Hanging Will Haunt Bush
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Courtesy of: The Toronto Star
January 04, 2007
Haroon Siddiqui

HYDERABAD - I am taken aback by the reaction in India to Saddam Hussein's hanging. The anger cuts across religious and political divides.

This secular nation of 1.2 billion – the world's largest democracy and emerging economic powerhouse – has as many Muslims as Muslim Pakistan, at about 145 million. But its majority is Hindu and it has significant pockets of Christians, Sikhs, Zoroastrians and others. Yet the condemnation has been near universal.

More tellingly, there has been little or no echo here of the Iraqi sectarian divide, with the Shiites there celebrating Sunni Saddam's death.

There is even criticism, from both the right and the left, of the Indian government's muted response to the execution, New Delhi's stance dictated by the increasingly close relations with the U.S., exemplified by the controversial nuclear co-operation agreement.

If India is a key barometer of the non-Western world, and it often is, Saddam's hanging will come to haunt George W. Bush.

Far from being "an important milestone in Iraq becoming a democracy," as he so brazenly put it, the hanging is widely seen as an occupying power's jungle justice against a tyrant whose worst crimes were committed when he was an American ally but who was condemned only after he went against his benefactors.

He was responsible for killing 1 million Iranians in the 1980-'88 war and murdering and gassing tens of thousands of his own Shiite and Kurdish populations – war crimes whose details, and with them the West's complicity, went to the grave with him.

The lesson, said an editorial in the Deccan Chronicle, the regional English daily, is that "the U.S. will not tolerate leaders who do not follow its diktat."

The hanging has been the topic of conversation in both the public and private spheres. You can't escape it in any gathering.

The reaction is all the more remarkable given that, unlike in Europe and Canada, the death penalty is even more acceptable in these parts than in the United States. Muslims, in particular, have historically seen it as the price for maintaining law and order.

Burning Bush in effigy, Muslim crowds in several cities have been blaming him for the timing of the hanging, on the day of Eid al-adha, the festival that coincides with the end of the annual Haj pilgrimage and which symbolizes forgiveness and reconciliation. The media here have carried the quote of a pilgrim in Saudi Arabia: "Would it be okay if the president of the United States were to be hanged on Christmas Day?"

Protestors noted with admiration that, notwithstanding the secularist Saddam's frequent and brutal persecution of religious activities, he held up a copy of the Qur'an on the way to the gallows and had on his lips the kalima – "God is great," the first testament of Muslim faith, which the believers are also enjoined to repeat just before death.

An oft-stated sentiment has been that the wrong man has been hanged, given the tens of thousands killed under Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Muslims and non-Muslims alike have spoken well of what they saw as Saddam's dignified departure amid the mayhem in the hanging chamber, as captured on videos.

His composure and defiance in refusing a hood have been hailed as signs of personal courage. By contrast, his American and Iraqi captors and executors have been characterized as cowards. Noting his 3 a.m. burial, away from public spotlight, Siyasat, a secular Urdu language daily here, headlined: "Now they are afraid of his grave."

Saddam's sloganeering also hit the right note for many Indians. The message in his last letter ("Struggle on against the invaders," and "Long live Iraq ... Long live Palestine") and his last words on the gallows ("The nation will be victorious and Palestine is Arab") have found resonance among a people long supportive of Palestinian rights and vehemently opposed to the occupation of Iraq.

The letters to the editor columns have captured these sentiments well, as the following four by non-Muslims show.

"Saddam was fit to go down in history as a tyrant. Now he has been elevated to the status of a martyr by an impatient America," wrote Rajneesh Tiwari in the Hindu, the much respected English-language secular daily in south India.

"Although there were few sympathizers for Saddam, his execution will only increase hatred for America and other Western nations," wrote Aditya Deshpande in the same newspaper.

"It is because of American policies that terrorism is increasing in the world," wrote Dr. Chandra Sekhar.

"The Bush administration has destroyed an ancient civilization and its ruler. If Saddam deserved the death penalty for ordering the killing of 148 Shiites, what ought to be the penalty for Mr. Bush for the deaths of 600,000 Iraqis?" asked Ram Das.

When you think about it, the overall Indian response is perhaps not that different than the sentiment of Canadians in this regard. By this I do not mean the views of our political class and many in the media establishment, which remain under the spell of the American spin, but rather those of ordinary Canadians.

Haroon Siddiqui is the Star's editorial page editor emeritus. hsiddiq@thestar.ca.

Source:
http://www.thestar.com/article/167592