| 26 January 2005 | Wednesday | 15 Zilhaj 1425 |
The politics of religion
Respectable crooks
A 'Tet' moment for Iraq?
In another four days, the people of Iraq, or at least some of them, will go to the polls to select a 275-member national assembly. They will, in theory, be joined in this electoral exercise by as many as one million expatriate Iraqis deemed eligible to vote at 74 polling sites set up in countries like Jordan, Syria and Iran on the one hand, and in Sweden, Britain and the US on the other.
However, the exercise of registering eligible Iraqi voters abroad has proved disappointing. The International Organization for Migration (IOM), that has the contract from the Iraqi government to organize polls managed abroad, had until Friday, the last day for registration, to register only some 131,000 Iraqis.
It has, therefore, been forced to extend the date for registration by two days and to relax conditions for doing so. The two documents required for registration earlier have now been reduced to one document - a current or old Iraqi passport.
It seems unlikely that the additional time has added significantly to the number of Iraqis who will vote abroad. At best, some 200,000 will register and vote. Since the IOM has been given some $92 million, each vote cast outside Iraq is going to cost the Iraqi exchequer about $500.
The poverty-stricken citizens inside Iraq will find it difficult to accept this figure, particularly when they know that the entire exercise was designed to give a boost to the electoral chances of Iraqi candidates who spent long years in exile and had no base of popular support within the country.
In Iraq itself it is estimated, based on what appears to have been some fanciful polling carried out by various organizations, that the turnout in the Shia areas will be about 90 per cent, in Kurdish territory about 80 per cent and in the Sunni triangle about 40 per cent.
Since President Bush himself conceded that holding elections would be difficult in four of Iraq's 18 provinces (the four provinces are estimated to be home to 50 per cent of the population) it is clear that these figures bear little relationship to the ground reality.
Further examination of the latest statements suggests that even within the Shia community there are divisions on the question of voting. For most Shias, the directive of Ayatollah Sistani to cast their vote has the force of a fatwa that makes voting a religious duty.
There is also a strong sentiment among the Shias that this election represents their chance of getting the share of power long denied to them in the Sunni-dominated power structure in Iraq.
On the other hand, there is the influence of Moqtada al-Sadr. He has not opposed the elections openly. But his supporters have, in one fiery speech after another, questioned the validity of the polls in an occupied Iraq and while "our dear Sunni brothers" do not participate.
If there is any good news for the Americans and the Iraqi interim government it is that even though the violence continues and the insurgents appear to be able to attack even such heavily guarded locations as the headquarters of Prime Minister Allawi's party in Baghdad the number of insurgent incidents has not increased.
In fact, over the last week there may have even been a decline. It seems that American intelligence has become more effective. The announcement that Zarqawi's principal aide, Abu Omar Kurdi, allegedly responsible for most of the car bombings in Baghdad, had been apprehended along with Zarqawi's propaganda chief and other "terrorists" in the Sunni triangle suggests that significant headway has been made.
Zarqawi had made headlines with a statement (believed to have been issued by him) on a website that "We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology," and that "anyone who tries to help set up this system is part of it." He had also threatened to intensify efforts to disrupt the elections. But it would be naove to believe that Zarqawi and the insurgency are synonymous with one another or that crippling his organization would break the back of the insurgency.
The insurgency, it is generally acknowledged, is overwhelmingly indigenous. Its local leaders probably receive assistance and direction from Baathist Iraqis in Syria or in safe houses along the Iraq-Syrian border.
They may make common cause with Zarqawi in the struggle against the US forces and their local collaborators, but any claim that Zarqawi is the leader of the resistance, or that the Iraqi insurgents have bought his extremist views and his sectarian bias, lacks credibility.
Sunni religious leaders have joined their Shia counterparts in denouncing the violence. After the horrendous attack on a Shia mosque and wedding party last Friday, Sunni and Shia clerics denounced the violence and called for maintaining the centuries-old amity between the Shias and Sunnis in Iraq, even as Shia clerics urged their followers to vote and the Sunni clerics to boycott the polls.
