Come anticipate *The Iraqi Election* with me

Yes, I love the way Lehrer responds when people like that call.

"But you're a good jew, a fair jew."

I would vote - and I don't doubt that many Shi'ites, Kurds and perhaps even Christians will too.

Dreary prediction for the elections.

Jon Lee Anderson's Profile of Allawi:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050124fa_fact1

*coughs politely* I was referring more to the construction of the thread title as a potential source for board in-joke levity.

hstencil, what's eatin' you, dude?

take it up with the guy who suggested it, then.

January 27, 2005
Vote Casts Spotlight on Iraqis in Tenn.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 6:23 p.m. ET

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- For years, the thousands of Kurds living in Nashville have blended into the city's immigrant community in relative anonymity.

But now they are in the spotlight with Iraq's national elections that begin Friday and run through Sunday. Nashville is one of five American cities where Iraqi expatriates can vote, and nearly 4,000 of them are registered here -- more than Los Angeles and Washington. Detroit and Chicago have more.

There are an estimated 8,000 Kurds living in Nashville, which they call ``Little Kurdistan.'' It is the largest community in the United States of Kurds, an ethnic minority that has long been persecuted by Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

In 1975, the United States allowed about 2,000 Kurdish refugees to emigrate after an uprising failed to establish their own country. Many of those refugees chose Nashville because of its similar climate.

``We see a hard time back home in our country in Iraq, and we ran away,'' said Salah Osman, a Kurd who runs a little market in Nashville. ``For that reason, the Kurdish people live together here very quietly.''

Posters announcing the vote are tacked up outside Osman's market, where shoppers rush in to buy fresh cuts of meat and a flat bread called nan. Osman said his customers have been buzzing with anticipation.

Many are thrilled to have a chance to vote in a real election without fear of reprisal.

``The ballot before had Saddam Hussein -- yes or no -- and if you put no, the bodyguard took you to the jail,'' said Ali Almoumineen, 38, who left Iraq with his wife and two children in 1999. He isn't Kurdish, but found a home in the community nonetheless.

Kurdish expert Michael Gunter, a professor at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville and author of six books on the people of Northern Iraq, said the Kurds who moved to Nashville were comforted by the anonymity of the Music City.

``You can sort of go about the business of becoming an American in Nashville easier than Washington, New York or California, where things are more politicized,'' Gunter said. ``Many Kurds just wanted to start a new life and emphasize the private things -- not keep fighting the public battles.''

Though they found some peace in Nashville, the Iraqi immigrants, particularly the Kurds, never forgot their homeland.

In Osman's shop, there is a map above the register that shows northern Iraq labeled ``Kurdistan,'' a country that exists only in the hearts of the Kurds.

``We are small,'' he said with a sigh. ``We don't have any choice, even in the election, to show the people what we really want.''

Without even beginning to address the issue of Western responsibility etc..., let's just look at a few facts. The Kurds have a recognizably different culture and language from the peoples who now hold sway over them. They do not wish (any more than the Irish, the Welsh, the Czechs, the Catalans, etc...) to be forced to assimilate into another culture, especially when that culture forcibly conquered them. A newly independent Kurdistan (and I admit this is very, very unlikely to happen) would have to rely on powerful friends (i.e. U.S., perhaps European Union states) which could ensure that it did nothing violent or untoward regarding the Kurdish populations in neighboring countries. Given Turkey's abysmal history with its conquered minorities, Greeks, Armenians, Maronites, Kurds, a certain number of Kurds would emigrate, especially to a Kurdistan not ruled by Arabs. The same might be true for the Kurds in Iran. If for nothing else, the Sunnis owe it to the people that gave Islam Saladin.

west's problem-solving impulse is always always to support ever-increasing separatism and independence

Until states like the myriad little states and populations of Europe were freed from their Imperial oppressors, they were quite literally not at liberty to join larger multinational organizations. Now they can and most of the potential for historically rooted ethnic violence in Western Europe has abated. There are admittedly new ethnic tensions and the Basques are still violent and Northern Ireland and Corsica can always explode but as national liberation has spread to the old Austro-Hungarian empire and to the former Eastern Bloc lands, the potential for things getting better has increased. The fractious Balkans are the result of several different regimes, Ottomans, Austrians, Communist Yugoslavia, Serbs, etc... trying to negate others' differences in order to boost their own identity. This is not only mean and undignified, but largely ineffective in the long run.

