Democracy. One word, but not one meaning.

I was reading a New York Times article today about the Iraqi people turning out in force to vote in elections for their Parliament on Sunday. This would be a story all on its own; it is made even more extraordinary by the fact that insurgent-detonated bombs killed 38 people in Baghdad on election day. 

 

An Iraqi man told the NYT reporter defiantly that his people "are not afraid of explosions anymore," and held up his purple ink stained figure signifying that he had voted. Behind him was the rubble of a torn-apart apartment building that had fallen victim to one of the bombs earlier in the day. 

 

 

The Iraqi people showed immense courage in voting under fire. They risked their lives for the sake of democracy; it seems that everyone knew that the continuing American military presence in their country hinges on this critical election. If they elect people that the world can be confident in to hold down the fort in a war zone, then Uncle Sam just might feel confident enough to finally scale back their operations there. 

I was struck by the effect of war on Iraq's social psyche - how tough must a society be to not only survive the likes of Saddam Hussein, but the brunt of the American military industrial complex. I thought back to a Soviet Russia history class that I took in undergrad - we talked for a lecture of the effects on the Russian people that lost millions of people in World War II, most of them young men from the ages of 18 to about 28. The losses didn't stop there though. Before and after the War, people were being killed en masse, mostly young people trying to stand up to the Soviet regime in "party purges" and for being enemies of the state. A good book to read on this is Ayn Rand's We the Living. It is her first novel, and for the most part, does not serve any political agenda other than to depict how utterly bleak life was under the Soviet government in Russia in the 1920s and 30s.

Iraqis, no doubt, are a tough lot. A website called Iraq: The Human Cost was started by an MIT professor looking to fully describe what the cost of the Iraq war is to those who will live with the consequences long after Western Powerhouses pull their fighting forces out: the Iraqis. Huda Ahmed, an Iraqi woman and a fellow at MIT, reports: "The constant feeling among the Iraqis is that their blood is cheap and no one cares for them. Both the Iraqi government and the multi-national forces declined many times to admit the genuine number of the Iraqi casualties caused by their actions."

The Iraqis have a rough road head, no doubt about it. Sandwiched between terrorist havens Iran to the East and Syria to the West, Iraq doesn't exactly have stable nations surrounding them. Saudi Arabia, Iraq's Southern-most neighbor, is a country which has yet to let women get behind the wheel of a car, and will be graduating their first class of women from law school just this year, is not exactly a forward thinking nation either. Within Iraq, centuries old battles are being waged amongst Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish ethnic groups.

It is not surprising that the history of Baghdad and Iraq paints a tumultuous picture. Baghdad was once the center of learning during the Islamic Golden Age, a city that has seen conquerors come and go: first came the Sumerians, then the Persians, followed by the Parthians, the Romans, the Muslims and the prophet Mohammed, it was then destroyed by the Mongols in the "sack of Baghdad" who massacred Baghdad's people and tore down all landmarks of knowledge. Then the Ottomans strolled in during the 14th and 15th centuries, and ruled until the Brits took over after World War I. Iraq was granted independence in 1932, and the infamous Saddam came on to the scene in 1979 after seizing power from his successor and arresting everyone who worked for him. It all seems a bit hopeless.

In the face of all of this, Iraqis came to the polls, when bombs were exploding all around them, and voted for their future. They voted for the chance to someday be free of tribal warring, to be able to walk down the street and not fear for their lives. They want to do it their way. By showing up to the polls, Iraqis made a firm statement to the world: We have been through this before. Let us rebuild. One Iraqi summed it up well, saying that "we have been through three wars before...[the bombs we heard today] was just the play of children that we heard."