That’s why the drama playing itself out in Baghdad looks so familiar.
The toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue was every bit as symbolic as the gleeful destruction of the Berlin Wall, something that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was quick to point out. So was the toppling of statues of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the dreaded founder of the Soviet secret police later known as the KGB, in Warsaw and Moscow. And the mood in the streets and behind closed doors must be similar. The exultation of the people outside was as genuine as the fear of those most closely identified with the regime who are cowering in their homes or trying to melt away as quickly as possible.
As someone who covered Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the old days of mass repression, then witnessed the collapse of communism and the subsequent rebuilding process, I’m certainly aware that these analogies shouldn’t be pushed too far. The regimes of the old Soviet empire collapsed under very different circumstances and for very different reasons. And Iraq obviously doesn’t have an already free, prosperous other half to reunite with as Germany did and, in a more limited sense, all Eastern Europeans do as they have become progressively more integrated with the rest of Europe. That said, though, there are similarities worth pondering. A few of them: the more all-controlling the regime, the greater the mindless personality cult of its leader, the harder it falls. In December 1987 I attended what turned out to be the last Communist Party Congress of Romanian tyrant Nicolae Ceausescu. A Foreign Ministry press department “minder” accompanied the foreign journalists to our seats, trying hard to demonstrate that he was a normal, reasonable official. But when Ceausescu delivered his keynote speech, he felt compelled to jump up every few minutes along with the 4,000 other minions in the assembly hall to join in rhythmic chants of “Ceausescu, Romania, our pride and esteem.” Then, with a sheepish grin, he’d sit back down to attend to us again. Two years later, Ceausescu was overthrown and, along with his equally hated wife, Elena, summarily executed.
There’s no doubt that Hussein would meet the same fate if he proves to be alive and is caught by his own people.There’s no fully satisfactory way of settling scores with oppressors and informers. East Germans quickly decided they wanted to see the files of the Stasi, their secret police, to learn who had done the dirty work for the regime. There were nasty revelations about informers. They weren’t only colleagues and friends, but in some cases spouses or other family members. But the danger of relying on such files is that they’re notoriously unreliable–and can condemn the wrong people. Secret police agents, eager to prove their abilities or justify an expense account, sometimes wrote up casual contacts as new recruits. And they compiled the thickest files on people they suspected of dissent, while those who kept their heads down had little to fear.
The officials most prominently associated with the old regime should be removed, but a one-party state inevitably sucked in many people whose services will also be needed in the new era. Even if there’s plenty of reason to view the quick conversion of such people to “democratic values” with a jaundiced eye, it’s often best to let them prove themselves. If teachers are suddenly willing to teach new history lessons, if policeman say they are eager to combat real crime instead of political dissidents, they should be given a chance to do so. Iraq, like the countries of Eastern Europe, doesn’t have the luxury of dismissing everyone compromised by the old regime.
People forget the horrors and hardships of the old regime very quickly when new problems and crises take their place. Disoriented by a dizzying rise in prices and hyperinflation, even many Poles, who had led the drive to topple communism, were often subject to “selective amnesia”–forgetting the chronic food shortages and repressions of the communist system and bemoaning the hardships of a wrenching economic transformation. The disappearance of a police state also produces an initial rise in common crime, which is breathlessly reported by a newly free media. The new authorities in Iraq, whoever they will be, need to prove quickly that they have a plan for administering the country effectively and fairly, and for reviving the economy.
While the jubilation of liberation doesn’t last long, the good news is that many countries–most notably, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and the Baltic states–have transformed themselves into decent, normal societies. They still face major problems, but they have come an incredibly long way in a very short time. Let’s hope that Iraqis can say the same thing a few years from now.
