Posted on 01/29/2005 11:20:56 AM PST by mdittmar
AMMAN, Jordan - We didn't look much alike, those of us milling about the school courtyard and lining up to vote: Elderly men in traditional Arab gowns, young men in ski jackets and women in bright, flowing robes or beneath long, black abayas.
The hodgepodge of dress mirrored the mix of sects, religions and ethnicity_ Shiites, Sunnis, Christians, Kurds, Arabs. But we were all Iraqis and all willing to ignore boycott calls and intimidation attempts to have a say in our future and maybe one day live in the free, democratic, federal and united Iraq touted in election posters.
We passed the Jordanian soldiers standing guards, walked through metal detectors and into the school to cast our ballots. The whole experience was exhilarating, and it was why I traveled from my home in exile in Cairo, Egypt, which was not among the countries where Iraqi expatriates could vote.
As I stood in line, I recalled scenes from South Africa in 1994, when blacks, whites and South Africans of mixed race lined up to participate in the election marking apartheid's demise.
Some of the people around me also had fled Saddam Hussein's tyranny. Others left for economic reasons or escaped the insurgency that Saddam's die-hard loyalists and other terrorists are bent on pursuing. For all of us, the vote was remarkable: We had not only survived Saddam's brutality but also were now deciding our future, regardless of when or why we had left our homeland.
In line behind me stood Hamza Nasser, a 65-year-old man from Samawah, in southern Iraq. He'd been living and working in Jordan since 1997 after losing his property and life's savings in Kuwait - his home for years until the 1991 Gulf war. After Saddam's troops were driven out of Kuwait by an American-led coalition, Iraqis were no longer welcome. Unable to find work in Iraq or return to Kuwait, he settled in Amman.
"Twice in my life I have been overjoyed. Once when I saw Saddam toppled and now, when I stand here to cast my vote for a new Iraq," he told me.
Voting itself was confusing, but took only a few minutes.
In the school courtyard, people stared at huge posters containing the 211 names of the competing candidate lists. Many people clearly were confused with so many similar-sounding names - nearly all seemed to have "democratic" or "national" or both in them. As a journalist, I'd been following the elections closely and new what to expect, but many struggled, asking around if anyone knew which list one candidate or another belonged to.
We all began referring to the lists by number, rather than name. Inside, I searched for the number of my list and marked my ballot.
I was only 4 when Iraq held its last independent elections. Four years later, in 1958, army officers toppled the monarchy and ruled the country by decree until Saddam's Baath Party took over in another coup in 1968.
The military leaders and Baathists despised democracy, considering elections a Western novelty. They always said Iraq was unfit for democracy, Iraqis not competent to judge what is best for the nation, and the tenets of democracy un-Iraqi. By implication, the Baath Party was claiming for Saddam the official and sole right to decide what was best and what was indigenous to our culture. Now, we are relying on ourselves to decide what is best.
Friday was the second time in my 55 years that I cast a ballot. The first was in a student union election at my British university in 1980.
Then, I was a candidate - and was elected to represent overseas students - an experience that taught me what it means to be able to freely express one's opinions.
Three years later, I returned to Iraq. At the time, Saddam decided to hold National Assembly elections - from which anyone who would not swear allegiance to him was barred. I did not vote then or in a similar 1987 election, knowing the outcome would be a rubberstamp parliament.
As a journalist, I covered sessions of the Assembly and saw how members would vote, without debate, by applauding and blindly chanting their support for bills.
I would not participate in a phony election and accepted the alternative - being blacklisted and placed under surveillance.
One resolution I covered was the council's endorsement of Saddam's 1990 occupation of Kuwait a week after the invasion had sparked an international crisis. I also covered the 1991 Gulf War that followed, and it was not long after that war when I had to leave Iraq.
My press credentials were revoked in June 1991, with the government making clear it was unhappy with my coverage of the war and of the Iraqi Shiite uprising that followed. Saddam's forces killed tens of thousands of Shiites who rose up against the regime that spring.
I fled with my wife and two children. I was lucky: A few days later, the regime began imprisoning and torturing journalists for the same offense I'd committed.
I have no illusions. Elections are only a first step in a long process that is bound to be imperfect. There will be public frustration over the results, accusations of irregularities and possibly vote-rigging. Later, corruption and broken election promises are almost certain.
Still, with Saddam gone, I could feel as I left the school courtyard that Iraq has a real chance to transform itself from a brutal, pariah nation to multiethnic democracy. Now, I can hope that the agony of the past will end soon and I will be able to return to stay.
My prediction is that this article will disappear into the ether.
That the left completely misses this comparison, is in itself all you need to know about the democrats and the American press in 2005.
One quote really caught my eye. The head of the Chaldean National Congress, who lives in Farmington Hills (not exactly a poverty-stricken area of town) was disappointed with the location chosen for the vote.He said many Chaldeans live 40-50 miles from the site
"Our people are going to face some challenges. For some who can't speak the language, and some elderly people, it's hard for them to commute that much." The voters had to go there twice, once to register and once to vote.
OK, our soldiers are dying so this guy can complain about how far some will have to travel to vote? Traveling, please note,on our wonderfully IED-free highways, riding in a vehicle that doesn't need to be "hardened". The hometown Iraqis are risking their lives to vote....why do I have little sympathy for this guy?
Lest you think I'm anti-Iraqi, I am so happy to see the Iraqi Army is getting it's kit together! So what if their tanks are Soviet era? At least they (the Iraqis) are trying to take care of their own county!!
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