Democracy in the Middle East

The last week has shown that things are indeed changed in the middle east. our elections seem to be a stimulant for getting others, our neighbors into the mood for demanding more rights, for freedom and democracy.

In Lebanon, their beloved former Prime Minister was assasinated. We do not know who did it, but people are suspecting Syria, and this alone is pushing Lebanese to demand Syria to leave their nation. For those that do not know, Syria has thosands of soldiers in Lebanon for over twenty years now, and this obviously gives Syria government the ability to have a hand in the affairs of internal Lebanese government. Now people want Syria out. I think it should be done, I have heard that Syria says it will, but I am highly untrusting of the government that says it will do so on its own. Let us support the Lebanese in this quest and raise our voices with them.

The same is the case in Iran, it has been for many years now. The blogosphere has many Iranians who try to share their thoughts, but unfortunately they are being molested by the government who try to restrict what they say, and talk about. This is being used to push a regime change in Iran from what I have seen in American online websites. I cannot agree with this though. Iran is a much more populous and mountainous nation than Iraq, any attempts to forcebly change the government there will be much harder than what happened in Iraq. There is no question that the theocracy there is not well liked, but we must help the Iranians do it on their own, I hope the United States will find some covert means to do htis, rather than actually going to war, something that is the news of the day on the streets today. I think it is especially important for American government to remember that Khomeni was not necessarliy very popular for himself when he took power, but since Iran was attacked by Saddam, people rallied to him. There is a human innateness to rally around your own than an outsider, only in extreme caes, such as what happened to us at the hand of the evil Saddam do you see something else.

Finally I want to talk about Egypt. Egypt is the most populous Arab nation in the world, and is very important to our region. Culturally it has a very important impact on other Arabs, we get a lot of our media from Egypt, and Cairo is the sort of metropolis of the Middle East. They too live under an autocratic government of Mubarak who looks like a man who is melting. i dont know how they have tolerated him for the three decades he has been in power now (almost), but I think that Egyptians, who in a way are more free than other Middle Easterners, indeed they were better off than we were under Saddam, are starting to see our freedom and wonder why we have surpassed them. I think this is the reason why these protests are arising in Egypt against Mubarak.

The United States should pay attention to Egypt, just like it does to Iran. There is no doubt difference, Egypt is not a threat to neighbors, but there is a feeling in the Middle East, and Iraq that double standards come into play. Egypt is an American ally, and is never chastised publicly for its horrid government which is as corrupt as any other, yet Iran is constantly under the microscope. I hope that people outside of the Middle East can understand that not only are Iranians opressed by their government but I would be willing to say that most countries citizens are opressed by corrupt governments.

For this reason, I ask you all to keep an eye open to the peoples voices in the Middle East. Do not entirely rely on what the news tells you, I have learned that no matter where you are in the world, the news only looks for something that catches your eye. It is for us to be smarter than them. Understand that people all over the Middle East want democracy and freedom, not just Iranians, and try to support them in whatever way you can.

We Iraqis are on the road to acheiving ours. It is no doubt a bumpy road. The elections of last month were a victory, but since then we have seen so much violence that I am literally sick of hearing about it, I want to be a zombie sometimes, I am tired of hearing about attacks and whatnot. But still, I try to keep a optimistic face, and I know that in the end this will pay off down the road once we clear this process and smooth the bumps on our road to freedom.

Days of Mourning

The last few days are religious days for Muslims, both Sunni and Shia. The days are symbolic of Prophet Moses receiving revelation from God, and of the martyrdom of the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, Imam Husayn.

Unfortunately we have not been able to enjoy these holidays, to celebrate them as we normally do because Iraq has been rocked by attacks. They were especially bad here in Baghdad, I have lost count of how many people died due to these attacks. The targets were mostly Shiites, but other Iraqis died, and that is the bottom line. Iraqis continue to die at the hand of these murderers, cowards, and animals who cannot let others live in peace, freedom and happiness.

What do they want from us? I wish they would just burn in hell, go away you evil scum eating garbage. I wish to curse at them, but I would then lower myself to their level. I am especially personally touched by these tragedies, some people that I know were affected, an old classmate of mine, a beautiful woman was robbed of her life, and many of my friends have lost loved ones. The only thing I am thankful for is that my own family is safe, but when Iraqis die, I bleed, I hurt, and now that I see it on a more personal level it burns more than ever.

At least the authorities are trying harder to crack down, but I begin to wonder if they are doing enough. I will not let emotion overwhelm me however, a finger must be pointed at Iraqis who are too cowardly to tell about these terrorists, who harbor them through their silence. I would like to see our new government formed quickly and take a strong stand against these quiet collaborators. Fear should not stop one from doing the right thing.

The Results

The Results should be officially announced today. It has become clear that the Shia list will win the most votes. The Kurdish list will come in second, and Allawi will finish third, with about twenty percent of the vote. The strong showing of the Kurdish party is demonstrative to us that not only the Shia, but the Kurds also embraced elections, and made their voice heard. It is for this reason, that Iraq will now be tilted in the favor of the two groups that have been marginalized for so long. What is very important to me is how well the Kurds did. Kurds are not as numeorus as Sunnis, but they have set themselves up to make a great impact on the future of Iraq.

