Thoughts on the death of Saddam

Saddam's death sentence leaves one with a slight nausea at the way in which it was carried out and a feeling of indignant satisfaction at the fact that justice has finally been done to that evil meshuggenah who terrorised his people for so many decades.

I have two main worries about the execution. First of all, it felt less like the blind rule of justice and more like a sectarian revenge killing. The people behind the court case, the main faction in the government and the only folks present in the execution chamber were Shias, as far as I can gather. The symbolism of this death should not be underestimated, and the fact that it was in large part instigated and carried out by one specific faction in this deeply divided country can only open the door to further sectarianism and violence, the last thing Iraq needs right now.

The fact that no Kurds were involved at any stage and that Saddam was only tried and convicted on charges of crimes against Shias would make me feel, if I was Kurdish, happy that the bastard got what was coming but rather antagonised by being left entirely out of the process.

Part of the process of justice needs to be the recognition that a crime has been committed and and acknowledgment of a victim's suffering - this has happened for the Shias, but most definitely not for the Kurds.

The other part of the equation of course is the wider context in which the execution took place, and how it is viewed outside Iraq. There are two main views on this: firstly, that now Arab dictators will feel that they cannot get away with their crimes (although this may be counterproductive - the more vulnerable they feel the more oppressive they will become) and on the other hand that many Arabs feel that their honour as Arabs has been stung yet further by Saddam's demise (especially - unbeleivably - as punishment was exacted on the day of Eid, a day when no violence should take place according to Islamic Law). I have a lot of Arab friends and although out of the many I know who supported Saddam not a single one actually had to live under him, I think their views are crucial as they shape the politics of the region as a whole. Iraq certainly doesn't live in a vacuum.

The fact is that Saddam has been portrayed as the only Arab leader who ever stood up against America and for the Palestinians, and thus he held a special place in the Arab conciousness, at least among those Arabs who were kept ignorant of the terror and brutality he rained down on Iraq for all those years. Perhaps I can quote Harry S Truman (probably) - 'He may be a bastard, but he [was] our bastard'. This seems very much to sum up Arab feeling outside of Iraq, and it worries me. I think there will be a major Sunni backlash within Iraq, but on a broader, East/West level, one can only imagine what trauma is ahead for all of us. The death, even of a brutal dictator, can only have added to the massive, perhaps insurmountable problems between Arabs and the West.