iraq (and consistent democracy should be ensured for areas of high ethnic tension, as in the cities of Mosul and Kirkuk).
This can only be achieved if the occupying forces get out. Increasingly, they are perceived as exactly that - an occupying, colonial force, protecting American interests, not democracy and freedom for the Iraqi people.
As struggles for democracy and freedom develop, a working class movement is sure to emerge. There once was a powerful workers' movement in Iraq, prior to four decades of Ba'athist repression. Socialists and trade unionists in Britain must be prepared to do all we can to help that workers' movement as it re-emerges.
