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Sunday, September 18, 2005Reading this post from Powerline, I got to thinking about the position of the Baathists in Iraq, and for that matter the fundamentalist Muslims throughout the Middle East.You've got to feel for the Baathists. After all, they kept a lid on things, kept the minorities from getting out of check and therefore maintained a stability, however artificial. True, this required turning a large part of the populace into second class human beings, or less. True, it required the use of murder and the threat of harm to sustain itself. But it kept the rest of the world from having to deal with them. Who are we, really, to begrudge them a system that was working for them, and how can we not understand the powerlessness they feel now that a bunch of interlopers from another culture have shown up, told them they're all wrong and worked to systematically destroy the institutions they relied upon to maintain the lives they were living? It's worth noting that this is not an "American" phenomenon: It's really what comes when those damn know-it-alls with Harvard and Yale educations or other privileged backgrounds in this country decide the rest of the world should live and think the way they do. And it goes way back. Forty or fifty years ago, lest we forget, these "we-know-best" types went on another one of their crusades, invading a region with a storied history and culture whose occupants took much pride in the legends of their forebearers. The region had its problems, true. A large part of the populace was relegated to second or third class status. Upsetting the dominant social group could bring the pain of death, severe beating or awful reprisals against your family. Still, the region had a stability, however artificial. The horrors of the region, though terrible, kept a lid on things so that the rest of the world, had it wanted to, could have turned a blind eye. But, as we know, know-it-alls in the Northeast, with their share of Middle American sympathizers and some local reformers, just couldn't abide by that. Instead, they used every means they could, including the U.S. military, to achieve their vision of that society, undermining institutions that had been in place for centuries and turning loose a formerly controlled society that even today is in chaos in parts. And is subject to total civil unrest when the delicate balance there established is threatened. The invaders, in case you're wondering, were the Freedom Riders, the place was the American South, and it was that quaint old Southern culture, with "colored restrooms" and the like that we destroyed, or at least suppressed. Curiously, though, no one has complained in the last few weeks that such disorder as we saw in New Orleans was kept in check better when people like Orval Faubus (from Arkansas) ran the show down South. Even Trent Lott knew better than to make a "Strom Thurmond wouldn't have let this happen" comment. I'm not saying that Bush in Martin Luther King, Jr., or even JFK. Texan though he is, he thankfully isn't LBJ. But this doesn't change the fact that what we're doing in Baghdad has its analog in things we've done at home. The damn Yanks and their converts, reluctant and enthusiastic, have a way of sticking their nose into things where others think we shouldn't meddle and remaking the world to look as close to our image of justice as we can force it to. In time, the Yanks at least take it for granted that the changes they brought were inevitable, had to come, and that of course the world is better for what they've done. We'll see if Iraq turns out the same way, of course. But I'm wondering, especially given the coverage South Africa got in the '80s: Would the American media be more supportive of what we're doing in Iraq if Saddam had taken the blatantly vulgar step of making Kurds and Shiites use separate bathrooms, rather than contenting himself with burying them in mass graves. 
posted by gbarto at 9:45 AM |
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