2. Reform our election system. Elections are widely accepted all over the world as the way to choose a legitimate government. Yet people can become quickly disillusioned when they learn that elections aren’t necessarily fair. We can do something about that.
Never underestimate the enthusiasm engendered by the promise of democratic elections. I was in Iran about a year after the popular revolution that overthrew the Shah. I can still remember my aged father-in-law proudly going to the polls for the first election he considered legitimate since the 1953 coup. We took his picture voting. Another election day, almost 20 years later, we saw voters lined up in every town and village as we drove back to Tehran from a weekend in the mountains. Mohammad Khatami, a champion of civil society, was running for president, and millions of people had great hopes for what a Khatami administration could do for Iran. Because it was getting late, we stopped in a village along the way and my friend, an engineer, voted for Khatami. When we arrived in Tehran late that night, the polls were still open because of the high turnout. So she voted again, this time in her own neighborhood for local officials.
When the people’s hopes for fair elections are dashed, however, the disappointment can turn them cynical and can poison chances for democracy. This past winter some of my Iranian friends didn’t vote in municipal elections. It was not necessarily because the (blankety blank) Voice of America was urging a boycott; my friends were discouraged. They complained that during the last national election the Council of Guardians had crossed names off the list of presidential candidates until the only choices left were Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad, neither of whom represented their views. They were surprised to learn that the corporate press and the Democratic and Republican party bosses do the same thing to us in the US, so that many Americans also never get a chance to vote for people who represent our views.
We in the U.S. have had the good fortune to be born into a democratic system that was up and running for a couple of centuries before we were born. We can’t really take credit for that personally. But we can accept the responsibility to continue to develop the democratic model. It’s up to us, the ones with the most experience, to work out the bugs in the system that make it possible to unfairly influence elections and even to steal them. And luckily for us, we can be politically active without danger of being “disappeared,” so we really have no excuse not to do it.
Election reform in the US can benefit democratic aspirations in the Middle East in another way. It may bring us representatives that are less beholden to special interests like the military-industrial complex, the oil industry, big financial houses, or those who believe in an expansionist “Greater Israel.” If it’s just us rank and file Americans speaking through office-holders who truly represent us, our country may stop trying to control the Middle East and may even stop funding the militarization of the region.
3. Educate our people about the history and peoples of the Middle East. I was raised in a strong Midwestern Christian environment where we were taught that God loves all his children—meaning all human beings—equally. “All men are brothers” was part of our creed. And you can bet there was no wiffle waffling about the Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” Or at least I didn’t think so, until the Vietnam War. Even now, I continue to seek that brother or sister inside every “stranger.” It wasn’t hard for me to marry someone from another country. My greatest worry was that we’d be spending a lot of money on airfare.
The world is smaller now, so more of us can meet “the other,” even if only on cable TV music channels. Tourists don’t usually get much chance to interact with the local people, but students studying abroad can be ambassadors of peace. Some American students are here in Tehran now, although they’re greatly outnumbered by Europeans and Asians.
Even if Americans are a little slow to travel, these days many are trying to learn about the Middle East. For example, quite a few Americans can now find Iran and Iraq on a map and even tell them apart. We’ve heard of the two major sects of Islam in Iraq, and, what’s more, at least a couple of Americans have pursued the issue further and discovered that the Shia are waiting for the return of the messiah.
Education means substituting accurate information and insight for myths, stereotypes, and racist images. It’s time to pull weeds like the following out of the American mental garden:
Images and stereotypes -- sword-wielding Muslim armies on horseback, harems full of exotic scantily clothed women, sheiks and belly-dancers, fanatics ready to kill themselves and each other because of religion, a great empty desert stretching from Morocco through Iran with nothing but camels.
Myths and pseudo-theories about Arab or Muslim history and culture -- they’ve always hated Jews and always will, they hate the West because of our freedoms, they only respect the rule of force.
Racist epithets -- “natives,” “swarthy” skin, “dirty Arabs,” “hajis,” “ragheads,” and the ever-popular “terrorists.”
Our ignorance hurts us more than these images hurt them. I’ve heard some very gentle women in Tehran ask American acquaintances, with a twinkle in their eye, “Aren’t you scared being surrounded by all these terrorists?”
4. Bring the troops (and the mercenaries, and the military aid) home now and demilitarize the region. When we say bring the troops home now, why stop with Iraq? Why not bring them home from all over the Middle East and Central Asia? What are they doing there? (See article by Medea Benjamin on the international movement to close U.S. bases: click here
When no American soldiers are in a country, people look at America and the West from afar and think, “You know, democracy seems nice. Let’s get that.” But when our soldiers invade and occupy a country, or live on big bases and seem to be taking over, people hate everything those soldiers stand for, possibly including democracy. Imagine, mom to little kid: “Behave or the democratic soldiers will get you.”
Redeployment of US troops within the region is better than nothing, but it's not the answer. The only way an American soldier should be working in the Middle East is as part of a United Nations peacekeeping force, wearing a blue helmet and under United Nations command. And bear in mind, NATO is not the UN.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
