October 19, 2004

Democratic debate bursting out all over Iraq's university campuses

Within the relatively safe confines of Baghdad's university campuses, a picture emerges of what democracy could look like throughout the country if worries about security hadn't trumped everything else.

It's not pretty. Indeed, it's messy, uneven and at times angry. Students and professors alike are still learning what democracy is and debating how to execute it on campuses - or whether universities are ready for such debates at all.
[Democracy has always been a messy process! What's worrying is that the Left in this country has taken over the dialogue in our schools and universities so imperiously, that Iraqi universities may be more open to discussing both sides of the political spectrum--Left, Right and in-between--than American ones.
If you support Conservative and/or Republican values or you're going to vote for Bush, life on our campuses can be very difficult for you indeed.
Even President Bush's own daughter Barbara admitted she'd had a tough time standing up for her father at Yale!
We could definitely learn a lesson from these "babies in Liberty!"]
[...]

Politics has become so pervasive that the Higher Education Ministry has posted signs on all campuses that tell students their rights. Among them: "The freedom of opinion expression is a guaranteed right to the entire academic society, under the rule that this does not interfere with a student's education."
[...]
There are 20 public universities in Iraq, and the four in Baghdad have more than 70,000 students combined. During Saddam's regime, there was only one political party on campuses - his Baath Party. His regime made decisions about university life. Students were forbidden from expressing themselves.
[...as was everyone else, too!--Jen]

There were no courses on democracy; instead, there were required Iraqi nationalism courses. Those have been replaced by courses on democratic governments and human rights. Some campuses have even developed departments dedicated to such topics.
[...]
"When the change
[Let's hope he means the liberation of Iraq!--J.T.]
happened, Iraq was like a big prison cell that suddenly opened, and people were finally free and able to express themselves," al Abadi said.

Isn't this what Freedom is all about?
We continue to discuss these issues over here in our democratic republic--racial quotas for university admission, tolerance for GOP, Bush, Christian and gay groups on campus, separate graduations for Hispanics, etc., etc.
Liberty is a work in progress for any nation which embraces it and having a say, expressing your opinion and using your voice and your vote are what it's all about!
Isn't it great to see these young people "getting it" and using it?!
They'll make some missteps--as we Americans do and have done--but they sound as if they're fully involved in securing a free, democratic Iraq.
Who can doubt that this is worlds better than their lives before, where they were living in fear under the shadow of murder, torture and enforced silence and subjection under Saddam?
As for the newly free Iraq being more democratic than the USA, which has had a 228-year head start on Iraq and Afghanistan, there are aspects of democracy and civil rights that have to be relearned, reworked and retried.
Hence, we have phenomena in our history such as the Civil War, the Dred Scott decision and the Civil Rights Act, all events in the history of racial equality that we didn't get right at all.
And America will continue to make these mistakes.
As will Iraq and Afghanistan, too.
We can only wish for such "problems" in a democratic Iran and Syria and Saudi Arabia.
The important thing is that the government is still "of, by and for the people" and not by the whimsy and psychosis of a madman like Saddam or a group of tyrannical madmen who hold absolute power, as with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Seeing things like this happen in a new democracy, I don't doubt the rightness of President Bush's strong belief that Liberty is God's gift to the world, including the Muslim world, and that all peoples yearn to breathe free and to have their individual voice be heard wherever they are and no matter whether that voice be in English, Arabic, Pashtun or Tagalog!
Let messy, sometimes angry, sometimes too loud Freedom reign!