I have been looking forward to day all week long. I was hoping that today would be the day that the IHEC — Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission — would announce the preliminary results of the 31 January provincial elections, held in 14 of the 18 provinces in Iraq, and 3 of the 7 provinces up here in the north.
It would be a glorious day. Glorious.
The last provincial elections were in 2005. To my surprise, and to that of the world, the Sunnis opted to boycott. Sure, they are a minority in this country, in comparison to the 65% or so that are Shi’a, but still, they have large percentages of the population in a bunch of the provinces.
They could have made a difference.
But they boycotted.
And wow, do they regret doing that. In the years since, they have realized (I think) that this was about as stupid a thing as any group could do — not being a part of the political process means having to take whatever shit the other folks decide. Yeah, that’s not so cool, especially when the Sunni ran the country before and folks were willing to dole out a little payback to the, all the more since the Sunnis were outside the political process.
But in the years since then, I loved, loved, LOVED watching the awakening. Sahwa. In staying out of the politics, the Sunnis were also hammered by Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and it got to the point where the Sunni leaders — not political leaders, but social and tribal leaders — said that enough was enough, and they approached the Americans and the Iraqi Security Forces. And the Sons of Iraq were born. The Sunni came back into the fold, and became part of the solution instead of being a part of the problem.
This just blows my mind. No representation in the government, hated for what the last regime had done, bad mouthed for having Ba’thist ties, despised for just being followers of their Sunni faith. And they did what was right, in reconciling their differences and working for a greater Iraq.
And this year, in forming political parties and looking for their future within the framework of the Iraqi society.
31 January, something like 50 to 60% of the eligible Iraqis went and voted. Seriously — 60%? America would divide by zero before it would turn out in those numbers to vote, even if the ticket was Gore/Jesus Christ. But turn out they did.
So, I’ve really, really been looking forward to this day.
I haven’t cared what the results would be, but rather how the people would respond. I want to see the excitement in their faces when the hear the news that their party got 17% of the vote in this province or that one, and that their party and their candidates would get 3 or 5 or 10 seats on the Provincial Council. I wanted to feel the rush, their sense of ownership, of involvement.
Because if you’re excited about politics, and actively taking part in the political party, you are investing in your country and your society. You again believe. You have faith, you have hope in what your people can do, and life will get better.
Today was to be an important day for me.
Right up until just after lunch, when someone — reports now indicate it was a woman — in northern Diyala apparently walked into a restaurant and detonated some sort of belt or vest of explosives.
My first thought? Mother fuckers! Can’t we just have a good day in this country, and not have is scarred by the violence?
A few hours later, the preliminary results were released, and it has been a good day. But it’s been a good day marred by this tragedy.
It pains me when there’s loss of life here. This country has made such strides in the years I’ve been watching. It’s changed so much since my first trip here, back in the mid 90′s. I am captivated by this holistic transformation it has undergone, and continues to undergo. There is such potential here, such beauty, such a future.
And there are setbacks.
I don’t pretend to fully understand what drives someone to do something like this. I am male, I am American, I am shaped by the things I have seen, the things I have done, what I have learned along the way. It’s not Arabs doing this, it’s Iraqis. It’s not Sunnis doing this, it’s Iraqis. And it’s not even just women doing this, as men have done it here, too.
I have seen examples — too many of them — of what my peers will do in times of war. When the grenade is thrown through the hatch of the HMMWV, and the gunner yells GRENADE before dropping onto it, pulling it tight. The explosion kills him, but his buddies live. The guy who stays on the heavy machine gun to literally hold off the waves of attacking enemy, long past the point where he himself could escape, because he knows that if he lets that gun go silent, they will all die because his soldiers need just a little bit more time to prepare their defenses. In the end, he dies of his wounds, but his soldiers live.
These are things I understand. Deciding on actions that have a reasonable expectation of causing your own death, usually so that others may live. Firemen running into a burning building, police charging a gunman, spectators diving into an icy river after a car goes off the road and is submerged.
But this is the exact opposite. Something that means so much to someone, that they will take action that they reasonably expect will cost them their lives, in order to take the lives of others.
I want to understand. I really, really do. And I’m trying. But it’s hurting my head, trying to reconcile things that are held in a different light by others, given different values than I would give them or that my culture would give them.
When I ask myself, what would drive me to do this, I come up empty. Would I kill Hitler this way, if I had the chance? I couldn’t do this to people just eating lunch.
But some people would. And today someone did. Damnit. Today, of all the fucking days.
February 5th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
I think the column that circulated earlier this week about the Taliban pretty much nailed it… we have to think about Islamic extremists the way we think about space aliens… not about the few insignificant things (like biology, and mortality, and the need for food and water) that we have in common, but assuming that everything else IS different… and not fall into the trap of moral relativism, not start the crap of “well, just because we’re different doesn’t mean we’re *better*”. I can guaranfrickintee you that blowing up a restaurant full of innocents isn’t the moral equivalent of covering a live grenade. Whether you apply a Christian frame of reference (I personally do) or a humanist frame of reference, or a pro-reason self-interest Randian frame of reference, you get the same result – that suicide bombers, and those who enable them, are operating completely outside the lines of rational thought… in technical terms, they’re batshit.
But, even with that, I agree with you… it’s a wonderful thing to see a functioning government and political process form out of chaos, right before your eyes. I really can’t understand anyone who can honestly argue against the Forward Strategy of Freedom, honestly say that *rational* humans don’t crave liberty, after watching what has happened in Iraq. People who argue that are batshit, too.