The Dualism of Elections and Occupations
Hazem Saghieh Al-Hayat 2005/01/27
There are many stages that separate the two extremes of glorifying the occupation and the claim that elections cannot be legitimate under it. This last opinion, which is being constantly repeated prior to the Iraqi elections, is first and foremost an elementary mistake.
For elections, and even politics in its modern sense, have emerged with colonialism and occupations of the colonized and occupied world. There a lot of examples that have become classical in every discussion concerning elections and occupations: the western regions of Germany and under three occupations, the American, British and French (not one occupation but three) did form political parties and in 1949 organized general elections in which Konrad Adenauer won as the head of the “Christian Democratic Union”. It need not be said that the eastern parts of Germany, which fell under the Soviet occupation, did not experience anything of the sort. Furthermore, under the American occupation of Japan, parties were established and elections were held in 1946. A year later, the McArthur constitution was issued which granted suffrage to women and implemented radical agricultural reform. Also in 1946 and under the American occupation, a referendum concerning monarchy was held in Italy, out of which a republic emerged and the 1948 constitution that led to the establishment of a bicameral parliament was written.
The elections in any of the above-mentioned countries were not totally flawless; specifically, in Italy, where one of its main conditions was that the Communist Party would not reach power and this was a democratic principle that persisted for a long time. Despite this, the biggest discrepancy between in the colonial relation is not related to the issue of elections but concerns the issue of sovereignty. The question then is if it is possible to balance the two issues and whether it is possible to attain both at the same time in the sense of taking from the imperialism the best it has to offer without having to be subjugated under its authority and rule; also how this could be attained politically and practically? In answering this question, the differences between one society and another unfold whether in what pertains to modernity or the degree of shared national consensus and its ability of expelling the occupier while maintaining national unity. In this context, it should be mentioned that the Italian Communist party could have controlled the majority of parliamentary seats of northern Italy and go on to form the government; however, it did not do that. Its decline is attributed to the limits on the political process that were imposed by the American military occupation and other reasons that concern the Catholic and agriculturally-based south which would have initiated a cessation had the Communists won the north.
This lesson is perhaps beneficial to the overly enthusiastic Iraqi Shiites and also to those who consider that the election is the sole impediment to elections regardless of all the structures and established social cultures. Making the elections the biggest hindrance regarding the relation to the occupation is more than an elementary mistake, for it shows malevolent intentions. The internal logic of those who hold this opinion is a rejection of the principle of learning and a total rejection of the concept of progress and a fixation on placing the concerned country in a state of anarchy. Such anarchy might lead to tyranny as an excuse to control the chaos, while others would rather have chaos without any control.
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