There is no doubt, however, that the sectarian divide is growing despite the best efforts of religious leaders on both sides. There is also no doubt that many Iraqi politicians fear that the elections will exacerbate the divide and bring Iraq to the brink of a civil war if the boycott of elections leaves them only nominally represented in the post-election power structure.
The Americans and the Shia leaders seem to be well aware of this. Malek Dohan al-Hasan, a Shia and the justice minister in the interim government, has warned his co-religionists to protect minority rights, especially those of the Sunnis staying away from polls.
Al-Hasan asked the Shias to look around and to see that "You are in an Arab Sunni region. Who will come to your aid if you monopolize power?" The interior minister, Falah Hassan al-Naqib, has also warned that the country risks sliding into civil war if the Sunni Muslim minority boycotts the elections.
As a result, reassuring noises have been made by Shia leaders. One is that the United Iraq Alliance, the Sistani-backed coalition of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and the Dawah Party will not, if it wins the elections and hence the right to nominate the prime minister and cabinet, give these leadership roles to Shia clerics.
These would be given to prominent Shia laymen. Even otherwise, the clerics will not be given official positions in the government. There have also been noises about Sunnis being included in the government even if they do not qualify on the basis of the vote.
The Americans have been engaged for some time in trying to get the Sunnis to participate but have balked in a meeting with Sunni leaders at the condition that they set a date for withdrawal. Currently, their effort seems to focus on getting Shia leaders to agree to give the Sunnis a fair share of representation in the post-election government.
Ambassador Negroponte made the point that "even with respect to the Sunni areas, a lot of people are thinking about if, indeed, they are underrepresented in the national assembly, might there be other ways to involve them in the political process?" Referring to the fact that there would have to be people selected for the three-man presidency, the cabinet and the constitution drafting body, he said that "people here are looking at ways to include all elements of Iraqi society in these very, very important future political steps."
The fact, however, is that in the current Shia-dominated government there has been little effort at getting Sunnis into positions of power. Many suspect that American persuasion notwithstanding not much will be done in this direction in the post-election period unless there is some sort of formal agreement between the Shia and Sunni leaders.
But to return to the elections; how democratic and representative are these likely to be; how honest and free, and most importantly, how big a turnout will the organizers be able to arrange?
First, some unprecedented security steps have been announced. All Iraq's borders will be sealed three days before the polls with only Iraqis returning from Haj being allowed in during this period. There will be a three-day public holiday.
All inter-city vehicular traffic will be prohibited for these three days. Baghdad airport will be closed for two days. There will be an extended curfew throughout the country.
No one will be allowed to carry weapons. In many areas, the location of the polling stations will be kept secret until the last moment. The difficulties these measures create will lead to a situation where only the truly enthusiastic will turn out to vote.
Such enthusiasm is probably going to be difficult to generate among people who have already to contend with daily power outages lasting 20 hours, long lines for petrol and cooking fuel and water shortages.
Second, it has been announced that there will be a three-ring security parameter around the polling stations. The outermost ring will be manned by quick reaction forces from the coalition.
The second ring will be the Iraqi army and the third nearest the polling station will be manned by the Iraqi police. There are to be about 6,000 polling stations.
Theoretically, there are a 120,000 Iraqis who have been trained. This figure has been termed "malarkey" by Senator Biden when it was forward by Condoleezza Rice during her confirmation hearings.
Biden estimated that the correct figure was 4,000 which he subsequently amended to 14,000. Ambassador Negroponte claimed that some 70 Iraqi battalions had been trained. This would mean, one assumes, some 70,000 men since the Iraqi army battalion usually is a 1,000 strong.
Clearly, this figure is on paper. In reality the number of trained people is probably closer to the Biden estimate. Were that not so the Americans would not be sending special team after special team to Iraq to determine how the training regime could be improved and accelerated.
