Our Man in Basra has sent us a few quotes from locals before his next dispatch about Basra society.
Words from the streets of Basra:
For over 30 years we suffered under Saddam. No Arab, no Muslim country came to help us. Then America and Britain made political decision to get rid of Saddam. Now we should help the British.
From local Sheikh.
You should be more like the Americans and kill more Ba’athists.
After US killed Uday and Quasay and first time I heard anyone say we should be more like the Americans!
I am very happy that Uday and Quasay were killed but it is a pity they were not captured so they could be put on trial and tortured and then killed. Being killed like this was good for them.
The people here really hate Saddam and all his family and friends. It’s about the one thing everyone agrees on. When the news was confirmed that the evil sons were dead, the whole place was like 4th July in South L.A. In fact it was like watching TV footage of the nights Baghdad was bombed, there was tracer arching up into the sky from every direction you looked. Quite pretty to watch it sailing overhead, but a little worrying to see how many places all around us have automatic weapons to fire off, as well as all kinds of flares. And no shortage of ammo either. On the other hand these people must like us really, because we don’t get all that fired at us, and there’s a lot more civilians with guns here than there are soldiers. But basically, Saddam’s sons dead – party time. The only down notes I heard from anyone was “let’s get the rest”, and “pity they didn’t suffer more”. A lot of people wanted them put on trial but I don’t think a few years in prison and early parole for good behaviour was ever an option. Incidentally, one 12 year old boy sleeping on a roof seems to have been killed by falling fire, though we can’t be certain that was the reason – we had a few near misses. This prompts the thought that one of the first things Iraq really needs is some decent fireworks for celebrations. And don’t worry too much about the safety regs, just make them loud.
You British built Basra, you built the sewers, you taught us how to dress, how to eat, how to run the oil industry. We do not know the Americans, we think they are against the Muslims because of what they do, but we know you. Why do you not do now what you did in 1920 and 1941 and control this place and get rid of the bad men? Then Basra will be very rich for everyone.
By bad men this man meant Ba’athists, anti-CF, sheikhs, criminals and religious fundamentalists. There are quite a lot of anglophiles in Basra from the last time my Regiment was here in WW2 but of course you have to allow for them telling you what they think you want to hear…
You British built Basra, you built the sewers, you taught us how to dress, how to eat, how to run the oil industry.
How to dress? How to eat? That is the most craven, abject, pitiful thing I’ve ever read. Jesus, why not just submissively urinate on the man’s boot? So much for the proud Iraqi people.
Let’s hope the quote is a fabrication, or I wouldn’t bet tuppence a group of people like this can build a nation.
You don’t think Iraqi busnessmen wear western (i.e. British) style suits? Why should an Iraqi be proud of their nation which destroyed its own civil society and murdered millions of its own people over the last 30 years?
S.Weasel: You’ve got to be kidding! Do you know Iraqi history?
And why, pray, would the quote be fabrication?
I don’t know anyone who wears western style suits who thinks they’re anything but a butt-ugly hazing ritual for businessmen.
And this somehow makes them incapable of eating and dressing themselves?
Refresh me. I must’ve missed the part about neckties and spoons.
Okay, mistranslation, then. Or maybe it’s that thing the Samoans did to Margaret Meade, when they told her all sort of extravagant bullshit about their sex lives because it was what she wanted to hear.
I mean, c’mon, guys: “you taught us how to dress, how to eat”? They’ve either got the mother of all crippling self esteem issues, or somebody’s pulling his leg.
Of course they have ‘crippling self esteem issues’, their nation is basket case and their neighbors are as likely to be murderers or people who supported murderers as people they might count on for support. Jesus, what is it with some Americans that they see the rest of the world as reflections of themselves?
Iraq is a shit hole and any half way intelligent Iraqi will be fully aware of that fact and the fact that the British officer this guy was talking to comes from a vastly superior civilization. The British brought civilization to them once and they kinda want them to do it again. Is that really so hard to understand?
And as for business suits, I don’t know what you do for a living fellah but I wear one and like it just fine.
I think the British would be better at Iraq nation building than the US because they have more experience with it (nation building) than the US does.
Jesus, what is it with some Americans that they see the rest of the world as reflections of themselves?
Eh?
I wouldn’t give a quatloo for any culture anywhere on this planet or any other, be it ever so humble, that didn’t like its own native food, its own native table manners and its own native clothing. That’s just…wrong.
And I don’t believe for an instant that Iraqis feel that way.
And I don’t believe for an instant that Iraqis feel that way.
Why? I have met many people from many cultures who cannot wait to get the hell out and move to the west precisely because they think where they come from, well, sucks.
I have met many people from many cultures who cannot wait to get the hell out and move to the west precisely because they think where they come from, well, sucks.
And that includes hating the food and clothes they grew up with?
I never met any of those people. I don’t think I’d trust their judgment.
As the guys says “There are quite a lot of anglophiles in Basra from the last time my Regiment was here in WW2 but of course you have to allow for them telling you what they think you want to hear…”
Just like they tell the BBC and Independent what they want to hear.
