Posted on 12/20/2003 7:55:20 PM PST by Russian Sage
Before getting into the many reasons freedom is doomed in Iraq, consider a cheery counterexample. If you believe the political-science dictum that the bourgeoisie is the essential first ingredient for democracy, then there is at least one bit of good news in Baghdad today. Nader Hindo has come back to do business.
Never mind the car bombs, the missile attacks, the kidnappings, the blackouts, the ransacked buildings and bombed-out phone system. To Hindo these are minor obstacles compared with what he saw growing up in Baghdad under Saddam Hussein. His mother, Nidhal, the owner of a document-translation service, was regularly harassed and shaken down by the ''economic security'' police. His father, Wathiq, who tried importing liquor and cigarettes, was muscled out of business by Uday Hussein and nearly executed for being ''an economic saboteur.'' When Hindo finished high school in 1992, he left his family in Baghdad for the University of Illinois with no intention of returning. After studying computer science, he became a partner in a dot-com selling mortgage software to banks. When American troops entered Baghdad, he was 29 years old and living in a Miami condo with a swimming pool and a view of the ocean -- bourgeois bliss in South Beach.
Now Hindo is back in Baghdad, which starts to look like capitalism's promised land when he takes you around in his S.U.V. to show his projects. He is running an Internet service, supplying computers and satellite telephone service to three dozen hotels and businesses, plus he's negotiating to rebuild part of the national phone system. These are just his sideline businesses. He has got several bigger ventures going with his father. Together they're selling power generators to the United States Army, building materials to contractors and drilling equipment to the oil industry. They're overseeing 250 workers busy on the reconstruction of a dozen mansions, ministries and other buildings. On weekends, they scout the mountains and lakes of Kurdistan, where they're planning to build resort hotels.
Yes, resort hotels in Iraq. The country is not yet a tourist destination, but the Hindos figure it's just a matter of time. They'll start with low-budget weekend getaway hotels for American soldiers and Iraqis. (Wathiq's market research, which consists of interviewing cabdrivers, convinces him that a working-class Iraqi can afford to spend $100 for a once-a-year vacation.) Then they'll work up to luxury resorts for foreign tourists once there's improved security -- which, of course, is another business of theirs. They are supplying nearly 500 security guards and personal bodyguards to government ministries, foreign companies, embassies, museums and theaters.
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(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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