The Iraqi people will know particularly in the four troubled provinces that the Iraqi forces will provide little security. They will know also that these forces are regarded as being infiltrated by the insurgents and will, in many cases, help rather than hinder insurgent attacks.
A degree of foolhardiness would be required for the voter to venture out under these precarious circumstances. Third, owing to the security situation, there has been virtually no canvassing by the candidates. There is no personal bond between the voter and the candidate.
The candidates or their party can provide little assistance to the voter to get to the polling booth. The indifference this generates may be overcome in the case of Shia voters by the Sistani directive, but for the others there are only calls that reinforce the indifference.
As if this were not enough to ensure a low turnout, Mother Nature has also turned unkind. The heavy snowfall in the Kurdish areas in the north will it is feared leave the roads impassable until well after the Sunday election day.
Fourth, this will be the first election in recent years where there will be no international observers. The Americans put together an International Mission for Iraqi Elections with some two dozen experts from various countries including Yemen and Indonesia.
But given the security situation this commission has decided that it will operate only from Jordan and will assess the election only on the basis of the reports they receive from the Iraqi election commission and other observers.
Will the present government be able to resist trying to manipulate the ballot boxes? Will the independence of the Iraqi election commission really stand up to scrutiny?
Sadly, one can only conclude that despite all efforts the turnout will be low and that the outcome of this low turnover may well be subject to manipulation.
It is acknowledged that the election will not mean the end of the insurgency. What is not acknowledged is that there will be an even bigger political mess in Iraq after the elections than there is today.
The writer is a former foreign secretary.
The politics of religion
In an article in the Financial Times of London titled "Why religion has become the new politics", the writers, Stephen Ellis and Gerrie Ter Haar, have tried to explain why religion is the emerging political language of our time all over the world, be it the United States, the Middle East or the Third World.
They feel that even in Europe, which introduced the concept of the separation of the church and the state, religion is assuming a new significance. This phenomenon is now universally recognized, though its causes are hotly disputed.
After the Reformation and the Renaissance in Europe, politics became fully secular and was concerned purely with the worldly affairs of states. Religion was kept out of the public domain and was treated as a strictly personal matter. So strong was this trend that even when religion found its way into political and constitutional discourse, it only had symbolic meaning.
For instance, in spite of the first amendment of the US constitution which prohibits the Congress from making a law in respect of the establishment of a religion or prohibiting its free exercise, the pledge of allegiance invokes God, the American money carries the inscription "In God we trust", the US Congress starts its daily session with a prayer and the Supreme Court opens its public sessions by asking for the blessings of God. But for all practical purposes, God has not been invoked in the day to day political life of the country - until President George W. Bush brought religion to his political discourse.
Yet it was politics and economics which determined the course of the country's development and not Christianity. Some presidents did talk of morality and ethics being the key determinants of public policy, but in practice, this was not the case. It was real politik - always in conflict with morality- which dominated foreign and domestic policies.
As for religion, in the 20th century, Pakistan and Israel were the only two states to emerge on the ideological basis of religion. Israel, created on territory usurped from the Palestinians, was said to be the homeland of the Jews.
Pakistan was created for the Muslims in the Muslim majority regions of the Indian subcontinent. The Objectives Resolution adopted in 1949 by the Pakistan Constituent Assembly declared that sovereignty rested in Allah. But in both cases, politics and economics rather than religion have served as key factors in their development.
Why has there been a revival of religion in politics in modern times after centuries of secular politics? According to Ellis and Haar, in Africa religion is a "political comment by people who believe that all power has its ultimate origin in the spirit world.
Consequently, they consider spiritual and political power to be connected". In regions ruled by Muslim rulers, with a few exceptions, Islam served as the guiding principle of governance.
The separation of religious from political thought was developed in the West and exported to the rest of the world in colonial times. The colonial powers sought to reform and modernize the societies they ruled - the white man's burden that called for a civilizing mission on the part of the conquerors.
In this process, religion did not have a role to play in public policy. It was to be treated as something personal. The current resurgence of religion is, in effect, seen as a return to an earlier practice that had been interrupted by the advent of colonialism.
