Who is “liberal” in 1930s Iraq? Education as a contested terrain in a nascent public sphere

The 1930s was a decade of failed political stabilization for the newly founded Iraqi state. King Faysal I’s death in 1933 resulted in a period of political infighting between political factions that led to a series of military coups between 1936 and 1941. Authoritarianism gained a strong foothold in state structures and the minds of those who shaped them. Among the small numbers of the educated elite there was a wide range of political opinions between two poles. First, political turmoil resulted in the growing influence of young army officers. They and their radically nationalist civilian allies challenged the older generation of the state’s founding fathers. This authoritarian strain of Iraqi politics was successful in monopolizing power during the late 1930s. It followed a path of modernization that came close to totalitarian ideas.1