History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.
Dam good posting.I read some of you're articles and they are really nice.
paul
And it even hasn't to be an aggressive Empire like the US, just look at the European welfare-states, where gun controls are very strict. Of course, this has only lead to a state of constant fear, which is always in favor of the government.
I, therefore, believe that gun control is a part of the fear-process every government tries to implement in its structure (why else would it exist?).
Did Saddam outlaw Shiite practices as thoroughly as the new Shiite rulers are now enforcing their own traditions? Women seem certainly to be worse off, in general. And Christians.
Saddam Hussain oppressed the majority Shias when he ruled the country. Many Shia religious leaders had to go into exile in Iran. Now the boot is on the other foot, & the Shia oppress those who disagree with their religious ideas. The Shia have generally been an oppressed minority in the Islamic world. Now they in turn oppress. What is missing is the very notion of tolerance -- ie, of equal law for all. But even the West has long since forgotten this...
Shia religious celebrations were illegal under Saddam.
In most places, the Shia have parades where people whip themselves bloody. It is part of their religious practice. Saddam outlawed the activity in Iraq.
The majority of Iraqis are Shia. I'm sure that not all Shia are interested in participating in these parades.
Saddam also killed a good number of Shia religious leaders.
As I see it, there has been an increase in religious liberty for the majority and a decrease in religious liberty for various minorities.
Every Empire seeks to disarm those it is attempting to control.
A I noted in this context in an article years ago, on Weapons, found at the Ind. Inst. web site, the first Emperor of China, Ch'in Shih Huang Ti, after the
victory, suggested his peasant army melt down their weapons for a great monument dedicated to "guess
who?"
Things like that do not appear in the several recent
Chi Com flicks glorifying the Great One.
Like the right to keep and bear arms, religious liberty appears, by most accounts, to be a fundamental liberty that was stronger in Iraq before the war.