The fact is that the democratic systems introduced by the colonial powers in Africa and Asia failed to deliver. The constitutional structure these countries inherited from their colonial masters did not, in most cases, work smoothly in the indigenous climate of Africa and Asia.
Hence there was a perpetual quest for a system that promised results, and political experimentation became the order of the day in the newly decolonized developing countries.
Meanwhile, decolonization and the communication revolution which first started with the development of the transistor radio and television brought in their wake social changes, economic transformation and political volatility on an unprecedented scale.
This was also a period of raised expectations. Then came satellite television and the multiplicity of channels broadcasting and tele casting round the clock. These have had a dual impact on all countries.
First, the instantaneous transmission of news and reports has quickened the pace of domestic and international politics all over the world. There is little time to weigh, analyse and plan the reaction to events taking place halfway down the globe.
The globalization led by satellite television has also had a profound impact on the mindset of the people. It is changing perceptions when the ground realities are not changing.
This dichotomy is creating dangerous trends, given the fact that the channels focus on everything under the sun - from religion and business to food and entertainment.
The masses in the Third World had been led to believe that the exploitation of their resources by the colonial powers was the cause of their backwardness and deprivation. With independence they would be taking the road to prosperity and development. But this never happened.
Soon thereafter, international capitalism saw a powerful revival in the garb of the plan for economic restructuring forced on Third World countries by the financial institutions, notably the World Bank and the IMF.
This restructuring had an adverse effect on social development by intensifying the social inequities, class divisions and the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots.
The sense of insecurity and the instability generated by capitalism-driven reforms have given a fillip to those who seek the integration of the state and religion. The religious parties which had receded to the fringes of politics in the Third World countries have made a comeback in the struggle for political office.
For these elements a return to religion is also characterized by a strong hatred of the West - the colonizing power. The Islamic revolution in Iran was marked by a strong anti-American sentiment and "Marg bar Amrika" became the slogan of the day. (Incidentally, Iran did not come under western occupation in the age of colonialism, but it definitely became a victim of neo-imperialism.)
The Hindutva of the BJP in India had a strong nationalist stamp on it. Though the sense of avenging the colonials/imperialists for their onslaught on the religious systems of the subjugated states may not have been etched in the consciousness of the religious fundamentalists who have sought a return to the theocratic systems of yore, this sentiment certainly did exist in their collective memories.
This does not, however, mean that they will succeed where others have failed. The manner in which religion is interpreted and practised in most societies makes it highly unlikely that it will prove to be a panacea for our ills.
With greater stress on rituals and forms, and little attention being paid to the underlying principles of compassion and humanism, the champions of a state based on a religious system will fail to provide the relief they promise. In fact, they will create greater human distress and economic misery, while promoting communal and sectarian conflict of the worst kind.
In the US, the situation is different. There is no talk of a return to a state integrated with the church. But Christian values - interpreted by vested political interests - are being used for narrow political purposes.
In the re-election of President George W. Bush religious symbolism was freely used to win over the Christian belt. Here again it is not religion but political opportunism and expediency that have determined the course of politics.
The danger in this state of affairs lies in the confrontation that such religious revivalism can provoke. Born from a sense of insecurity generated by the rapid changes that the world is witnessing, this return of religion in politics will intensify the polarization in the international community and within every society. When the showdown comes, it will be deadly and devastating.
Respectable crooks
I have a serious complaint against the military that took over the government in October 1999. But before I voice it, allow me a small introduction. In the old, old days of the desi theatre, there was a play by Agha Hashr called Sharif Badmash.
When I sat down to write this piece, and I was looking for a suitable appellation for the breed that robbed the banks during elected regimes, I suddenly remembered the expression and liked it.
With the coming of the army these sharif bad mashes and their henchmen in the government gave up this vocation, though I am not sure if it has not started again, with politicians in titular power.
