Byline by M.J. Akbar : The Silence of Democracy
It is surprising that the George Bush White House, which was so good at picking up the silence of the Bible Belt, missed out on the silence of the Quran Girdle.
How long have Shias been waiting silently for power in Iraq? From one perspective I can count up to more than 1,300 years by the Roman calendar and 1,400 by the Islamic one. Ever since Hazrat Ali’s son Iman Hussain and his family and followers were martyred on the field of Kerbala in the struggle for power against the Umayyads, Sunnis have been in power in the region that constitutes modern Iraq.
There is an old and familiar Chinese proverb that might be appropriate for Bush just now. Be careful about what you want, because you might get it. He wanted democracy in Iraq. He has got just the first taste of it.
The Silence of Democracy
When pondering over a long election, look at the arc and hear the silence. One of the more interesting facts about democracy in its current, refined manifestation is that elections have turned from a comparative sprint to a laboured marathon.
Reasons differ. In America they have devised an electoral process that only a democratic fundamentalist would consider rational: they start with elections for elections, called primaries, making up rules as they go along. In Britain, they love the traditional English game of cat-and-mouse. A Prime Minister spends half his time threatening an election or shifting the date, depending on whether the threat to his job is from a foe or a friend. Politics remains in election mode long before a date is set. In India the first general elections, in 1952, started in winter and continued for six months. Those were considered the bad old days. In 2004 too the elections started in the previous winter and continued till summer. The reason in 1952 was that we still carried ballot boxes on bullock carts. These days we have instant electronic machines but we take so long because the Election Commission wants to protect the voter from thugs, bandits, looters and politicians armed with replica Kalashnikovs or the more compatible pistol. Welcome to progress.
A long election has a different dynamic from a quick one. It was the receding arc that got the BJP last year. 2004 was more evidence that once slippage begins, it is rarely reversed; and defeat builds further momentum beyond the election. The BJP is trapped in that slide. It could not, in alliance with Shiv Sena, find that extra edge in Maharashtra; and it is either stagnant or in danger of further erosion in Haryana, Jharkhand and Bihar. I am not saying this on the basis of exit polls after the first phase of elections in the three states. Only the very rich now believe in exit polls. In other words, only those who have a lot of money to waste — whether they are politicians or television czars — spend hard cash on such polls. Media is far from infallible. Nor is this an Indian phenomenon. Exit polls put John Kerry into the White House, sending him into stratosphere for a few hours. But if you get things wrong, decency demands a modicum of restraint along with a mea culpa. It was amusing to see the precision with which pundits, who got every prediction wrong last year, forecast how Lalu Yadav was slipping and would fall. I have no idea whether Lalu Yadav is going to win or not. History suggests that he doesn’t like losing. In any case, if we have lived with Lalu in power for 15 years, we can wait another three weeks for the Election Commission to let us know his fate in what has become a scatter-shot election.
The results of silence are more dramatic. It is surprising that the George Bush White House, which was so good at picking up the silence of the Bible Belt, missed out on the silence of the Quran Girdle.
How long have Shias been waiting silently for power in Iraq? From one perspective I can count up to more than 1,300 years by the Roman calendar and 1,400 by the Islamic one. Ever since Hazrat Ali’s son Iman Hussain and his family and followers were martyred on the field of Kerbala in the struggle for power against the Umayyads, Sunnis have been in power in the region that constitutes modern Iraq. Damascus was the capital then; Baghdad was built by the Abbasid Caliph Mansur. The Shias helped the Abbasids overthrow the Ummayads, and were speedily dispensed with once their fervour had been exploited. Abbasids, in turn, surrendered space and then power to Central Asian Turks before the Mongol Hulegu destroyed them and Baghdad in 1258. There were various successor states, divided between Turks and most famously the Kurdish family of Saladin until the Osmanalis (mispronounced as Ottomans) restored central authority, stability and unity till the British victory in the First World War in 1918. So far, so good, so Sunni.
