Friday, May 14, 2004

Holy Hell

My own view is that Muqtada has now won politically and morally. He keeps throwing Abu Ghuraib in the faces of the Americans. He had his men take refuge in Najaf and Karbala because he knew only two outcomes were possible. Either the Americans would back off and cease trying to destroy him, out of fear of fighting in the holy cities and alienating the Shiites. Or they would come in after Muqtada and his militia, in which case the Americans would probably turn the Shiites in general against themselves. The latter is now happening.

The Americans will be left with a handful of ambitious collaborators at the top, but the masses won't be with them. And in Iraq, unlike the US, the masses matter. The US political elite is used to being able to discount American urban ghettos as politically a cipher. What they don't realize is that in third world countries the urban poor are a key political actor and resource, and wise rulers go out of their way not to anger them.
  Juan Cole post

I was just talking last night with a woman about the amazing political awareness of the poor in specifically Venezuela, but in general in all third world countries. Al Giordano (Narco News) once told me that he liked being in South America in large part because you can have a more informed and intelligent conversation about politics and government with the peasants there than you can with the politicians in the United States. He says they are acutely aware of their constitutional laws. In Venezuela, an apparently common article carried on the person is a copy of the Venezuelan constitution. They print them as little books with a blue cover (complete with a little ribbon bookmark attached) that can easily be carried in a pocket. And they sell them on the streets.