Kitabat, Iraq

Little Hope of Making

Democrats of Iraqis …

"No religious party on earth believes in democracy … How could such people believe in democracy, which recognizes the validity of other peoples' opinions?"

By Salam al-Yasiry, a writer and attorney

Translated By James Jacobson and Nicolas Dagher

October 1, 2007

Iraq - Kitabat - Original Article (Arabic)

No religious party on earth believes in democracy. Whatever connotation of the term one uses, people in religious parties believe that those of their creed are akin to a team, and that they are the best kind of people. How could such people believe in democracy, which recognizes the validity of other peoples' opinions?

Religious party factions believe that while it would mean crossing a holy red line to discuss their own sect's outlook and clarity of thought, it's fine to attack and disparage other religious parties from the same community. They may even condone the abolition of Islamic sects that wander too far from their own message. But we need not deal here with the often irrational quarrels about religious interpretation and historical events.

Before discussing modern Islamic parties in Iraq and their relationship to democracy, we need to clarify something important: that the discussion is unrelated to believing or rejecting Allah. Rather it is a political debate about how Islam should influence the exercise of politics in Iraq, and this is a debate that will probably continue for quite some time.

The question that must be asked now is: What do Iraq's Islamic parties want? The answer is: the same thing that the Dawa Party , the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council , the Islamic Virtue Party , the Sadrists , Hezbullah , al-Qaeda and the Wahabis  want, which is an Islamic government. What differs between Shiites and Sunnis are the legislative, historical and social underpinnings of such a government.

All Iraqi Islamic parties composed of Shiites believe that the divine mandate of Imam Ali , peace be upon him, is the cornerstone of their religion; Shiites may not declare it publicly, but they hold that Muslims who don't believe in the divine mandate of the Imam are defiled and - technically and quite literally - infidels.

[Editor's Note: Shiite roughly means "followers" or "cohorts" of Imam Ali, the Prophet's cousin, protégé and son-in-law. Shiites believe that Imam Ali (and his sons) should have succeeded the Prophet in running the affairs of the Muslim nation, and Sunnis do not - although Sunnis also revere Imam Ali. This is a major bone of contention between the sects. When the Prophet Muhammad died, there was a dispute among his companions as to who should lead the Muslim community. The Ansar [people from Medina] felt it should be one of them; the Muhajirun [those from Mecca and other places outside Medina] felt it should be one of them. It was finally decided that Abu Bakr  would be the successor of the Prophet. At first, Imam Ali wouldn't accept this, but he eventually did and pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr.]

Sunni political parties and organizations in Iraq, especially those adhering to Sheikh bin Laden, consider Shiism as worshippers of graves [their holy sites are graves of dead Shiite heroes] and polytheists - and consider Shiites to be infidels in the eyes of Allah, the one and only.

For hundreds of years, Iraqi political parties and Sunni organizations have wanted to see the adoption of a state religion, and there's nothing wrong with this, although there is reason to discount the credibility of their intellectual rigor.

Shiite Parties in Iraq have clear differences with their Sunni counterparts in regard to the notion of an Islamic state; their beliefs require them to establish an identity and the credibility of this or that party, which is why they like to use the names of famous Shiites [like Muqtadr al-Sadr, who's father was a famous Shiite opponent of Saddam] as a way of becoming established on the Shiite street. These parties don't hesitate to bring down any Shiite that rejects or is dissatisfied with this or that party - which is why such parties have militias capable of confiscating one's life at any moment.

After the fall of Saddam, hysterical Shiite clerics propagating terrifying messages about holy verses combined with horrific acts of barbarism reminded the world of the Middle Ages or European dark ages - perhaps due to a lack of knowledge about the true intent of these verses; however, we heard no rejection of these ideas from the clerics.

On the other side of the Islamic party divide are the Sunnis. Within a very short time [after the fall of Saddam], they began using ancient names that are fixed in the minds of the masses - especially the uneducated - such as "Umar's Army ," Ansar al-Sunna , Ansar al-Jihad  and Ansar al-Tawhid , all of which are names that were part and parcel of the underdeveloped terrorist state of Afghanistan.

And what is it that Iraq's Shiite parties are selling? Rule by Iranian law that can weaken the nation's confidence and paralyze the authorities with a single fatwa. On the other hand, the Islamic country of Iraq, which is what the Sunnis call it, is a country that we got to know in Afghanistan and the Saudi Arabia of the Wahabis.

The bitter truth, which Iraq's Islamists don't want to hear, is that while they openly discuss democracy, they are playing a flagrantly hypocritical game. Not a single one of them believes in democracy. Their perseverance and hypocrisy reveal their true goal, which is to use the mechanisms of democracy to gain power - particularly elections - but then to refuse to allow democracy to take root as an alternative form of government.

Have you ever heard of a democracy protected by militias? Have you ever heard of a democracy in which a son inherits power from his father?

Are there any democracies - even in banana republics - where a man like Ammar al-Hakim [son of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of Iraq's largest party, the Iraqi Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (Shiite)], would meet foreign ambassadors? What has one got to do with the other?

In the democracy of the Islamists, a party slogan is shouted, which is: "I swear by Allah the Almighty to work for the establishment of God's government on the earth."

This is the democracy of the Islamic parties. But the question is: Is it possible that God the creator would need the likes of Ibrahim al-Jaafari or Sheik bin Laden to establish his government on earth?

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