In 1917 the British seized Jerusalem and Baghdad from the Turks; by 1918 they had all the Arab lands in their control, including Mecca and Medina — the first time in history that the two Holy Cities were occupied by non-Muslims. The British tried direct rule in Iraq. In the month of Ramadan, 1920, the Shias declared jihad against the British occupation in Najaf and Kerbala. They called the British "Franji", a term once reserved for Crusaders. Memories run deep. Sunnis willingly joined the uprising. The British had to withdraw their administrator, A.T. Wilson: since Iraq was also known as Mesopotamia, Wilson was nicknamed "Despot of Messpot". In 1921 Winston Churchill, colonial secretary of the Empire, installed a puppet government with an Arab face to appease sentiment. He imposed a Hashemite Prince, Faisal, as the new king of Iraq. Faisal had never set foot in his country till he was seated on its throne at six in the morning of 23 August 1921. The band played God Save the King.
Faisal was a Sunni.
The vicissitudes of colonial politics need not detain us, except to note that oil was controlled by western companies, and the British retained military bases long after they officially "withdrew" from sovereign Iraq.
Anger against the compromised family of Faisal finally turned savage, and on 14 July 1958 the ruling family was massacred (royal body parts were distributed by a delighted populace as trophies) after a coup led by the Free Officers of the Iraqi Army. The British ambassador Sir Michael Wright went into hiding, but within 24 hours struck a deal with the new strongmen assuring the protection of British interests. In February 1963, officers belonging to the Baath Party seized power from the squabbling coalition of interests. But irrespective of who was boss in Baghdad, every boss belonged to the Sunni minority. The last and most successful of these bosses was of course Saddam Hussein, who emerged at the top of yet another bloodstained heap in 1968. Of course Saddam was also a Sunni.
Shia political mobilisation in a modern context began after the coup of 1958, with the formation of the Al Dawa Al Islamiya by Mahdi al-Hakim and Mohammad Baqr al-Sadr. Its aims were to establish adult franchise and democracy (naturally, for Shias were 60% of the population), revive Islam, fight atheism (read Communists) and create an undefined Islamic Republic. In 1965 a fellow cleric and exile from Iran came to live in Najaf: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In a series of lectures between 21 January and 8 February 1970 at Najaf he defined that Islamic state and offered a diagnosis for the "hopelessness and impotence of the Muslim world". The pro-establishment Shia leadership in Najaf, led by Grand Ayatollah Abolqassem Khoi, supported by Saddam, came out sharply against Khomeini and for the Shah of Iran. But the Shia street was talking a different language. The slogan there was stark: "We are there for you to sacrifice, Khomeini!"
Saddam and Khomeini came to power in the same year: 1979. Khomeini gave a call to Iraq’s Shias to rise against Saddam and he responded as only he could. No one knows how many were executed. Ayatollah Hakim was sentenced to death but later allowed to go to Iran. In April 1980 Sadr and his greatly-respected and loved sister Amina were executed by Saddam. Since these surnames have returned to the daily news, perhaps you can make your own connections.
Perhaps the Bush White House made two miscalculations. It transferred the Shia hate for Saddam into a welcome for America. And it mistook silence for consent. Washington’s calculation was that its preferred Shia, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi would get enough votes from his community to cobble an alliance with the pro-American Kurds that would enable him to remain at the head of government during the writing of a Constitution. (What Iraq has voted for is a Constituent Assembly and an interim government.) But the leader of the Shia silence was Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. In the first hint of the future, the Ayatollah had over 70% of the vote against Allawi’s 18%. Ayatollah al-Sistani has waited for this day. His message to his community was simple: keep quiet, leave the violence to Sunnis, and keep your powder dry for the elections. That is why he reined in Moqtada Sadr, when Sadr picked up the gun. The Shias could turn to the gun if they are denied power.
There is an old and familiar Chinese proverb that might be appropriate for Bush just now. Be careful about what you want, because you might get it. He wanted democracy in Iraq. He has got just the first taste of it.
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