Sharif is a mighty word and denotes all that is noble, decent and God-fearing in a person. In common parlance, however, it has come to stand for anyone from a so-called respectable family.
All those who robbed the banks - politicians, industrialists, businessmen, feudal lords - were sharif, but, at the same time, because of this activity, they were also bad mash.
So they can rightly and rightfully be called sharif badmashes. My grouse about the military is that it failed to take action against the two classes responsible for looting state wealth through the writing-off of bank loans.
Of all the tricks and dirty games invented by our politics for corrupting its practitioners, there is none more despicable than this activity. It is unspeakable in its enormity and vies with the daredevil boldness of Chicago gangsters.
The most terrible aspect of the game is that none of those who got waivers deserved them on grounds of financial necessity. They were all rich, and in the context of the per capita income, enormously rich.
A writer said in a newspaper the other day that in two years of the mid-90s, 207 branches of banks had been subjected to dacoity by criminals and had lost some Rs 220 million in these daylight robberies.
In the other kind of daylight robbery committed by sharif bad mashes, bank loans worth Rs 4 billion had been waived by democracy-loving political regimes. Needless to say, all those who benefited from this generosity at the people's expense were already billionaires.
There have been cases where nationalized banks have refused to waive a few hundred rupees that aging indigent widows owed them on some account and have threatened to take them to court for those petty amounts.
Since the final arbiter in such cases is the government, I am sure it would have upheld the banks' cruel decision if its approval had been sought. "Rules do not permit such charity," it would have said.
But rules did permit successive governments to indulge in this other charity whereby many crores of rupees could be waived in the case of dirty-rich politicians, traders and industrial tycoons in privileged positions in the country's politics.
If those regimes, claiming to be representative of the people's democratic aspirations, had been asked to cite the moral and ethical reasons behind such prodigality towards prosperous billionaires who supported them and got their support in return, it would have been difficult for them to do so. Maybe it was through exercise of the right given them by the people to do what they liked with the nation's resources and the people's trust.
But, in the first place who could have put such a question to those governments? Those who could - senators, MNAs and MPAs - were themselves mired in the dirt of corrupt practices and were probably seeking waivers for their own bank loans and advances or those of their near and dear ones. In the second place, elected governments think they are not bound to answer every silly question asked by silly busybodies and newspapers.
I am an inveterate democrat and do not favour any other system of government or military rule. But things had come to such a pass that only a surgical operation could mend matters.
If the National Accountability Bureau set up by the military regime, is able to recover the lost billions for the state, I am all for it. What good is an elected government that itself exploits the common man and is bent upon enriching the already rich?
Once, long ago, I was badly in need of money to pay off my debts. I went to a friend who was manager of a branch of the National Bank of Pakistan. There were restrictions on advances in those days, but he promised to help.
Then he asked laughingly, "What sort of loan do you want? One that has to be paid back or the other that we forgive and forget?" Curiosity prompted me to ask what was behind this question. His rather evasive reply was that had I been in business or politics he would not have to enlighten me.
All that privileged customers of the banks needed was a telephone call from the big boss or a senior officer of the finance ministry or a member of the prime minister's secretariat advising a branch manager to do the needful by way of advancing loans which, on the face of it, were going to be lost anyway.
The needful was duly done. Another telephone call was required after a few years to inform the bank that the government, in its wisdom, had decided to waive the loan. Between these two telephone calls billions went down the drain of greed and graft.
On paper, of course, there was always credible justification for the waivers. Economic depression, failure of crops, closure of mills and factories owing to many reasons, etc., so that in the account books of those undertakings a case was made out for inability to pay back loans.
But you observed that this lapse into bankruptcy made no difference to the lifestyle of their owners. Their foreign trips were not affected, and weddings in the family were staged with the old opulence and ostentation.
Even the sons studying abroad did not feel the pinch. None of the owners were known to sell their assets or moderate their expenses to tide over monetary difficulty. And yet they couldn't pay back their loans.
