Been reading the new posts by SalamPax and Riverbend... The thing that strikes me most of all is that the governing council talked about introducing the Shari’a again... ¹ And Riverbend’s comment was telling:
I’m torn on the topic of elections. While I want elections because it’s the ’democratic’ thing to do, I’m afraid of the outcome. All the signs lead one to believe that elections will lead to a theocracy (which I dread). The current GC is *not* representative of the Iraqi people- neither Sunnis nor Shi’a approve of them… but will elections bring about a more representative group of would-be leaders? Furthermore, what if the Iraqi ’majority’ *do* want a theocracy like the one in Iran? If the choice boils down to a democracy styled like the one in America or a theocracy styled like the one in Iran, how do you think a Muslim country is going to choose?
In a country such as Switzerland the constitution determines which laws can be passed an which cannot. This is how minorities are protected in a democracy. But in a country without constitution, any law can be passed, and democracy can always decay into an oppression by the majority. Remember, democracy is *not* just “voting.”
What about issues like constitution amendment? Isn’t it possible to modify (maybe gradually) the constitution to allow the majority to harm the minorities? Also, written rules are not as powerful as dynamic ones that rulers use on a day to day basis. I don’t know how much it can stand. I’m not a political philsopher but allowing the mob to decide who a ruler should be from a group of possibly (and probably) unqualified people like in India doesn’t seem to be the right thing to do. I’d pay more attention to selecting my doctor than this system does in selecting it’s leaders. After the Godhra incident in Gujarat in India where the minority communities were (to put it bluntly) slaughtered in an almost state sponspored massacre, the mob re elected the same party to power. I’ve quite lost my faith in democracy thanks to this. It just doesn’t work when the vote bank is too huge and too diverse. Perhaps for a smaller country like Switzerland but definitely not for a giant like India. Perhaps decnentrallisation is the answer... I don’t know though.. Thoreau’s “On Civil Disobedience” and some parts of Plato’s Utopia come to mind. 😐 – NoufalIbrahim
Maybe I should write more on Democracy.
Anyway... She writes in another post ²:
I usually ignore the emails I receive telling me to ’embrace’ my new-found freedom and be happy that the circumstances of all Iraqi women are going to ’improve drastically’ from what we had before [...] if I get any more emails about how free and liberated the Iraqi women are *now* thanks to America, they can expect a very nasty answer.
That sounds like “Here is freedom. Take it or DIE!”. 😄 – NoufalIbrahim
On a lighter note, here’s a site that offers some MP3 files from Iraq!
#Iraq