http://www.macleans.ca/switchboard/columnists/article.jsp?content=20050314_101916_101916
Maybe Bush was right
Even U.S. critics agree that the Iraq invasion may have sparked democracy
PETER MANSBRIDGE
There I was , standing near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, or West Berlin as it was then called. It was November 1989, I was perched on a makeshift TV platform, and as far as I could see, on either side, there were anchors from other countries doing just what I was doing -- talking to a camera about the incredible story unfolding just metres away. The Wall, that concrete symbol of the Cold War that had split West from East, was coming down, piece by piece, as hammers, big and small, made one blow after another. And those few days signalled -- well, just what did they signal? Now, years later, we know they meant the beginning of the end of the Soviet Empire and its stranglehold on Eastern Europe. But at the time we weren't quite sure what the Wall's demise represented. Everyone agreed it was momentous, but did it simply mean the two Germanys were reuniting? When I look back at the broadcasts during that period, it was that reunification issue that most of us were echoing.
The next week I was in Moscow, and while there was a whiff of official despair in the air with other East Bloc countries also facing freedom marches, no one seriously suggested that the Russia we'd all grown up with, the heart of Communist power, was about to crater into oblivion. Sometimes when you're in the middle of change, it's difficult to judge just how extensive the movement is and what the impact will be.
Which brings us to the Middle East today, and how we're trying to judge the depth of what clearly is change. In less than a year, we've seen relatively free elections in Afghanistan and Iraq, a hint of democracy in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the death of Yasser Arafat and the election of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian who seems bent on finding peace with Israel. And most recently, the remarkable scenes in Lebanon where people power has again stared down the guns of seized power. Is freedom really on the march across the Middle East, as George W. Bush and those who've helped design his foreign policy giddily suggest? Actually, that theory is now gaining support from unlikely sources.
Remember Walid Jumblatt? He was a familiar face in the media of the 1980s as Lebanon went through its agonizing civil war -- a long-time Druze parliamentarian, he was often heard railing against the U.S. for intervening in the mess that was his country. Now, his thoughts have a different tone. Last week, he told the Washington Post: "It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting, eight million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world." Strange is right, because this is the same man whose visa to the U.S. was pulled after he had called Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defence, a "virus," even publicly wished for his death -- all for that same policy that led to the invasion of Iraq two years ago this month.
It is early in this process, but Jumblatt, a controversial figure at the best of times, isn't hesitant with his prediction of where all this is going. To him, what's happening here is similar to those history-making November days 16 years ago. In fact, he made the direct comparison by claiming that the people in his world "all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen." We'll see.
Peter Mansbridge is Chief Correspondent of CBC Television News and Anchor of The National.
Maybe Bush was right
Even U.S. critics agree that the Iraq invasion may have sparked democracy
PETER MANSBRIDGE
There I was , standing near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, or West Berlin as it was then called. It was November 1989, I was perched on a makeshift TV platform, and as far as I could see, on either side, there were anchors from other countries doing just what I was doing -- talking to a camera about the incredible story unfolding just metres away. The Wall, that concrete symbol of the Cold War that had split West from East, was coming down, piece by piece, as hammers, big and small, made one blow after another. And those few days signalled -- well, just what did they signal? Now, years later, we know they meant the beginning of the end of the Soviet Empire and its stranglehold on Eastern Europe. But at the time we weren't quite sure what the Wall's demise represented. Everyone agreed it was momentous, but did it simply mean the two Germanys were reuniting? When I look back at the broadcasts during that period, it was that reunification issue that most of us were echoing.
The next week I was in Moscow, and while there was a whiff of official despair in the air with other East Bloc countries also facing freedom marches, no one seriously suggested that the Russia we'd all grown up with, the heart of Communist power, was about to crater into oblivion. Sometimes when you're in the middle of change, it's difficult to judge just how extensive the movement is and what the impact will be.
Which brings us to the Middle East today, and how we're trying to judge the depth of what clearly is change. In less than a year, we've seen relatively free elections in Afghanistan and Iraq, a hint of democracy in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the death of Yasser Arafat and the election of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian who seems bent on finding peace with Israel. And most recently, the remarkable scenes in Lebanon where people power has again stared down the guns of seized power. Is freedom really on the march across the Middle East, as George W. Bush and those who've helped design his foreign policy giddily suggest? Actually, that theory is now gaining support from unlikely sources.
Remember Walid Jumblatt? He was a familiar face in the media of the 1980s as Lebanon went through its agonizing civil war -- a long-time Druze parliamentarian, he was often heard railing against the U.S. for intervening in the mess that was his country. Now, his thoughts have a different tone. Last week, he told the Washington Post: "It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting, eight million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world." Strange is right, because this is the same man whose visa to the U.S. was pulled after he had called Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defence, a "virus," even publicly wished for his death -- all for that same policy that led to the invasion of Iraq two years ago this month.
It is early in this process, but Jumblatt, a controversial figure at the best of times, isn't hesitant with his prediction of where all this is going. To him, what's happening here is similar to those history-making November days 16 years ago. In fact, he made the direct comparison by claiming that the people in his world "all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen." We'll see.
Peter Mansbridge is Chief Correspondent of CBC Television News and Anchor of The National.