To be honest I can't trace offhand the western position toward other separatist and independence movements (Tamil no, Karen no idea, wherever); it's unfair of me to even half-imply that we make a habit of supporting them. I do suspect, though, that at least rhetorically we tend to give them credence, to push at autonomy compromises, and so on -- and I suspect this is simply because it's faster and easier than dreaming of an actual morally-superior pluralism.

I don't wish to sound too categorical here. Many of the peoples of France, for example, are now happily French, though a minority of Bretons and I don't know what percentage of Corsicans are pissed off. I do think that that national self-determination is often a pre-requisite to moving away from the cruder, more destructive aspects of nationalism.

Like The Boondocks guy said, the ballot casters are "suicide voters."

This ignores the growing problem in France and much of Europe of the growing Islamic, Middle-Eastern population which tends to be poor, unemployed, alienated, disgruntled, and living in segregated communities. This is a major problem that Europe is going to have to figure out how to deal with, and I think we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg at this point. And I don't any reasonable person would say that the solution is to try and roll back the clock to some imagined, Edenic golden age of ethnic/cultural purity.

As I said above, "There are admittedly new ethnic tensions..." This is a test for both sides. Can the autochtones be gracious and flexible and can the immigrants adapt and assimilate?

I look at the rise of nationalism in Europe dring the 18th and 19th centuries as a sad necessity that populations had to get through to get past the anachronism of their feudal inheritance. Ethnic/cultural decisions should be natural, organic decisions for them to work. They are very painful when imposed by historical conjuctures or other peoples. I often reflect upon (and have previously mentioned) the fact that in 1850 the percentage of Czechs and Irish who spoke their native language was identical. Irish may have a good foothold, but as a defacto second tongue for most Irish. German is now a foreign language in 'Bohemia'. I wonder which country is more bitter about there former oppressors.

It's true that there are challenges for both sides, but I think the challenge of assimilation for immigrants is made easier when they don't feel like they are being asked to relinquish their own culture and subscribe to another one wholesale. Admittedly, this can be a difficult balancing act even in countries like the US, where there are periodic debates about such issues as bilingual public schooling. But at the very least, it's certainly made easier when there is a greater degree of ethnic pluralism.

Anyway, to go back to the topic of the Iraqi election, isn't it a bit unconventional, to say the least, that Iraqi expatriates in other countries are being allowed and even encouraged to vote? - and it appears that they may end up being a relatively large proportion of the total number of votes cast. Estimates are that as many as a quarter of a million Iraqi expatriates might vote. These people are not Iraqi citizens and many of them may have never even been to Iraq (the requirement is that they must have an Iraqi father), yet they are voting in the election.

see _Galaxy Quest_

Turnout looks better than the low expectations the administration had created; 30-odd deaths isn't the big rupture someone might have feared; but I certainly don't know about "resounding." Early reports = "seem to have gotten through this OK." And that's just on a surface, visible level; we'll probably have to reserve judgment until results and responses start to play out.

However, the expectations and conclusions of the Iraqi population will have little or no commonality with the view that is peddled in the USA and their views will play the decisive role in Iraq.

People there will not fixate on the number of dead or the number of violent incidents on election day or even the respective turnout numbers for Shia, Sunni and Kurds, as will happen here. Their perception of the election has already been set. To them it probably appears as an elaborate ritual designed to hide the real process of selecting a government.

The fact that the election is a sham will not matter to most Iraqis to any great degree. All that will matter is how the government that is formed rules and whether its actions appear fair. This will be the subject of much propaganda from all sides. Regardless of what the USA does, its presence will always be a negative factor in this propaganda war and will tend to make the task of legitimizing the government almost impossible.

The only way forward in Iraq will be with the USA and coalition leaving as soon as possible. The neocons who envision a dozen military bases in Iraq will either have to let go of that rosy vision, or else their Iraq adventure can only get worse from here on out until the day we are ejected. So far, Bush's ONLY victory in Iraq has been the propaganda war on the homefront. For him, that's enough.

For example, if your imam instructs you to vote, you will likely vote out of regard for your imam, not for the election process. Then, if your slate does not win, you are not necessarily going to believe that their loss was a result of the voting process. OTOH, if you want to vote and live in a violent area, you might not, out of fear.

The latter of these scenarios (fear) will be emphasized in the west and used to spin turnout numbers favorably. The former of these scenarios (obedience) won't be mentioned in the west.

http://news.media.daum.net/foreign/englishnews/200501/14/korherald/v8149848.html