Current News in Context
May 16, 2006
Samir Adil will be finishing his US tour tomorrow evening in Philadelphia. This is one of the articles generated from his visit to Umass Amherst organized by AFSC Staff Jo Commerford.
Democracy in Iraq without the U.S.
Mike Sances, Daily Collegian
Posted: 5/16/06
Last Monday, UMass Amherst was paid a visit by probably the most courageous person I have ever met. He is an Iraqi named Samir Adil, and he is president of the Iraq Freedom Congress. Samir was speaking in the Pioneer Valley as part of a two-week tour of the East Coast, sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee.
Some background on the IFC: formed in March of 2005, the group opposes the American occupation, Islamic terrorism, and sectarianism - what Samir describes as a civil war that has been going on since the invasion began. In terms of solutions, the IFC also opposes handing Iraq over to the United Nations. Instead, they argue that "an independent, democratic, secular, non-ethnic and mass organization…founded to guarantee the right of the people of Iraq to determine freely the future political regime in Iraq" is their country's only hope for survival.
Not surprisingly, the IFC's is not the safest political outlook to have in Iraq right now. This is probably why, according to Samir, Al-Qaeda in Iraq recently released a statement condemning the IFC, which opposes the use of violence to achieve their goals, as more dangerous than the American military. It is also why Samir, who lives in Baghdad, is forced to live daily with 12 bodyguards, risking his life by traveling to the United States to speak.
Yet for all democracy rhetoric thrown around in the American media, the IFC, or even the mere idea of a group like the IFC, is not so popular in this country either, as Samir complained about in his talk.
That is understandable among supporters of the American government's quest to "impose our will" (Colin Powell's phrase) on the Iraqi people; but how often do you hear the idea of a secular, democratic, mass-based political party offered as a solution by the antiwar movement? I never have, nor, I am embarrassed to say, has the idea ever occurred to me as someone opposed to the war.
The media here present an image of a society hopelessly divided into three ethnic groups, Shiite, Sunni, and Kurd, with a paralyzed political process and a government that sometimes seems like it is only the shadow cast by the death squads. In terms of leadership, the options portrayed are limited to the American generals, terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, or whoever the unelected president happens to be this week.
The Iraqis themselves are seen as victims, disempowered pawns on some global chess board of terror, and generally ignorant of democracy. On the rare occasions when they are given a voice, it is invariably one filled with mourning, fear, rage, or submission. Even the triumphant "purple finger" images from the January 2005 elections were a form of infantilization, when you think about it, since the Iraqis' decisive role in bringing them about was eclipsed by the lie that President Bush actually wanted elections to occur.
Samir managed to relate the dire human rights situation in Iraq without sounding like a victim. He described in passing the horrors that would be done to him, simply because his beard happened to be cut in a Western style, should he make the mistake of traveling to the southern parts of Iraq. But even worse is what he said they would do to him in the western provinces. First they would shave off the offending facial hair, then cut his throat, then slice open his stomach, pull out his insides and toss acid on them.
He enjoys coming to the United States, he says, simply because he is able to take a walk outside without armed guards. In Iraq, however, the guards are not for his protection. Samir sees his life as valuable only insofar as he is the voice of a popular movement. If he dies, he says, the movement dies.
The message he left the audience with was one of courage, of defiance of both fear and death. Above all it was a message of hope. A friend remarked afterward how he suddenly felt stupid complaining about the difficulties he faced as an organizer at UMass. Indeed, a story like Samir's certainly makes questions like "what can we do?" sound obscene, letting alone complaints about life in general.
But what Samir's story also puts in perspective is the claim that there is no "good news" coming out of Iraq, and that the media focus too much on the negative. Unfortunately, that debate defines what is "good" or "bad" solely in terms of what is good or bad for the American government, and therefore is concerned with democracy and human rights only when they coincide with the interests of power.
It is therefore not surprising that the IFC is not well-known to the American media, despite the fact that Samir's is the most hopeful story I have heard out of Iraq since the war began. For those so thoroughly indoctrinated with the rightness of the mission to "impose our will" on Iraq, a viable nonviolent opposition to the occupation would be very grim news indeed.
Information from ifcongress.com/English was used in this column.
Mike Sances is a Collegian columnist.
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