Iraq Parallels
{ Life }
April 21, 2005
I regret starting this set of thoughts with a politically-inspired one. But I was wondering if anyone–academic or otherwise–has yet drawn the parallels between the so-called Iraqi liberation and the forced dogmatic impression of bygone religious crusades.
I mean, isn’t forcing an ideology (no matter how ideal it may seem to the enforcer) on a populace akin to forcing a religion? I am surprised this doesn’t come up more often, as it seems obvious.
It really struck me during an interview on NPR with a bureaucrat who had just returned from Iraq. He said, in response to criticism that the picture was “not rosy” in Iraq: “But none of this would have been possible without democracy at work: they have a city council here now.”
But what if city councils have no relevance to Iraqis? This didn’t seem to occur to him.
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We’re not forcing an ideology.
I pay very close attention to this whole situation. After watching a lot of recent (and excellent) documentaries on the soldiers on the ground I really do not believe we’re forcing the Iraqis into something they do not want.
We ARE forcing them to give up a culture of violence, one that they’ve been accustomed to for a very long time. I fervently believe that people deserve the right to grow up without constant threat of death. It is ironic how this will come about, but it will come about. Our troops aren’t there to impose democracy, they’re there to enable it. In order to do so you need peace. In the unfortunately ugly situation of an uprising that still means killing anyone who shoots at you, and defending yourself.
There is an important distinction between enabling democracy and imposing it. Take the recently elected Iraqi governemnt for instance. They’re very keen to move US forces out of the country sooner rather than later. The type of government they are forming, though more secular than the past, is not exactly what Washington had in mind. They’ve taken several stances recently on former Baath party members’ place in future goverment that really pissed Washington off. They did this because they thought it was right for Iraq, not to appease our notions of what their democracy should look like. They got a stern visit from Rumsfeld in response.
Also, given some information present in the aforementioned documentaries, the same thing happens at a local level. US troops do their damndest to not only keep themselves and others safe and alive, but to facilitate local communication, from the city market level to the city council level.
All of this takes a lot of time and is very messy and bloody. But I have no doubt it will happen. It also won’t be a kind of democracy we have seen before, nor frankly that the middle-east has seen before.
Contrasting this to a god based ideology of crusades where compliance and belief in the conquering forces ideals is a prerequisite for staying alive is not fair. Dissent is not only allowed but encouraged in Iraq, and in democracy in general.
The time will come when they dissent more with words and less with ammunition. You could argue that time is already at hand.
Sasha
Actually, as I was writing this down, I realized it was a shallow concept. Your comments are much more insightful. What I need is a TiVO so I can keep up on the brilliant PBS documentaries. I’m about a year out of date in my Iraqi education.