Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
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. 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.
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.
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Nabeel Yasin is one of Iraq’s most famous poets. His poems had him branded an enemy of the state under Saddam Hussein. He left Iraq for England 30 years ago with his wife and young son and continued to write and publish poetry from exile. Now he’s returned to his country and ran for prime minister in this month’s elections. ‘In our legacy here in Iraq we have some ideas about the conscience and duty of the state,’ he says. ‘Which should be to give happiness to the citizens, as numerous religious leaders have told us. For me there can be no kind of enlightenment without civil society.’
