Freedom and Democracy will abolish Brain Wash

If you ask any well educated Iraqi now what is the best time in the recent history of Iraq (see Cradle of Civilization below), he or she will tell you it is the 1940s until 1950s.

On the 30th Sep 2003 a ballot published in the Arabic news paper Alhayat done on 500 Iraqis in Baghdad aged between 18 – 26 years old showed two important things.
First in-spite of the big limitation and the brain wash of the previous regime on the Iraqi people especially this age group; they showed that they have clear vision about the political history of their country.
Second is that this vision is very different from what the regime dictated on them (brain washed) and also different from the past thinking of a similar Iraqi man in 1940s & 1950s.

An example about this is the way they answered; what is the best personality for them among different personalities given from 1930 until 2003. The two most popular for them were Noori Al Saaed & Abdolkarem Kasem scoring more than 75% for both and more than 92% say yes for personalities during the 1940s era. Both Saddam & some of his men scored 4% on the bottom of the list.
Alhayat news paper commented to say that the most striking thing in this ballot is that in spite of the brain wash and limitation put by the previous regime to get these youth away from their history, they know very well the political history of their country in a way different from what the regime like them to do. The newspaper wants farther to say that there is a new vision in the way the Iraqis look to their political history. The example is the way they look to Noori Al Saaed (*), they use to see him as puppet to the British in 1940s while now they see him in a different way.
It is very clear why this change happen, because you compare two eras, one of some sort of democracy and freedom (1940s – 1950s) and the other is a totalitarian dictatorship state.

The above ballot indicates asked also about the favorite academics, artist, poet, clergy man, and others. The result indicates the following:
1. In spite the big prison (Iraq) that the previous regime did for the Iraqis they chose personalities among the Iraqis who live abroad and were successful in their academic life outside Iraq in the West.
2. It clearly showed that they like the wise, flexible, peaceful and experienced clergyman rather than the young fanatics. Example for that is Mr Ali Seysatani in Najaf had 52%, Mohammed Baker Al Hakeem 24% compared to Muqtada Al Sadar who had only 4% and the others had only less than 8%. While there was negative results for the Sheikhs related to the previous regime.
3. When they asked about the example of the academic personality the answers went for those who served the Iraqis and none given for those who served the previous regime.
4. When asked about their example among the poets, Mohammed Mahdi AlJawahri was the top. He was expelled from Iraq by the regime long time ago before they born and died outside Iraq and the regime refused to let him buried there (as far as I know).
Lot of other interesting points but the most important thing is that that most of the Iraqis are live people, able to bare the responsibility of the change towards freedom and democracy and to live in peace with the world as a whole without discrimination as far as they decide and not a dictator decide and dictate on them.


(*) Noori Al Saaed (1888-1958)

Noori Saaed Mulah Taha Al Karagholi born in Baghdad and went into military school in Baghdad then graduated from the Astanah Military School in turkey in 1909 and the College of War in Turkey. He joined the Balkan war 1912-1913 and the revolt of Hussein in Hijaz, where he was one the main leader. He entered Damascus with King Faisal Bin Hussein. He had long experience in the political work and was the primeminster for 10 times in Iraq the first was in 1930. He was pro-British and attended the round table to discuss the Palestine issue in London in 1939. Adolf Hitler contacted him several times trying to change his mind regarding his support to the British policies during the WW-II but refused. He was a strong leader. He put the issue of uniting Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan in one state (The Green Crescent) to the UN and he is first one to suggest the formation of the Arab League when he was the Iraqi ambassador in Cairo. He convinced the Egyptian primeminster Mahmood Fahmi Basha about his idea in 1941. He negotiated to put Iraq in the Baghdad Pact which included Great Britain, Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Pakistan and he tried to convince India to join this pact.
He was killed after the 14th July 1958 change by Abdalkrem Kaseem after an interesting story of his escape. His dead body was crushed under the wheels of a big Tank then burned with fire.
The American and British government declared that his death was great loss for them.
He had many books in politics.

Sam

posted by hammorabi @ 11/12/2003 10:44:00 AM