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NEWS & LETTERS, March-April 2005Editorial
Iraq after the elections
Chaos, fear and the oppressive presence of U.S. and
British troops continue to be realities of life for ordinary Iraqis. While a
resurgence of suicidal bomb attacks since the Jan. 30 elections threatens to
erase from memory what transpired that day, it is important to revisit the event
to be prepared to understand Iraq's present and immediate future. The period leading up to the elections was one of
uncertainty and trepidation. The possibility of a wave of violence directed
against voters and polling sites, combined with the shroud of secrecy that had
covered almost all aspects of the preparations for the election, made the early
morning of Jan. 30 one marked by great anxiety. Yet despite the pervasive fear that the worst might
happen, the people of Iraq, who have suffered almost two years of daily violence
and material privation since the U.S. launched its invasion in 2003, began to
come out into the streets of their country and walk to polling sites, the
locations of which had only been revealed to them that morning. They had to make
their way on foot because all automobile traffic had been banned by the
authorities for the day. The turnout had an unmistakable element of mass
spontaneity. Mothers decided to gather their children together and make their
way through the streets to cast ballots. People who had successfully voted early
returned home to knock on the doors of their neighbors to convince them to make
their way to the polls. Even the sound of the nearby explosions of mortar shells
did not deter people from standing in long lines to vote. Despite the fact that the elections were organized
entirely by a government appointed by the United States, the Iraqi people used
the opportunity to make a strong statement that they--and not President Bush and
his war cabinet--would from this point on shape their future. In fact, the
candidate most closely identified with the U.S., strongman Iyad Allawi, fared
relatively poorly. The eight million people who cast ballots took the
narrow form of a parliamentary election held under adverse conditions and
infused it with a content that had an implicit sense of defiance: defiance to
the U.S. military, defiance to the sectarian perpetrators of mass murder in the
name of resistance to the invaders, and defiance to the now past regime of
oppression maintained by Saddam Hussein and his henchmen. As was anticipated, most Sunni Iraqis--out of fear for
their safety or hostility to the appointed government--did not vote. Turnout in
the Shia and Kurdish areas was high, despite election day violence that killed
as many as 44 people. It was no secret that the leaders of these groups had a
disciplined political strategy to use the elections to solidly establish their
position in post-Saddam Iraq. Much to their credit, these groups were not
dissuaded from carrying out their plan by the violent and sectarian tactics of
the resistance. In addition to the main voting, the long-oppressed Kurds even
carried out an unofficial referendum on independence that resulted in
overwhelming approval for an independent country. Now, however, the question is this: has Iraq put its
authoritarian past behind it only to embark upon a future of religious
fundamentalism? The biggest winner of the election was the United Iraqi
Alliance, a broad slate of Shia religious and secular groups that had been
openly endorsed by Ayatollah Sistani, the most influential leader of Iraq’s
Shia majority. The Alliance contains the Supreme Council for the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq and the Dawa party, two large fundamentalist groups with
strong ties to conservative forces in the Iranian government. The religious
leaders of the Alliance have made it clear that they want an Iraq governed by
Islamic legal principles and both of these groups are vying to secure the office
of prime minister. Yet a fundamentalist future is not written in stone. The
strong Kurdish showing represents a powerful voting bloc for secularism and the
unity of the United Iraqi Alliance does not seem likely to survive the
parliamentary maneuvers underway to select the prime minister and president. If
the Alliance fractures, the strength of political Islam in the new assembly may
be diluted. The Jan. 30 elections marked a turning point in Iraq since the invasion. While the reactionary resistance continues to take the lives of ordinary Iraqis and the oppressive U.S. military has no plan to vacate soon, the Iraqi people have made a small but substantial step towards governing their own affairs. This period calls for opponents of the war and supporters of the Iraqi people to extend their solidarity more firmly than ever to the forces that can chart out a new path for Iraq: the women fighting both traditional and religious repression, the national minorities struggling for self-determination and the workers who are engaged in the task of building an independent labor movement. |
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