05 Jan 2007 |
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Saddam Hussein's legacy THE hanging of Saddam Hussein on December 30, 2006 effectively marks the end of an era for Iraq, and has brought much satisfaction to Shiite Moslems, and the Americans but it is already creating more problems for Iraq's imperfect democracy and transitional society than may have been anticipated. This was bound to happen. The Americans who masterminded the war, Saddam's arrest and his problem-ridden trial had only three main objectives in mind: to eliminate Saddam in the hope that the fact and symbolism of his death will soothe the pain inflicted on the Iraqi people during his reign of terror. And more importantly, re-affirm America's supremacy, and justify America's continued presence in Iraq to the American tax payer. The United States may have achieved the latter: its troops captured Saddam Hussein on December 13, 2003, although Saddam and other accused persons were tried by a specially created Iraqi court under an unknown Constitution, the real trial took place in Washington; Saddam remained in American custody throughout, and he was brought to his death chamber in an American helicopter. No one is in any doubt that the United States played politics with Saddam's trial and killing. Its stooge, the Shiite Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki also used the killing of Saddam to score a political point among his kinsmen and bolster his own popularity. He talked about his government's commitment to "human rights" and the need to send a "lesson" to dictators around the world. But has justice been done? Perhaps Saddam Hussein deserved to die by any means possible. He ran a brutal government for three decades, he showed no mercy to his own people, he promoted ethnic division and was cut in the mould of tyrants all over the world. But his execution has neither promoted the American cause nor raised hopes about the future of Iraq. The manner of his execution has justifiably attracted moral outrage around the world. Saddam was executed in the Shiite neighbourhood of Kazimiyah surrounded by Shiite guards, one of his hangmen, a Shiite reportedly exchanged hot words with him ("God damn you", both yelled at each other), and then the execution proceeded in the form of a pure act of vengeance. Saddam had refused to wear a hood. A noose was put around his neck. The execution was officially video taped, but some of the 14 Iraqi officials in the chamber of death also recorded the grisly scene on their cell phones. The two and half minutes cell phone video is now available on DVD and on the internet, complete with pictures and sound, and Shiites all over the world are excited. During the execution, the executioners reportedly cheered and danced round the body after the hanging; their kinsmen danced in the streets of Baghdad; American troops also jubilated. The large, minority Sunni, Saddam's people, and Iraq's traditional elite mourned and called for vengeance. "Saddam will be a hero in our eyes. I have five kids and I will teach them to take revenge on Americans", Um Abudullah, a Sunni said. The danger is that Iraq is now a far more divided society. There was a touch of irony to the hanging of Saddam Hussein on Islam's most important festival: the Eid al-Adha, whose core symbolism is forgiveness. Saddam received no form of forgiveness; his killing bore the imprint of vengeance. Saddam may not be a martyr in the eyes of Americans, Shiites, Iran and Syria. But he has been allowed to end up, undeservedly, as a hero in the estimation of Sunni Arabs, and the sections of the Middle East where the hatred of America and the West has become a religious mission. US President George W. Bush described Saddam's killing as "an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain and defend itself." An important milestone yes, but certainly for a different purpose. Saddam's death will not stop the Middle East from exporting terror to the world, nor will it promote the spread of democracy in the region. And it will not reduce the expression of suspicions and hatred towards America's politics in the world. It is sadder still that the execution is also having other unintended consequences. In the Houston-area city of Webster in the United States, a 10-year old boy has now being reported dead by hanging himself from a bunk bed. He had watched the Saddam execution on television and he thought it was something that should be imitated! In Nigeria, there have been reports that some Islamic groups in Plateau, Yobe, Kano, Borno, Sokoto and the Federal Capital Territory are planning to attack non-Moslems in protest against the killing of Saddam. The show of the execution on television is barbaric. The planned protest in Nigeria is senseless. In other parts of Nigeria, I have heard the view expressed that Saddam Hussein is a coward who should have committed suicide instead of allowing himself to be captured in an underground bunker near Tikrit in 2003. In retrospect, Saddam used his trial and death to promote his own identity. He was defiant throughout his trial; he complained endlessly about how he was maltreated by his captors. He spoke in an alliterative and obscure manner. The trial was not helped by the fact that the judges were put under severe pressure to deliver a pre-determined verdict, three defence lawyers were killed, defence witnesses were intimidated. What is now being remembered is how the trial and the execution of Saddam have raised questions of morality, and principles: yet another indication of how both the United States and the Maliki government have mismanaged the Iraqi situation. In his last moments, Saddam also left behind a hand-written poem, which is a statement of defiance and self-confidence. In the death chamber, he was like an artist going on a romantic journey. He conducted himself with far more dignity than his executioners thus highlighting the failings of his captors. As Iraqi leader, Saddam had written a novel, and he loved to read Ernest Hemingway. His last poem, before the encounter with the hangman, is short on talent but deep in terms of its politics and symbolism. Titled "Unbind it", it was translated as follows, by the New York Times:
His trial and hanging may have been mismanaged but Saddam, it must be remembered, was a despot whose example ought to provide useful lessons to all such rulers in other parts of the world. There is no hiding place anymore for tyrants. Saddam hid under the illusion till the very end that he was loved by the Iraqi people. Every socio-path wallows in such self-delusion. Iraqis may continue to express their sectarian differences through the deployment of violence, but when they give expression to anti-American sentiments, it may not necessarily be in line with Saddam's swan song, but more out of a sense of national pride. Strange endings await dictators. Uganda's Idi Amin and Paraguay's Alfredo Stroessner fled into exile. Former Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic died in international custody before he could get justice, Liberia's Charles Taylor is in a detention camp somewhere in Europe. Italy's Benito Mussolini, like Saddam, was hanged, (although the Italians of today insist on the abolition of the death penalty). Samuel Doe was butchered, Nicolae Ceausescus of Romania was executed, Brazil's Collor de Mello was chased out of office, Haiti's "Baby Doc" Duvalier too. Those leaders who are tempted to treat their people brutally, should always remember the example of Saddam. He wanted to be the leader of the Arab world but he ended up as a poor, contemporary imitation of both Nebuchadnezzer and Saladin. He fought three wars: 1980 - 1988; 1990 -1991; 2003 -2006; and lost all three, and destroyed his country in the process. He was a megalomaniac who loved to boast and swagger, but he only won a noose around his neck; his face ashen, his once luxuriant beards, grey. The outrage that has been expressed over the manner of his execution is not a statement of solidarity with his cause, but an expression of the higher standards of the civilised human community.
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