I read all the stories in the press on the
elections yesterday in Iraq - trying to get a handle on the moment. Trying to
grasp the thread. The story is too big for me to merely blog about - too
important for my meagre talents.
And
yet this blog is a sort of journal, the record of my life and times, my
testimony. And I'm having a hard time trying to come up with something silly, or
witty or banal to write about while this elephant stands patiently in the room,
looking at me questioningly.
Eight million Iraqi citizens braved the worst
kind of terror to go to the polls yesterday - they did it for themselves, for
Iraq. For hope.
Nawar Khadim Ahmed,
having witnessed a suicide bomber kill himself and several others earlier in the
day, returned to the same polling booth with his 2-year old daughter hours later
- to vote:
They showed that the torch of liberty is
not extinguished in the human breast, even when it's been held underwater for
thirty years. They have rejected through their bravery - think of the personal
courage! - the eternal boot in the face that is tyranny, of whatever sort. And
then they filed out into the streets, absent of cars for security's sake, but
full of soccer playing children, and they waved their ink-stained forefingers to
the sky, as if to say, "We did this. We ourselves. We
alone."
I write this from a rundown
house in the poorest slum in the Middle East. Until yesterday, my hosts and
neighbors had for three decades been among the most repressed people on earth.
Yet when I walk out the door, I see a city smothered in posters and banners from
a hundred political parties. Like Afghanistan last year, the country has
endorsed the right to vote in percentages that shame the electoral apathy of the
rich world. Let nobody tell you that this election was anything but real. Iraq's
Baathists and Wahhabis may continue to bark, but this caravan is moving
on.
Oh, of course the coalition military
set the conditions which made it possible, from the overthrow of Saddam's odious
regime, to the security details they hammered out with the Iraqi armed forces.
But the people still had to take the counsel of their hopes, and not of their
fears, and go out into the street - to vote. They did this for themselves, and
we should celebrate.
What an
extraordinary day.
It is simply
amazing to me how the wheel of history turns - think what we are witness to,
just think: Three and a half years after radical Islamist terror inflicted the
worst blow ever received on our homeland, costing the lives of three thousands
of our innocent countrymen, we stirred up our righteous anger to the sticking
point - and in two dictatorships liberated 30 millions of those from whom we
were attacked, and provided them the opportunity to vote. Has the world ever
seen such a thing?
Retribution used
to be made of sterner stuff.
As Chrenkoff pointed out, displaced Iraqis voted
freely in Syria and Iran , where the local citizenry must be looking
on in wonder, and forming their own opinions. The media of the Arab middle east
for a moment stopped feeding the blood lust of the street, and simply...
witnessed:
And for now, the threat of civil war
along sectarian lines seems sharply reduced. The Shia masses, goaded almost
beyond endurance by the Wahabis and Salafists, continue to endure. And even
dismiss the idea of an Iraq governed by a religious
ideology:
"Yes, I am Shiite, but I am an Iraqi
before I am anything," said Mr. Dujaily, the former agriculture minister. He
appeared at the school in a gray pinstriped suit, well-polished shoes and a
dapper black wool hat, which gave him the appearance of having stepped straight
out of an old sepia photograph of the royal
entourage.
An extraordinary
day.
Pity the cold hearts that do not
have it within themselves to celebrate this one moment. The Iraqis themselves
have, even while knowing that the future will bring more suffering and pain,
that the road continues on through danger and hardship. Pity the John Forbes
Kerrys of the world, who do not want to see this democracy
thing over-hyped. Pity the desiccated Kissengerians, the Scowcrofts and the other high priests of
cost/benefit Realpolitik - those who believe that there is no form of tyranny so
awful that it can not be negotiated with, that terms cannot be reached, business
cannot be done. Pity those who are too arch and clever, who
decline to be impressed. These are people who have seen everything, and learned
nothing. Their only crime is that they lack
imagination.
Imagine:
Posted @
04:15 PM
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Posted in
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Sendit
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Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." - John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Ceasar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friederich Nietzsche
