Between Fragility and Survival: The Mandaean Indigenous People and the Failure of Minority Protection in Iraq : A case study about a forgotten ancient minority

Sammanfattning

The Mandaean indigenous community of ancient Mesopotamia constitutes one of the world’s oldest surviving ethno-religious groups. In contemporary Iraq, however, the Mandaeans have become a scarcely visible minority within the territory that historically formed the core of their religious and cultural life. This thesis examines how the human rights and security of the Mandaean community have been affected since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and how these developments can be understood through the theoretical lens of Human Security. The study adopts a qualitative case study approach and draws on the Human Security framework, focusing on three interconnected dimensions: personal security, community security, and political security. This enables an analysis of insecurity not only in terms of direct violence, but also through institutional failure, social marginalisation, and threats to collective identity. The findings show that the Mandaean community has experienced severe and sustained insecurity since 2003. While the immediate post-invasion period was characterised by widespread violence, later years have seen a transformation rather than an end to insecurity. Ongoing threats, discrimination, and lack of effective state protection continue to undermine both individual safety and the community’s long-term survival. The analysis further demonstrates that political and institutional failures play a central role in enabling personal and community-level insecurity. By applying a Human Security perspective, this thesis contributes to a limited body of research on the Mandaean community and offers analytically transferable insights into the vulnerability of small, pacifist, and politically marginalised minorities in post-conflict societies.