The rest of you may be correct about the details, but I have to agree with S. Weasel on this one. That is the most discouraging quote I have heard from a member of the society we hope to rehabilitate.
If their plan to build a nation is to “get the hell out and move to the west precisely because they think where they come from, well, sucks”, then all of the coalition nations could have saved a lot of blood and treasure by just giving them green cards and nuking the remaining Baathists. Sure it sucks. That is what ultimately they -not we- have to remedy.
Maybe the difference in perspective between S. Weasel and I on the one side, and the rest of you on the other is a matter of perspective. You were the colonial Mother Country, we were the Prodigal Colony. We just can’t see subservience as a good thing, even if it does make them want to emulate you, or even us.
In fact, if this doesn’t change, Saddam II -whoever he is- needs only to wait in the wings until we leave.
— We do not know the Americans, we think they are against the Muslims because of what they do,–
Well, telling us you want to kill us and then driving planes into our buildings will do that. And I’m letting go the attacks on our military.
Unless he meant what we do to them.
Crickets are chirping here, fellas, just like they did for you against Saddam. The Professor links to a very interesting article about Arabism and Saddam.
Perry wrote – “Why should an Iraqi be proud of their nation which destroyed its own civil society and murdered millions of its own people over the last 30 years?”
Where did S Weasel say that the Iraqis were proud of the regime of Saddam Hussein? He is talking about their pride in themselves, their social tradition, customs, values, and so on.
You seem to be confusing the people in a society with the dictatorial state apparatus that oppressed it.
Finally, Iraq is not a single nation. Rather it is an artificially constructed state comprising various geographically distinct quasi-national ethnic groups – a bit like former Yugoslavia. A Kurd from Northern Iraq would rightly be insulted at your insinuation that his nation destroyed its civil society and murdered millions of its own people, as nothing of the sort took place.
Perry wrote – “I have met many people from many cultures who cannot wait to get the hell out and move to the west precisely because they think where they come from, well, sucks.”
Did they think the country and its inhabitants sucked, or just the government? There is no doubt that the UK government is better than, say, the government of Iran. But are you claiming that the *people* are better too?
S. Weasel: I have met many people from many cultures who cannot wait to get the hell out and move to the west precisely because they think where they come from, well, sucks.
….
And that includes hating the food and clothes they grew up with?
I never met any of those people. I don’t think I’d trust their judgment.
Yep, Perry’s right I am afraid… And I am one of those people who couldn’t wait to get out of the grey, mediocre and hopeless worlds that communism made me grow up in. And I hated the Eastern block’s excuse for clothes and the food that went with the experience.
Recognising reality does not make you less proud or unable to stand up for yourself. I know many people who see the Anglosphere culture as inherently superior and it does not make them incapable of ‘building their nation’, whatever that means. It means that they have an idea of where they are going, which must be a better thing than stumbling into another collectivist dystopia. I’d rather they venerate Anglo-Saxon values than daydream about the glory of days long gone.
The thing is I know what I am talking about since I am neither American nor British.
Cobden: You seem to be confusing the people in a society with the dictatorial state apparatus that oppressed it.
I do nothing of the sort but the fact is most people do not make that distinction. But in any case I doubt many Iraqi’s are great admirers of Iraqi civil society as I doubt there is much Iraqi civil society left after decades of Ba’athist socialism. I suspect there are no aspects to Iraq that are truly functional and thus that many Iraqis see pretty much all aspects of a conquering outside civilization as preferable is not very hard to imagine.
As Adriana mentioned, this sort of thinking is not confined to places like Iraq. Certainly I have encountered it before in some of the grottier parts of Africa and the Balkans.
I found exactly the same thing when I use to live in Saudi Arabia. Every weekend droves of Saudi’s used to migrate accross the causeway from Al-Khobar to Bahrain to escape their restrictive culture.
The company I was their with, Aramco – the national oil company, use to employ a great many Saudi’s. Every opportunity that presented itself for them to leave the country for the west, whether it be for education or business was jumped at for precisely the same reason. So I have to take Perry’s side on this one.
And I am one of those people who couldn’t wait to get out of the grey, mediocre and hopeless worlds that communism made me grow up in.
That was hardly the native culture of Eastern Europe. That was somebody else’s attempt to enforce “how to dress, how to eat” on you. Not surprising that real Western goods would seem superior to a soviet imitation of Western goods. (Though I do like my Makarov better than the Walther it was patterned after. That chunky gracelessness has a charm all its own…when you have a choice).
I don’t know if modern Iraqis share any DNA with the ancient inhabitants of Ur and Babylon, but it’s painful to hear someone from the cradle of civilization claim a foreigner had to teach him to eat and dress himself.
Still, I’m not actually worried that Iraqis are going to give up braised lamb and beets in favor of…ummm…what’s typical British cuisine these days? Curry? Kebabs? Braised lamb and beets?
re: Nation Building
Both the US and Britain have successes and failures in nation building and some of our successes were even joint operations as in Iraq. I suppose a better way of stating it is that Britain has far more experience than us Americans in dealing with Arabs.
re: Clothing and Food
S. Weasel, look at some pictures of Saddam again and this time notice what he’s wearing. Quite often it’s western style suits. It’s not just a business thing. I lived for 2 years in Ethiopia and most government officials and wealthier businessmen wore suits.
