Transfer of "Sovereignty" Proves We Never Had It To Give

[Plaid Adder]

I find it strangely appropriate that the day after Pride marches swept through the thoroughfares of major cities all over America, the Coalition Provisional Authority handed off "sovereignty" to the Iraqi interim government in a 20-minute ceremony held without notice two days ahead of schedule in a heavily guarded secret location in front of an extremely small 'crowd' of hand-selected individuals.

OK, let's talk about politics and space for a couple seconds here.

Part of the point of a march, apart from getting a lot of people in one place in order to demonstrate solidarity and strength, is to assert your right to the spaces through which the march travels. By walking down the street in broad daylight carrying signs, banners, etc., you are proving that at least for that day you don't have to skulk in the shadows, hide in the closet, take the back roads in case anyone's watching, cower under your bed in fear of the police, meet secretly at night under cover of darkness, and so on. One of the things a march demonstrates is that--at least for that day--the streets belong to you. This aspect of marching can be used oppressively--as in the case of the July 12 marches in Northern Ireland that send militant Protestants marching en masse through Catholic neighborhoods to prove that no place in the city is safe for them--and of course the police are always there to make sure that your 'freedom' is only valid within carefully prescribed limits. But symbolically and literally, that's what a march is for: to show that you can be right out there in public and nobody can do a damn thing to you.

Of course, the power you get from a march is to some extent an illusion because communities march only when their right to those spaces has been threatened or denied. Nevertheless, it is important; and the power of the parade is frequently called upon by governments in order to demonstrate their legitimacy. One of the reasons we have inaugural parades is to impress everyone with the fact that the new administration has been legitimately elected and will govern with the consent of the people. Even governments that haven't been legitimately elected hold parades and pageants in order to prove that, elected or not, they are large and in charge. Because when you spread a huge long multmillion dollar extravaganza through the main streets of your capital city and line up all your important guys to stand there in the reviewing box and salute, what you're saying to everyone in attendance is, "We control this city and this country, and ain't nothin' anyone can do about it. I mean look at us, we're just SITTING out here, a mile long and in broad daylight, and everyone's cheering their heads off and not throwing rocks at all!"

Which is how you know that neither the Coalition Provisional Authority nor the Iraqi interim government actually controls either Baghdad or Iraq. They know they couldn't throw a party like that without having it shot up, blown up, or otherwise thrown into bloody confusion. And that's because as long as the various resistance factions are still operating, the streets really belong to them.

So not only does the new government not have the substance of legitimacy, they don't have the semblance of it either.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. The emperor's new old clothes?

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An open letter to John Kerry and the DNC.
http://www.geocities.com/greenpartyvoter/OpenLetter.htm