Artículo de PAUL BERMAN en “The New York Times” del 31.03.2003
Last September, a group of 32 Iraqi exiles met in Britain under the auspices of the State Department to compose a document they would title "Report on the Transition to Democracy in Iraq." The report — it is a full-size book, in a ring binder — was written in English and Arabic and submitted in December to a meeting of Iraqi exile leaders who hoped to form the new government. The exiles never did establish solid relations with the Bush administration, and their report attracted very little attention. Yet it ought to be regarded as one of the crucial documents of the present crisis. Certainly it raises one extremely important point for the future.
The report states flatly, "The practice of politics in Iraq has been dead for 35 years." There have been no political parties apart from the Arab Baath Socialist Party. There have been no organized opposition groups inside the country, no public dissenters, not even a well-known persecuted dissident. Many ordinary people have been implicated in some way with the crimes of the regime. Totalitarianism in Iraq has been, in short, of the darkest hue. Thus the report recommends that, after the fall of the Baathists, Iraq ought to undergo a process similar to the de-Nazification of Germany after World War II — a process of "de-Baathification."
This recommendation implies a rather controversial point: that Iraq today can usefully be compared to Germany of 60 years ago, an Arab country to a European one. Some observers scoff at any such comparison. And yet the Iraqi exiles, persisting in their view, called for a liberal democratic Iraq in the European and American style. Some people find that notion unrealistic as well, pointing out that Iraq has had no experience with democracy. But a few words can be said on the exiles' behalf.
Modern totalitarianism arose in Europe in the years after World War I. It took different forms — Fascist, Communist and Nazi. But the movements shared a number of traits: apocalyptic and paranoid ideologies, a total police state, a taste for murder. Other versions of that same totalitarianism arose in Arab and Muslim countries in precisely those years.
One of the Muslim variations eventually emerged as the Islamist radicalism of Osama bin Laden, the Taliban and other movements. A second version evolved into Saddam Hussein's Baath dictatorship. The European inspiration for those movements is not too hard to detect, especially in the case of the Baath, which got started in 1943 in an atmosphere of ardent sympathy for the fascist Axis.
Kanan Makiya, an expatriate Iraqi intellectual and a main author of the transition report, described in his book "Republic of Fear" how these European movements influenced Islamic radicalism philosophically and organizationally. There was, for instance, the model of the Hitler Youth for the pan-Arabist Futuwwa Youth of the 1930's, which, Mr. Makiya pointed out, pioneered a paramilitary culture "as if presaging the Baath militas" in later years.
I need hardly point out that these Baath militiamen are precisely the fighters who have delayed the allied march to Baghdad and who threatened to inflict more damage through suicide bombings in the style of the one over the weekend. They are a cruel and terrifying irregular force with real roots in Iraq— even if some of those roots lead back to the fascism of Europe in earlier times.
The Baath Party imposed its dictatorship on Iraq in 1968, that most revolutionary of years. And the Baathists created a new political culture that in its look and feel — and in its black-clad militias — plainly had more in common with the totalitarianism of Europe than with Ottoman traditions.
But then, if Iraq's dictatorship resembled the totalitarianism of the European past, why shouldn't its future likewise resemble, at least in a few traits, Europe's happier experience in more recent years? The Iraqi exiles' report recommends precisely such a future. And with that purpose in mind, the report invokes the de-Nazification precedent in Germany.
De-Nazification was a vast campaign. The Allies occupied Germany in 1945 and banned the Nazi Party. They made something of an effort to restore property to people who had been pillaged by the dictatorship. Nazi Party members were brought before tribunals, which exonerated some of them, subjected others to criminal prosecutions and banned still others from future public positions.
The de-Nazification campaign imposed reforms on German education and culture. The old Nazi textbooks were withdrawn, and new ones were written. Germany's political culture was given a new shape and texture. To be sure, the success of de-Nazification depended mostly on the active enthusiasm of the Germans themselves, who turned out to be ardent in their desire for change. And the results were, all in all, splendid — even if, 58 years later, the challenges of de-Nazification have not entirely disappeared from the German landscape.
It is true that in Iraq today circumstances are in some respects more dire than in Germany long ago. The Iraqis, lacking any political experience from the last decades, will bring minimal democratic skills to the task. A great deal will therefore depend on the American and British occupiers once they have overthrown the Baath regime. The occupiers will certainly need experienced and skillful allies. Only, who could those allies be?
The Germans of today would be ideal. The Baath Party does owe something to the worst aspects of the German political tradition, and Germans might be able to speak to Iraqis on that point. Germans are the world's leading experts on de-totalitarianization, having gone through the process twice: with de-Nazification and then with East Germany as it emerged from Communism. But it may be that, owing to the mutual recriminations between the German leaders and Washington, Germany will choose to keep its knowledge to itself, and the Iraqis will have to make do without. But then, if Germany and other countries decline to lend a hand, who will rise to the occasion?
The "Report on the Transition to Democracy in Iraq" includes one small item that should attract the attention of many people outside the American and British governments. The report calls for educational reform on the model of de-Nazification — for new textbooks and for the use of computers and the Internet in education. And the exiles added an intriguing point: "All independent education institutions that had previously existed in Iraq, such as the British Council, the American Jesuits, Alliance Française should be encouraged to resume their activities."
This invitation from the Iraqi exiles underlines a further aspect of de-Nazification, which their report does not mention. During the years of struggle against Nazism, Washington performed many tasks excellently, and ignored others almost entirely. Those other activities were performed instead by independent institutions of American life. Our universities welcomed a large number of German scholars, humanitarian organizations offered help, and trade unions rushed to support their German counterparts. These were not government efforts, yet they should count as part of the larger effort that added up to de-Nazification.
This kind of nongovernmental effort could certainly take place in Iraq during the coming months and years — involving universities, foundations, human rights groups, professional guilds, unions and other groups. A lot could be done even without guidance from the Bush administration or the participation of other countries. Or so we might imagine — with a glance at the Iraqi exiles' report and at the history of de-Nazification in Germany, many years ago.
Paul Berman is author of the forthcoming ``Terror and Liberalism.''