In the words of my friend of yore, the bank manager, they knew it from day one that the loans taken by them were not meant to be paid back. In this they had the backing of the government of the day, if their relations with it were cordial.
It was made sure that they were cordial. It was a question of "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours." They corrupted one another and did it openly and with panache. This was called banking in Pakistan.
A 'Tet' moment for Iraq?
George w. bush's inaugural address did not precisely measure up to the peroration pre-emptively outlined in this column last week. But if you read between the lines, in some respects the gist of the president's utterances didn't radically differ from what we offered half in jest. His rhetoric was, of course, shrouded in hypocrisy.
The word "freedom" scored 22 mentions in the presidential speech, followed by 10 outbreaks of "liberty", six occurrences of "free", five of "tyranny" and one each of "human rights" and "democracy". Iraq scored a zero. Ditto the United Nations, Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.
In effect, Bush combatively rededicated himself to the goals that have defined his presidency since September 11, 2001. And while doing so he failed to allude to any of the consequences of his policies.
Isn't that a bit odd? If freedom and liberty are liberally to be dispensed, by military force if necessary, to nations deemed to be deficient in these abstract attributes; and if Iraq is a shining example of a state that has been pumped full of these gifts, with democracy to follow in short order - then why not trumpet that success?
I suspect most of us know the answer to that. Bush might be an exception, but many of the neo-conservatives whose agenda he has so enthusiastically embraced are not equally delusional. They know all too well that the invasion and colonization of Iraq had nothing to do with freedom, liberty or the weapons of mass destruction.
All but the most fanatical of them also realize that as far as Iraq is concerned, their project has been a dismal disaster. Some of them privately concede that if they had known what would happen, they would have thought twice about blundering into Iraq.
That's a paltry excuse. Although no one could have predicted the post-invasion course of events with precision, there were plenty of dire warnings - many of them from conservative sources - that went unheeded.
And the prescience of the invaders did not greatly improve once the deed was done. It was said the resistance would wither away once Saddam Hussein was captured. That didn't happen. Last November's determined destruction of Fallujah was supposed to break the back of the insurgency. That clearly hasn't happened.
On the other hand, the anticipated upsurge in violence in the run-up to next Sunday's elections has proved to be all too real. The perpetrators are invariably identified as Baathists and foreign terrorists.
Which, in turn, doesn't square with assessments that many, if not most, Baathists are jockeying for positions in the new order, and that US military sources themselves are sceptical of claims about large numbers of combatants from abroad.
In truth, the US appears to have little idea precisely who it is up against. It is rumoured among Iraqis that Abu Musab Al Zarqawi was concocted by the conquerors when they needed a bogeyman to replace Saddam Hussein. That's improbable, of course, but the scepticism is telling.
What the Americans somehow find difficult to understand is that most Iraqis consider the occupation of their country a humiliating abomination. There would have been abiding resentment even in the face of relatively civilized behaviour on the part of the invaders. But then, civilization and the arbitrary invasion of sovereign states are mutually exclusive phenomena.
In the American media and elsewhere, supporters of the occupation have lately been portraying the perpetrators of violence against American troops and perceived collaborators and quislings as the enemies of democracy and progress.
In some cases that may not be an entirely inaccurate description. However, Bushite apologists tend to gloss over the crucial causal connection between the invasion and its aftermath.
Mindless violence begets mindless violence. Wanton cruelty can prove infectious. Of course, innocent people are caught up in the suicide bombings and other attacks mounted by the disparate (and often desperate) forces of resistance.
Of course, that is reprehensible. But why should it be considered somehow worse than the far larger number of "non-combatant" deaths at American or British hands?
Another argument increasingly being bandied about these days is that the instability and chaos in Iraq are a direct consequence of the vicious nature of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Again, there's just enough of an element of truth in that explanation to make it seem plausible to those who are anyhow disinclined to accept that the United States can do any wrong.
Saddam Hussein was undoubtedly a sadistic despot, and Iraq's Shias and Kurds bore the brunt of his repressive tendencies. The scars of his tyranny were never likely to be obliterated overnight. In many parts of the country, however, the flesh wounds of yesteryear have been compounded by multiple fractures.
