I don't know why I do this. I get an idea, write it down, re-write, try to carve the pile of jello into some sort of weebling, tottering heap that makes sense, then save it when I get tired and frustrated, saying "I know, I'll come back to it in a few weeks...", but then never do, and it sits there on my jump drive, glaring at me accusingly, begging to be set free. Happens every time.
So, er, here is the latest screed.
One of the criticisms of the remaking of Iraq is the notion that “you can’t force democracy on people.” Usually this comment is preceded or followed by the obligatory criticism of Haliburton or Big Oil or some other hackneyed out of date argument, so it is often lost amongst the well-known tropes of the anti-Neocon hysteria (heh, and yes, I do enjoy this!). So today I’d like to focus a bit on the anti-democracy argument, because in a sad way, it may be the most realistic.
When you peel back the rhetoric of the ant-war rhetoric, you find yourself in an odd position – where progressive leftists’ and isolationists both argue that Arabs are too backward and ignorant to build a democratic society, so we ought to just leave, while the Neocon’s are arguing they can, and that we ought to help them finish the job.
And one of the many policies illustrating the latter is the fact that we both allowed ourselves to get tied up by international law regarding the obligations of an occupying power and have spent the last three years trying to build a functioning representative government in Baghdad.
If it had just been about the oil or killing islamofascists or whatever the current conspiracy theory is, then we wouldn’t have spent all this blood and treasure trying to remake Iraq. Instead we’d have adopted a “rubble doesn’t make trouble” approach, and just left the place wrecked.
But no, we’ve tried to please everybody by following the United Nations’ lead on creating a new government, sponsoring elections, turning over power to the Iraqi’s as soon as possible at the local and national level and, above all, desperately striving to create some sort of appreciation amongst Iraqi’s that politics can be about non-violent compromise, and that those compromises don’t have to be tribal, they can be made for the good of society as a whole.
And we do that because it works, and we know it works, thanks to those many generations who came before us who, however poorly and imperfectly, made those systems of representative governments work in Britain and the young United States, as well as lots of other civilized places.
Aye, but there’s the rub, because Americans in general are so optimistic (well, I am anyway), we think people can make things work, instead of collapsing into chaos. After all, we’ve had some successes in the past (the Philippines, Panama, post-1945 Japan, Chicago, etc.), so why not Iraq?
And we’ve tried, really tried. We got a new government created, helped form a regular Parliament, held provincial and national elections and turned over the country to the Iraqis themselves. We’ve been desperately trying to teach them that power can be shared, that it doesn’t have to be all about clan or tribe, and that politics does not have to be a zero-sum game. And all of this was done at great cost in blood and treasure. The way I put it to my roommate the other night was “We brought the horse to water, and now we’re trying to get him to drink.”
But now the unpleasant prospect rises before me. What if the horse refuses to drink? As the saying goes, you can’t make him drink, so what do we do if he doesn’t?
It is always a shock to meet people with alien views of the universe. And while I haven’t met many Arabs, I’ve met some, and they very clearly have a different outlook on the world than you and me. And they tend to be the smart, educated ones. Many of the others who live in poverty here are no more than ignorant peasants, uneducated, poor and illiterate. Many ruled by ancient social customs and values, forged out of half-forgotten religious commandments, old oaths sworn to a never-ending stream of conquerors and ancient tribal group dynamics.
If that is the power base of the different political parties in central and southern Iraq, then why should we be surprised that current politics is the same as the old? “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” Why should we be surprised that it is all about pyramidal patron-client relationships, with no room for compromise between tribes and clans and political parties, where political duels are fought in the streets as if this was late Republican Rome or the Weimar Republic? Where there are people who *want* a real civil war – not the low-level one we have now – but a real blood-in-the-streets and death-to-all-political-enemies kind of way.
Part of me thinks it doesn’t have to end that way, and maybe that’s wishful thinking but dammit I just don’t want the pessimistic and racist left and right isolationists to be correct. I think that will be a very sad lesson about the world. Though in the end, if it is true, then that is something we shouldn’t forget for a while.
I don’t know how to end this except by saying I hope the horse drinks before it dies of thirst.
The photo matches my hopes and fears; is the sun rising behind the Merlin, or setting?
Fair Winds and Following Sands!
For past Brown Sand Sailor entries and pics, visit: Brown Sand Sailor Web Site