Some interesting comments from Charlie Crain's blog:
In many quantitative ways this country is better off than it was before the war. There's more money, more power, better schools. Huge amounts of American and international cash are being thrown at problem areas like health care. Shops are full of goods, school is in session. I don't think, though, any of that matters.
I can't say that I've seen much evidence since I've been here that democracy is something Muslim Iraqi Arabs can practice, or that it's something they want. A few weeks ago John Lee Anderson was wondering why there wasn't a Truth and Reconciliation commission in Iraq like there was in South Africa. At the time I said it was because Iraqis couldn't reconcile with each other until they were all living in a society of their own making, free of the inevitable emasculation and humiliation of occupation. Now, though, I think the reason is simpler. Truth and reconciliation are not particularly valued in Iraq. Iraqis who value those things usually bring them up while they're in the process of pointing out that most other Iraqis are intolerant liars, or in thrall to intolerant liars.
A photographer told me the other day, "This country is turning me into a racist." I said I wouldn't go that far, but that it was certainly turning me into more of a cultural chauvanist. He told me that was the first step.
I've met scores of individual Iraqis who are wonderful people--kind, generous, friendly, funny, and intelligent. But culture is something else, and I haven't spoken to many Westerners here whose opinion of Iraqi culture has been improved by contact with Iraqi culture. It's easy to imagine (I know because I did imagine this) that the culture under Saddam was being perverted by an atrocious government. Now I wonder if a perverse culture yielded an atrocious government. Whatever the West did to support Saddam against Iran, his rise to power was not a Western plot. Perhaps, in some ways, his rule was an extreme expression of Iraqi culture. Saddam's lies, his tribalism, his exploitation of factionalism and his gangsterism are all dominant characteristics both of the Sunni insurgency and Moqtadr's anti-American agitation.
It's unfair to assume the insurgents and the Mahdi Army represent the will of the Iraqi people. But they are the most vital part of Iraqi society--the men who are willing to fight and die for their beliefs. While charred corpses were hanging from a bridge in Fallujah, the ICDC officers on the other side of the river told me they didn't know anything about it because it wasn't their jurisdiction. Who's going to win that fight when the Americans leave?
Of course, if we decide the situation is hopeless and abandon Iraq the situation will get even worse and a lot of good people who wanted a better Iraqi will be slaughtered. So some solution has to be found. But I have a hard time imagining there will be a healthy society here in five years.
baghblog.blogspot.com |
