 |  | |
Viewpoint: The ploy of the Iraqi referendum
Elias Akleh
October 20, 2005
—
The Iraqi referendum had been played so cleverly that all types of media, although most British papers were more cautious than others, and all political figures could not but call it an expression of democracy. Yet this "democracy" is being used to manipulate Iraqis into accepting the dictates of the American administration.
The American power elite has been very proficient in this type of manipulation; after all, they had used the same tactics for almost 227 years since the establishment of the American Constitution, to impose their own ideologies on the people, and make them believe that these ideologies are their very own.
The trick started with Paul Bremer immediately after the invasion of Iraq. He canceled the old Iraqi constitution and all the previous laws claiming that they are the laws of the tyrant Saddam Hussein, and replaced them with American imported laws - the laws of American democracy that should fit all other nations. Iraqis had no say but to accept these laws.
The new Iraqi interim National Assembly members were so pleased to have political jobs with American dollar salaries that this made them eager to please their "American liberators", and they did not question nor criticize these laws. Bremer's laws became the basis for the Iraqi government, the Iraqi elections and the Iraqi constitution.
The articles in the draft of the Iraqi constitution were carefully "cooked" by the "appointed" members of the National Assembly, who are not, really, true representatives of the people. The mostly Shia and Kurdish government, with the directives of the Americans in the background, had written the draft constitution by themselves for themselves.
The draft has nothing to do with the will of the people. It is a decree imposed from top to bottom, and comes from the political elite who run Iraq along with the Americans out of the 'green zone' of Baghdad. All negotiations about the constitution were done within the isolated 'green zone' away from the average common Iraqi.
The negotiators were out of touch with the people. The Iraqi people were alienated from the process. They were not invited to participate in the discussion to offer their own views and to listen to and to understand the views of others. They were barred from this democratic process, therefore they lack any sense of ownership of this constitution. To them it is a foreign imported product imposed on them.
A draft constitution is a very complex legal document with a lot of legal obscure terms that could be understood only by those who had studied the law. Its language is written in a way that allows different interpretations, of which many could be contradictory.
The average Iraqi would have difficulty reading and understanding the exact meaning of the draft. The majority of them would vote according to the recommendations of their religious and tribal leaders rather than according to their own understanding and their own conviction of the constitution. This makes it an ethnic voting, which is exactly what the American administration is aiming for: ethnic division of the people.
The occupational forces succeeded in creating ethnic division among Iraqis. They favored Kurds and Shias, and discriminated against Sunnis. They have used Kurdish and Shia militias to raid Sunni cities in an attempt to create hatred among these groups. All the military and political statements regarding Iraqis are deliberately loaded with ethnic terminology.
The media outlets, even the independent and the opposing media outlets, had fallen into the ethnic terminology trap; they talk about Iraqis in terms of the three major ethnic groups. Iraqis, at the beginning, fought this ethnic division and emphasized unity, yet the discriminatory policies of the Shia majority government, the car bombings and the Kurdish and Shia militia raids in the Sunni cities had led the majority of the people to fall into the same ethnic trap.
This growing ethnic hatred affected the way that people voted in the referendum. The majority of Shias and Kurds tended to vote yes on the draft, while the majority of the Sunnis tended to vote no. The Shias, making up about 60 percent of the population, were urged during Friday religious sermons to vote yes for the constitution. Their leading cleric, the Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, declared it a religious duty to vote yes. A yes vote will provide them autonomy in the southern Iraqi regions.
Likewise the Kurds, about 20 percent of the population, largely support the constitution to guarantee their own independence in the north as the nucleus for a Kurdish State. The Sunni Arabs, on the other hand, widely oppose the constitution because they are convinced that its federalist system will tear the country into Kurdish and Shia mini-states in the oil-rich regions of the north and the south, and leave the Sunnis weak in the center without any shares in the oil revenue.
During the elections last January the Sunnis boycotted the elections and found themselves, later on, without any voices in the government and out of the circle of political decision making. It seems that they have learned from this mistake, for this time they hit the polling centers in greater numbers in an attempt to vote down the draft constitution. They have learned the importance of voicing their opinion.
There was only one question on the ballot paper, written in Arabic and Kurdish, which the voter should answer: "Do you support the draft constitution?"
This is actually a stupid vote and gives the illusion that a person had made a real choice. A constitution is comprised of many articles. Some of them are good for a certain group of people, and not good for other groups. Some articles are good for the public good but would hurt a minority. The question limits the voter to either accept or reject the draft as a whole. This creates a dilemma to voters, who are not given the opportunity to reject some articles and accept others as is the case in other countries.
The democratic spirit that the Iraqis are exhibiting in this referendum is cheated by what is offered to them. The draft constitution does not offer unity and democracy to Iraqis, but division and chaos. Most educated Iraqis understand this fact and want to vote against the draft.
Iraqis abroad want to defeat the draft because they oppose religious federalism, and seek sectarian rule, human and women's rights, and a solid fair constitution that would serve the coming generations of Iraqis. Unfortunately Iraqis abroad were not allowed to vote this time around, although their voices were sought in the January elections.
There are two versions of the draft and each has a different introduction in Arabic. The first version starts with "We the peoples of Iraq ..." while the second starts with "We the peoples of the valley of the two rivers ..." This introduction strikes at the heart of the Arab nationality of the Iraqis by hinting that Iraqis are comprised of different nations.
This is very dangerous especially when combined with articles 115 and 116, which call for the right of each province to tear itself apart from the whole country and to form its own mini state at the request of only one-tenth of its voters. This mini state would have the right to write its own constitution, to define its own laws and to take its own local language. If this is not dividing Iraq what is?
Moreover, this would allow Israeli Jews, who immigrated from Iraq to Israel, to return to Iraq, and according to article 133 reclaim properties, form their own region, then turn it into a second Israeli state that would have its own language, its own laws, and more dangerously its own army. Such a mini-Israeli state would become part of the "Iraqi Federation" and demand to voice its opinion in the political decision making, and eventually, with the backing of both USA and Israel, would control Iraq.
This American imported constitution does not serve Iraqis. Its goal is to fragment Iraq into weaker religious federations for ease of manageability and control.
Elias Akleh is an Arab writer from a Palestinian descent, born in the town of Beit Jala and lives in the US. Acknowledgement to Arab Media Internet Network (AMIN)
|
|