Today's bloody mess is a direct consequence of the gratuitous invasion initiated by a small bunch of fanatics in Washington. History certainly won't absolve the Iraqi dictator, but it may have an even sterner verdict in store for the Perles, Wolfowitzes, Rumsfelds and Cheneys.
And it is difficult to see how Sunday's elections could conceivably soften that verdict. Iraq's substantial Sunni minority is effectively boycotting the poll - and even if it were not, the "security situation" in most Sunni-dominated areas would have precluded a representative turnout. Besides, enthusiasm is muted even among most Shias.
The majority sect might have been expected to rejoice at the prospect of a dominant role in governance, but many Shia leaders are aware that any election help under foreign occupation will lack credibility - and that a particularly low turnout among Sunnis will undermine the new assembly's claim to representativeness.
Besides, let's not forget that the resistance hasn't by any means been an exclusively Sunni affair. Before Al Zarqawi was elevated to the position of public enemy number one, there was Moqtada Al Sadr and his Mahdi Army. Before Fallujah, there was Najaf.
Until this week, most of the groups participating in the electoral exercise have kept a tight lid on their lists of candidates, ostensibly because of the fear that the contenders would be targeted. Even the location of polling booths has been a well-guarded state secret.
For the elections, amid a three-day nation wide curfew and a ban on all civilian traffic, Iraq's borders will be sealed and Baghdad airport closed down. Foreign monitors will "observe" the election from the safety of the Jordanian capital of Amman. Could such conditions conceivably augur well for what is supposed to be a democratic beginning?
The intimidation of voters is multifaceted: many are afraid that a trip to the polling booth could turn out to be their final journey. Others are under the impression that failure to cast a ballot - possibly for a specific slate of candidates - could cost them the rations they receive from the authorities.
Freedom? Liberty? Let's not even go there. Perhaps the single most stinging indictment of Sunday's farce lies in the fact that even the drive to register Iraqis who live abroad has proved to be such a signal failure.
Elections are generally a positive, but what are the chances that whatever happens on Sunday will pave the way towards a peaceful, democratic Iraq? It is far likelier that lopsided elections will, as journalist Robert Fisk puts it, "widen the differences between Sunnis, Shias and Kurds in a way that not even Saddam Hussein was able to achieve".
Robert Fisk also fears that a decline in suicide bombings over recent days could mean special preparations are under way for Sunday. Let's hope not. But let us also not harbour any illusions: Iraq cannot seriously be expected to find its feet, after the trauma inflicted upon it by Saddam Hussein and the Americans, until the occupation ends.
It is worth recalling, meanwhile, that the history of US imperialism already has a claim on January 30. On this day 37 years ago, the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam mounted the Tet offensive, briefly overrunning the US embassy in Saigon and several strongholds of the puppet government.
Although the military successes of the resistance were temporary, they proved to be a turning point because the audacity of the attacks convinced most Americans that their nation's war against Vietnam was un winnable.
A Tet moment in the Iraq context is not inconceivable. Will George Bush recognize it when it happens? Possibly not. And perhaps the repeated catch phrases in his inaugural address meant little more than the freedom to kill, the liberty to exploit and plunder. He did, however, utter one incontestable truth: "We have lit a fire," he proclaimed, "in the minds of men."
One can't help suspecting that this Dostoevskian image (borrowed from a passage in The Devils rather than The Idiot) was slipped in surreptitiously by a subversive speechwriter.
Yes, Mr Bush, you have indeed lit a fire in the minds of men. Thousands of them were at your inauguration party, holding up placards with slogans such as "Not my president" and "Buck Fush".
There are millions of them scattered all over the world, but for some strange reason the largest concentration is currently to be found in Iraq. And this fire, Mr Bush, cannot be quenched with platitudes that bear little relation to the actions of your war-mongering administration.
Email: mahirali2@netscape.net.