I remember way back being very, very surprised that, a short time after the fall of communism and the ascendency of Boris Yeltsin, Russians were marching in Moscow demanding the return of communism.
But then I was young and naive.
Now I am older. But still find this a bit of an eye-opener:
Thousands marched in adoring praise of Iraq’s deposed leader Saddam Hussein on Friday, offering a stark display of the loss of power and leadership felt by some of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs.
Drawing inspiration from the Baath party strongman, who now languishes in jail awaiting trial, marchers in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, danced and chanted his name and condemned plans by the Shi’ite and Kurdish-led government to push through draft constitution to create a federal Iraq.
“Bush, Bush, listen well; We all love Saddam Hussein!” crowds chanted. “We reject the American and Iranian constitution” and “No to a constitution that breaks up Iraq,” their placards read.
The news still has the ability to surprise…
Apparently there’s an older generation of Russian’s who fondly remember Stalin and the good old days - when things worked and Russian pride was strong etc etc…
Combined with the fact that there is the attitude of “he may have been a vile murdering bastard, but he was OUR vile murdering bastard… and the buses ran on time etc etc”
And it doesn’t surprise me that much. Human nature is fickle and weird.
Comment by driverchris — August 26, 2005 @ 6:09 pm
Theres an older generation who remember what electricity was like.
Comment by DE — August 26, 2005 @ 6:21 pm
“We reject the American and Iranian constitution”
I reckon that that is the important point, they are praising Saddam, and condemning Iran, as proxies for attacking the shias.
Comment by Ross — August 26, 2005 @ 9:11 pm
Or perhaps the view of Iraq and Saddam has been presented in a dishonest light by western education and media.
Americans, Brits and Australians sanitise their past battles for “freedom” and “independence” but describe the internal conflicts and security activities of the Iraqi regime as massacres and atrocities.
I wonder how the crime level and prisoner statistics would compare between a pre- sanctioned Iraq and western countries.
While vile expressions abound describing Iraq weapons of mass destruction, the nature of the Iraq military was never any different to dozens of countries around the world.
This reality seems to be hidden from objective view.
The US for one still has vast reserves of chemical military weapons in storage.
The US openly uses depleted uranium in military munitions and hardware. Nothing vile there, unless you research the impact on soldiers and enemies alike.
In the lead up to the Iraq invasion which was supported by Australia, I took the trouble to telephone the Australian Iraqi embassy to get their point of view on events.
What you get when you seek first hand information is a political outlook that is never represented in the media.
I have been contacting some Muslim political groups in Australia in recent weeks leading up to the Muslim summit that was held only last week. Once again their response is not one you ever hear in the media.
On both occassions what was strongly stated was the media simply ignore anything that contradicts the negative stereotype.
Comment by Christopher Brooks — August 27, 2005 @ 1:58 am