Also, at a risk of being too general here, I think former colonies have a love/hate relationship with their conquering colonial power. Older generations might still feel hateful, but younger generations appreciate the infrastructure and even some of the culture left behind.
As for wanting to go someplace “better”, yeah, that matches my experience as well although it was a far different time. When I was there (1974’ish) all the young intellectuals wanted to go to Moscow. I don’t remember now why they thought the Soviet Union was better than America but it shocked me because America, Western Europe, and Israel were doing all the important infrastructure building and giving immense amount of aid to the people (not the government). But these young guys wanted communism. Well they got it, and then they were the first ones executed by the Mengistu regime because, well, you can’t have idle revolutionaries sitting around.
“What’ve the British ever done for us?!”
“Well, they did build the sewer system…”
“Right, OK, but aside from the sewer system, what’ve the British ever done for us?!”
“Wha’ about suits ‘n’ ties? Pretty sharp, eh?”
“All right, aside from clothing and sanitation, what’ve the British ever done for us?!”
“They showed us ‘ow to drill for oil. Our main export used to be sand, r’member that?”
“OK, I’ll give you that. But aside from industry, clothing and sanitation, what’ve the British ever done for us?! Nothing!”
Yes, I can hear it now: “It’s 120 degrees and no airconditioning! Quick! Get me out of this loose flowing white cotton robe and into a western-style three-piece monkey suit. And don’t forget the necktie and restrictive underpants!”
Calm down. Someone living in Iraq makes a comment from his point of view and we all form a circle and start to jerk off our view of it and how pitiful his view is. Let the man have the dignity of his own opinion.
Jesus, what is it with some Americans that they see the rest of the world as reflections of themselves
Yeah, well, we’re assholes like that. We think everybody ought to be free, have certain basic individual rights, and able to control their own economic and political destiny.
The abject obsequiousness (sp?) of your correspondent’s Iraqi friend highlights how right Burke was, when he pointed out that voting and democracy weren’t the keys to liberty — rather the habits and customs of a free people were more important.
When the lights went out in New York last week, crime actually dropped, and people made their way home in an orderly fashion, or slept on the streets, or in bars, or in somebody’s apartment – self-organizing without having to be told to do so.
When the lights go out in Baghdad, there are riots, RPG attacks on U.S. troops, and the Iraqis stand around waiting for the U.S. government to do something.
The real reason why we did not riot in NYC was that we were all so sick and tired of hearing about the rioting in Iraq (which followed the blackouts) is that we decided to try and set and example for them to follow.
Lets hope that see what we did and get the message to stop blowing stuff up.
If not, then they basically deserve it.
It sounds to me that the Basran quoted in Syme’s entry was making a commentary on recent Iraqi society and history. Most of the responses are reflections of posters’ respective views of their own society and history, some reflecting pride and self-confidence and some a kind of generalized alienation.
That’s a subject worthy of some commentary itself, but Syme’s entry raises the timely subject of how a country responds to societal disaster. By any definition disaster is what has happened in Iraq over the last 30 years; it is happening in Congo now, has been going on in Liberia for 20-odd years, has reared its head in many other nations from Eastern Europe to Central Asia to Central America at various times throughout the last half century. In the West the question that usually preoccupies us is what we should do about this, but we ought to take a moment to ask what they should, and why.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone right now that an Iraqi who sees himself as an Iraqi (as opposed to seeing himself primarily as a member of his clan, tribe or religious sect) would feel little cause for self-confidence politically, culturally, or in any other respect. Iraqis did not after all have Saddam Hussein imposed on them by some foreign power; he emerged after Iraq was given its independence and after Iraqis tore down the political structure the British had constructed for them. His regime cannot be blamed on anyone else. Iraq, though not technically a “failed state” as that term is used now, failed.
This does not mean Iraq cannot succeed in the future. The question is how. One option, in the abstract, is to attempt to recapture key features of a time when things went better for the country and its people. The period of British influence after World War I was such a time, especially in the south. Another is to emulate key aspects of successful modern nations’ culture, government, or both. Still another is to retreat into religiosity, or in Iraq’s case to the glories of Islam’s (unfortunately very distant) past.
As a practical matter none of these options can stand by itself; whichever one is chosen must coexist at least with various traditions and practices that persisted through the years of Saddam’s rule. The point is that for a nation that has failed once to succeed in the future, some choice as to a way forward must be made. The process of making that choice and sticking to it through the years is the furnace that will forge the self-confidence we identify with successful societies and stable governments, if it can be forged at all.
I have never read such a load of smug nonsensee from Omnibus Bill and Adam. You have one blackout, you deal with its (minor) inconvience, enjoy the novelty of the situation, and then you have the gall to start to draw comparisons with the behaviour of people who have been alternately, oppressed starved, bombed and occupied.
I am sure that most of the residents of Baghdad, when hearing of your troubles, probably started to make up aid parcels to send to the east coast.
Grow up the pair of you.
Eamon