In three days, Iraq will be having what they are calling an election. It will supposedly wrap up the American occupation by granting Iraq a democratic government.
Back in my bible school days, I attended a class called cross cultural ministry, where we learned about the specific challenges involved with relating to people in other countries or from different cultures. We learned to approach other cultures as students, instead of teachers. Rather than teaching others the correct way to be, we need to always aspire to understand the paradigms that influence them. Only in doing so will we develop beneficial relationships.
I've discovered in my subsequent trips to Africa that everything I learned in that class was true, but I learned some other things too, and I learned them better than in any classroom. Here's what I learned: "I DON'T KNOW." More specifically, I do not know what I am seeing, I don't know what I'm hearing, I don't understand what I'm saying, and I don't know where I'm going. Which also goes to show that I don't know what action to take, I don't know what's best, and I don't know how it will affect the people involved.
You can't take something from your culture and just transplant it in someone else's life. Doing so can have dire consequences. People respond in different ways. compliments in one place are insults in another. Acceptable behaviour is blasphemy. It's important to realize that a different culture is not a wrong culture. Of course issues of morality are always up for debate, but that's not what I'm talking about.
On sunday we will witness the outcome of a vast cross cultural trespass. This is not to say that Iraq cannot be democratic, but it is to say that forcing it on them because you believe it is the correct way to be, is an arrogant way to conduct oneself. As the election draws closer, suspicions are high that it will have detrimental effects on the country. Many people anticipate civil war. After all, why should militant religious factions accept the results of an election forced upon them by an illegal invading force? This isn't the way things are done in Iraq. One example of this lack of understanding can be seen in the fact that the voting is to take place in various schools.
In Canada, we vote in schools. It's safe to vote just about anywhere, and the schools are funded by the government. But in Iraq, bombs are likely to go off just about anywhere, particularly where highly controversial voting is taking place. The schools are having a hard enough time recovering from the war, and to place the schools in harms way like this is putting the education of the nations children at stake. It's completely irrational in an Iraqi context, but over here it makes perfect sense. I'm sure no one asked the Iraqi people where the best place is to vote, but then, it sounds like most of them weren't consulted on the candidates either. Nobody even knows who the candidates are. The candidates won't announce themselves because they're afraid of a bullet in the brain.
Someone needs to inform the perpetrators of this election, that Iraq is a country with a different history, a different culture, and a different people. They have different opinions and different complications and different ways of looking at the world. By the sounds of things, many would appreciate democracy, but not like this. Not under these circumstances, not enforced by gun toting american soldiers, under the threat of suicide bombers, not in exchange for food rations, not in a haze of confusion.
I'm holding my breath until the 30th. As opposed to the war as I am, I hope that some good can somehow come from it, but I'm afraid of the outcome. I doubt that this will be the victory that justifies Bush's invasion-under-false-pretenses. The fruit of deceit and violence is seldom warm and fuzzy.
If you're interested in reading more about the election from an Iraqi perspective:
Secrets in Baghdad... comical and yet.... not
Raed in the Middle... in a historical context
Baghdad Burning... what it's like to be there
Back in my bible school days, I attended a class called cross cultural ministry, where we learned about the specific challenges involved with relating to people in other countries or from different cultures. We learned to approach other cultures as students, instead of teachers. Rather than teaching others the correct way to be, we need to always aspire to understand the paradigms that influence them. Only in doing so will we develop beneficial relationships.
I've discovered in my subsequent trips to Africa that everything I learned in that class was true, but I learned some other things too, and I learned them better than in any classroom. Here's what I learned: "I DON'T KNOW." More specifically, I do not know what I am seeing, I don't know what I'm hearing, I don't understand what I'm saying, and I don't know where I'm going. Which also goes to show that I don't know what action to take, I don't know what's best, and I don't know how it will affect the people involved.
You can't take something from your culture and just transplant it in someone else's life. Doing so can have dire consequences. People respond in different ways. compliments in one place are insults in another. Acceptable behaviour is blasphemy. It's important to realize that a different culture is not a wrong culture. Of course issues of morality are always up for debate, but that's not what I'm talking about.
On sunday we will witness the outcome of a vast cross cultural trespass. This is not to say that Iraq cannot be democratic, but it is to say that forcing it on them because you believe it is the correct way to be, is an arrogant way to conduct oneself. As the election draws closer, suspicions are high that it will have detrimental effects on the country. Many people anticipate civil war. After all, why should militant religious factions accept the results of an election forced upon them by an illegal invading force? This isn't the way things are done in Iraq. One example of this lack of understanding can be seen in the fact that the voting is to take place in various schools.
In Canada, we vote in schools. It's safe to vote just about anywhere, and the schools are funded by the government. But in Iraq, bombs are likely to go off just about anywhere, particularly where highly controversial voting is taking place. The schools are having a hard enough time recovering from the war, and to place the schools in harms way like this is putting the education of the nations children at stake. It's completely irrational in an Iraqi context, but over here it makes perfect sense. I'm sure no one asked the Iraqi people where the best place is to vote, but then, it sounds like most of them weren't consulted on the candidates either. Nobody even knows who the candidates are. The candidates won't announce themselves because they're afraid of a bullet in the brain.
Someone needs to inform the perpetrators of this election, that Iraq is a country with a different history, a different culture, and a different people. They have different opinions and different complications and different ways of looking at the world. By the sounds of things, many would appreciate democracy, but not like this. Not under these circumstances, not enforced by gun toting american soldiers, under the threat of suicide bombers, not in exchange for food rations, not in a haze of confusion.
I'm holding my breath until the 30th. As opposed to the war as I am, I hope that some good can somehow come from it, but I'm afraid of the outcome. I doubt that this will be the victory that justifies Bush's invasion-under-false-pretenses. The fruit of deceit and violence is seldom warm and fuzzy.
If you're interested in reading more about the election from an Iraqi perspective:
Secrets in Baghdad... comical and yet.... not
Raed in the Middle... in a historical context
Baghdad Burning... what it's like to be there
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