TAZ ON IRAQI REACTIONS TO ABU GHRAIB

Via Richard Herzinger, consider this article in taz on the mixed reactions of the Iraqi press to the prisoner abuses in Abu Ghraib. The article is not what you'd expect from taz, a newspaper with an unabashed leftist ideological bent. My rough translation of a key passage:

Like many Iraqis, [Minister for Human Rights Bhaktiar] Amin calls for an independent investigation of Abu Ghraib and a quick punishment for guilty parties. But he expresses at least as much annoyance with Arab politicians and journalists who criticize the American regime so vociferously. He accuses them of hypocrisy. "They were all silent when Saddam's regime murdered thousands of prisoners," he says, as he becomes the voice of the dictatorship's victims once again. Not a single arabic station was prepared to broadcast an interview with him in those days.

"As bad as the American human rights abuses are," he continues "we should not forget that our country is built on a graveyard." At least 300,000 people are buried in mass graves. [According to Amin,] the real tragedy of the land of two rivers is that there is not enough discussion about [those deaths]. "But the victims have a long memory."

It's this memory that keeps many victims of [Saddam's] despotism from joining the chorus of America's critics. There are pictures of the dictatorship's crimes as well, but they are not well known in the West.

Wie viele Iraker fordert Amin eine unabhängige Untersuchung der Vorgänge in Abu Ghraib und eine schnelle Bestrafung der Täter. Mindestens so sehr treibt Amin indes der Ärger über die Haltung der arabischen Politiker und Publizisten um, die heute lautstark die Amerikaner kritisieren. Heuchelei wirft er ihnen vor. "Alle haben sie geschwiegen, als das Saddam-Regime tausende von Häftlingen hinrichtete", sagt er und ist wieder ganz Stimme der Opfer der Diktatur. Kein einziger arabischer Sender sei damals bereit gewesen, ein Interview mit ihm auszustrahlen.

"So schlimm die Rechtsverstöße der Amerikaner sind", fährt er fort. "Wir dürfen nicht vergessen, dass unser Land auf einem Gräberfeld gebaut ist." Mindestens 300.000 Menschen wurden in Massengräbern verscharrt. Dass darüber bis heute viel zu wenig gesprochen werde, sei die eigentliche Tragödie des Zweistromlands: "Aber die Opfer haben ein langes Gedächtnis."

Es ist diese Erinnerung, die viele Opfer der Despotie davon abhält, in den Chor der Kritiker Amerikas einzustimmen. Auch von den Verbrechen der Diktatur gibt es Bilder, aber diese sind im Westen kaum bekannt.

There is a fine line between excusing the abuse and putting it in perspective. I think that many commentators on the right in the U.S. -- from Rush Limbaugh to Victor Davis Hanson -- have crossed that line recently. And even though making this observation might seem to veer close to the line: working through the social trauma of the Baathist dictatorship is going to be one of the central tasks of postwar Iraq, and for Iraqis, I imagine, figuring out how to stand toward the American prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib is going to be a comparatively simple affair.