Nabeel Yasin on Democracy in Iraq

You’ve started with a book that had a huge impact on the West – Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba’s The Civic Culture.

This is also a very important book for Iraqis especially given what they are going through now. It is speaking about the experience of five nations after the Second World War. They were the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Italy, Mexico and Germany.

Civic culture is actually a term which was coined by the two authors to describe the set of related political and social attitudes said to be crucial to the success of modern democracies. What is interesting is the high level of civil involvement they discovered in political decision-making. For example in the United States lots of people got involved in talking about education and the health care system.

The book shows that the United States led the way in civil involvement, followed by the United Kingdom, then Germany, then Italy and Mexico. The authors write about the different levels between a really democratic state like the United States and places like Mexico where democracy can be strained sometimes.

For me and my fellow Iraqis, a book like this is very important because it shows how we can participate in our civic reconciliation and in politics and we really need a shift towards that right now. I try to write about this book in Iraqi newspapers and websites and to tell my students about it. I want to spread the word. I want people to get more involved in the political process here in Iraq.

So do you think there is a problem with people’s political involvement in Iraq, and if so why?

Yes, unfortunately. Now after six years of the political process we can see frustration inside Iraqi society. In the first few years of the new Iraq there was this idea that Iraqis still hoped they could change their lives. That is fading now. After the third elected government they started to feel that politics in Iraq is hopeless. Even the percentage of voters has become very low, showing that people are losing faith in the political system.

What about your next book, Inventing Human Rights by Lynn Hunt? This continues the political theme.

Oh, this is a really brilliant book. It describes the struggle for human rights in Europe. For me the most important thing about all these books is to remind the people who live in democratic states and societies about how the struggle for human rights started 500 years ago. These modern people are able to enjoy the fruits of that struggle. Iraqi people say we need 500 years to put things right and become properly democratic but they are wrong. Books like this show us we can borrow the big ideas and use them to our benefit.

So you see this book as an example of how Iraq should be developing?

Exactly. Think about the history of the wheel, which was invented over 3,000 years ago. We all have the benefit of that, so why shouldn’t we Iraqis get the benefit of things that have been developed elsewhere. We use things like Western medicines and Western cars so I don’t think we should start having a reaction against Western democracy. We should see what works with it and use it.

Your next book is Derek Heater’s, A Brief History of Citizenship.

I think this one is my favourite. It shows how citizenship became the main concept in democracy during the struggles of the British people, the Americans and the French. It is full of examples about how citizenship started in Athens and in Rome.

Why is citizenship so important to you?

Well, I don’t think you can have democracy without the concept of citizenship. Citizenship needs three conditions: the first is political rights, the second is civilian rights and finally social rights. Without these three rights there is no citizenship at all. For me the beauty of democracy is that it gives people these rights. They can change their lives from those of individuals to become citizens.

Your next book, The Garden of Eden and Its Restoration, has some very interesting theories.

Yes, the author, Sir William Wilcocks, spent three years in Iraq travelling down the main rivers there. His book tries to prove that the biblical Eden was in this area. His theory hinges on information he got from the Old Testament, which according to him stated that the four rivers led to this paradise. I find this a very interesting theory – I like it. He also tried to follow the journey of Abraham. And he tried to show that Moses was in Babylon. So he is trying to say that this area, which forms some of modern Iraq today, was the actual paradise of Eden.

Finally, your last book choice is A C Grayling’s Towards the Light.