This shows that while many more Sunnis voted than was expected, a good number still did not vote. I am very sad to realize this. It shows that the terrorists were able to scare some, and that some were stupid enough to listen to others and not vote. I hope that the new Iraq, whatever it is, will move Sunnis into participating more clearly. My last post on the idea of theocracy is one possible factor to acheiving this, but now that I see how strongly the Kursd have done, I realize that theocracy is even further from possibility than anyone can imagine. The Kurds are divided in their religious makeup, and it makes no sense for them to support the theocracy.

In a way the Kurdish gains may be good for Sunnis, if Shias overstep their bounds, they can provide a partner with which Sunnis can work and get back into the politica game and thus be involved with Iraq. But knowing the feelings of many Kurds after the terror of Saddam, I dont know how realistic this would be.

Sunnis are now, unfotunately going to learn the hard way the folly of not participating in the elections. The terrorists have stepped up their violence, targetting Shias especially, but I think that their attempts to badger the Shias will only result in more patience, or if the Shia get a real grip on power, bad news for the Sunnis. I can only hope that this is averted though, and that these idiotic terrorists do not cause more trouble inadvertantly, in addition to the deliberate troubles they have caused for all of Iraq.

The atmosphere has changed after the elections, but I must say that some people are growing a bit angry at the fact that the terrorists continue to make attacks. I suppose their patience is wearing thin, they thought that the election would bring a sort of overnight change, but we must all realize and remember that this is a process that will take some time.

I must apologize again for my reduction in posting frequency. I hope I can pick it up soon, things have been rough for me.

The Week After

Im sorry that I havnt posted for many days, my internet service was cut for a few days, and I was short on money to access internet cafes, but I think things should be back to normal for the time being.

The elections have come and gone, and I think everyone wants to know who won. This question should be answered by the end of the week, but it seems that the Shia list, of Sistani is going to come out on top. This should not be surprising, afterall, he told his followers that it was a religious obligation to vote. You cannot argue with a divine commandment, and I miscounted in the past the effect that this would have for pressing votes to the Shia Iraq list. I thought that many Shias would perhaps vote secularily, but I forgot to understand that Sistani's edict would not only encourage voting, but give a divinie aura to the Shia parties.

I am still confident that things are going to end up well for Iraq. Despite reports, and I have many emails sort of in a panic, that this party is encouraging a theocracy, I think there is a misunderstanding of the language used by these clerics. Indeed, this win will give clerics more importance, but it does not mean they will rule us. I have posted before, that Sistani does not mix politics and religion, this makes him different from Khomeni. He has always said that religious leaders should be more like advisors. I do not necessarily have a problem with that.

The call for Islamic law to be mixed with law is not a problem. I do not envision our nation turning into Saudi Arabia. The reality we must all understand is that all laws are based on moral principles. Religions in their skeletal phase are just that, a system of moral principles. The basics of law, wehtehr they are Islamic or secular call for a just society where organization is maintained, people are respected, and personal rights are not infringed upon.

The ultimate reason for my confidence is that Iraqis in Shia areas have lvied with some theocratic forms of government in some parts. I doubt that they are going to stand by and let the entire nation fall under such a government. Undrstand that people here have been very patient, there has been much upheavel. We waited for Saddam to be done with, and he was. but then we had to live with violence and a foreign army in our land. Now we are ready to wait this out for the bright future. For this reason, the Shias have seen the theocratic flashes as nothing more than a waiting period, any attempt to make this nationwide will be met with fierce resistance.

Let us not forget that Iraq does have many Sunnis, Shia are majority, but we the Sunni are a very large minority. Sunni leaders have begun to realize that they must participate in the new government, for this reason they are now openly making concilliatory gestures to the government and beginning to integrate themselves. With the addition of more Sunnis to the government, it only guarantees that we will have to have a pluralistic system that look sout for all people.

I tell you all to not worry, people have worked so hard, have given so much, to be free, we are not going to turn around and elect in people who will shackle us again. And if those who we elect aim to do this, we will not stand for it, and we will deny them with as much excitement as with which we have turned our backs on the terrorists who continue to be like a hard to kill mosquito.

Al-Qaeda's baby follies

Remember how I equated Al-Qaeda to babies crying, well they have taken it to the next step. I dont know how well known this is in the media, but someone sent me an interesting article.

Seems the cavemen have claimed to caught an American soldier with the very generic name "John Adam". They put up some pictures, and I must say to the lazy eye it looks legit, but it turns out the cavemen got their hands on a doll of a soldier, and found a small gun and made a small flag to make it look like they captured a soldier.

Is there any better indicator of how pathetic, how weak, and how threatened they feel that they have to resort to this low-grade fake attempt at producing another set of pictures? Im sure many Iraqis will have a good laugh at this one when they hear about it. These same people declare war on our democracy, and now they are taking pictures of childrens toys.

I can forsee one inadvertant effect of Iraqi democracy being that it reduced Al-Qaeda to a rather bad comedy brigade.

Long Live Iraq, and Long Live Freedom!

Marvelous Cartoon

Just a quick post, I'm still awake answering e-mails, or trying to. Anyway, our friends at Cox and Forkum have posted a fabulous cartoon about the elections. It really really sums up how I feel, and is very touching to me. It just shows the strength of the people to overpower the terrorists.

The Cartoon