Posted on 11/19/2003 7:51:01 PM PST by 11th_VA
KADEMIYAH, Iraq - Down a shady river road, where a month ago American coalition troops were ambushed, sits the Kademiyah Advisory Council building.
Dozens of Iraqi men mingle in the hallways of the single-story building waiting for the Advisory Council to begin. Some are dressed in Western-style suits, others are in elaborate robes and headdresses. American soldiers are here too, wearing body armor, Kevlar helmets, M-16s slung over their shoulders and 9 mm pistols strapped to their legs.
Here, the fledgling postwar Iraqi democracy is taking its first baby steps.
With little fanfare, Iraqis in the 85 neighborhoods of Baghdad already have made history. For the first times in their lives, they voted by raising their hands for representatives. Now they are learning how to govern and trust in their own leadership instead of a dictator's.
For six months, coalition troops, including those from the 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored Division based in Fort Riley, Kan., have worked with Iraqis, teaching them the basics of how to run a civil affairs meeting, then how to organize themselves into representatives of their neighborhoods. From there, two representatives were elected to district councils, with two more representatives going to the Baghdad City Council.
The Fort Riley soldiers' orders were to find people from 24 of Baghdad's 85 neighborhoods and teach them about democracy. How the soldiers did that was up to them. The 3rd Brigade's commander, Col. Russell Gold, remembers telling each neighborhood group over and over that the soldiers were only teaching them a guide to democracy.
"Early in the process I told them, 'We are not here to make you American,'" Gold said. "We are here to make Iraq a free, independent state. You will be the ones making the decisions."
Bringing order out of the chaos of those early meetings was difficult. In 35 years of being ruled by a dictator, the people never had been given choices.
"At first, when we gathered everyone together, they all wanted to talk at once, a sort of cultural thing they do here," said Maj. Paul Daniels of Joplin, Mo., who is one of the officers working on the project. "They didn't believe that we wanted them to decide how to govern themselves. For so long someone told them how it would be, but now instead of the top down, which was Saddam's way, problems are being solved from the bottom up."
Saddam Hussein ran the country like a criminal enterprise, Daniels said: "Saddam was the big don. Convincing Iraqis that we weren't going to do that, too, took a lot of meetings."
The soldiers began by teaching Iraqis a simplified version of Robert's Rules of Order. The process was slow at first. Arguments broke out. People talked about their own problems, forgetting they were supposed to represent their geographical areas.
More often than not, Daniels broke up arguments by rapping his knuckles on the table. After several weeks, however, he handed the first chairman a hand-carved wooden gavel. Now the chairman decides when the bickering should stop.
"I tried to teach them methodology, how to look at a problem from different angles. We told them about the work of committees and that that was the place to discuss issues at length. I told them to imagine if they were king for the day, what would matter to the people the most," said Daniels, who has a political science degree from Missouri Southern State College.
"They know we can't get them more electricity, but we can try to find ways to repair a substation in their neighborhood.
"… It's really something witnessing them learn that the voice of the people is a powerful thing."
This emerging democratic voice includes not only different religious groups such as Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims and Christians, but also women. During Saddam's rule, women became like shadows, seeing but not speaking out of fear of retribution by rape, imprisonment, torture or death.
Things are changing.
"A lot of families do not have fathers or husbands because of Saddam Hussein," said Asma Tome, 27, a physician and a member of the Advisory Committee and the subcommittee on women and childhood. "Women are taking their rightful places with men, to help rebuild our country. I believe if a woman is efficient, she will shoot like a missile to the top of success."
In the first elections at the district level, no women were voted into positions in any of the neighborhoods. The Coalition Authority was concerned the governing process was not emerging fairly, so it decided there had to be women on the committees. New positions were added that had to include women members.
"Boy, that was a delicate thing, to make sure it didn't seem like tokenism," Daniels said. "But I think they understood when we told them these counsels needed everyone's voice, and they agreed."
Maj. Pat Garcia, 490th Civil Affairs, attached to the 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored Division, has met with some of the committees, such as the women and childhood group, for the last few months in Kademiyah.
In these meetings, she has gotten to know Iraqi women and some of their concerns. For example, Garcia met an Iraqi woman who has owned a construction company for years but who had to hire a frontman to go to all the business meetings and do all the face-to-face work with the construction workers. Otherwise, no one would hire her company.
"There are teachers here, who stopped working during the war, but now they don't know how to sell their skills," Garcia said of a recent class on writing resumes. "We have a director of an autistic school, another who is the director of a school for children of Down syndrome. They've kept low profiles for years, but the women are gaining strength as they meet together, learning about the possibilities available. They're asking about day-care centers and how to juggle careers and home life."
For many women, too, this is a chance to speak with others from around Baghdad, to learn about what other women's groups are doing.
"For example, one group is going to publish a women's magazine, Fatima, which will be a resource of information," Garcia said. "Right now, a lot of things are learned simply by word of mouth."
At Kademiyah, Zena, 28, wanted Americans to know how grateful she was for the coalition victory against Saddam in Baghdad. She also is saddened that soldiers must risk their lives to help her and other Iraqis.
"My own suffering began 22 years ago. Every day, until the soldiers come, I cry. From the moment the soldiers entered the city, they opened my eyes. Saddam had a file on me, and no one would hire me for fear they would be arrested along with me," Zena said through an interpreter. "I did not have long to live in Saddam's eyes. Now I am free."
All the women agreed that it is their children who will live to see the best of a free Iraq.
"Right now, the burden on us is to teach them about humanity," Zena said. "Even now, there are mothers fearful of asking about their loved ones who disappeared six months ago, for fear they (the mothers) will be killed like it was before.
"We are teaching them to trust that those days are forever gone. We have much work ahead."
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