Democratic Iraq

Just the other day, I was sitting in a cafeteria with a couple of my friends, chatting and discussing the old times of high school. It didn’t take a long time till the content of the discussion took a discriminating dimension. They started to talk about a group of students who became rappers and wore in a different style than ours. They said that they were “freaks” and “Losers,” and that the likes of them are the reason why we never reached a good educational, social, and economic level. I asked myself: How is that relevant? How come a group of teenagers who are interested in a western trait, rapping and wearing in their own special style, can hold the progress of our advance in those aspects? Preposterous, they have nothing to do with it. Thinking about it, I noticed that our “democratic” country that rules based on democratic principles, such as freedom of expression, individual rights and minorities protection of liberty is NOT actually democratic. The people of Iraq have no social tolerance or acceptance, especially before the fall of Saddam. Even among the citizens of Iraq themselves, different ethnicities and backgrounds see each other as inferiors. This is where the problem begins, as been said by Colin Bird, an Associate Professor of Politics and Director of the Program in Political Philosophy, Policy and Law at the University of Virginia, ”[i]n every generation freedom is threatened by those who regard the individual person as inferior to some supposed collective whole…” (Bird 52). Therefore, the presence of collective judgment that is imposed on the minority or individuals and reaches the state of excluding those minorities and individuals from social, religious, and economic activities is, without a doubt, undemocrati...

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