Saddam=Dead

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Jan 6 2007, 12:56 AM) [snapback]371666[/snapback]</div>

Brand of religion being monotheistic or not doesn't necessarily become an important factor as such is the case of Constitutional Monarchy of Thailand, considered rather democratic through the course of the past Century. Religion may impede or accelerate toward democracy or may lead toward democracy but not necessarily so. Your comparison of Shinto / Buddhism as being farther away from Western religious indoctrination may have little to do why Japan is a democracy today. It might have had an impact but not solely so. I perceive the Japanese submission to the western democracy as a complex of circumstances that are far withdrawn historically and socio-politically from current Iraq. Japan was facing a complete annihilation after the second atomic bomb therefore the entire nation had no alternative but to submit to Hirohito and his historic speech embracing unconditional capitulation to the US. There is no such threat being imposed on Iraqi people right now. Japan was/is a homogeneous society with a tiny minority of native Ainu and Ryukyuans who have no impact on any kind of nationalistic division within the society. Japan has never been conquered prior WWII and possesses centuries old deeply rooted cultural identity; whereas in Iraq we have clearly defined ethnic division with extremly fragile and devoid of unity nationalistic drive. Iraq simply doesn't possess such strong nationalism as Japan did to keep the country together. Even with massive external help, it is hell of task to keep it as whole. Iraq has been kept as a national entity via strong heavy handed and barbaric dictatorship. Ever since colonialism the country has been trying to get a sense of national unity and identity and it didn't have enough time to solidify itself as a united nation. Saddam had to commit mass murders in order to keep the country intact and to stifle Kurdish strong drive toward independence. In the north Kurds dream of their own independence today as they did for the past centuries, always subjugated either to the Ottomans or the Persians or the British/French. No Kurd in his heart ever identifies himself as an Iraqi, even though he might belong to the same religious group as the rest of Iraqis. There was no such identity crisis in Japan, the entire population embraced whatever the future may bring in complete unison. Furthermore, Iraq is a relatively new country, historically speaking. It's a brainchild of post colonial era, artificially imposed, without too much emphasis on the socio-political complexities at that time. Lacking a rudimentary keystones to form strong cultural roots, regrettably so.

Besides, there are many varieties of democracies, and I don't think Iraq will ever become the same democracy as Japan, especially with Shiaa as a majority. It may even be less secular than it was during Saddam, who knows?

The ethno-religious and cultural make up of Iraq is incompatible to form a democracy that we have right now In Japan.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mystery Squid @ Jan 6 2007, 08:55 PM) [snapback]371956[/snapback]</div>

Where do you come up with this idea that so many "races" have tried to wipe out the Jews?

The German nazis tried. That's one case. (A political party, not a race. It was the German government, controlled by the nazi party, that tried to wipe us out. It was not the German race.) They also tried to wipe out the Gypsies, the communists, the handicapped, the developmentally disabled, the Mennonites, and probably lots of other groups as well. They basically tried to wipe out everybody.

Other than that, Jews have been a minority in most of the places we have lived. And in most times in history, in most places, minorities have been trampled on. Minorities have frequently been the target of genocide. At other times they have been killed, robbed, raped, without a concerted effort to wipe them out. At one time there was a concerted effort in the U.S. to wipe out the American Indians.

So Jews are not a special case, as you want people to think. We are just another minority, who have had some really nasty stuff done to us, as have most minorities at one time or another. The main difference is that, unlike many minorities, some of us managed to build a country (one that's acting as nasty as some of our oppressors have done, and thereby gained many enemies) and some of us have managed to melt into the American melting-pot and become part of mainstream American society, as have many races before us.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(maggieddd @ Jan 6 2007, 10:39 PM) [snapback]371976[/snapback]</div>

Excellent points! I think you are right about the homogeneous nature of Japan's society, and the pressure of perceived annihilation. I am not trying to make Iraq into post-war Japan in any sense, but just to point out that democracy is not limited to simply western culture. Modern democracy rose in western culture for a number of reasons, but it is not impossible for other cultures to adopt their own variation of it.

My point to Nicos was that his statement that we cannot "install" democracy, but that it has to arise through cultural change, which implied to me a long time frame, is not entirely true. Japan is a case where democracy was installed in a very short time period.

The Iraqis are working with the idea of a federalist system, sharing the oil wealth among the Kurds, Shia and Sunnis. Our failure to secure the streets so that the rule of law can be established is the biggest barrier to them continuing to improve their cooperation. They may be closer to the former Yugoslavia in terms of disparate groups being forced together, and the system may not work. We may see the southern part of Iraq annexed by Iran, the Sunni triangle controlled by Syria's ruling Sunni family, and the Kurds in an independent Kurdistan, perennially at war with Turkey. I can't help but think that the average Iraqi would be worse off in those conditions than if they were able to adopt a western-style tolerance for minority groups and develop a national identity.