As the war in Iraq winds down, self-anointed "experts" clog TV channels with opinions that Iraqis aren’t ready to govern themselves. A leading pundit claims he’s never seen looting as bad as that occurring in Baghdad. Has he forgotten the 1992 Los Angeles riot, or what can happen after basketball games here or soccer games abroad?
But if Iraqis aren’t ready to govern themselves, who is ready? And who decides?
Who placed crowns on these pundits’ heads? What empowers anyone to decide when someone else is ready for freedom?
Specifically, what qualifies white people who live in freedom to decide that someone with a darker skin must continue to live under tyranny? According to Dr. King, such people are major obstacles to freedom.
Accompanying "multiculturalism" is an offensive odor of racism. Stripped of the fancy words, these pundits are saying that freedom and self-government were developed by people like themselves – white people of European ancestry.
This is true, but irrelevant. Our current system of numbers, which makes modern mathematics possible, was developed by Hindus in India and disseminated to the world by Muslims. We still call them "Arabic" numerals.
We can be grateful to those who invented this system of numbering, but we can use it regardless of where our ancestors originated. Ancestry, skin color and culture are irrelevant to systems of numbering.
Then what is it, specifically, that makes ancestry, skin color or culture relevant to systems of government? Why is self-government different from mathematics, autos, computers, or any other useful invention? Are people with who live in the Middle East and have varied cultures unable to benefit from freedom?
If this were true, we should deny the vote to people who immigrate to the United States from the Middle East, Africa, China, or anywhere human rights are not respected. One who proposed such a thing would rightly be branded a racist and xenophobe.
So why is it any less racist or xenophobic to declare that these people are incapable of self-government if they stay home? Immigrating to the United States doesn’t magically confer the ability to participate in one’s own government.
Contact with people living in freedom, plus a brief program of familiarization with our system of government, equips new citizens to vote. If this works reasonably well here, why can’t it work in their homelands?
All over the world, people enjoy American music and clothing. They watch American movies. But they can’t adopt our system of self-government? Really?
American TV is universal, for better or worse. American soldiers or business people are present in large numbers in many Middle Eastern nations. They are certainly present in Iraq, and will be for some time to come.
Why can’t we beam TV and radio programs about voting and self-government throughout the Middle East? Why can’t the Americans there drop a word or two about the benefits of freedom? Freedom is infectious. Love of freedom is universal.
Why not help Iraqis adopt a constitution guaranteeing freedom of religion for Christians and Jews, as well as Sunni and Shia Muslims? Why not insist that before our troops leave, such a constitution must allow fair representation for the Kurds?
Why not establish a federated Iraq, with some local autonomy for Kurdish and Shia as well as Sunni provinces? Our federal union of states works for us.
Will this work for Iraq? Who knows? But it surely won’t work if we don’t try it.
And if it doesn’t work, Iraq should be broken up. If the three main groups can’t live together in peace and freedom, they should separate. Britain and France drew lines on a map after World War I – is this a reason that an artificial nation must stay intact?
Muslim fundamentalists will scream that representative government was invented by "infidels." Yes, and so were computers, TVs, telephones, autos, airplanes, modern medicines – and the zipper. Only a few Taliban-style fanatics refuse to use these inventions. So why not try representative government as well?
If these reasons aren’t enough to convince Iraqis to follow our example, practical considerations may help. As bin Laden said, "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse." For years, we acted like a weak horse. Now we are clearly the strong horse – and Arabs are keen judges of horses.
This brings us to the other question. If Iraqis aren’t ready for freedom, are we? With our viciously partisan politics and our strongly differing views on important issues, how do we manage to govern ourselves?
How did we absorb huge numbers of immigrants from widely divergent cultures and still – at least until recently – manage to Americanize them? In fact, we did most of this before radio and TV were invented. We used citizenship classes in public schools.
Whether we are still doing this is another question. But if we could do it here, why can’t we do it in the Middle East, now that we have the help of TV and other media?
A more relevant question is this: Were we ready for freedom in 1776? True, we had some experience with small colonies enjoying limited self-government. But the colonies were ruled by an autocratic government in London, backed by troops and overseen by a king who had bouts of insanity.
We had sharply differing ideas of how a government should be structured. What’s more, some of us thought that people with dark skins should be bought and sold like furniture, while others opposed slavery vehemently. There was widespread prejudice against Catholics and Baptists. There was mistrust of people from different colonies.
If current pundits had been around in 1776, they would have claimed – with some reason – that we weren’t ready to govern ourselves. But history proved we were ready. We learned on the job.
Self-government is like driving a car – it must be learned by doing. You can go only so far with classroom instruction. Then you have to sit behind the wheel and actually begin to drive. If you’re lucky, a qualified instructor is beside you.
Driving can be dangerous. But that doesn’t stop us from driving, and it doesn’t empower us to stop others from learning to drive.
It took thousands of years from the invention of the wheel to the invention of the internal combustion engine. But it takes weeks to learn to drive. One need not reinvent the wheel – one need only learn to sit behind it.
The automobile was invented by white people of European ancestry. But anyone with normal intelligence and reflexes can learn to drive. A few become champion race drivers. The rest of us manage to get around tolerably well. But it has nothing to do with skin color, national origin or culture.
Cars have disadvantages in terms of accidents and pollution. But their obvious advantages make them attractive to almost everyone. In the end, even the clumsiest student learns to drive.
Self-government has disadvantages, too. It can be inefficient and chaotic. But its advantages are overwhelming. Free countries almost never go to war with one another, and they don’t systematically torture and brutalize their citizens. One need not be a white person of European ancestry to appreciate this.
In the end, we must believe that even the least apt students can learn to live in freedom and participate in their own government. It may take a while. But that’s not a reason to delay – it’s a reason to start now.
If it works, we will have laid another brick to build a free and peaceful world. If not, at least we will have tried.
Freedom isn’t a gift from America. It’s a gift from God. President Bush said that, and he was right. It belongs to all peoples not by our leave, but by divine right.
No one, especially one enjoying the benefits of freedom, has a right to decide that anyone else – anywhere – is unsuited to enjoy them as well. Dr. King said that, and he was right, too.
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