In Iraqi slum, survival comes before democracy

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KHA721539.htm

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan 27 (Reuters) - While many Shi'ites in Iraq hope Sunday's polls will cement their postwar political power and improve their lives, residents of the Shi'ite slum of Sadr City in Baghdad are just focusing on survival.

Sewage flows into mostly unpaved streets beside vegetable and fruit shops, as butchers hang sheep carcasses outside their stalls. The squalor they have had to live in for years makes residents doubt the polls will make anything better.

"I will not vote in these elections. Why should I? No-one did anything for us," said computer engineer Ali Jasem.

"The streets are horrible. There is no electricity, no water... No human can live in our conditions and yet they expect us to vote. How could you think of voting in these conditions?"

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[Solly Mack]

1. It does in America too

I'm not comparing the conditions between the two...it's a no-brainer that Iraq is worse (thanks to America destorying Iraq's infrastructure...among other things)

What I am saying is, Bush brought to Iraq the same democracy he accepts for America. Where simple survival keeps you too marginalized to participate in democracy...

[rqstnnlitnmnt]

2. because he doesn't give a damn about democracy

only the bottom line. and the bottom line in iraq is that the new "government" will be forced to tie their own noose by accepting forced private/American contracts on their oil/Gulf access in exchange for "protection".

it's just like what has already been done in most of Latin America and oil producing African countries. Install a "government," sell off the resources, then drape the flag around the lies and atrocities.

[Solly Mack]

3. Yep..that'd be the reason

[FuzzyDicePHL]

4. Vote or starve

If you read "Baghdad Burning," then you already know that folks are being threatened with having their monthly rations cut off if they don't vote.

People in many areas are being told that if they don’t vote- Sunnis and Shia alike- the food and supply rations we are supposed to get monthly will be cut off. We’ve been getting these rations since the beginning of the nineties and for many families, it’s their main source of sustenance. What sort of democracy is it when you FORCE people to go vote for someone or another they don’t want?

From Baghdad Burning, quoted and referenced without permission.