Iraqi Intellectual Elites and Social Mobility in the 1930s

Abstract

The Iraqi intellect ual  elites were destined to play an important role in the societal movement in the thirties of the twentieth century, a role that had a great impact on the arrangements of the essential issues and matters in society in all their diversity, due to the status and cultural, political and social competence of this group, dialectically linked to the social and intellectual structure, as it represents the active element in the various social classes and categories, and due to the nature of the roles that this group plays towards itself, and towards the social reality of influence, as well as the historical role that this group plays by virtue of the nature of its formation, after the qualitative change that Iraqi society witnessed in the thirties, as the intellectual group was no longer limited to clerics, but a number of graduates of modern schools appeared in its ranks who became a large percentage, and its adoption of the intellectual and secular trends that came to the country. 

Many intellectuals participated in associations and political parties opposed to British interference in Iraqi political affairs. The intellectuals' stance was clear in opposing the unequal treaties between Iraq and Britain. The division and fragmentation among Iraqi intellectuals regarding public positions, whether political or intellectual, was a prominent feature during the 1930s, as the position of the Iraqi intellectual elite was limited to support for and opposition to the political regimes only.