A Christian Eye on Politics
From the BBC News website on 30th July, 2007 comes this:
'The US agency overseeing reconstruction in Iraq has told the BBC that economic mismanagement and corruption there is equivalent to "a second insurgency". The chief auditor assigned by Congress, Stuart Bowen, said the Iraqi government was failing to take responsibility for projects worth billions of dollars. Mr Bowen also said his agency was investigating more than 50 fraud cases.
Meanwhile, nearly a third of Iraq's population is in need of emergency aid, a report by Oxfam and Iraqi NGOs says. The report said the Iraqi government was failing to provide basic essentials such as water, food, sanitation and shelter for up to eight million people. It warned that the continuing violence was masking a humanitarian crisis that had escalated since the US-led invasion in 2003. Nearly 30% of children are malnourished, a sharp increase on the situation four years ago. Some 15% of Iraqis regularly cannot afford to eat. The report also said 92% of Iraq's children suffered from learning problems. It found that more than two million people have been displaced inside the country, while a further two million have fled to neighbouring countries.'
Of course, Iraq's people were poor, and often lacked many of the normal indicators of development, long before the fall of Saddam Hussein. Then it was possible to blame the problems of dictatorship and international sanctions, but since the US-led invasion the continuing poverty in this oil-rich state has had other causes, but it is important to understand that that invasion itself can hardly be blamed for most of these other causes. The causes are age-old tribal factionalism combined with rampant corruption.
Statements coming from the major charities start to outline some of the real causes of the problems. A new report by Oxfam states that the continuing failure to provide even the most basic services to many Iraqis will not only cause continuing suffering, but "serve to further destabilise the country." Yet Oxfam has not operated in Iraq since 2003 for security reasons. Oxfam are unable to work on the ground in Iraq in the way that they would elsewhere because it is just too perilous. Of course, the truth is that many charities which could help the Iraqis a great deal are no longer operating there - it's not only Oxfam. Why? Because of the rampant kidnappings and, often, murder of aid workers! It is just too dangerous to operate there. The Iraqis are constantly 'shooting themselves in the foot' by the basic insecurity within their own country. Measures to reign in the extremists are highly patchy. Corruption is so rife that the report that the Iraqi government was failing to take responsibility for projects worth billions of dollars - with more than 50 fraud cases already under investigation - will surely come as no surprise. But - on paper - Iraq could be - and should be - a wealthy country. The new government now in place there appears to be very slow in tackling the problems which are causing hardship to continue.
Meanwhile - in the West - the media is hardly painting a truthful picture about Iraq. The impression we are being given by the news media is that something bordering on civil war is currently existing between 2 or 3 rival religious (all Islamic) factions. Certainly a lot of murder is coming from those people and this keeps grabbing the headlines but the truth is that this a generally highly lawless country which has always been full of corruption - nothing new. The rampant killing among Islamic groups is really a symptom of the problem more than the cause. The cause is widespread corruption and factional compromise which is making the new Iraqi government seem ineffective. Saddam tended to hold things in place because he was so feared, but with the dictator removed it was, perhaps, naive to believe that 'everybody would live happily ever after.' Iraqi corruption was always widespread but since Saddam and his henchmen no longer control it, corruption has now come much more into focus and the highest bidder usually wins.
But the belief that the Americans started all the trouble is really pathetically naive, if not quite stupid. In fact, it could be said that the Americans, British and the other Allies actually opened a glorious door of opportunity to Iraq. Maybe our Western war campaign leaders did not fully appreciate how much of a deep-seated factor corruption and tribal factionalism would be. But certainly - a lot of the time - western news reporters seem to be missing the point when they apportion blame for the on-going unrest on:
1. The American/British Invasion.
2. The reaction of Islamic militants to that invasion.
3. General and simmering Sunni Muslim/Shiite Muslim hatred.
This is too simplistic. The rivalries are often hundreds of years old but far less religious in nature and far more tribal/political than some appear to understand. Even Sunni/Shiite hatred is often tribal-based much more than religion-based as a few reporters are finally starting to realise. So the western news media tends to see the current situation as a clash between east/west cultures and between Islamic factions, but it really is much more a case of the new Iraqi government failing to properly govern, and failing to clamp down on all of these factions. The suspicion exists that - at some level or other - that government itself is still not overly interested in democracy but that it too is looking for the success of certain tribal factions.
But now the focus must be on the Iraqis themselves. Do these people really want peace? Do they want prosperity? Or is extremist blood-letting, tribal in-fighting and widespread corruption so much a part of their lives that they cannot give them up?
An Iraqi Arab I was in touch with some while ago once e-mailed me and wrote,
"Do you westerners really think that you can ever make Arabic countries like Iraq 'good democratic peoples'? You are wasting your time! You are 750 years ahead of us! Our culture is tribal, where you were a long time ago. If you topple one tyrant in our land, that only makes room for another tyrant. Most Arabs don't care about democracy, only about the interests of their extended families!"
Maybe it is here that we were a little naive: Did we really think that all Iraqis was just bursting to establish a fully democratic country with only Saddam stopping them? The land has no democratic pedigree whatsoever; the average Iraqi simply wants their own tribal faction to be the strongest! So, okay, maybe mistakes were made by the West but the present time still remains a time of amazing opportunity if Iraqis really want a prosperous and peaceful land. But do they want it enough? One thing is for sure: they must stop blaming others for their problems and get themselves properly organized. They now have their own legally-elected government - free of any dictator's control - but they must understand that government is all about governing.
The Christian Hawk, August 1st 2007.